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Our Favourite Books of 2025 - Nominations and General Chat
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This an odd year for me. I did not find many new books that were top ten reads compared to years past. My best reads have been far and away older books. Even books I liked and rated five stars don't have much appeal now. So I will just list some favorite reads that I am still remembering.We Do Not Part Han Kang
Pan Michael Clune
One Boat Jonathan Buckley
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Ibis
North Sun: Or, The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther
From the list above:
We Do Not Part
Helm..."
We Do Not Part was nominated by Sam, so feel free to choose another
Mod
Endling
We Do Not Part
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter"
All three of these have already been nominated. All nominated books go through to the rankings phase, so you could change these nominations without affecting their chances.
I love this exercise. My top-3 are all European translated novels this year (after discounting The Director I read before):The Remembered Soldier - Daanje
Beasts of the Sea - Turpeinen
The Pawn - Cerdà
Hugh wrote: "Bella (Kiki) wrote: "We Do Not PartIbis
North Sun: Or, The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther
From the list above:
We Do Not Part
..."
Thank you, Hugh
Ripeness by Sarah Moss
The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-RobinsonWe Live Here Now by C.D. Rose
Anima Rising by Christopher Moore
My favs:Blood Book by Kim de l'Horizon
Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter
A Short Introduction to Anneliese by James Elkins
I'll nominate -Every One Still Here – Liadan Ni Chuinn
The Two Roberts – Damian Barr
A Room Above A Shop – Anthony Shapland
For me, excluding those already nominated:And Notre Dame Is Burning
On Earth As It Is Beneath
The Place of Shells
The BenefactorsEndling
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
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Endling
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny"
The first two of those were already in the list, so feel free to change them
great nominations already! in addition, for me, it'sGloss
Flesh
The Accidentals
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Google suggests Kyra Wilder for Gloss, and Guadalupe Nettel for The Accidentals, so I'll go with those for now.
So sorry Hugh! Yes, these are correct. I will add authors next time. Thanks for checking them for me.
Thanks Hugh, and apologies, I should have checked more carefully.I will change those two for
Twist by Colm McCann https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Eden's Shore by Oisin FaganWe Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Hugh wrote: "Just tried the useless GR book search and neither Gloss nor The Accidentals find anything that looks relevant. Adding a link or the author's name makes the admin so much easier and quicker.Google..."
Goodreads is very wobbly this morning.
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El AkkadUnder the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
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We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong"
We Pretty Pieces of Flesh was already on the list, so you could choose another.
I don't have three that I would nominate for best after others' nominations are taken into account, but I will add:Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin
I missed this list last year and am glad to be back:The Pretender by Jo Harkin
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
A lot of my favourites this year have already been picked, so I’ll go for:Rejection, by Tony Tulathimutte (released in the UK in 2025)
Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler
The Imagined Life, by Andrew Porter
I was just coming here to see if anyone had nominated The Remembered Soldier, wow, what a book, and thank you Ruben
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Just to express some surprise that no one appears to have nominated the new McEwan.
I was also surprised not to see A Guardian and a Thief on anyone's list. It was on many prize lists and made my top 10 for the year.
Fagin the Thief by Allison EpsteinBoy from the North Country by Sam Sussman
Happy New Years by Maya Arad
Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated by Polly BartonOn the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J Haveland
SPIT by David Brennan
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The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
On the Calculation of Volume I (other topics)Spit (other topics)
Boy from the North Country (other topics)
Happy New Years (other topics)
Fagin the Thief (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
David Brennan (other topics)Allison Epstein (other topics)
Solvej Balle (other topics)
Maya Arad (other topics)
Saou Ichikawa (other topics)
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As in previous years we will allow books first published in English in October to December 2024 or 2025, and for translations the earliest date (1 Oct 2024) may be a first English edition of an older book, no matter how old. Dead authors are allowed, as are dead translators. The start date rule may be waived for books which were very little known last year and were not on last year's list.
Note that my preference is that books published in 2024 should only be nominated if you read them for the first time this year, but that is just guidance, as I have no intention of trying to check (sometimes it takes a while for books to find the right readership, particularly when prize judges surprise us).
If you are an author or translator, please DO NOT nominate your own works.
When nominating, please link to the book using "Add book/author" in desktop mode. If you can't manage that please include the author's name, since a title alone may be ambiguous or difficult to find thanks to the vagaries of the GoodReads search function (not to mention the librarian bots that get titles and authors wrong).
Let's try and keep this positive - a celebration of what has been good rather than an opportunity for airing old grievances.
These are the 72 nominations, alphabetically by title: