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The Results Are In! The Best Books of 2025
Our Top 20, Award Winners, Big Holiday Wordplay, and more ...
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BookBrowse Highlights
Hello Readers!
Craving a cozy winter read? Look no further than Kate Storey’s tale of an unusual book group, The Forgotten Book Club, which our members are discussing this week.
It’s finally happening. Our last e-zine issue of the year is out, and it’s Award Winners time. Thank you to everyone who participated in the voting process! See which books made the Top 20 and which were overall favorites.
Spoiler alert: This week’s Editor’s Choice title, Geraldine Brooks’ stunning grief memoir Memorial Days, and our featured “beyond the book” reading list of late-life romance stories linked to Virginia Evans’ brilliant epistolary novel The Correspondent might have something to do with the results.
Plus, the Big Holiday Wordplay is here! Try to solve all fifteen clues for a chance to win a one-year membership to BookBrowse.
Thanks for reading,
The BookBrowse Team
Book Club Discussions
Discussions are open to all! If you’d like to participate, you can do so by creating an account here. Please note that discussions can contain spoilers.
The Forgotten Book Club by Kate Storey
From the Jacket For three decades, Grace supported her husband Frank's passion for books, even though her own love for literature paled in comparison. Since his passing, the shelves echo longingly, and Grace's heartache has only grown. When Grace's grandson suggests joining Frank's old book club, she hesitates. How could meeting with a bunch of strangers possibly fill the void he left behind? Despite her doubts – and desperate to feel close to Frank again – Grace decides to attend. |  |
From the Discussion
“I have already loaned it to a book club member…I think any book lover would enjoy the book.” —Gwen_C
“I enjoyed The Forgotten Book Club and learning about the ways that books bring us together and help strengthen our connections to others. The book club provided a place for its members to develop a sense of community and belonging. The topics of loneliness, grief, friendship, neurodiversity, depression, and a sense of purpose are included in this story.” —Patricia_Williams
See what people are saying in response to this question: Grace used to read for pleasure, but at some point in her past she’d stopped. Do you think that’s a common experience? Have you ever paused your reading for an extended period of time?
For Members
This issue of The BookBrowse Review contains reviews and "beyond the book" articles for all Top 20 Books of the Year chosen by our subscribers, including four Award Winners. We also bring you Our Best 2025 Book Club Discussions & First Impressions Features, a giveaway, and more. Not Yet a Member? Do you love to spend your reading hours immersed in captivating storytelling and intriguing ideas? |  |
Then a BookBrowse membership is for you! What you see on BookBrowse for free and in this newsletter is just a small part of what is available to members—for just $5.00/month! Join Today!
BookBrowse Award Winners 2025
This year’s Best Fiction award goes to The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, an engaging epistolary novel following the letters of a curmudgeonly woman as she grapples with the challenges of aging, and our Best Nonfiction winner is Geraldine Brooks’ affecting memoir Memorial Days, her account of the difficult experience of mourning her husband after his sudden death. |  |
See the rest of the winners and the full Top 20, and scroll down for brand-new coverage of the books above!
Editor’s Choice
Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
After she was widowed, author Geraldine Brooks busied herself with the unbearable duties of sudden death. Married to the writer Tony Horwitz for thirty-four years, she had assumed their later life would be of the same weight as the previous decades. Not quite four years after Tony died, Brooks, Australian-born writer of both fiction and nonfiction, moved to the farthest end of Flinders Island in the Bass Strait. She wanted to unpack every inch of buried grief. To do the unfinished work, as she often called it. … continued Review by Valerie Morales |  |
Beyond the Book
Novels About Late-Life Romance
Virginia Evans' debut novel, The Correspondent, features ardent letter-writer Sybil Van Antwerp, who has just turned 73 when the novel opens. Through her correspondence, we learn about many aspects of Sybil's rich life, including a growing attachment to a man of her acquaintance, with whom she eventually finds late-life love and companionship. |  |
Popular culture, especially in the United States, tends to be geared towards youth, so it might surprise readers to learn that there have been a number of well-regarded novels published in recent years that celebrate older adults—and the fact that it's never too late to fall in love. … continued
Article by Kim Kovacs
A Message From 1440
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The Big Holiday Wordplay
To enter, decipher the 15 books and their authors from the clues below (e.g., the answer to M B by G F would be Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert).
This year, the titles of all 15 books contain water in some form (e.g., Snow Falling on Cedars) or a body of water (The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek). All were published between early 2022 and the end of 2025, and all were reviewed at BookBrowse. The titles are displayed in order of publication.
S O T by E S J M
R S M H by E S
G A A R by S R … continued
Click for the answer to the last Wordplay (A W N a M L a F N a B), and a detailed breakdown of its meaning and history.
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