The Best Books of the Year (So Far)

The Book Review

The New York Times

Books, Arts

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re halfway through 2025, and we at the New York Times Book Review have already written about hundreds of books. Some of those titles are good. Some are very good. And then there are the ones that just won’t let us go. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib talk about some of the best books of the year so far.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times book review, and this is the book review podcast.
0:12.4	We're more than halfway through 2025, and so it's time to talk about some of our favorite books of the year so far.
0:20.5	I'm here this week with
0:21.8	Jumanica team, very, very frequent podcast guest to talk about several of the titles from
0:27.1	our recently published list. Jumana, how are you? I'm so excited. I love this episode. I love this list. I'm excited to get started.
0:40.1	I hope our readers are as excited as you are. I have to imagine they will be by the time we are
0:44.6	done with this episode. As always, whether it's our spring preview or summer preview,
0:49.9	Jumana and I are going to go back and forth and just talk about some titles and really say whatever comes into our mind.
0:57.0	Very wise and healthy.
0:58.4	Thanks for listening. Yeah. You know how to reach us.
1:01.6	We're going to flip a coin. That coin is my wallet here. My license is on one side. My ID is on the other side.
1:08.3	Let's see who goes first. Is this a heads you win, tails I lose?
1:11.5	I'm the license. You're the ID. Ready?
1:14.9	License. I guess I go first. All right. So I am going to start with a book that I have talked
1:21.3	a little bit about on previous preview episodes. And I definitely have talked a lot about
1:27.4	because I interviewed the author
1:28.7	a few months ago. This book is King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby. Go back and listen to that
1:35.1	episode if you haven't already. This is his fifth novel, and this is a story of Roman Carruthers.
1:41.4	He is a wealthy investment manager. He grew up in a small town in Virginia
1:46.4	called Jefferson Run. He left his family long ago because as many people do, he wanted to get
1:52.0	away from them and strike out on his own. Also, they run a cremation business. I was getting there.
1:57.4	That's another reason. They run a cremation business. They own a crematorium. It's a totally valid thing to do. I hope you're not casting judgment. I'm not casting any aspersions. I'm just saying that would be a reason for me to leave home as well. Okay. So he leaves home. He goes to Atlanta. He makes a ton of money. And he is forced to come back home after his father ends up in a coma. He's had a serious
	...

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