BOOKS we loved in 2025

Each year, Theater in Asylum releases a list of plays, books, movies, and more that delighted us, challenged us, and changed us. Below is a crowd-sourced list of books our community loved in 2025.

Thank you to the community who made and loved art this year! Please consider donating to Theater in Asylum so we can keep it going in 2026.

Fiction

• All Fours by Miranda July
  
• The Charioteer by Mary Renault
  
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  
• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
  
• Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann
  
• Entitlement by Rumaan Alam
  
• The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta
  
• James by Perceval Everett
  
• Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
  
• The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood
  
• Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
  
• The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente
  
• The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
  
• Rouge by Mona Awad
  
• The Spirit Bares its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
  
• Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
  
• The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jiminez
  
• Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
  
• The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
  
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
  
• Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
  
• Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
  

Nonfiction

• 107 Days by Kamala Harris
  
• 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin
  
• Ambition Monster by Jennifer Romolini
  
• Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
  
• The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity by Sarah Schulman
  
• Fire in Every Direction by Tareq Baconi
  
• How To Make Money in Any Market by Jim Cramer
  
• Language City by Ross Perlin
  
• Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price
  
• One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
  
• Strangers Drowning by Larissa MacFarquhar
  
• Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod
  

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield