Bookshelf: Georgia authors name their favorite books of 2025
As 2025 draws to a close, it’s time once again to look back and reflect on our favorite books of the year. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will reveal its list of 2025’s top 10 Southern books next week. Meanwhile, I queried some Georgia authors who have new books coming out in 2026 to name their favorite books of the year. They did not disappoint.
Lynn Cullen
Author of the upcoming “When We Were Brilliant” (Berkley, Jan. 20), a historical novel about the relationship between Marilyn Monroe and documentary photographer Eve Arnold, Lynn Cullen names Ian McEwan’s latest novel her favorite this year.
“What We Can Know” (Knopf, $30) takes place 100 years in the future when the Western world is submerged under water following a nuclear disaster. A scholar captivated by the early 21st century and the richness of a world now gone searches for a long-lost poem and discovers a clue to a brutal crime.
“Only a master could manage to plumb the depths of human despair and folly with such precision, thoroughly gutting the reader, yet do so with such tenderness toward his flawed subjects that we not only can bear it, but are thankful for the clarity,” says Cullen. “In typical McEwan fashion, he draws us in by nestling stories within stories, thickly paving the road to the climax with nuggets of wisdom.”
Tayari Jones
Emory University professor Tayari Jones’ new novel “Kin” (Knopf, Feb. 24) is about two motherless daughters, best friends who grow up to take very different paths in life.
Her favorite books this year include Amy Bloom’s “I’ll Be Right Here” (Random House, $28), a saga of love and companionship among four friends in postwar New York. “Nobody advocates for love like Amy Bloom,” says Jones. “It’s the perfect novel for these fractured days. Pairs well with strong whiskey and hot chocolate alike.”
She also liked Oglethorpe associate professor Justin Haynes’ “Ibis” (Abram Books, $28), in which an 11-year-old Venezuelan immigrant, an American journalist and a dead witch set events into motion in a small Caribbean fishing village.
“This is a debut that promises that there is more to come,” says Jones. “It’s a big story that manages to be intimate at the same time.”
Joshilyn Jackson
Although she relocated to upstate New York last year, we still claim Joshilyn Jackson as a Georgia gal. Her new thriller “Missing Sister” (William Morrow, March 3) is set in Atlanta and involves a rookie policewoman’s first murder case, which has ties to the death of her twin sister five years earlier.
Among Jackson’s favorite books this year is Jennifer Givhan’s “Salt Bones” (Mulholland Books, $29).
“A retelling of the Demeter-Persephone myth, this book is an engrossing blend of domestic suspense, folklore and literary horror,” says Jackson. “A girl goes missing near the California-Mexico border, and a haunted woman named Malamar Veracruz must solve the mystery before it swallows her own daughter.”
Tom Junod
“I don’t usually read books about sports or show-business,” says Junod, whose upcoming memoir, “In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man” (Doubleday, March 10), charts his relationship with an enigmatic father. “But this year I read Susan Morrison’s biography of Lorne Michaels and Seth Wickersham’s biography of the position of quarterback with fascination and pleasure, because they both expertly navigate the trickiest of all-American subjects: success.
“‘Lorne’ (Random House, $36) is a 500-page book that moves with the propulsion of a magazine profile while telling the story of comedy’s rise to cultural dominance; ‘American Kings’ (Hyperion Avenue, $29.99) assembles a cast of the greatest names in football and asks what it cost them to excel at a job even presidents wish they could do. The paradox in both books is that dreaming of success makes its subjects a little more human and attaining it makes them a little less.”
Kathryn Stockett
Kathryn Stockett’s new novel “The Calamity Club” (Spiegal & Grau, May 5) is set in Mississippi during the Great Depression and revolves around an unlikely allegiance between two women and a young girl who work together to regain control of their lives. One of her favorite books this year is also my favorite: “Culpability” (Spiegal & Grau, $30) by Bruce Holsinger.
“There is nothing tastier to me than the dynamics of a family on vacation,” says Stockett. “‘Culpability’ asks what is the ethical responsibility of those running the world on AI and what effect will it have on our very human, imperfect, beautiful children. But mostly it’s rich storytelling about marriage and first loves and family, with a fantastic twist at the end.”
Brian Panowich
“Long Night Moon” (Minotaur Books, Aug. 4) is the latest in Brian Panowich’s crime novels set in McFalls County, a fictitious community in the North Georgia mountains. Topping his list of favorite books this year is Bryn Greenwood’s “Nobody Knows You’re Here” (Podium Publishing, $18.59).
“It’s a heartbreaking yet wildly inspiring depiction of human trafficking from one victim’s point of view,” says Panowich. “What is a person capable of once they realize that no one else is coming to save them? It’s a heavy question and Greenwood handles the answer with great care and great skill. This book will live rent-free in my dreams for a long time to come.”
Suzanne Van Atten is a book critic and contributing editor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She may be reached at Suzanne.VanAtten@ajc.com.
