I collected over 10 lists of the Best Books of 2025 from the Internet, newspapers and magazines and combined them into one meta-list.  Here are the results, every book on at least three of the original source lists, organized by rank (that is, with the books on the most lists at the top).

NOTE: These are not my personal opinions and I have not read all these books.

On 10 Lists

Fiction
A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF. By Megha Majumdar.
AUDITION. By Katie Kitamura.

Nonfiction
MOTHER MARY COMES TO ME. By Arundhati Roy

On 9 Lists

Fiction
THE WILDERNESS. By Angela Flournoy.
WE DO NOT PART. By Han Kang. Translated by e yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris
THE LONELINESS OF SONIA AND SUNNY. By Kiran Desai.

Nonfiction
A FLOWER TRAVELED IN MY BLOOD: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children. By Haley Cohen Gilliland.
BALDWIN: A Love Story. By Nicholas Boggs.

On 8 Lists

Fiction
FLASHLIGHT. By Susan Choi.
FLESH. By David Szalay.

Nonfiction
ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS. By Omar El Akkad.
RAISING HARE: A Memoir. By Chloe Dalton.

On 7 Lists

Fiction
STONE YARD DEVOTIONAL. By Charlotte Wood.
HEART THE LOVER. By Lily King.

Nonfiction
A MARRIAGE AT SEA: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck. By Sophie Elmhirst.
A TRUCE THAT IS NOT PEACE. By Miriam Toews.
THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW. By Yiyun Li.

On 6 Lists

Fiction
THE DIRECTOR. By Daniel Kehlmann. Translated by Ross Benjamin
WHAT WE CAN KNOW. By Ian McEwan.
THE SOUTH. By Tash Aw.

Nonfiction
BLACK IN BLUES: How a Color Tells the Story of My People. By Imani Perry.
IS A RIVER ALIVE? By Robert Macfarlane.
KING OF KINGS: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation. By Scott Anderson.

On 5 Lists

Fiction
THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER. By Stephen Graham Jones.
THE SLIP. By Lucas Schaefer.
SKY DADDY. By Kate Folk.
ISOLA. By Allegra Goodman.
ATMOSPHERE: A Love Story. By Taylor Jenkins Reid.
KING OF ASHES. By S.A. Cosby.
THE DREAM HOTEL. By Laila Lalami.

Nonfiction
THE DRY SEASON: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex. By Melissa Febos.
DARK RENAISSANCE: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival. By Stephen Greenblatt.
WE THE PEOPLE: A History of the U.S. Constitution. By Jill Lepore.
BOOK OF LIVES: A Memoir of Sorts. By Margaret Atwood.
MARK TWAIN. By Ron Chernow.
BREAD OF ANGELS: A Memoir. By Patti Smith.
ELECTRIC SPARK: The Enigma of Muriel Spark. By Frances Wilson

On 4 Lists

Fiction
THE BOOK OF RECORDS. By Madeleine Thien.
WILD DARK SHORE. By Charlotte McConaghy.
KATABASIS. By R.F. Kuang.
THE ANTIDOTE. By Karen Russell.
DEATH OF THE AUTHOR. By Nnedi Okorafor
PERFECTION. By Vincenzo Latronico. Translated by Sophie Hughes.
PALAVER. By Bryan Washington.
SHADOW TICKET. By Thomas Pynchon.
HELM. By Sarah Hall.
THE NAMES. By Florence Knapp

Nonfiction
MOTHERLAND: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy. By Julia Ioffe.
APPLE IN CHINA: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company. By Patrick McGee
THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US: Working and Homeless in America. By Brian Goldstone.
ABUNDANCE. By Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
GIRL ON GIRL: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves. By Sophie Gilbert.
CARELESS PEOPLE: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism. By Sarah Wynn-Williams.
BUCKLEY: The Life and the Revolution that Changed America. By Sam Tanenhaus.
SEARCHES: Selfhood in the Digital Age. By Vauhini Vara.
GERTRUDE STEIN: An Afterlife. By Francesca Wade.

On 3 Lists

Fiction
MAGGIE; OR, A MAN AND A WOMAN WALK INTO A BAR. By Katie Yee.
VICTORIAN PSYCHO. By Virginia Feito.
VENETIAN VESPERS. By John Banville.
THE TRUE TRUE STORY OF RAJA THE GULLIBLE (AND HIS MOTHER). By Rabih Alameddine.
BLOB: A Love Story. By Maggie Su.
MODERATION. By Elaine Castillo.
HEARTWOOD. By Amity Gaige.
THE HOUNDING. By Xenobe Purvis.
LONELY CROWDS. By Stephanie Wambugu.
BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL. By V.E. Schwab.
THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS. By Ocean Vuong.
PLAYWORLD. By Adam Ross.
THE SISTERS. By Jonas Hassen Khemiri.
SUNRISE ON THE REAPING. By Suzanne Collins.
THE WAYFINDER. By Adam Johnson

Nonfiction
CLAIRE McCARDELL: The Designer Who Set Women Free. By Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson.
THE FORBIDDEN GARDEN OF LENINGRAD: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice. By Simon Parkin
THE ZORG: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery. By Siddharth Kara.
CAPITALISM AND ITS CRITICS: A History, From the Industrial Revolution to AI. By John Cassidy
STRANGERS IN THE LAND: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America. By Michael Luo
CRUMB: A Cartoonist’s Life. By Dan Nadel.
WILD THING: A Life of Paul Gauguin. By Sue Prideaux.
ENDS OF THE EARTH: Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, the Cosmos, and our Future. By Neil Shubin
THE REVOLUTIONISTS: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s. By Jason Burke
VALLEY OF FORGETTING: Alzheimer’s Families and the Search for a Cure. By Jennie Erin Smith
THE FATE OF THE DAY: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780. By Rick Atkinson.
MEMORIAL DAYS: A Memoir. By Geraldine Brooks.
BLACK MOSES: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State. By Caleb Gayle.
THE AGE OF DIAGNOSIS: How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker. By Suzanne O’Sullivan
I REGRET ALMOST EVERYTHING: A Memoir. By Keith McNally
PAPER GIRL: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America. By Beth Macy
MURDERLAND: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers. By Caroline Fraser
REPLACEABLE YOU: Adventures in Human Anatomy. By Mary Roach
EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection. By John Green
THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU: A Memoir. By Neko Case
STORYTELLER: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson. By Leo Damrosch

Poetry
STARTLEMENT: New and Selected Poems. By Ada Limón.