The Best Backlist We Read in 2025 with Catherine Gilmore | Ep. 215
Sarah's Bookshelves Live
Sarah Dickinson
4.7 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 215, Sarah and Catherine of Gilmore Guide to Books share the best backlist books they read in 2025. They discuss their top 5 backlist books from last year, highlight some underrated backlist gems, and review their backlist reading statistics. Devoting an entire episode to backlist reading is both a team and listener favorite annual tradition!
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Announcement
- The Best of the Backlist Guide: Favorite Backlist Books Read in 2025 is available now! Members of the Sarah's Bookshelves Live community share the best backlist book they read last year in a beautiful PDF guide. To get the guide, you can sign up to join us on Patreon here. or Substack here. You'll also get access to monthly bonus podcast episodes and the new-for-2026 Rock Your Reading Tracker and the Lite Reading Tracker.
Highlights
- Sarah and Catherine share their full stats for backlist reading in 2025.
- Backlist reading quantity was stable last year for Sarah, but backlist reading quality dipped a bit.
- Catherine had a slight increase in the number of backlist books she read, AND her backlist reading remained incredibly successful.
- Sarah's backlist reading may change just a bit looking ahead to 2026.
Our Top 5 Backlist Books We Read in 2025 [10:44]
Catherine
- The No-Show by Beth O'Leary (2022) | Amazon
| Bookshop.org [10:50]
- Georgia by Dawn Tripp (2016) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [17:44]
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (2008) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [23:48]
- Don't You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane (2019) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [30:57]
- The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell (2013) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [38:21]
Sarah
- The Force of Such Beauty by Barbara Bourland (2022) | Amazon
- The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis (1983) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [20:58]
- We Burn Daylight by Bret Anthony Johnston (2024) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [27:42]
- Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin (1982) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [35:30]
- Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea (2021) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [40:37]
Other Books Mentioned
- The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary (2019) [13:19]
- The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin (2023) [20:28]
- Smacked by Eilene Zimmerman (2020) [20:31]
- Nowhere Girl by Cheryl Diamond (2021) [20:33]
- Heated Rivalry (Game Changers, 2) by Rachel Reid (2023) [33:50]
- Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin (1978) [37:58]
- Guess Again by Charlie Donlea (2025) [40:54]
Underrated Backlist Gems [43:34]
Catherine
- Miss Jane
by Brad Watson (2016) | Amazon | Bookshop.org
- Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa (2016) | Amazon
Sarah
- Slow Dance
- Euphoria by Lily King (2014) | Amazon
Other Books Mentioned
- Talking at Night by Claire Davelery (2023) [48:25]
- Slanting Towards the Sea by Lidija Hilje (2025) [51:20]
- Heart the Lover by Lily King (2025) [51:38]
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. |
| 0:11.9 | I'm your host, Sarah Dickinson. |
| 0:13.9 | Join me every other week as we get real and sometimes a bit snarky about books and reading. |
| 0:19.2 | Let's get rolling. |
| 0:20.5 | Welcome to the best backlist books |
| 0:22.7 | we read in 2025. We know how much y'all love hearing about backlist books. So we love |
| 0:29.3 | devoting an entire episode strictly to backlist books every year. And Catherine from Gilmore |
| 0:35.6 | Guide to Books is joining me today. As usual for this episode, welcome |
| 0:39.4 | back, Catherine. Thank you. Happy to be here. Before we get to our favorite backlist books |
| 0:46.0 | we read in 2025, I do want to let you guys know that our annual best backlist you read last year guide, which is a gorgeous PDF guide featuring |
| 0:57.8 | the best backlist books, 17 of our paid community members read in 2025 is now available |
| 1:05.0 | for paid community members. |
| 1:08.2 | So many of our listeners talk about wanting to read more backlist books as |
| 1:12.3 | like a reading goal. And this is a great resource compiling the tippy top backlist recommendations |
| 1:18.5 | from readers who most likely share your reading taste, at least in some fashion, since you're all |
| 1:24.2 | listeners of this show. And since we first launched the Backlist Guide two years ago, |
| 1:29.6 | I've personally gotten multiple great backlist recommendations from it for my own reading. |
| 1:34.8 | So for this year, we've got recommendations from 17 of our paid community members. |
| 1:39.7 | We also have recommendations from the Sarah's Bookshelf Live team, so me, Catherine, and |
| 1:45.7 | Chrissy. |
| 1:46.7 | There are books published from 2024 back to 1978, which is actually a shorter window than |
| 1:53.9 | we've had in the past. |
... |
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