When the best books of 2024 meet the most anticipated of 2025

Welcome to the Year in Reading, 2025.

But as we’re still in that odd antechamber of in-between time when year-end book lists bump up against year-ahead ones, this is a good moment to talk about where we’ve been and where we hope to go.

Last year around this time, I mentioned that I don’t enjoy keeping a list of what I have read because it can feel more like a Shadow Accounting of Books I Sadly Failed to Read. Then I fret over the time I spend reading books that I don’t finish – and then fret over fretting.