the dc120: the 120 best books of 2025 in every genre

Every December, the literary world feels a bit like Paris at dusk — glowing, crowded, and full of possibility. New releases jostle for attention, lists proliferate, and somewhere an algorithm insists it knows your taste better than you do.

But discerning readers know better. That’s why the Dandelion Chandelier 120 exists: a hand-picked, deeply researched, entirely opinionated guide to the most essential books published in 2025. Across ten categories — from literary fiction to art and design, memoir to cultural criticism — this list reflects the kind of reading life we believe in: global, stylish, rigorous, surprising, and emotionally resonant. Consider it your passport to the most fascinating minds and unforgettable stories of the year. And if new releases are your obsession year-round, our monthly Fresh Ink dispatches are the best way to stay ahead of the curve.

Updated for 2025 with new titles across every category.

If you prefer your reading lists delivered with a side of twilight mood and cultural intelligence, our weekly newsletter, The Blue Hour Review, is where the real conversation continues.

the dandelion chandelier 2025 edit: the 120 best books in every genre

choose your first stop, jump to your favorite genre:

• Literary fiction
• Memoirs and personal narratives
• Essay collections
• Histories and biography
• Cultural commentary
• Art, photography and design
• The craft of creativity
• Cookbooks and food writing

 

literary fiction

Literary fiction is where the year’s most daring writers push language, structure, and emotional truth into uncharted territory. These novels invite us into exquisitely built worlds—intimate, unruly, speculative, domestic, transgressive, and everything in between—each one tuned to the frequencies of our moment. This is the fiction that lingers in your bloodstream: sharp, searching, ambitious, and alive with the kind of intelligence that refuses to settle for easy answers.

1. moderation — elaine castillo.

In Moderation, a content moderator for a powerful tech platform accepts a new role inside a seductive VR entertainment company, only to fall for her charismatic boss. As the boundary between virtual fantasy and physical reality blurs, she uncovers ambitions that threaten not only her sense of self but the world beyond the headset.

2. katabasis — r.f. kuang.

Two rival graduate students in “analytic magick” must descend into Hell to rescue their professor’s stolen soul, each believing they alone are meant to survive the journey. What begins as academic competition becomes a dangerous, intimate confrontation with power, obsession, and the cost of brilliance.

3. so far gone — jess walter.

A reclusive journalist is yanked back into the world when his grandchildren are kidnapped, sending him on a chaotic road trip across a fractured American landscape. Walter blends humor, heartbreak, and political sharpness in a novel about aging, family, and the stubborn hope that connection isn’t lost forever.

4. a new new me — helen oyeyemi.

Kinga lives with seven versions of herself—each a fully realized double—until their uneasy harmony shatters the day they discover a bound stranger in their living room. With Oyeyemi’s signature enchantment and unpredictability, this novel becomes a dazzling meditation on identity, multiplicity, and the unruly imagination.

5. if you love it let it kill you — hannah pittard.

A woman spirals into a surreal midlife crisis involving a talking cat, an unfaithful husband, and an artistic life that refuses to cohere. Pittard turns autofiction inside out with sharp humor and emotional candor, creating a story about desire, chaos, and the ways we reinvent ourselves when everything collapses.

6. workhorse — caroline palmer.

An ambitious young woman secures a coveted assistant role at a glossy New York fashion magazine, only to discover a world brimming with envy, power plays, and dangerous secrets. Palmer’s debut is a razor-sharp love letter to the women who endure—and thrive within—the glamorous, backbiting machinery of media.

7. minor black figures — brandon taylor.

A young, gay, Black painter in New York confronts the art world’s hungers and hypocrisies while wrestling with his own desire for meaning and belonging. Taylor delivers a tender, piercing novel about creativity, race, intimacy, and the fragile constellations of friendship that shape a life.

8. palaver — bryan washington.

An estranged mother and son—living separately in Houston and Tokyo—tentatively rebuild their relationship during a visit that unearths old wounds and unexpected joys. Washington writes with exquisite emotional precision about love, distance, and the slow, brave work of coming home to one another.

9. endling — maria reva.

In war-torn Ukraine, a rogue ecologist trying to save a nearly extinct snail becomes entangled with two radical sisters who kidnap foreign bachelors to protest the mail-order bride industry. Reva’s wildly inventive, darkly funny debut questions survival, identity, and the strange alliances born in a collapsing world.

10. the book of records — madeleine thien.

A father and daughter fleeing China find refuge in a dilapidated resort where time folds and stretches across centuries. Thien transforms migration, memory, and myth into an immersive fable about what we inherit, what we choose, and the stories that keep us alive.

