2025 Readers' Choice Winners

Thank you to all 145 people who participated in my Readers' Choice survey this year -- the largest response to date. This year Virginia Evans' The Correspondent was the very clear winner, followed by Fredrik Backman's My Friends in 2nd place, The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb in 3rd place, and two two-way ties for 4th and 5th place: Ayelet Tsabari's Songs for the Brokenhearted and Clare Leslie Hall's Broken Country for 4th and Eli Sharabi's Hostage and Ariel Lawhon's The Frozen River for 5th.

Runners-up:

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Wedding People by Alison Espach (second year running) Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy Isola by Allegra Goodman How to Read a Book by Monica Wood Culpability by Bruce Holsinger The Anatomy of Exile by Zeeva Bukai Mothers and Other Fictional Characters by Nicole Graev Lipson Heart of a Stranger by Rabbi Angela Buchdahl

Naturally I was excited to see three Literary Modiin authors among the winners and runners-up - Ayelet Tsabari, Zeeva Bukai, and Nicole Graev Lipson. Congratulations!

See below for all the honorable mentions. There are quite a few winners, runners-up, and honorable mentions I haven't read yet, and I'm looking forward to putting these on my TBR pile in 2026. Honorable mentions: Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver

Displaced Persons, Joan Leegant

Ghosts of a Holy War, Yardena Schwartz

Heart the Lover, Lily King

Heartwood, Amity Gaige

King: A Life, Jonathan Eig

Long Island, Colm Toibin

Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt

Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan

Sons and Daughters, Chaim Grade

The Elements, John Boyne

The Delegation, Avner Landes

The Emporer of Gladness, Ocean Vuong

The God of the Woods, Liz Moore

The Goddess of Warsaw, Lisa Barr

The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah

The Lion Women of Tehran, Marjan Kamali

The Names, Florence Knopp

The Scrolls of Deborah, Esther Goldenberg

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau, Kristin Harmel

The Women, Kristin Hannah