The best books of 2025 as selected by Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests - Jason Steger, Jon Page and Robert Goodman. Keep scrolling for a full list...

GUESTS 

• Jason Steger, arts journalist. Former book editor of the Age & SMH, and panellist on ABC TV’s Book Club 
• Jon Page, long time bookseller with Pages and Pages bookshop, former General Manager of Dymocks Sydney – and now, book-buyer for W.H. Smith 
• Robert Goodman, reviewer and literary judge specialising in genre fiction; regularly reviews for the Newtown Review of Books. His website is pilebythebed.com 

Jason Steger's Picks

On-air:

• Flesh by David Szalay
• You Must Remember This by Sean Wilson
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
• Long Island by Colm Tóibín
• My Father Bryce by Adam Courtenay
• Runt and the Diabolical Dognapping by Craig Silvey

Extras:

• My Sister and Other Lovers by Esther Freud

Jon Page's Picks

On-air:

• Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
• Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• I Want Everything by Dominic Amarena
• One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

Extras:

• A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan
• The Body Next Door by Zane Lovitt
• The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
• The Rose Field [Book of Dust, Vol. 3] by Philip Pullman
• The Names by Florence Knapp

Robert Goodman's Picks

On-air:

• Salvage by Jennifer Mills
• Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow
• We Do Not Part by Han Kang
• Eden by Mark Brandi
• King Sorrow by Joe Hill
• Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Extras:

• The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia
• Esperance by Adam Oyebanji
• Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
• Lion Hearts by Dan Jones
• Rapture by Emily Maguire
• Unbury the Dead by Fiona Hardy
• The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer
• The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd Robinson
• Hotel Ukraine by Martin Cruz Smith
• The Hollow Girl by Lynn Yeowart
• The White Crow by Michael Robotham
• Stillwater by Tanya Scott
• The Reunion by Bronwyn Rivers
• The Peak by Sam Guthrie
• The Seventh Floor by David McClosky
• Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma

Cassie McCullagh's Picks

On-air:

• Dream State by Eric Puchner
• Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
• The Transformations by Andrew Pippos
• Arborescence by Rhett Davis
• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
• On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle

Extras:

• The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
• Dancing in the Lift by Mandy Sayer

Kate Evans' Picks

On-air:

• Mother Mary Come to Me by Arundhati Roy
• Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent
• Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks
• The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
• The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje
• Twist by Colum McCann
• Landfall by James Bradley
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
• Fierceland by Omar Musa
• Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray

Extras:

• On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle
• We Do Not Part by Han Kang
• The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
• Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah
• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
• Flashlight by Susan Choi
• I Want Everything by Dominic Amarena

CREDITS

• Presenter, Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh
• Producer, Kate Evans and Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Craig Tilmouth and Tegan Nicholls
• Arts editor, Rhiannon Brown