16 of the Best Books We Read This Year

It’s no secret that we are big readers at the Persistent. Last year The Persistent editors, Francesca Donner, Josie Cox, and Emma Haslett recommended dozens of their favorite books. This year at The Persistent, as we have grown, so has our book list: For 2025, we invited our contributors to recommend their favorite fiction and non-fiction picks they read this year. And more of our editors pitched in as well.

Our suggestions are broad and varied—from Miranda July’s “All Fours” to Jill Lepore’s “These Truths.” We span recent best sellers, historical deep dives, tell-all memoirs and murderous mysteries.

So snuggle up under a blanket, or head on down to the beach with your sunnies (we see you 🌏 😎) because we have some treasures for you. And prepare to have your bookshelf and night stand stocked for all of 2026.

Fiction

I loved the gorgeous, romantic, beautifully-written Booker prize finalist “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sonny” by Kiran Desai. The larger-than-life characters, from overbearing mothers to evil lovers, often made me laugh or gasp out loud. Whether I read it for hours at a time, or picked it up and put it down for little dips of reading, it kept me captivated and has become etched in my mind in a good way, creating an alternate world for me, the way the best books do.
— Paula Derrow, features editor

"By Any Other Name" by Jodi Picoult is a fictional story of the real-life 16th century Emilia Bassano. Picoult makes a compelling case in the story that many of Shakespeare's plays may have been written by this Italian-English woman who was born into a family of court musicians, and who became the mistress of Lord Chamberlin when she was just a teenager—he being the man who oversaw all theater productions in England at the time.
— E.B. Boyd, contributing writer

I read “The Lion Women of Teheran” by Marjan Kamali for a book club I’m in. It wouldn’t have been a natural pick for me, but I adored it. Before picking it up, I knew virtually nothing about Iran in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Kamali’s novel is both an exquisite coming-of-age story about friendship and betrayal, and a vivid portrait of a fascinating time and place that was totally foreign to me.
— Josie Cox, founding editor

My favorite book I read in 2025 is hands down “Nightbitch” by Rachel Yoder. I loved it so much I refuse to watch the film because it could never be as good as the book!
—Karolin Schnoor, illustrator

I picked up Claire Keegan’s 1999 collection of stories, "Antarctica," when I was in Ireland earlier this year and I’m so glad I did. All the stories are excellent, but it's her first story in the book that made my blood run cold. (So much so, I had to read it twice to make sure I’d read it right.) When a harried, married mother zips off to London for a Christmas shopping weekend, she meets a man who really sees her—or so it seems. Keegan deftly creates a sense of warmth and security, then rips the rug out from under you, only to have you realize you’d misunderstood all along. I still can’t get the closing scene out of my head. Read it and freeze.
– Francesca Donner, founder and editor-in-chief

“All Fours” by Miranda July. I know, I know, everyone read it but it was sublime, surprising and timely for anyone in their forties.
— Gabriella Griffith, contributing writer

Rivers Solomon is my favorite author, and their latest novel, "Model Home” particularly blew me out of the water. When the three Maxwell siblings have to return home after the mysterious death of their parents, the hauntings from their childhood return in full force.
–Han Goldstein, social media editor

“The Frozen River” by Ariel Lawhon is a good book for the long, cold winter. This novel is is historical fiction set in New England in the late 1700s just after the American Revolution. The story is told from the point of view of midwife Martha Ballard (a real and remarkable woman). The plot centers around a murder that entangles one of her adult children. It has elements of a mystery and a thriller but it also has deep character development and nuanced exploration of long-term marriage, and women’s professional identity at a time when most women didn’t know how to read or write. Don’t skip the author’s note at the end of the book for fascinating details about this true story.
— Kathleen Davis, executive editor

Non-Fiction

I loved “Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa” by Marilyn Chase. Juggling motherhood and being an artist comes with a specific set of challenges that I've been navigating for the past few years. Reading this biography of Ruth Asawa and learning how she balanced her role as both a mother of six (!) and a prolific artist and community figure was beyond inspiring to me. Marilyn Chase's account of Asawa's method of integrating her home and work lives as one big imperfect journey to be explored and investigated shifted my perspective from one of overwhelm to one of curiosity.
– Cat Willett, illustrator 

This year I found myself wanting to make sense of this moment in history—wanting to be able to answer questions like: Have we ever experienced something like this before? Jill Lepore does an incredible job of making U.S. history accessible and riveting, even to a non-American. She’s the civics teacher I never had. “These Truths,” and her more recent book, “We The People,” should be required reading for anyone living in America today.
— Josie Cox, founding editor and writer

When I started working for The Persistent this summer, I made sure to read Josie Cox’s book “Women, Money, Power.” One of the things that I loved about this book was how Josie highlighted all the women that I hadn’t heard of before and how at every turn they either changed the direction of history, or got a raw deal. I couldn’t believe I’d spent my whole life in the U.S. and studied women’s history and that Josie—who has only lived here for five years—could teach me so much about America's forgotten feminists.
— Kathleen Davis, executive editor

“Age of Anger” by Pankaj Mishra explores the various hatreds that permeate our world. It is relevant, is based on a deep understanding of human rage and doesn't provide any self-help. Instead it focuses on self-awareness.
— Rupam Jain, contributing writer

The memoir, “Careless People,” by the former Facebook director of public policy  Sarah Wynn-Williams. This juicy-and-disturbing tale of an idealistic young woman’s experience working at Facebook as the company evolved from a startup purportedly focused on creating connections to a corporate behemoth willing to cozy up to dictators really ratcheted up the pressure to quit my account once and for all. Full of shark attacks (both literal and metaphorical), workaholism (the author answers emails as she is giving birth), and plenty of weird and wince-inducing details about Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, there’s enough dirt here to make this feel like a true behind-the-scenes read.
— Paula Derrow, features editor

I’m almost embarrassed to suggest Philippa Gregory’s “Normal Women” because it was on my must-read list this time a year ago, and I still haven’t finished it. But do not assume that just because I couldn’t finish it, it’s not good. It’s brilliant; beyond brilliant. It’s a door-stop-sized tome that chronicles the ordinary lives of absolutely ordinary women living in Britain from 1066 onwards. For me, the devil is in the details, and Gregory delivers in droves. (Bonus: The reason I stopped reading "Normal Women" is because I picked up another Philippa Gregory book, "Boleyn Traitor," an absolutely delicious and indulgent (fictional) account of courtly life under Henry VIII. If you think it’s all going to be a lead up to Anne Boleyn’s execution, try again: Anne’s death is easily and quickly dispatched within the first few hundred pages.)
– Francesca Donner, founder and editor-in-chief

ICYMI: Our monthly editor's chat "And Another Thing" was all about books! Check out the recording below if you want to hear our take on the books we loved, what type of readers we are, our feelings on quitting books, joining book clubs, and so much more!

What did you read and love this year? Send your recommendations to hello@persistent.com. We’ll be back with more recommendations next Friday!