Bold statement: Five Penguin Random House titles land in the New York Times Book Review’s top 10 of 2025, underscoring the strength of PRH’s storytelling across fiction and nonfiction. And this is where the story gets more interesting: half of the year’s best books come from PRH imprints, a standout achievement that signals both broad reader appeal and strong editorial partnerships.
Overview
On December 2, the New York Times Book Review unveiled its “10 Best Books of 2025.” This followed the publication’s earlier release of the “100 Notable Books of 2025.” Among the ten selections, five titles originate from Penguin Random House imprints. After a year filled with extensive reading, the Book Review editors chose five works of fiction and five works of nonfiction as the year’s best. The full list is available here, and readers can also listen to the editors discuss the picks on the Book Review podcast.
Congratulations are due to the authors and their publishers for this exceptional recognition. With 38 PRH titles named to the “100 Notable Books of 2025,” it’s particularly meaningful that ten of those top ten come from PRH imprints, effectively making up half of the “10 Best Books of 2025.” Gratitude goes to the teams and authors who collaborated to bring these works to readers.
Featured fiction titles
THE LONELINESS OF SONIA AND SUNNY by Kiran Desai (Hogarth; Random House Audio)
This spellbinding novel follows two young people whose paths cross and diverge across continents and years, weaving themes of love, family, and the tug between tradition and modernity. Desai, a Booker Prize winner known for THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS, crafts an epic that travels from India to America and beyond.
STONE YARD DEVOTIONAL by Charlotte Wood (Riverhead; Penguin Audio)
Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, this novel delves into forgiveness, grief, and the complexity of goodness. A burnt-out woman retreats from Sydney to her childhood landscape, where she finds a secluded religious community on Australia’s plains. She arrives skeptically—open to ritual, unsure of belief—and discovers a transformative path in an environment far removed from urban life.
Featured nonfiction titles
A MARRIAGE AT SEA by Sophie Elmhirst (Riverhead; Penguin Audio)
An instantly bestselling narrative that chronicles a young couple stranded at sea. This riveting true story explores obsession, endurance, and the limits of partnership as they confront unimaginable circumstances aboard a boat, redefining what commitment means in extreme conditions.
MOTHER EMANUEL: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church by Kevin Sack (Crown; Random House Audio)
Sack delivers a sweeping historical portrait of Emanuel AME Church, a pivotal center in African American religious life and civil rights. Against a backdrop of Charleston’s fraught history, the book examines courage, endurance, and grace in the face of racial injustice, culminating in a powerful call for reconciliation.
THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Crown; Random House Audio)
This investigative journalism project investigates the rise of working homelessness in major American cities. Through the experiences of five Atlanta families, it scrutinizes how high rents, stagnant wages, and weak tenant protections drive capable, hardworking people into unstable housing—the result of structural economic pressures rather than individual failure. The book challenges the conventional belief that hard work guarantees stability, prompting readers to rethink policy and social norms.
Additional context
These selections reflect the Book Review’s careful curation after a year of exhaustive reading. They showcase a spectrum of voices and styles, from intimate personal narratives to sweeping historical investigations, all anchored in rigorous storytelling. For readers seeking a current snapshot of high-caliber publishing, the 2025 list offers compelling reasons to explore PRH titles and the authors behind them.
Discussion prompts
- Do you find these ten picks collectively representative of 2025’s literary landscape, or do you think other publishers deserved a place on the list?
- Which of the featured works resonates most with you, and why does it stand out compared to others in the same categories?
- How might the themes—family and tradition, forgiveness, resilience in adversity—shape your reading choices for the year ahead?
If you’d like, this rewrite can tailor emphasis toward a particular audience (general readers, aspiring writers, or book club members) or adjust the balance between fiction and nonfiction to align with specific interests.
