Last week I shared my favorite reads of 2024, so I thought this week it would be fitting to share a selection of 2025 releases I’m looking forward to. They span nonfiction and fiction, including essays, memoirs and novels, and range from first-time authors to veterans such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ocean Vuong. We’ve included lightly edited blurbs from the publishers to explain each title.
“Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice and Finding Hope” by Catherine Coleman Flowers (Jan. 28)
Flowers has dedicated her life to fighting for the most vulnerable – rural, poor, of color – deprived of the basic civil right to a clean, safe and sustainable environment. These essays illuminate and contextualize issues from climate change to human rights, from rural poverty to reproductive justice, from the notorious history of Lowndes County, Alabama, to the broader crisis of racialized disinvestment in the South. She gets personal; essays address her mother, a civil rights activist killed by gun violence, and a traumatic attack that had her weighing work against well-being.
“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” by Omar El Akkad (Feb. 25)
Three weeks into the bombardment of Gaza, El Akkad tweeted: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed it promised freedom and justice for all, but 20 years of reporting on the war on terrorism, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter and more, he’s concluded that much of what the West promises is a lie. This is a chronicle of that realization.
“Dream Count” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (March 4)
From the author behind “Americanah” comes a novel about four women and their desires. Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer in America alone in the pandemic; Zikora, her best friend, is a successful but betrayed and broken-hearted lawyer forced to turn to the person she thought she needed least; Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria newly questioning herself; and Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, faces a hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve. Is true happiness ever attainable, or just a fleeting state? How honest must we be with ourselves to love and be loved?
“Saving Five: A Memoir of Hope” by Amanda Nguyen (March 5)
A memoir by the Nobel Peace Prize nominee details her healing and activism after a rape at Harvard (resulting in Congress’ unanimous passage of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Rights Act in 2016) with a second, beautifully imagined adventure of Nguyen’s younger selves – ages 5, 15, 22 and 30 – dealing not only with her rape but with the violent turmoil of her childhood.
“Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories” by Torrey Peters (March 11)
Peters pushes the limits of trans writing in this acidly funny collection, starting with the novel “Stag Dance” in which a group of lumberjacks in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some will attend as women, resulting in a strange rivalry and a cascade of obsession, jealousy and betrayal culminating on the big night. In the accompanying stories, a gender apocalypse is brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend; there’s a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school; and a young crossdresser on the Las Vegas strip must choose between a handsome mystery man and a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.
“Matriarch: A Memoir” by Tina Knowles (April 22)
The determined mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Solange Knowles (and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland) writes of being a precocious kid growing up in 1950s Galveston, Texas – the youngest of seven who experiences the realities of race and the limitations of girlhood and begins to dream of a bigger world. Her instincts and impulsive nature drive her far beyond the shores of Texas in an intimate and revealing story that’s also a family saga and story of America, about the wisdom women pass on to one another, mothers to daughters, across generations.
“The Emperor of Gladness” by Ocean Vuong (May 13)
Vuong returns with a novel about chosen family and unexpected friendship. One late summer evening in the postindustrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, 19-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river: Grazina, a widow succumbing to dementia who convinces him to take another path. He becomes her caretaker and, over the course of a year, they develop a bond with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family and a community in crisis.
“The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex” by Melissa Febos (June 3)
In the wake of a catastrophic relationship, Febos decided to take a break – for three months she would abstain from dating, relationships and sex. When she gleaned insights into her past and awoke to the joys of being single, she decided to extend her celibacy, not knowing it would become the most fulfilling and sensual year of her life. In this text she brings her experiences into conversation with women throughout history, from Hildegard von Bingen, Virginia Woolf and Octavia Butler to the Shakers and Sappho, and their pursuit of ambitions and ideals.
A stronger
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