11. people like us — jason mott.

Two Black writers—one on a global book tour, one hiding from the world—grapple with the psychic toll of American gun violence. Mott turns personal grief into narrative voltage, creating a novel that is both searingly intimate and astonishingly universal.

12. code noir — canisia lubrin.

Inspired by the 17th-century French slave codes, Lubrin crafts 59 linked fictions that give voice, shape, and interiority to lives history tried to erase. Winner of the Carol Shields Prize, this bold and formally dazzling work reimagines power, memory, and resistance itself.

13. terrestrial history — joe mungo reed.

When a fusion scientist in remote Scotland encounters a mysterious figure rising from the sea, a four-generation story unfurls—from present-day Earth to a future Martian colony. Reed blends lyricism and speculative audacity in a novel about ambition, legacy, and the fragile systems we inherit.

14. pick a color — souvankham thammavongsa.

Set over a single day in a bustling nail salon, this intimate debut traces the intersecting lives of the owner, her staff, and their clients with razor-sharp clarity. Thammavongsa reveals the unseen labor, quiet heartbreaks, and stubborn hopes that animate the immigrant economies of a city.

15. what a time to be alive — jade chang.

A broke, drifting thirty-one-year-old woman accidentally becomes an internet folk hero, thrusting her into the surreal churn of viral fame. Chang’s novel is a funny, tender, and piercing exploration of grief, belonging, and the absurd theater of online life.

16. mercy — joan silber.

A split-second decision in the 1970s East Village reverberates across five decades, binding strangers, lovers, and families through invisible threads of consequence. Silber’s novel-in-stories is a masterclass in moral complexity, emotional resonance, and the quiet ways we shape one another’s lives.

17. creation lake — rachel kushner.

A ruthless American secret agent sent to infiltrate a group of eco-activists in rural France finds her mission complicated by ideology, seduction, and doubt. Kushner delivers a philosophical thriller of espionage and late-capitalist extremity, written with her trademark brilliance and velocity.

18. fulfillment — lee cole.

The uneasy reunion of two half-brothers—one an ascendant scholar, the other a beleaguered warehouse worker—ignites a combustible drama of class and inheritance in Kentucky. Cole’s novel is a beautifully wrought interrogation of privilege, loyalty, and the pasts we spend a lifetime trying to outrun.

19. heart the lover — lily king.

When an old college love triangle resurfaces, a woman must confront the emotional archaeology of first love and the life she built in its wake. King brings her signature warmth and wit to a novel about desire, friendship, and the tender ache of what might have been.

20. the 10-year affair — erin somers.

A chance meeting at a baby group sparks a decade-long obsession that blurs fantasy and desire between two outwardly contented young parents. Somers delivers a sharp, sly, and emotionally incisive meditation on marriage, temptation, and the alternate lives we imagine in secret.

21. too soon — betty shamieh.

Spanning from 1948 Jaffa to Detroit and San Francisco, this sweeping multigenerational novel follows three Palestinian American women as they chase safety, reinvention, and the elusive promise of America. Shamieh blends humor, sensuality, and heartbreak in a story about exile, resilience, and the fierce hope that binds a family across continents.

22. meet me at the crossroads — megan giddings.

On an ordinary summer morning, seven impossible doors materialize and threaten to pull apart the unshakable bond between two brilliant twin sisters. Giddings creates a luminous, otherworldly meditation on grief, faith, and the courage required to enter a perilous new world when the one you know can no longer hold you.

23. the emperor of gladness — ocean vuong.

In a quiet Connecticut town, a young Vietnamese American man finds unexpected friendship and chosen family, discovering the tender myths we craft to survive our own histories. Vuong’s Oprah Book Club pick is an achingly beautiful, bighearted novel about kindness, connection, and the fragile architecture of hope.

24. the wilderness — angela flournoy.

Over two decades, five Black women navigate ambition, heartbreak, art, and a life-altering trip to Paris in a story that charts the evolution of a friendship as richly as a nation’s mood. Flournoy’s National Book Award–longlisted novel is sweeping, intimate, and emotionally exacting—an era-defining portrait of womanhood.

25. twist — colum mccann.

A journalist plunges into the obscure world of deep-sea cable repair and uncovers a story about rupture, connection, and the fragile systems that bind us together. McCann transforms high-stakes adventure into a profound reflection on the human ties far harder to mend than any fiber-optic line.

26. seascraper — benjamin wood.

A young shrimp fisher, hemmed in by class and haunted by his family’s past, is shaken awake by the arrival of a seductive outsider promising an artistic life beyond the harbor. Wood’s Booker-longlisted novel is lush, atmospheric, and deeply felt—a haunting depiction of yearning beyond circumstance.

27. audition — katie kitamura.

While rehearsing a new play, an actor becomes entangled in a disorienting love triangle that forces her to confront the slippery boundaries between performance and truth. Kitamura’s Booker Prize-shortlisted novel is hypnotic and prismatic—a Möbius strip of desire and self-invention.

28. good girl — aria aber.

A grieving nineteen-year-old, the daughter of Afghan refugees in Berlin, dives into nightlife, reckless romance, and art as she searches for a version of herself untouched by loss. Aber’s electric debut is a fierce and vulnerable portrait of a young woman torn between cultural inheritance and radical freedom.

29. boy from the north country — sam sussman.

Returning home to care for his dying mother, a young man uncovers a bewildering family secret that hints his father may be Bob Dylan. Sussman’s intimate, emotionally resonant debut explores grief, mythmaking, and the delicate, enduring threads between a mother and son.

30. the sunflower boys — sam wachman.

After losing their parents in war-torn Ukraine, a twelve-year-old boy and his brother embark on a dangerous journey toward safety, haunted by identity, desire, and the cost of survival. Wachman’s astonishing debut is both brutal and luminous—a testament to love, courage, and the shattering of childhood.

31. we do not part — han kang.

A woman travels to Jeju Island to uncover the hidden history of her friend’s family, confronting the long-suppressed massacre that reshaped generations of Koreans. Kang delivers a haunting, incisive novel about friendship, political erasure, and the way trauma passes silently from one life into another.

32. the devil three times — rickey fayne.

Across eight generations in West Tennessee, a Black family is repeatedly visited by the Devil in moments of faith, fear, and transformation. Fayne’s audacious debut blends folklore, history, and metaphysics into a sweeping, time-bending saga about inheritance, resilience, and the stories we live inside.

33. death of the author — nnedi okorafor.

A disabled Nigerian American writer becomes world-famous for a visionary sci-fi epic, only to find her own life slipping beyond her control. Okorafor’s metafictional tour de force examines authorship, authenticity, and the unsettling moment when a creator becomes a character in her own story.

34. the correspondent — virginia evans.

At seventy-three, a solitary woman reinventing herself through letter writing discovers profound connection in the most unexpected correspondences. Evans’s tender, absorbing debut is a love letter to intimacy, reinvention, and the quiet power of the written word.

35. flashlight — susan choi.

After her father vanishes during an evening walk in a seaside Japanese town, a young girl spends decades piecing together the mystery left behind. Choi crafts a gripping, emotionally layered novel about family fractures, haunting memory, and the long shadow cast by an unanswered question.

36. the antidote — karen russell.

In a Dust Bowl–ravaged Nebraska town, the paths of five strangers collide after a catastrophic storm reshapes the fragile community. Russell blends historical fiction with a tinge of the uncanny in a mesmerizing novel about survival, reinvention, and the thin line between hope and devastation.

37. the slip — lucas schaefer.

When a teenage boy disappears from a 1998 Austin boxing gym, a web of misidentification and buried secrets erupts across the city. Schaefer’s taut, propulsive debut—winner of the Kirkus Prize—is both a gripping mystery and an indelible portrait of a place on the cusp of transformation.

38. angel down — daniel kraus.

During the brutal stalemate of World War I, five soldiers discover a wounded angel in no-man’s-land whose existence could alter the course of the war. Kraus delivers an epic, cinematic novel that braids the supernatural with the moral complexity of battle, asking what humanity can bear—and what it cannot.

39. maggie; or, a man and a woman walk into a bar — katie yee.

After a brutal divorce and a cancer diagnosis, a young Chinese American woman turns her unraveling life into stand-up comedy, hoping humor can save what grief threatens to destroy. Yee’s debut is sharp, tragicomic, and deeply alive—a story about reinvention through performance and the strange clarity that emerges from crisis.

40. culpability — bruce holsinger.

When a family’s autonomous minivan is involved in a fatal crash, the teenage son logged as “driver” must face consequences neither he nor his parents fully understand. Holsinger’s riveting novel probes responsibility, technology, and the uneasy moral terrain of a world where human judgment no longer drives the wheel.

For readers who like their bookshelves refreshed in real time, our monthly Fresh Ink roundups highlight the newest titles worth your attention long before year-end lists appear.

memoirs and personal narratives

Memoir is the art of telling the truth beautifully, and this year’s personal narratives crackle with candor, wit, vulnerability, and astonishing precision. From private heartbreaks to public reinventions, these writers turn their lives into prisms—fracturing and refracting experience until something universally human shines through. This category honors voices brave enough to confront themselves and generous enough to bring us with them.

41. dirtbag queen — andy corren.

A ferocious, unfiltered chronicle of addiction, AIDS-era Manhattan nightlife, caregiving, and self-destruction. Corren writes with scorching honesty and startling tenderness, turning chaos into a bruised kind of grace.

42. raising hare — chloe dalton.

Dalton’s luminous exploration of early motherhood captures the bewilderment, awe, and identity-splintering transformation of raising a child while trying to remain an artist. Fiercely intelligent and emotionally exact.

43. paper girl: a memoir of home and family in a fractured america — beth macy.

Macy returns to her Appalachian roots with a deeply felt portrait of family, precarity, and loyalty. It’s a vital window into the cultural forces shaping working-class America today.

44. a marriage at sea — sophie elmhirst.

Part adventure tale, part psychological study, Elmhirst recounts a maritime love story that spirals into obsession and catastrophe. Riveting, intimate, and impossible to put down.

45. mother mary comes to me — arundhati roy.

Roy examines her formidable mother and her own evolution as a writer and activist with lyricism, fire, and philosophical depth. A shimmering meditation on voice, agency, and the politics of art.

46. memorial days — geraldine brooks.

Brooks’s elegy for her late husband, writer Tony Horwitz, is tender, sharp, and fiercely truthful. It becomes a profound meditation on grief, marriage, and the fragile work of rebuilding a self.

47. i regret almost everything — keith mcnally.

The legendary New York restaurateur recounts the rise, implosions, and reinventions of his Manhattan empire with gossipy sparkle and self-lacerating wit. A brilliant portrait of ego, appetite, and survival in a city that both makes and breaks its icons.

48. how to lose your mother — molly jong-fast.

Jong-Fast blends wicked humor with emotional candor as she excavates a lifetime of maternal turbulence and literary inheritance. A sharp, brave memoir of generational wounds and hard-won self-definition.

49. things in nature merely grow — yiyun li.

Li writes with philosophical clarity about grief, survival, and the stubborn work of continuing to live. It’s a masterpiece of emotional precision and intellectual depth.

50. shattered — hanif kureishi.

After a sudden accident leaves him paralyzed, Kureishi confronts disability, identity, desire, and dependence with unsparing honesty. Brutal, brilliant, and transformative, this is a memoir that refuses sentimentality and still breaks your heart.

51. reading the waves — lidia yuknavitch.

Yuknavitch dives into water, memory, and the body in a sensuous, boundary-breaking meditation. A memoir of trauma, liberation, and artistic becoming that feels like swimming in electric current.

52. a truce that is not peace — miriam toews.

Toews turns inward to reckon with her Mennonite upbringing, family trauma, and the search for forgiveness. Courageous, intimate, and morally complex, it lingers long after the last page.

53. book of lives: a memoir of sorts — margaret atwood.

In this unconventional self-portrait, Atwood assembles scenes, curiosities, memories, and musings into a mosaic of a life lived inside literature and political imagination. Wry, sharp, and unmistakably hers.

54. joyride — susan orlean.

Orlean reflects on a lifetime of curiosity-driven reporting with charm, fizz, and intellectual delight. It’s a celebration of wonder, creative obsession, and the art of paying close attention.

55. magically black and other essays — jerald walker.

Walker blends memoir and cultural critique in essays that sparkle with wit, precision, and emotional acuity. A deeply human meditation on race, art, family, and the slippery performance of identity.

 

essay collections

Essays are the perfect literary form for our restless, multitasking age: sharp, flexible, curious, and endlessly digressive. The writers in this category move with elegance across culture, politics, identity, desire, and the strange psychology of modern life. Whether incisive or irreverent, intimate or incendiary, these essays offer the rare thrill of thinking alongside someone who’s truly alive on the page.

56. misbehaving at the crossroads — honorée fanonne jeffers.

Jeffers probes history, race, faith, and American identity with lyrical force and uncompromising clarity. These essays feel both ancient and urgently new, like scripture annotated for the present.

57. dead and alive — zadie smith.

Smith’s meditations on culture, art, and contemporary absurdity are sharp, skeptical, and elegantly devastating. She makes argument feel like conversation and conversation feel like revelation.

58. no sense in wishing — lawrence burney.

Burney captures contemporary Black life with tenderness, specificity, and narrative confidence. It’s a portrait of place, history, and humanity filtered through one unforgettable voice.

59. authority — andrea long chu.

Chu examines desire, gender, and power with rigorous intellect and wicked humor. Philosophical fireworks with emotional bite, this is criticism that reads like confession.

60. culture creep — alice bolin.

Bolin dissects the disorienting churn of modern culture—algorithmic attention, collapsing meaning, and digital mythmaking—with stylish, incisive intelligence. A sharp guide to the pop apocalypse.

61. to save and to destroy — viet thanh nguyen.

Nguyen writes about displacement, war, and literature with moral gravity and haunting insight. These essays shimmer with precision and courage, insisting that criticism itself is an ethical act.

62. the very heart of it — thomas mallon.

Drawn from Mallon’s journals of 1980s–90s New York, these entries capture the creative electricity, sorrow, and desire of a city in flux. Intimate, stylish, and devastating, it’s a time capsule of a vanished world.

63. turning to birds — lili taylor.

Taylor’s love letter to birding is tender, funny, and consciousness-shifting. A book about attention, devotion, and discovering that the world is far louder and stranger than we remember.

If you love falling down thoughtful rabbit holes, The Reading Room offers deeper dives into the books and ideas shaping the cultural moment.

histories and biography

History is never just the past; it’s the architecture beneath the world we’re living in now. This year’s standout histories and biographies illuminate that reality with narrative drive and scholarly firepower, re-examining empires, revolutions, social movements, and the lives that shaped them. These are sweeping, revelatory works that deepen our understanding of how we arrived here—and what we have yet to confront.

64. america, américa — greg grandin.

Grandin reframes the hemisphere in one sweeping narrative, tracing empire, revolution, migration, and myth from Patagonia to the U.S.–Mexico border. A masterwork of moral clarity and narrative grandeur.

65. the containment: detroit, the supreme court, and the battle for racial justice in the north — michelle adams.

Adams offers a revelatory history of the legal battles for racial justice outside the Jim Crow South. With archival rigor and personal insight, she rewrites what we think we know about civil rights.

66. spell freedom — elaine weiss.

Weiss delivers a panoramic history of Black suffrage from Reconstruction onward. Sweeping and intimate, it reads like civic history written with a novelist’s grace and an activist’s heart.

67. the zorg: a tale of greed and murder that inspired the abolition of slavery — siddharth kara.

Kara uncovers a maritime atrocity so brutal it helped ignite abolition movements. A propulsive blend of true crime and moral reckoning that refuses to let empire off the hook.

68. flashes of brilliance — anika burgess.

Burgess offers a vivid, irresistible history of early photography’s dangers, experimenters, and obsessions. From balloonists to underwater pioneers, this is science and art colliding in a shower of sparks.

69. twelve churches — fergus butler-gallie.

A globe-spanning study of Christianity told through twelve iconic structures, from Bethlehem to Lagos. Smart, humane, and architecturally lush, it treats buildings as living witnesses to human longing and power.

70. motherland: a feminist history of modern russia — julia ioffe.

Ioffe retells Russia’s modern story through the women who shaped it—writers, dissidents, scientists, revolutionaries. Fierce, expansive, and historically essential, it’s a counter-history for our times.

71. positive obsession — susana m. morris.

Morris offers an intimate, archival biography of Octavia Butler as editor, theorist, and visionary. She reveals the radical imagination behind the work and the discipline that sustained it.

72. the strangers — ekow eshun.

Eshun’s lyrical group biography of five Black men who crossed borders, identities, and eras is cinematic in scope. Blending history and memoir, he explores what it means to belong nowhere and everywhere at once.

73. toni at random — dana a. williams.

Williams uncovers Toni Morrison’s revolutionary editorial career at Random House, revealing how she reshaped American literature behind the scenes. A landmark portrait of quiet power and cultural stewardship.

74. the maverick’s museum — blake gopnik.

The tempestuous life of Albert C. Barnes—collector, reformer, contrarian—is told with art-world brio. Taste, money, and ideology collide inside one of the world’s most extraordinary collections.

75. somewhere toward freedom — bennett parten.

Parten reframes Sherman’s March through the enslaved people who followed the army toward liberation. Vital, humane, and revelatory, it centers those who transformed the war’s meaning on the ground.

76. without fear — keisha n. blain.

Blain presents a global history of Black women’s leadership in human rights movements. Her scholarship is urgent, elegant, and indispensable.

77. strangers in the land — michael luo.

Luo chronicles the Chinese American experience with panoramic sweep and intimate detail. It is essential reading for understanding America’s past, present, and future.

78. the crown’s silence — brooke n. newman.

Newman offers a searing investigation of the British monarchy’s deep entanglement in the slave trade. Explosive, meticulously researched, and morally urgent, it rewrites the story of royal power.

cultural commentary

Culture is the story we tell ourselves about who we are, and these books interrogate that story with clarity, skepticism, and style. From media and democracy to climate, design, and collective anxiety, this category gathers the thinkers who understand that the world is always speaking—through our habits, our technologies, and our contradictions. These books help decode the noise and reveal the deeper patterns beneath it.

79. aflame — pico iyer.

Iyer’s meditation on silence and retreat becomes a cultural x-ray of how we search for meaning in an overstimulated age. Luminous, clear-eyed, and quietly transformative.

80. the sirens’ call — chris hayes.

Hayes dissects media, attention, democracy, and national anxiety with precision and moral urgency. It’s an essential map to the fractured information landscape we’re all trying to survive.

81. is a river alive? — robert macfarlane.

Macfarlane blends philosophy, ecology, and cultural history in a spellbinding meditation on rivers and human belonging. His prose moves with the force and clarity of water reshaping stone.

82. life on a little-known planet: dispatches from a changing world — elizabeth kolbert.

Kolbert fuses environmental science and cultural reportage in prose that is razor-sharp and devastatingly elegant. A clear-sighted portrait of a world in flux.

83. three or more is a riot: notes on how we got here (2012–2025) — jelani cobb.

Cobb traces race, policing, and democracy across a turbulent decade with analytic power and narrative grace. Incisive, persuasive, and deeply human.

For a broader view of the season’s most compelling cultural events, our monthly Luxury Almanac curates what to see, where to go, and how to live well across the world’s style capitols.

art, photography and design 

The visual world is our shared language, and these books reveal the makers, movements, and aesthetic forces that shaped the year’s most compelling images. Whether surveying legendary artists or spotlighting the designers and photographers redefining beauty now, this category celebrates creativity as a form of cultural memory. Each title is a feast for the eyes—and a reminder that seeing is its own kind of intelligence.

84. ruth asawa: retrospective.

A landmark survey of Asawa’s sculptural genius—wire forms, paperfolds, drawings—rendered with exquisite clarity. A portrait of radical elegance and disciplined experimentation.

85. carrie mae weems: the heart of the matter.

A sweeping monograph tracing Weems’s decades-long examination of race, justice, love, and visual poetics. Essential for anyone who cares about how images shape power.

86. tyler mitchell: wish this was real.

Mitchell’s defining monograph blends fashion, portraiture, and utopian imagination. Dreamlike, youthful, and unabashedly hopeful, it reframes who gets to be seen as luminous.

87. pamela thomas-graham: when words fail.

A twilight meditation on grief, resilience, and New York’s liminal hour. Emotionally resonant and visually unforgettable, it turns a city’s blue hour into a language of its own.

88. adventures in the louvre — elaine sciolino.

Sciolino offers a stylish, deeply informed tour through the Louvre’s most delicious secrets—political, architectural, and cultural. It’s like wandering the museum with a very witty, very connected friend.

89. art in a state of siege — joseph koerner.

Koerner examines how art emerges under extreme pressure—war, censorship, crisis—with scholarly depth and narrative elegance. A profound meditation on creativity as refuge and resistance.

90. the war of art — lauren o’neill-butler.

A vivid history of artist-led activism from the 1960s to today, charting movements where art becomes protest, survival, and community. It’s a crucial map of how images and institutions collide.

91. tadao ando: light and space.

A breathtaking monograph on Ando’s minimalist, light-driven architecture. Serenity, rigor, and shadow are rendered with almost spiritual clarity.

92. knife-woman: the life of louise bourgeois — marie-laure bernadac.

An intimate biography of Louise Bourgeois—her obsessions, her emotional weather, her monumental genius. It’s as psychologically rich as the work itself.

93. emma stebbins: carving out history — ed. karli wurzelbacher.

A revelatory catalog restoring a pioneering American sculptor to the center of art history. Lush, brilliantly researched, and quietly corrective.

94. alejandro cartagena: ground rules.

A conceptual, politically attuned study of borders, space, and urban life. Cartagena’s images and sequencing are sharp, architectural, and daring.

95. danielle mckinney: beyond the brushstroke.

Intimate, jewel-toned portraits of Black women at rest—radiant, mysterious, expansively quiet. A gorgeous ode to interiority and refusal.

96. richard avedon: immortal.

An arresting survey of late-life portraits by a 20th-century giant. Mortality and charisma meet in images that refuse easy sentimentality.

97. coreen simpson: a monograph.

A glamorous, culturally rich portrait of Black style, nightlife, and elegance. Long overdue and utterly captivating.

98. emerald drifters — cig harvey.

Color-saturated images exploring memory, longing, and the surreal in the everyday. Harvey’s most personal work yet, shimmering with emotional intensity.

99. anastasia samoylova: atlantic coast.

Samoylova’s color-drenched landscapes examine beauty, vulnerability, and climate instability along the coast. Striking, prophetic, and impossible to forget.

100. making space: interior design by women — jane hall.

A celebratory, scholarly survey of women reshaping global interior design. Stylish, authoritative, and essential for anyone who cares about how we live.

101. the frick collection: the historic interiors — salomon & flores-vianna.

A sumptuous photographic and scholarly study of the Frick’s historic rooms. Opulence, taste, and collecting culture captured in every frame.

102. retrouvius: contemporary salvage — maria speake.

A philosophy of salvage turned into luxury—patina, history, and sustainability as design practice. Lush, tactile, and deeply intelligent.

103. studio sofield: works — william sofield.

Old-world glamour meets modern restraint in this cinematic monograph. Architectural, sculptural, and meticulously crafted, it feels like a series of sets for lives not yet lived.

the craft of creativity

Every creative life is built on a strange mixture of discipline, uncertainty, inspiration, and doubt. The books in this category explore that terrain with candor and urgency, offering insight into how artists think, fail, persist, and sometimes transcend. Whether you’re a maker yourself or simply fascinated by the alchemy behind great art, these are essential manuals for a world that runs on imagination.

104. imagination: a manifesto — ruha benjamin.

Benjamin argues that imagination is not escapism but a tool of liberation and societal redesign. Bold, lucid, and galvanizing, it’s a must-read for anyone who suspects the future is a design project.

105. dear writer — maggie smith.

Smith offers elegant, humane reflections on doubt, resilience, reinvention, and the long-haul reality of making art. A quiet, luminous companion for any creative life.

106. shot ready — stephen curry.

Curry translates his practice philosophy—discipline, detail, joy—into a meditation on creativity far beyond sports. Insightful, surprising, and warmer than you’d expect from a man who never seems to miss.

107. art work — sally mann.

The legendary photographer writes with unsparing honesty about ambition, scandal, and the private costs of a creative life. A studio diary of rare depth and candor.

108. into the weeds (why i write) — lydia davis.

Davis dissects the habits, obsessions, and micro-decisions that shape her writing. Precise, bracing, and quietly radical, it’s a love letter to focus.

109. permission: the new memoirist and the courage to create — elissa altman.

Altman guides writers through the emotional and artistic hurdles of telling their stories. Fierce, clear-eyed, and encouraging, it’s the book you hand to someone who keeps saying “one day.”

 

cookbooks and food writing

Food is never just food—it’s memory, inheritance, pleasure, identity, politics, and the most intimate form of storytelling we have. This year’s cookbooks and culinary narratives travel across continents and kitchens, tracing family histories, diasporic traditions, and the irresistible logic of flavor. These books nourish both palate and intellect, proving that what we eat is also how we understand ourselves.

110. care and feeding: a memoir — laurie woolever.

Woolever delivers a raw, exhilarating account of life inside the world of celebrity chefs, including years as Anthony Bourdain’s right hand. It’s a sharp, intimate look at power, addiction, brilliance, and burnout.

111. i’m not trying to be difficult: stories from the restaurant trenches — drew nieporent.

Nieporent traces his rise from McDonald’s to Nobu and Tribeca Grill with insider candor and sparkling wit. A glamorous, unvarnished portrait of the New York dining scene.

112. cellar rat: my life in the restaurant underbelly — hannah selinger.

Selinger’s memoir of wine service and restaurant hierarchies is sharp, revelatory, and often heartbreaking. A backstage pass to the underbelly of fine dining and the cost of chasing prestige.

113. hunger like a thirst — besha rodell.

Rodell reflects on her evolution as a critic with warmth, brio, and a wonderfully filthy vocabulary. It’s a love letter to food, pleasure, and the messy joy of having opinions.

114. how to share an egg: a true story of hunger, love, and plenty — bonny reichert.

Reichert braids family history, depression, and the legacy of her father’s survival of Auschwitz into a gorgeously written memoir. Meals become acts of remembrance and defiance.

115. all consuming: why we eat the way we eat now — ruby tandoh.

Tandoh examines how culture shapes desire, taste, and eating with wit and analytic precision. A brilliant work of food criticism that decodes the power behind our cravings.

116. good things: recipes and rituals to share with people you love — samin nosrat.

Nosrat returns with a sweeping, joyful celebration of communal cooking, rituals, and resilience. Generous, wise, and gloriously abundant, it earns every inch of shelf space.

117. recipes from the american south — michael w. twitty.

Twitty’s 250-plus recipes and essays trace the political, ancestral, and cultural forces that shaped Southern cooking. A monumental, deeply researched ode to the South’s complex foodways.

