The best books of 2025 as selected by Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests - Jason Steger, Jon Page and Robert Goodman. Keep scrolling for a full list...
GUESTS
- Jason Steger, arts journalist. Former book editor of the Age & SMH, and panellist on ABC TV’s Book Club
- Jon Page, long time bookseller with Pages and Pages bookshop, former General Manager of Dymocks Sydney – and now, book-buyer for W.H. Smith
- Robert Goodman, reviewer and literary judge specialising in genre fiction; regularly reviews for the Newtown Review of Books. His website is pilebythebed.com
Jason Steger's Picks
On-air:
- Flesh by David Szalay
- You Must Remember This by Sean Wilson
- The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
- Long Island by Colm Tóibín
- My Father Bryce by Adam Courtenay
- Runt and the Diabolical Dognapping by Craig Silvey
Extras:
- My Sister and Other Lovers by Esther Freud
Jon Page's Picks
On-air:
- Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
- Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy
- Flashlight by Susan Choi
- I Want Everything by Dominic Amarena
- One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
Extras:
- A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan
- The Body Next Door by Zane Lovitt
- The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
- The Rose Field [Book of Dust, Vol. 3] by Philip Pullman
- The Names by Florence Knapp
Robert Goodman's Picks
On-air:
- Salvage by Jennifer Mills
- Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow
- We Do Not Part by Han Kang
- Eden by Mark Brandi
- King Sorrow by Joe Hill
- Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Extras:
- The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia
- Esperance by Adam Oyebanji
- Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
- Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
- Lion Hearts by Dan Jones
- Rapture by Emily Maguire
- Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy
- The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer
- The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd Robinson
- Hotel Ukraine by Martin Cruz Smith
- The Hollow Girl by Lynn Yeowart
- The White Crow by Michael Robotham
- Stillwater by Tanya Scott
- The Reunion by Bronwyn Rivers
- The Peak by Sam Guthrie
- The Seventh Floor by David McClosky
- Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma
Cassie McCullagh's Picks
On-air:
- Dream State by Eric Puchner
- Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
- The Transformations by Andrew Pippos
- Arborescence by Rhett Davis
- What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
- On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle
Extras:
- The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
- Dancing in the Lift by Mandy Sayer
Kate Evans' Picks
On-air:
- Mother Mary Come to Me by Arundhati Roy
- Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent
- Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
- The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
- The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje
- Twist by Colum McCann
- Landfall by James Bradley
- The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
- Fierceland by Omar Musa
- Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray
Extras:
- On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle
- We Do Not Part by Han Kang
- The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
- Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
- What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
- Flashlight by Susan Choi
- I Want Everything by Dominic Amarena
CREDITS
- Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
- Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
- Sound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Tegan Nicholls
- Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown