10 must-read award-winning books of 2025, from Booker winners to Asian literature

Recipient of the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction, this novel follows Raja, a Lebanese American philosopher reflecting on illness, exile and the defining presence of his mother. Moving between memory and political history, the book is infused with both humour and grief as Raja revisits family life shaped by displacement, war and belief.

Winner of the National Book Award for Non-Fiction, El Akkad’s book combines memoir and political analysis. Drawing on his work as a journalist, he examines Western responses to war and humanitarian crises while situating those arguments within his own experiences of migration and reporting. The narrative moves deliberately between the personal and the public.

Awarded the 2025 International Booker Prize, this Kannada short story collection focuses on women navigating marriage, faith and domestic expectation in southern India. The stories are concise and observational, often closing without resolution. The prize recognised both Mushtaq’s writing and Bhasthi’s translation, marking a significant moment for regional Indian literature in English.

See also: ‘Writing is breathing’: Booker Prize 2025 winner Banu Mushtaq on defying death threats and writing stories that matter

Recognised at the British Book Awards, Patriot: A Memoir traces Alexei Navalny’s trajectory from regional activist to the most prominent opposition figure in modern Russia. The book documents his investigations into state corruption, the formation of anti-corruption networks and the escalating personal cost of political dissent, including repeated arrests and state surveillance. Alongside accounts of campaigns and protests, Navalny reflects on family life and motivation, presenting the material in a direct, chronological manner that prioritises documentation.

A British Book Awards fiction winner, James retells Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective. Everett reframes the familiar story through language, literacy and self-awareness, shifting the moral and narrative centre. The novel uses revision as a method rather than a provocation.

Winner of the British Book Award for debut fiction, Butter follows a journalist investigating a woman accused of serial murders linked to elaborate meals. Set in contemporary Japan, author Asako Yuzuki blends crime reporting with reflections on food, gender and desire, using eating as both pleasure and performance.

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Awarded in the lifestyle and illustrated category at the British Book Awards, this diary-style book records a year of meals shaped by work, travel and family life. Recipes sit alongside anecdotes and memories, offering a loosely structured account of how food marks time rather than defines identity.

 A British Book Awards Pageturner winner, Faebound is set in a divided fantasy realm shaped by ancient magic and entrenched power structures. The story follows two sisters on opposing sides of a long-running conflict, one bound to a militarised empire and the other aligned with a persecuted fae community. Told through shifting perspectives, the novel explores how loyalty, inherited histories and political ambition complicate personal bonds.

Recognised at the British Book Awards in the crime and thriller category, Hunted follows a high-stakes manhunt triggered by a politically sensitive incident that places both civilians and security services under scrutiny. Set in contemporary Britain, the novel moves between investigators, those being pursued and the systems tracking them, using the mechanics of surveillance and counter-terrorism to examine moral compromise, privacy and the pressures placed on institutional authority.

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