Among our staff, we read widely, so starting last year we decided to give ourselves a vote as we busily aggregate and compute The Best Lists of all the year’s top fiction and nonfiction. Notably, three present and former members of Team Lunch published deservedly praised works that merit a place on any list this year: Erin Somers‘ novel THE TEN-YEAR AFFAIR, as well as important works of researched nonfiction, Sarah Weinman‘s WITHOUT CONSENT and Kristen Martin‘s THE SUN WON’T COME OUT TOMORROW. Beyond that, just like the listmakers this year, there was almost no consensus among staff favorites this […]
Best of
Best Of: Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair
Time’s Best Books of the Year
Best Of: Maureen Corrigan’s Favorite Books of the Year
Best Of: The Los Angeles Times, And More
A First Look at Publisher Lunch’s The Best List
The new drinking game at PL’s virtual HQ is that every time we spot another prominent “Best Books of 2025” list, at least one of us posts on Slack, “weird list”. With no dominant titles — last year Percival Everett’s JAMES was always the clear book of the year, and Hanif Abdurraqib’s THERE’S ALWAYS NEXT YEAR was the leading work of nonfiction — each individual list this year seems quirkier than ever. But when we apply our tried-and-true methodology of combining selective lists from all over — critics, retailers, booksellers, librarians, book clubs and more — suddenly a perfectly reasonable […]