The Best Fiction Books

The award-winning fantasy novels of 2025 are notable for spanning the breadth of the genre: murder mysteries and legal thrillers have been honoured alongside monsters, mythologies and folk tales. Our fantasy editor Sylvia Bishop introduces the five books that took the top spots, and the immersive worlds they offer readers.

This year, to mark its 25th anniversary, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction set out to find the funniest book of the last twenty-five years. We asked comedian Tatty Macleod, one of the judges, about the process of sifting through 25 previous winners to find the funniest book of the 21st century.

With their built-in suspense, mystery and crime novels are ideal for audiobooks. To help identify standout listens this year, we turned to the audiobook experts at AudioFile magazine for their recommendations. Here are their top mystery and suspense audiobooks of 2025.

Cosmic horror explores the sublime, and so has the power to terrify and exhilarate us, says horror writer John Langan. He takes us through forests, cities, sewers and even beach holidays, introducing five books that will confront you with the unknown – and the unknowable.

Every year, the judges of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction draw up a shortlist of books that made them laugh out loud. We asked the novelist Stephanie Merritt, one of the 2025 judges, to talk us through the eight books in the running for the title of the funniest book of the year.

Gothic horror allows us to talk about psychological horror and repression while having a huge amount of fun, explains author Nathan Ballingrud. He talks us through his top five choices, from haunted houses to smoggy London to the swamps of Alabama, and considers the chilling parts of ourselves and our societies that they bring to light.

A satisfying literary love story doesn't need to end happily ever after—but one does need to be left with a sense that two characters belong together, advises the novelist Lily King, whose book Heart the Lover follows the long tail of a campus love triangle. Here, she selects five novels from literary writers that examine love and desire in the depth they deserve.

Adventure means something different for everyone, says Nathan Gray, former fighter pilot and a judge for this year's Wilbur Smith Prize for Adventure Writing. He talks us through the brilliant books that made the 2025 shortlist, and the journeys they took him on.

Fall 2025 is an exciting season for new novels, says Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn. Here, she selects her autumnal highlights including autofictional work from Patricia Lockwood and Chris Kraus, plus a literary detective story set in an apocalyptic future from the "old master," Ian McEwan.

Popular Korean fantasy today features characters and themes from a rich tradition. Author, historian and translator Minsoo Kang introduces five key texts available in English, from founding myths to fantastical novels, and explains the history that shaped these stories – and, just as importantly, shaped the desires of their modern readers.