The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2025
“Reality has outpaced Pynchon’s fictional conspiracies.”
“Reality has outpaced Pynchon’s fictional conspiracies.”
“Distilled emotional and moral explorations accessible across generations.”
“The pieces that rose to the very top of our editors’ lists.”
“A layered confrontation with the deaths, grief, and guilt that have animated her work for nearly 30 years.”
“Both creator and destroyer, the bulldozer offers a cautionary tale for how technology without proper safeguards can be misused to the detriment of individual and collective life.”
“I showcase the work of other writers who are total strangers to me, but have written some article or essay of exceptional merit.”
“The women in House 3 rarely had a chance to speak to the women in House 5, but when they did, the things they heard scared them.”
“They will try to discredit you. They will lie about you. They will attempt to silence what they don’t understand.”
“The curious paradox at the heart of space forecasting is that the satellites and supercomputers that empower the observations are themselves vectors of vulnerability.”
“With so much of the industry rallying around Sandfall Interactive’s RPG as one of the defining games of the year, it has become a symbol of what video games can still be.”
“E-bikes go really fast—faster than the surrounding people and cyclists and pedestrians would warrant.”
“In siblings Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Chuquimia Crampton’s dense, elaborate thicket of sound, traditional genres and ancestral wisdom coexist with digital ephemera and rapturous noise.”
“Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion.”
“Thomas McGuane—fisherman, hunter, rancher, writer—says ‘good riddance’ to his kind.”
“The world’s largest wooden structure, with a circumference of two kilometres and a diameter of 700 metres.”
“The music world refused to stand still in 2025. This wasn’t a year for playing it safe.”
“In 2016, at Changi Airport, in Singapore, a Malaysian businessman named Raejali Buntut missed a flight to Kuala Lumpur. He’d dozed off in the Plaza Premium Lounge. Instead of rebooking, he went to more lounges, hopping from one to the next, a total of thirty-one times. He didn’t leave the airport for eighteen days.”
“A plan in the Swiss Alps to tidy up Romansh—spoken by less than one per cent of the country—set off a decades-long quarrel over identity, belonging, and the sound of authenticity.”
“The future that scares me is not a robot uprising led by robots, but one led by billionaires.”
“Cyclone Senyar marked the first cyclonic storm to form in the Strait of Malacca in 135 years.”
“He fell through one of the ceiling tiles and went on a full-blown rampage, drinking everything.”
“Thousands of travelers worldwide were stranded after Airbus ordered immediate software fixes for 6,000 A320-series aircraft.”
“If the Baikonur Cosmodrome is disabled as suspected, Russia will have lost the ability to launch people into space for the first time since 1961.”
“Materials needed to lay track along the 119-mile segment will be 100% state funded.”
“While semaglutide did not demonstrate efficacy in slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, the extensive body of evidence supporting semaglutide continues to provide benefits for individuals with type 2 diabetes, obesity, and related comorbidities.”
“Science has been deleted from COP30 because it offends the polluters.”
“The tendon-enhanced gripper moved three times faster and with 30 times more force than one powered by muscle alone.”
“FIRST is the first coordinated South-South platform linking countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia to share practical, low-cost solutions.”
“This is a landmark discovery that enhances our understanding of ancient connections between Egypt, Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula.”
“The Energy Department announced it closed a $1 billion loan to accelerate the restart of a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant that will deliver 850 megawatts of electricity.”
“The lethal dose varies based on the species, the animal’s size, the type of plastic it’s consuming, and other factors, but overall it’s much smaller than you might think.”
“We discovered that Hawaiian monk seals—one of the world’s most endangered marine mammals—are far more vocal underwater than previously known.”
“Here we see a particularly close bond between the owner and his horse.”
“Many researchers thought RNA didn’t stay intact for tens of thousands of years, but the new study challenges that long-held notion.”
“For the first time across a sustained period, renewables generated more electricity than coal globally.”
“Forensic evidence revealed 26 perimortem injuries, suggesting a coordinated, premeditated assassination involving at least three assailants.”
“The Shenzhou-20 manned spacecraft’s return capsule window glass had developed a minor crack, most likely caused by an external impact from space debris, thus failing to meet the requirements for a safe crewed return.”
“The first stage of the New Glenn rocket, named ‘Never Tell Me the Odds,’ successfully landed on the Landing Platform Vessel Jacklyn positioned 375 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean.”
“ESCAPADE breaks the paradigm of multi-hundred million and billion dollar planetary missions, building on the MAVEN Mars orbiter’s legacy for a fraction of the cost.”
“The 2025 shutdown, by comparison, has derailed 100% of appropriations.”
“An amphora stamped with the name Meritaten dated back to the 18th Dynasty, since Meritaten is known to be the eldest daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.”
“These new protections can reduce the number of uniquely fingerprinted users to just 20%, down from over 60% of users that can be fingerprinted without any protections.”
“On November 10, Canada was stripped of its measles-free designation, and as a result, the Pan American Health Organization declared that the Americas had lost its measles elimination status.”
“In a sense, Monte Sierpe could have been an ‘Excel spreadsheet’ for the Inca Empire.”
“The UK and Brazil launched a ‘Super Pollutant Country Action Accelerator’ to drive rapid cuts in methane, HFCs, and air pollutants across 30 developing countries by 2030.”
“Results indicated complete healing of cracks in 21 days under optimal curing conditions.”
“The Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan has officially returned to operational status after being in decommissioning for three years.”
“The FDA launched a new pathway to market for personalized gene therapy procedures in November.”
“When compared to noble metal catalysts such as platinum, the new catalyst demonstrated a 2.2-fold higher formation rate and a 1.8-fold higher yield.”
“The remarkable findings support an emerging theory that viruses that affect the nervous system can increase the risk of dementia.”