ABOUT THIS EPISODE
As is our tradition, we ended our year in Secret Stuff with our annual No Book Book Club meeting. Instead of all reading the same book, we came with our recommendations for the best things we read this year.
These were the books we can’t stop talking about or buying for our loved ones… these were the books that went the distance in 2025.
ICYMI, we also announced the 2026 Secret Stuff Book Club selections.
For your convenience, we time-stamped this meeting so you can easily find what you may be looking for:
Announcements: 3:21
Laura’s Favorite Book Club Moments: 11:17
Fiction Recs: 16:06
Non-Fiction Recs: 58:28
BEST BOOKS OF 2025
Fiction:
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino
Still Life by Sarah Winman
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
The Lost Journals of Sacajewea by Debra Magpie Earling
All Fours by Miranda July
We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
Miss Austen by Gill Hornby
The Irish Goodbye by Heather Aimee O’Neill
The Lexington Letter (from the TV Show “Severance,” available for free on Apple Books)
The You You Are (from the TV Show “Severance,” also available for free on Apple Books)
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Overstory by Richard Powers
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Non-Fiction:
The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
The Deepest Well by Dr. Nadine Burke Harris
Everything is Tuberculosi s by John Green
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
Reagan: His Life and Legend by Max Boot
The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America by Sara B. Franklin
The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis by Maria Smilios
Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad
A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern
Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton
Challenger by Adam Higginbotham
It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People by Dr. Ramani Durvasula
Also Mentioned:
There’s Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib
Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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