Ep. 404 The Best Books of 2025 with MJ Franklin and Greta Johnsen
The Stacks
Traci Thomas
4.9 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2025
⏱️ 88 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s finally the episode we’ve all been waiting for: The Stacks' Best Books of 2025! Traci talks with two longtime friends of the show, Greta Johnsen, host of Happy to Be Here, and MJ Franklin, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, to share our top 10 books of the year. We discuss the overall year in books, why we struggled to create this list, and all the books we’re looking forward to reading in 2026.
The Stacks Book Club pick for December is Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H.G. Bissinger. We will discuss the book on Wednesday, December 31st, with Joel Anderson.
You can find everything we discuss on today's show on The Stacks website: https://www.thestackspodcast.com/2025/12/24/ep-404-best-books-of-2025
Connect with Greta: Instagram | Substack
Connect with MJ: Instagram | TikTok | Threads
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Threads | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Substack | Youtube | Subscribe
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The good news is this year, nobody has agreed on a single book all year. So I think we're all |
| 0:05.6 | going to pick books that are rightfully best winner, best books of the year because who fucking |
| 0:11.6 | knows. Yeah. Yeah. Funny because I feel like I have a sense of what books are in your top tier, Tracy. |
| 0:18.2 | I have no clue, Greta, what you are interested in, what you've been loving. |
| 0:23.3 | I have the weirdest list over here. It's so weird. I can't, I can't wait. |
| 0:33.7 | Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Tracy Thomas, |
| 0:38.1 | and it is finally time for the episode you've all been waiting for. It is the Stacks best books of |
| 0:44.8 | 2025. I am joined today by two longtime friends of the podcast, New York Times book review |
| 0:51.4 | editor, MJ Franklin, and host of the brand new podcast, happy to be here, |
| 0:57.1 | who you might also remember from the Nerdette podcast, Greta Johnson. Today, MJ, Greta, and I get |
| 1:03.8 | together. We pick our 10 best books of the year. We also reflect on the year of 2025 and books, |
| 1:09.5 | and of course, look forward to what we expect in |
| 1:12.9 | 26. Our book club pick for December is Friday Night Lights, a town, a team, and a dream by |
| 1:19.1 | H.G. Bissinger, which we will discuss with Joel Anderson on Wednesday, December 31st. |
| 1:25.1 | Everything we talk about on each episode of the stacks is linked in our show notes. |
| 1:29.2 | If you like this podcast, if you want more bookish content and community, consider joining |
| 1:32.8 | the stacks pack on Patreon and subscribing to my newsletter unstacked on substack. Each place |
| 1:38.0 | offers different perks like community conversations, bonus episodes, virtual book clubs, hot |
| 1:42.9 | takes and more. Plus, your support makes it possible for me to make this podcast, the episodes, virtual book clubs, hot takes, and more. |
| 1:48.8 | Plus, your support makes it possible for me to make this podcast, The Stacks, every single week. |
| 1:49.2 | To join, go to patreon.com slash the Stacks for the Stacks pack and check out my newsletter |
| 1:54.2 | at tracythomas.substack.com. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Traci Thomas, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Traci Thomas and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

