The Ultimate Best Books of 2025 List

The Ultimate Best Books of 2025 List

Reading All the Lists So You Don’t Have to Since 2017

By Emily Temple | December 25, 2025

Our Favorite Lit Hub Stories From 2025

Our Favorite Lit Hub Stories From 2025

The Editors Pick the Best Writing at the Site This Year

By Literary Hub | December 25, 2025

The Most Scathing Book Reviews of 2025

The Most Scathing Book Reviews of 2025

“Historians will study how bad this book is.”

By Book Marks | December 24, 2025

Making Meaning: Why Symbolic Interpretation Matters in Art and Literature

Making Meaning: Why Symbolic Interpretation Matters in Art and Literature

Ed Simon on Defending the Symbolic and René Magritte’s Le Coeur du Monde

By Ed Simon | December 23, 2025

Making Sense of Middle Earth: Exploring the World of J.R.R. Tol­kien

Making Sense of Middle Earth: Exploring the World of J.R.R. Tol­kien

Michael D.C. Drout Remembers the Impact of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit on His Childhood

By Michael D.C. Drout | December 23, 2025

Why Has Criticism Always Been Such a Good Side Gig for Artists?

Why Has Criticism Always Been Such a Good Side Gig for Artists?

David Berry on the Long Tradition of Artists as Critics, From Xie He to Charles Baudelaire

By David Berry | December 22, 2025

Best Reviewed
Books of the Week

  • Departure(s)
  • The Flower Bearers
  • Eating Ashes
  • Every One Still Here: Stories
  • Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World
  • The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII

A Timeless Portrait of Black Life: James Baldwin on Louise Meriwether’s Daddy Was a Number Runner

By James Baldwin | December 22, 2025

Why Clearing Stormfall
With a Chainsaw is a Lot Like Writing Prose

By Claire Thompson | December 22, 2025

Here Are All the Award-Winning Novels of 2025!

By Book Marks | December 19, 2025

Sara Martin on Communal Living as a Writing Practice

Sara Martin on Communal Living as a Writing Practice

Or: The Poetry of a Boarding House

By Sara Martin | December 19, 2025

The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2025

The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2025

“Everyone is enticed into this orgy of analysis, to feast and gorge on information, to go a little mad in the process.”

By Adam Morgan | December 18, 2025

Am I the Asshole For Calling Out Romance Novelists Who Don’t Actually Care About Romance?

Am I the Asshole For Calling Out Romance Novelists Who Don’t Actually Care About Romance?

Kristen Arnett Answers Your Awkward Questions About Bad Bookish Behavior

By Kristen Arnett | December 18, 2025

Burn Harry Burn: Reckoning With My <em>Harry Potter</em> Fandom as a Trans Person

Burn Harry Burn: Reckoning With My Harry Potter Fandom as a Trans Person

Sandy Ernest Allen Confronts J.K. Rowling’s Virulent Transphobia

By Sandy Ernest Allen | December 18, 2025

Elizabeth McCracken on Writing About Writing, At Last

Elizabeth McCracken on Writing About Writing, At Last

In Conversation with Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan on Fiction/Non/Fiction

By Fiction Non Fiction | December 18, 2025

Virginia Woolf Thought Katharine Mansfield Stank Like a “Civet Cat Taken to Streetwalking”

Virginia Woolf Thought Katharine Mansfield Stank Like a “Civet Cat Taken to Streetwalking”

Gerri Kimber on the Literary Legacy of an Early Master of the Short Form

By Gerri Kimber | December 17, 2025

How <em>Ulysses</em> Was Almost Banned By the State of New York

How Ulysses Was Almost Banned By the State of New York

Adam Morgan on Margaret C. Anderson and the Early Fight Against Literary Censorship in America

By Adam Morgan | December 17, 2025

Page 3 of 351

  • Literary Hub

    Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature


    Masthead

    About

    Sign Up For Our Newsletters

    How to Pitch Lit Hub

    Advertisers: Contact Us

    Privacy Policy

    Support Lit Hub - Become A Member