THEa prestigious American magazine New Yorker, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, compiled the ranking of the best books of 2025: there are titles also known to the Italian public, new works by authors who have not yet arrived in Italy, but also names already well known in our country with novels that are still unpublished. There are Italian writers and many, many female authors.
Starnone and Latronico, the two Italians in the ranking of the best books of 2025 New Yorker
Our country is present in the New Yorker rankings with two titles.
The first is The perfections novel by Vincenzo Latronicopublished by Bompiani. Finalist for the International Booker Prize, it tells the story of Anna and Tom, young digital creatives who live a seemingly perfect life in Berlin. However, a dull dissatisfaction begins to emerge in them, due to the lack of battles to fight and causes to espouse. For the New Yorker, the book “captures a culture of exquisite taste, delicate sensibility and excruciating discontent.”
The English translator, Sophie Hughes, worked with the support of the author, also a translator, and talked about how the writing and, especially, the accuracy of the descriptions, required particularly careful and thoughtful choices.
The other Italian author mentioned, with The old man at the seaside (Einaudi) is Domenico Starnone: a book dedicated to old age and the passion for writing. “Funny and deadpan, Starnone’s novel offers an account of the hardships and consolations of a lifelong artistic pursuit.”
Books to read released in 2025
In the ranking there are several books by authors loved by the Italian public, some with books already published by us, others not.
Vaim Of Jon Fosse (The ship of Theseus, with the translation by Margherita Podestà Heir). Nobel Prize-winning investigation into the human condition, into the encounters that define our lives, into the daily struggle between what happens and what we desire.
What we can know Of Ian McEwan (published by Einaudi, with translation by Susanna Basso). In October 2014, during a dinner with friends, the great poet Francis Blundy dedicated a poem to his wife Vivien that was never published and traces of which were lost. A century later, in a world now largely submerged after a Great Disaster, literary scholar Thomas Metcalfe discovers clues that point to a romantic and criminal entanglement.
The great writers, from Han Kang to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My name is Emilia del Vallethe latest novel by Isabel Allende (Feltrinelli, translation by Elena Liverani). A story of love and war, of discovery and redemption, told by a courageous young woman who faces monumental challenges, survives, and reinvents herself.
I’m not saying goodbye Of Han KangNobel Prize 2024 (Adelphi, translation by Lia Iovenetti). A dark page of history, and not just Korean, transformed into a painful, lucid and poetic novel, like “a candle lit in the abyss of the human soul”.
The inventory of dreams Of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian writer author of Half of a yellow sun, Americanah And We should all be feminists. (Einaudi, translation by Giulia Boringhieri). Intertwined stories that lead to the roots of love, power, happiness, and question us about the price we agree to pay to obtain them.
From Leila Mottley to Arundhati Roy
Girls growing up Of Leila Mottley (Bollati Boringhieri, translation by Sara Reggiani). The protagonists are single mothers and marginalized people who, united by social exclusion and early motherhood, manage to create an alternative and supportive community solely with their own strength.
My refuge and my storm Of Arundhati Roy – who won the Booker Prize with The god of small things (Guanda, translation by Chiara Gabutti). Memoir of the Indian writer de the god of small thingsdedicated to the figure of the mother: a journey through the history of a nation and a writer who escapes definitions and rejects stereotypes: «I wasn’t Christian enough. I wasn’t Hindu enough. I wasn’t communist enough… Free woman. Free writing. As my mother taught me.”
From the American Lily King to the Spanish Virginia Feito
Heart the lover by Lily King (Fazi, translation by Manuela Francescon). The complicated love triangle between an aspiring writer and two student friends and its consequences years later: the craft of growing up told by the acute, ironic and profound gaze of the American writer, loved for Euphoria).
Lily King (Photo by Derek Davis/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)
The easy life from the Irish writer Aisling Rawle (and/or, translation by Edoardo Andreoni). In an isolated compound in the desert, twenty-year-old Lily is among the contestants of a very popular reality show. To win, he must last longer in the compound than anyone else. A story about the materialism that dominates our time.
Victorian Psycho of the Spanish writer Virginia Feito (published by Mercurio, translated by Clara Nubile). The story of Winifred Notty, a gothic Mary Poppins who, in 1858, in addition to teaching children, must be able to hide her psychopathic tendencies (it will soon become a film).
Gliff by the Scottish writer Ali Smith (Sur, translation by Federica Aceto). A novel that recalls George Orwell and Aldous Huxley: A Literary Challenge to the System of surveillance And repression which threatens peaceful coexistence between human beings.
Rosarita Of Anita Desai, English-speaking Indian writer (Einaudi, translation by Anna Nadotti). A journey between past and present, reality and mystification, to the heart of the secrets that can separate, or unite, a mother and her daughter.
In search of an identity
The imagined life Of Andrew Porter (published by Feltrinelli, with translation by Ada Arduini). A nostalgic novel about the impossibility of understanding one’s parents, about first loves and failures, about lost innocence, about the indestructible bonds between a father and a son.
The gardener and death Of Georgi Gospodinovthe Bulgarian writer, who won the European Strega prize with Cronorifugio (Voland, translated by Giuseppe Dell’Agata). A son assists his father during a long and cruel illness: a novel about how much we owe our fathers, about what makes us who we are and a poignant declaration of love.
The emperor of joy Of Ocean Vuong (published by Guanda, with translation by Norman Gobetti). The second, highly anticipated novel by the American writer of Vietnamese originsa story that celebrates the small joys of life, simplicity and solidarity, tenderness and human dignity, existences on the margins, loneliness and old age.
The 2025 Booker Prize winner and excellent debut
In the Flesh by David Szalay won the Booker Prize 2025 (Adelphi, translated by Anna Rusconi). It is the story of a Hungarian man of proletarian origins who encounters wealth in London, in an alternation of successes and defeats against the backdrop of European history of the last forty years. A novel about masculinity, migration, trauma, sex and power.
Return homethe journalist’s debut Tom Lamont (NN, translated by Antonio Matera): an ironic and sweet tale of fatherhood, capable of subverting social roles and questioning the customs and rules of blood ties.
The memoirs of the famous
It went well, kid Of Anthony Hopkins (Longanesi, translation by Alberto Pezzotta). A sincere and unfiltered autobiography of a man who never felt worthy.
The bread of angels Of Patti Smith (Bompiani). The most intimate of his memoirs spans adolescence, when the first glimmers of art and romance appear.
Authors to read in 2025
While the titles below are currently unpublished in Italy, the authors are already known. And those who don’t know them should prepare themselves.
Death Takes Me of theMexican author Cristina Rivera Garzapublished in Italy by Sur (the latest title released in Italy is the collection of short stories Terrestrial).
The Dream Hotel of the Moroccan, naturalized American, Laila Lalami (you can read it in Italian The other AmericansBridge to Graces).
Dead and Alive – an essay – by Zadie Smith (bestselling author, in Italy published by Mondadori, of works such as White teeth)
A grim that is not peace Of Miriam Towes (Canadian author who has published in Italy Battle night published by Einaudi e Women talkingMarcos y Marcos)
Misbehaving at the Crossroads of the American writer and poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (in Italy you can read his The love songs of Wood Placepublished by Guanda)
Daughters of the Bamboo Grove – essay Chinese one-child policy – by Barbara Demickjournalist correspondent for the Los Angeles Times in Beijing (in Italy with Per mano nel cielo, published by Edizioni Piemme and nominated for the National Book Award for non-fiction)
Startlement of the American Ada Limón (in Italy with Bright dead thingsNational Book Award finalist, The Ship of Theseus).