This year’s standout literary lineup spans literary fiction, reportage, biography, and historical reflection—bringing together stories of grief, identity, politics, and human resilience.

Axar.az informs that after a full year of reading hundreds of books and meeting regularly to debate their strengths and weaknesses, The New York Times Book Review have chosen the 10 Best Books of 2025.

Angel Down — Daniel Kraus

A haunting, atmospheric novel that blends historical war fiction with supernatural elements. Kraus explores violence and moral collapse through a surreal battlefield narrative where reality itself feels unstable.

The Director — Daniel Kehlmann

A fictionalized portrait inspired by filmmaker G. W. Pabst, this novel examines art under authoritarian pressure. Kehlmann reflects on compromise, survival, and the uneasy relationship between creativity and power.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny — Kiran Desai

A sweeping, intimate story of two young Indians navigating migration, identity, and emotional isolation. Desai weaves a cross-continental narrative about love, family expectations, and cultural displacement.

The Sisters — Jonas Hassen Khemiri

A layered multigenerational novel about three sisters and the man whose life becomes entangled with theirs. It explores memory, identity, and how past decisions echo across decades.

Stone Yard Devotional — Charlotte Wood

In the remote plains of New South Wales, Australia, a woman arrives at a convent in desperate need of solitude and retreat. It’s a curious choice: She left behind a full life in Sydney, and is an atheist who abhors the “savagery” of the Catholic Church.

A Marriage at Sea — Sophie Elmhirst

In 1972, a young married couple, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, decided to give up their lives in England and sail to New Zealand on their boat, the Auralyn. But after nine months, the Auralyn was destroyed by a breaching whale, leaving the Baileys stranded for 118 days in the Pacific aboard a makeshift raft.

Mother Emanuel — Kevin Sack

A deeply reported account of the Charleston church shooting and its aftermath. Sack focuses on faith, community resilience, and the meaning of forgiveness in the face of tragedy.

Mother Mary Comes to Me — Arundhati Roy

In this unsparing yet darkly funny memoir, the prizewinning novelist captures the fierce, asthmatic, impossible, inspirational woman who shaped her as a writer and an activist — and left her emotionally bruised for a lifetime.

There Is No Place for Us — Brian Goldstone

With uncommon precision, tenacity and grace, Goldstone, an anthropologist turned journalist, casts a shocking spotlight on the “working homeless,” a term that should be an oxymoron but which in America defines hundreds of thousands of people.

Wild Thing — Sue Prideaux

In the annals of art history, bad boy artists are legion, and the 19th-century French painter Gauguin often figures near the top of the list — denounced as a colonizer who seduced underage Tahitian girls and spread syphilis in the South Seas. This biography offers a vivid and psychologically rich portrait of the post-Impressionist painter, tracing his dramatic shift from a conventional life as a stockbroker to becoming one of modern art’s most controversial figures.