118. fusão: untraditional recipes inspired by brasil — ixta belfrage.

Belfrage’s Brazilian-English heritage fuels a vibrant, sun-soaked exploration of flavor. Dazzling, inventive, and deeply personal, it’s a party of a book.

119. chesnok: recipes from eastern europe, the caucasus, and central asia — polina chesnakova.

Chesnakova offers a rich culinary atlas of the Soviet diaspora—Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia—braided with essays and family stories. A timely, soulful work of preservation and pleasure.

120. my cambodia: a khmer cookbook — nite yun.

Yun’s deeply personal Khmer cookbook blends memory, migration, and culinary preservation. It is a landmark document of Cambodian foodways and a love letter to a cuisine nearly erased.

And if your curiosity extends beyond books, our Extra Fine series uncovers the world’s most exceptional versions of everyday necessities – from salt to stationary. Because taste is a lifestyle.

the best books of 2025: the dandelion chandelier 120

Choosing just 120 books was a little like editing a dinner party for the gods: impossible, exhilarating, and occasionally requiring a stiff drink. But this is the company we want to keep in 2025 — writers who challenge us, soothe us, provoke us, and remind us what’s still possible on the page.

Whether you’re building your personal library, curating your bedside stack, or searching for the book that will shift something inside you, the DC120 is your map. May these titles bring you clarity, pleasure, curiosity, and that rare, electric feeling of being fully awake in the world. Here’s to a luminous year in reading — and to discovering the stories that will stay with you long after the final page.

Looking for more? Explore our Fresh Ink picks, The Reading Room archives, and our weekly literary dispatch in The Blue Hour Review.

If you’re already thinking about gifting, our annual Luxury Gift Ideas offer impeccably curated ideas for travelers, aesthetes, culinary obsessives, and the impossible-to-shop-for.

faqs: the best books of 2025, as chosen by dandelion chandelier

what is the dandelion chandelier 120?

The Dandelion Chandelier 120 is our annual, highly curated list of the best books of 2025 across ten genres, including literary fiction, memoir, essays, cultural commentary, art and design, and cookbooks. It reflects months of research, deep reading, industry tracking, and a commitment to showcasing exceptional writing from around the world.

how do you choose the best books of 2025 for the dc120?

We evaluate new books based on literary quality, originality, cultural impact, emotional resonance, and long-term significance. We also draw from our monthly Fresh Ink research, industry previews, early critical reception, and our own editorial judgment. Only titles published in 2025 are eligible for inclusion.

what genres are included in the dc120 list?

The list spans ten categories: literary fiction, memoir and personal narrative, essays, histories and biography, cultural commentary, art and visual culture, cookbooks and food writing, and books on the creative life. Together, they offer a panoramic view of the most compelling reading of 2025.

why are some books not included in the dc120?

To maintain quality and focus, we limit the DC120 to the most exceptional books published in 2025. We exclude genres like thrillers, horror, sci-fi, and fantasy because they are not core to our editorial mission. We also do not feature books that fall short on literary merit, originality, or relevance to our audience.

how is the dc120 different from other “best books” lists?

The Dandelion Chandelier 120 is uniquely curated for sophisticated, culturally engaged readers who value high-quality writing across genres. Rather than relying on popularity or algorithmic trends, we prioritize artistry, insight, elegance, and the kind of books that reward close reading and long reflection.

can I use the dc120 to build my reading list for 2025?

Absolutely. The DC120 is designed as a yearlong reading companion. Whether you’re building a personal library, choosing titles for a book club, or seeking thoughtful gifts, this list offers a wide range of brilliant, conversation-worthy books across every major genre.

will the dc120 be updated throughout the year?

No. The DC120 is a final, year-end list of the best books published in 2025. However, our monthly Fresh Ink column highlights notable new releases throughout the year, some of which ultimately make their way onto the DC120.

where can I buy the books on the dc120 list?

Each title on the list includes links to major booksellers and independent bookstores. Supporting local bookstores is always encouraged, but you can purchase the books wherever you prefer to shop.

how does the dc120 relate to the monthly fresh ink recommendations?

Fresh Ink identifies the most exciting books each month. About 40% of those selections typically appear on the DC120 because Fresh Ink acts as our early-warning system for the year’s most significant titles. If you follow Fresh Ink, you’re already ahead of the curve.

who curates the dandelion chandelier 120?

The list is curated by Pamela Thomas-Graham, founder of Dandelion Chandelier, in collaboration with our editorial team. The selections reflect Pamela’s decades-long engagement with literature, culture, art, and global storytelling.