Bonus Episode: We Hate ‘Best Books’ Lists. Plus: Our 2025 ‘Best Books’ List!

All those “best books of the year” lists are bogus marketing material that flatten the distinct reading experience that an individual brings to a book they interact with. We tore apart the very concept of those lists in this episode. Then we shared our own Best Books list! Hypocrisy, or the nuanced ability to delicately balance competing perspectives? Eh.

Also, what is Author X up to with that crummy novel they released this year? Blind and not-so-blind items on the year’s worst books.

Works cited this episode:

NPR’s Books We Love
New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2025
Sunshine on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins
Audition, Katie Mitamura
Spent, Alison Bechdel
“In Defense of the Traditional Review,” Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Luminous, Silvia Park
Audition, Pip Adam
Terrestrial History, Joe Mungo Reed
What We Can Know, Ian McEwan
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu
Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon
Of Monsters and Mainframes, Barbara Truelove
The Merge, Grace Walker
Severance, created by Dan Erickson
Severance, Ling Ma
The Unveiling, Quan Barry
Will There Ever Be Another You, Patricia Lockwood
Bind Me Tighter Still, Lara Ehrlich
Old Soul, Susan Barker
Metallic Realms, Lincoln Michel
Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
Alchemised, SenLinYu