Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
This week we are turning the reading spotlight on five of the years’ best general fiction titles, as found on several Best Books of 2025 lists. Links to the review articles are found in the references section at the end of the post.
–
Angel Down by Daniel Kraus
Kraus’ follow-up to Whalefall (2023) explores the same deeply emotional themes, this time in WWI France. Private Bagger has used his wits to stay alive in the trenches as a latrine and grave digger. He and four other misfits are asked to stay behind in order to “take care” of a suffering soldier lying in the dangerous no-man’s land between them and the Germans. However, it is not a soldier they find screaming–it is an angel, fallen from heaven and stuck in barbed wire. As the men travel to rejoin their unit, carrying the angel, each is mesmerized by her light and tempted by her power. She could save them all or lead to their deaths. The book unfolds like a chant, in short paragraphs each beginning with the word and, and readers will quickly fall under Bagger’s narrative spell as they see the visceral and gruesome toll war takes on the entire planet. Is Bagger going to survive through a miracle or by luck? A brilliant novel that will encourage its readers to live their best lives, despite the horrors that surround them. For fans of John Milas’ The Militia House (2023) and thought-provoking tales that sow discomfort through story and narrative structure, such as Agustina Bazterrica’s The Unworthy (2025). – Booklist Review
Angel Down is found on the New York Times Best Books of 2025 list.
–
Antidote by Karen Russell
The prairie witch calls herself The Antidote because people feel so much better after she unburdens them of painful memories, storing them in her “vault.” But when she finds herself in jail in the midst of a terrifying dust storm in Uz, Nebraska, she realizes that the deposits she’s been paid to protect have vanished. High-school basketball star Asphodel Oletsky, living, since her mother was murdered, with her uncle Harp, a dryland farmer, is desperate to keep her winning team on the court after they lose their sponsor. Harp is haunted by how his Polish parents were forced off their land by the Germans, only to find themselves unwittingly doing the same to Native Americans. New Deal photographer Cleo Allfrey, at risk on the plains as a Black woman, arrives in Uz during the worst of the Dust Bowl and finds people pushed to the brink by drought, deadly and otherworldly dust storms, vanished crops and topsoil, unsolved murders, and a corrupt and brutal sheriff. Among many strange occurrences, Cleo’s photographs inexplicably depict the horrific past and a possible future. Highly honored Russell follows two stellar story collections with her second novel, an ardent work of encompassing and compassionate historical fiction supercharged with her signature imaginative, astutely calibrated supernatural twists. A dramatic and uncanny tale of the drastic consequences of our destruction of nature and Indigenous communities. – Booklist Review
Found on Pen America’s Best Books of 2025 list.
–
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Fired from her lackluster job as an adjunct professor of writing, and on the verge of needing to move back in with her parents, Zelu has lost control of her life. Because she’s disinclined to pick up the pieces in a way that will satisfy her family, a Nigerian American dynasty for whom being exceptional is considered merely ordinary, she turns instead back to her writing. What comes out of those dark moments is a piece of science fiction set in the aftermath of humanity’s extinction. Upon publication, the novel captures the entire world’s imagination, quickly becoming a bestseller and almost immediately being optioned as a movie. But the consequences of Zelu’s meteoric rise aren’t all so dreamy. As they ripple out, they change her life forever, causing her to rethink her relationship to her writing, her family and even her own body. Death of the Author, by acclaimed science fiction writer Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Death), is comfortable straddling the line between genres. Okorafor explores the dynamics Zelu experiences as a disabled Nigerian American author from the south suburbs of Chicago, rendering familiar experiences with remarkable specificity, pulling us in so that we understand Zelu’s truth, warts and all. As the book shines on a literary level, so, too, do its science fiction elements. In a metafictional twist, Okorafor peppers in chapters from Zelu’s bestselling novel with increasing frequency as the story progresses. Beyond being interesting in their own right, the chapters give us a lens through which to see Zelu more clearly—and influence the course of her journey. A remarkable exploration of storytelling, fame and the Nigerian American experience, Death of the Author surprises all the way to its brilliant ending. Read our interview with Nnedi Okorafor about Death of the Author. – BookPage Review
Found on the New York Public Library’s Best Books of 2025 list.
