Need ideas for your 2025 book list?
Then you’re in luck. From memoirs by celebrities to tales by underwater archaeologists, to gripping novels by some of the most acclaimed female writers of recent years, we’ve got you covered.
Here are 10 hotly anticipated books slated for release in the new year.
We Do Not Part, by Han Kang (Jan. 21)
Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, Han Kang explores the blurry lines between dream and reality in her newest novel, We Do Not Part. Set in South Korea, the story follows two friends Kyungha and Inseon. After Inseon has injured herself and is stuck in hospital, she asks her friend Kyungha to travel to her home on Jeju Island to save her beloved pet bird, Ama. Kyungha arrives on the island only to find herself lost in an intense snowstorm, battling through darkness and ice to save her friend’s pet bird. The novel explores the lengths we go to for true friends, and brings to light the ghosts of a forgotten chapter in Korean history.
Brooke Shields is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman by Brooke Shields (Jan. 14)
Actress Brooke Shields, who has spent her entire life in the public eye, reckons with what it means to age in her new memoir. Shields writes about how she sees this period of history as one where women are reclaiming power and agency, and finally experiencing the freedom of writing their own stories. Shields weaves together tales from her life, with research and reporting on age-related bias and the systemic factors that contribute to it.
Written In The Waters: A Memoir of History, Home and Belonging by Tara Roberts (Jan. 28)
In her new memoir, Tara Roberts, a National Geographic explorer, documents her years spent diving to explore the wrecks of slave ships. Roberts charts her journey from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History, where she first encounters Diving With a Purpose, an underwater archaeology group dedicated to exploring the wrecks of slave ships — to her own dives in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, South Africa, Senegal, Benin, Costa Rica, and St. Croix. Stylistically, it’s a new approach to studying the history of the Middle Passage, but it’s also a deeply personal narrative, as Robert weaves in her own family history and writes of her own experience as a Black woman trying to make sense of her identity.
This Beautiful Ridiculous City by Kay Sohini (Jan. 28)
This is based on the story of Kay Sohini, who arrived in New York City after leaving her life and everything she knew behind in India. As she attempted to rebuild her life as an immigrant and a survivor, she found herself in the hometown of her literary heroes, but also began to realize that the trauma she experienced had left gaping holes in her own memory. This memoir is the story of one woman’s journey to put herself back together against the backdrop of New York, a city she falls in love with – and ends up saving her in unexpected ways.
Fearless and Free: A Memoir by Josephine Baker (Feb. 4)
The late Josephine Baker was an iconic dancer, singer, spy and Civil Rights activist – whose memoir, Fearless and Free, is finally being published in the U.S. for the first time since it was first published in France in 1949. Baker began her career as a Broadway performer in New York City at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, before moving to Paris where she counted Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway as fans. When World War II began, Baker became a spy for the French Résistance, hiding secret messages in her costumes as she traveled. In the 1950s she joined the Civil Rights movement in America and even spoke alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington in 1963.
I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition by Lucy Sante (Feb. 13)
In Lucy Sante’s latest book, she shares the story of her transition alongside the story of her life as an esteemed writer, artist and critic. Sante was born in post-World War II Belgium, immigrated with her family to the United States, and eventually found her home in 1970s New York amidst the bohemians and artists of downtown. Sante charts the trajectory of her own successful career, while exploring the ways in which she never truly felt herself – until she transitions to female in her 60s – and finally decides to live her most authentic life. Sante’s latest work is sure to be an important contribution to conversations surrounding gender, identity and transitioning.
Free: My Search for Meaning by Amanda Knox (March 25)
In 2007, an American student named Amanda Knox was wrongly convicted of murdering her roommate during her study abroad trip in Italy. Knox would go on to spend four years in prison, and eight years on trial, for a crime she did not commit. Her life also became the center of malicious tabloid fodder for years, which, after her exoneration, left her reputation and public identity in ruins. In Knox’s memoir, she recounts how she survived her time in prison and how she rebuilt her life and reclaimed her own freedom and identity in the years afterwards.
Paper Doll by Dylan Mulvaney (March 11)
Dylan Mulvaney, a social media star who documented her journey as a trans woman, became known to many after a 2023 collaboration with Bud Light sparked intense conservative outrage. In her first book, Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer, Mulvaney shares how her videos, which have provided empowerment and representation for so many trans people across the globe, have also been received with vitriolic hate from the far right. Mulvaney brings readers on a personal reflection of her life thus far, and how she’s remained true to herself throughout all of it.
Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (April 8)
New York Times-bestselling author Dolene Perkins-Valdez’s newest novel tells the fairy tale-like story of one woman’s journey to uncover her family’s ties to a vanished American kingdom. When protagonist Nikki receives a phone call from her estranged grandmother to visit her in the hills of North Carolina, Nikki decides to go in order to learn more about her family’s past. What unfolds before Nikki is an incredible story told by her grandmother – of a long lost kingdom in the mountains where her great-great-great grandmother, Luella, was its queen. In her quest to learn about her past, Nikki comes to understand just how deeply tied her family is to this land.
My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende (May 6)
Famed South American writer Isabel Allende is here with a new novel for 2025: My Name is Emilia del Valle. Set in 19th century San Francisco, the novel follows Emilia, a young aspiring writer who eventually becomes a journalist for The Daily Examiner. Emilia is paired to work with journalist Eric Whelan, and the two are assigned to cover the civil war in Chile – Emilia’s father’s homeland. As the two fall in love, Emilia is confronted with her family’s history and must reckon with her identity, all as a violent civil war plays out.