The Book Report: Ron Charles' picks from 2025

By Washington Post publication professional Ron Charles

2025 offered a feast of large books. To assistance physique your never-ending speechmaking list, present are 5 titles we peculiarly enjoyed implicit the past 12 months:

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Simon & Schuster

Lucas Schaefer's debut novel, "The Slip" (Simon & Schuster), won this year's Kirkus Prize for Fiction. The communicative takes spot successful and astir a boxing gym successful Austin, Texas, wherever 2 lonely teenagers are anxious to remake their identities wherever that mightiness pb them.

This sweaty comic masterpiece tackles our astir pressing societal debates, and delivers a knockout.

Read an excerpt: "The Slip" by Lucas Schaefer

"The Slip" by Lucas Schaefer (Simon & Schuster), successful Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, disposable via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org

lucasschaefer.com

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Sourcebooks Landmark

Susie Dent's debut novel, "Guilty by Definition" (‎Sourcebooks Landmark), introduces a dictionary exertion successful Oxford who begins receiving unusual messages astir her sister's long-ago disappearance.

As she follows these clues, she is led into literate puzzles and unresolved parts of her past. Readers who savor wordplay arsenic overmuch arsenic suspense should look up this clever mystery.

Read an excerpt: "Guilty by Definition" by Susie Dent

"Guilty by Definition" by Susie Dent (‎Sourcebooks Landmark), successful Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, disposable via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org

Susie Dent connected Instagram

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Riverhead Books

"Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State" (Riverhead Books), by Caleb Gayle, traces the emergence of Edward McCabe done Kansas and the Oklahoma Territory arsenic Black migrants pursued land, information and powerfulness successful the Jim Crow era.

Confronting hostile authorities and convulsive resistance, McCabe fought for assemblage and self-determination, and Gayle lays retired this charged scenery to uncover a important but long-obscured section successful the conflict for freedom.

Read an excerpt: "Black Moses" by Caleb Gayle

"Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State" by Caleb Gayle (Riverhead Books), successful Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, disposable via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org

calebgayle.com (Official site)

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Knopf

Karen Russell's "The Antidote" (Knopf) is simply a dazzlingly archetypal caller that hovers betwixt fable and history.

This chaotic tempest of a communicative acceptable successful Depression-era Nebraska follows a prairie witch and a precocious schoolhouse miss swept up into a tumultuous occidental epic astir the tragedies and ambitions of Manifest Destiny.

Read an excerpt: "The Antidote" by Karen Russell

"The Antidote" by Karen Russell (Knopf), successful Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, disposable via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org

karenrussellauthor.com

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Crown

Rick Atkinson's "The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780" (Crown), the 2nd publication successful his planned trilogy, delivers a chronicle of the American Revolution with irresistible communicative drive.

Moving betwixt battles and diplomacy, helium brings Washington, Franklin and their rivals to beingness portion tracing the nation's combat for independence. The effect is an immersive enactment of past conscionable successful clip for America's 250th anniversary.

Read an excerpt: "The Fate of the Day" by Rick Atkinson

"The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 (Volume Two of the Revolution Trilogy)" by Rick Atkinson (Crown), successful Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, disposable via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org

Historian Rick Atkinson (Official site)

Rick Atkinson connected however the U.S. Army was calved – and a escaped federation realized ("Sunday Morning")

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That's it for the Book Report. It's been large amusive to speech to you astir bully books implicit the past year. Here's to galore much successful 2026.

I'm Ron Charles. Until adjacent time, work on!

     
For much info: 

• Ron Charles, The Washington Post
• Subscribe to the free Washington Post Book World Newsletter
• Ron Charles' Totally Hip Video Book Review
• Bookshop.org (for ordering from autarkic booksellers)

     
For much speechmaking recommendations, cheque retired our room of erstwhile Book Report features from Ron Charles: 

• The Book Report (Nov. 2)
• The Book Report (Aug. 31)
• The Book Report: Ron Charles connected caller summertime reads (July 20)
• The Book Report (May 25)
• The Book Report (March 9)
• The Book Report (January 26)
• The champion books of 2024
• The Book Report (October 13)
• The Book Report (July 14)
• The Book Report (June 2)
• The Book Report (April 28)
• The Book Report (March 17)
• The Book Report (February 18)
• Ron Charles' favourite novels of 2023
• The Book Report (October 22)
• The Book Report (September 17)
• The Book Report (August 6)
• The Book Report (June 4)
• The Book Report (April 30)
  
• The Book Report (March 19)
• The Book Report (February 12, 2023)
• The Book Report: Ron Charles' favourite novels of 2022
• The Book Report (November 13)
• The Book Report (Sept. 18)
• The Book Report (July 10)
  
• The Book Report (April 17)
• The Book Report (March 13)
• The Book Report (February 6, 2022)
• The Book Report (November 28)
• The Book Report (September 26)
• The Book Report (August 1)
• The Book Report (June 6)
• The Book Report (May 9)
• The Book Report (March 28)
• The Book Report (February 28)
• The Book Report (January 31, 2021)

• Books and Beyond