–
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Booker winner Desai returns 19 years after The Inheritance of Loss with an elegant bildungsroman of two Indian people and their convergence in the early 2000s U.S. The reader meets the pair before they meet each other, when they’re unhappy with their current partners. Sunny, a journalist in New York City, navigates the contradictory feelings that come with dating an American woman and the challenge of reporting on one world while feeling suspended between two. Meanwhile, Sonia, a college student and aspiring novelist in Vermont, struggles to adapt to American life. She winds up in a relationship with Ilan de Toorjen Foss, an artist 30 years her senior, and moves with him to New York, where she hopes to feel less lonely. Instead, Ilan proves controlling and quickly isolates her. Eventually, Sunny and Sonia meet on a train. Their love story is affecting and enriched by Desai’s forays into the lives of their family members in India, including Sunny’s widowed and overbearing mother, who’s stuck with her corrupt brothers-in-law and lives vicariously through her son; Sonia’s mother, who leaves her husband to become a hermit in the jungle cottage that was once her German father’s art studio; and many more. Desai’s artful prose is subtle even when pitched on a grand scale (“There were no children in India anymore in the homes of successful parents of a successful class”). This ambitious yet intimate saga is well worth the wait. – Publisher’s Weekly Review
Found on both Maureen Corrigan’s Best Books of 2025 list and the New York Times Best Books of 2025 list.
–
Theft: A Novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah
The bonds of family, friends, and workers are tested in this coming-of-age tale about three young people. Beautiful Fauzia is magnetically drawn to the handsome, suave Karim who comes from a well-to-do family. Badar is an uneducated domestic worker in Karim’s household; his family severely neglected him. Fauzia teaches Badar how to cook and clean the house, and he proves capable until he is falsely accused of theft. This accusation changes his life, but Karim gets him a job at the Tamarind Hotel. At the hotel, Badar meets an attractive woman, a guest who invites him out to dinner. When Badar declines, Karim steps in and takes the guest to one of his favorite restaurants. This begins an affair, another pivotal moment that leads to abrupt changes in the lives of the novel’s three protagonists.
VERDICT Nobel Prize winner Gurnah (emeritus, English and postcolonial literatures, Univ. of Kent; Afterlives) is a captivating, enthralling storyteller whose characters are vibrant and sympathetic. The pages fly by quickly in his wonderful new novel. – Library Journal Review
Found on Town And Country Magazine’s The 20 Best Books of 2025 list.
–
References
Best Books for Adults 2025. (2025). The New York Public Library. Retrieved December 9, 2025, from https://www.nypl.org/spotlight/best-books-2025
Burack, E., & Rathe, A. (2025, December 8). The 20 best books of 2025. Town & Country. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a68851782/best-books-2025/
Corrigan, M. (2025, December 8). Maureen Corrigan’s 10 favorite books of 2025 — with plenty for nonfiction lovers. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2025/12/08/nx-s1-5634019/best-books-2025-maureen-corrigan
New York Times Staff. (n.d.). The 10 Best Books of 2025. The New York Times. Retrieved December 9, 2025, from https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/books/review/best-books-2025.html
Tolin, L. (2025, November 26). Best Books of 2025: 15 top picks from the ‘Best Of’ lists. PEN America. https://pen.org/best-books-of-2025/
–
Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
–
Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified
–
Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.
–
Information on the four library catalogs
The Digital Catalog aka Libby: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
–
Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
–
Kanopy Catalog: https://www.kanopy.com/en
The Kanopy Catalog features thousands of streaming videos available on demand.
The Kanopy Catalog is available for all Southern Tier Library System member library card holders, including all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders!
You can access the Kanopy Catalog through a web browser, or download the app to your phone, tablet or media streaming player (i.e. Roku, Google or Fire TV).
–
StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org
Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.
–
Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
–
Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
