Hello 2026. Today I’m looking back on the books that rocked my world last year, or at least gave me something to think about. It’s been so lovely to reflect on the books that kept me exactly where I want to be: immersed in story. Last year I read around 40 books, including 18 children’s books as a literary judge for The Week Junior Book Awards and as Judging Chair for the Children’s Wainwright Prize for Fiction. My annual reading challenge is going strong and I’m already putting together 26 books for 2026. In the meantime, take a look at the writers and stories that made my ‘best of’ list for 2025 — links to buy included*.
*NB: Buying books via Bookshop.org helps independent bookstores as they earn 30% of the cover price (you can even choose a specific bookstore to support). If you buy via my Reading List on Bookshop, or via the individual book links below, I also earn a small amount of commission as an affiliate. Thanks for your support!
Books I Couldn’t Get Out of My Head
Butter by Asako Yuzuki
The literary sensation by Asako Yuzuki is partly inspired by a real life case of a convicted murderer in Japan who was trolled because of her weight. Journalist Rika gets a tip from her foodie friend about how to approach suspected serial killer Manako Kajii for an interview. Before long, she’s under Kajii’s spell, rediscovering her appetite and questioning some of her own life choices.
With echoes of The Silence of the Lambs, this murder mystery leans more towards social commentary than true thriller. The author skewers “fast food” media, fat phobia, male-female dynamics, misogyny, female friendships and more. Adding to this novel’s strange allure are the mouthwatering food descriptions. As I flicked through the pages, I found myself craving buttery dishes while the richly layered story gave me oodles of food for thought. Delicious and intense, Butter was probably my favourite read of the year.
Adam by Gboyega Odubanjo
Shortlisted for the TS Eliot Poetry prize, Adam is unlike anything I’ve read before. Gboyega Odubanjo made tragic headlines when his body was found in a lake after a literary festival. Adam, his poetry collection published posthumously, feels eerily prescient. Inspired by the news of a Black boy’s torso discovered in the River Thames, Gboyega’s poetry has a bracing, haunting, beautifully elegiac quality. Reading his collection from start to finish was like entering a fever dream, an altered state of reality where every line shimmers with multiple meanings. I can’t praise his writing highly enough and I only wish he were still alive to experience how his words continue to move readers.
Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell
What would happen if every White person in America vanished overnight? Cebo Campbell’s speculative novel imagines the aftermath of a shock event where every White American walks into water and drowns themselves. In some areas, things look fairly similar to before, except with a greater sense of ease for Black Americans previously under the yoke of racism. We follow ex-convict turned professor Charlie as he goes to meet his daughter Sidney for the first time. Sidney is mixed heritage, alone after her mother and siblings drowned, and desperate to make it to a town in Alabama where she hopes to find more ‘people like her’.
Their journey to Mobile, Alabama turns up many surprises. They meet a community of Black folk so at peace with themselves, it almost makes them forget their final destination. Except this peace comes at a heavy price, one that Charlie has to figure out if he’s ready to pay. Sky Full of Elephants is an extraordinary novel that makes us think deeply about the far-reaching implications of race and racial trauma, parent and child relationships, masculine pain, feminine power, African spirituality and medicine, the uses of technology, and how far any of us are willing to go to be truly free. Cebo’s writing sings and his story brought me close to tears at the end. Masterful and unforgettable.
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
I’d heard so much about this novel that I was almost prepared to be disappointed. However, I needn’t have worried as Liz Moore had me hooked from the opening pages. At an exclusive summer camp on land owned by a wealthy family, one young camper goes missing. What follows is a twisty murder mystery told from various POVs e.g. the camp counsellor on watch that night, the mother of the missing girl (who’s still nursing a personal tragedy), the missing girl herself, and the young investigator assigned to the case. Oh, and there’s also a convicted killer on the loose.
Everybody has something to hide and something to prove in this story that explores broken families, how money and power control and corrupt, and how past crimes seep like poison into the present. Liz Moore is a master at plotting and character building. I couldn’t put this novel down until I found out not just whodunnit but how and why all their stories intertwined.
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Will AI replace humans or will our stories outlive the machines? This is just one of the intriguing possibilities explored in Nnedi Okorafor’s wide-ranging, risk-taking speculative novel. Zelu is an academic who’s struggling with her novel until one day she starts writing a different kind of story, one that not only catapults her to global acclaim but will change the world forever. It’s a story about AIs and androids at war in a post-apocalyptic future and we get to experience it in alternate chapters, while learning more about the author and her Nigerian American family.
When Zelu, who’s been in a wheelchair since a childhood accident, meets a doctor who can help her walk again with bionic legs, the novel’s twin storylines begin to converge. Nnedi’s grappling with big ideas from human creativity vs machine learning to immigration, disability, race, identity, and more. Death of the Author is a novel I’ll be thinking about for a long time and I’m looking forward to reading more of Nnedi’s books.
Books that Grabbed My Heart and Wouldn’t Let Go
Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie
It was strange to discover that I hadn’t actually read Americanah even though it’s been on my shelf for years. I’m a big fan of Chimamanda’s writing and I finished this book just days before attending the UK launch for her latest novel, Dream Count (also on my tbr pile). Americanah follows Ifemelu, a Nigerian blogger in America who’s still carrying a torch for her ex-lover Obinze, now married and raising a family in Nigeria. We follow their early romance until a traumatic incident ruptures their relationship, setting them on different paths in distant lands.
As Ifemelu returns to Lagos and rekindles their friendship, the promise of their past love lingers but their choices overshadow everything. Can they find their way back to each other or has too much happened in the time between? Written in Chimamanda’s trademark prose — lyrical and astute — Americanah is a quiet epic love story that examines race in America, the Nigerian diaspora experience, sexual power plays, politics and more with both feeling and wit. A modern classic.
Maame by Jessica George
Maddie (aka Maame) is a young Ghanaian Brit who’s been abandoned by her mother and her brother to look after her ailing dad in London. While her mother pursues business (and love) interests in Accra, and her brother dips in and out as he pleases, Maame carefully tends to her father who suffers from Parkinson’s. She’s also trying to figure out her love life (or lack thereof) and her career so she can earn enough to fly the nest.
When she gets a new job and meets a guy, it seems things are looking up but then her father dies and her world falls apart. As she grapples with grief, Maame also comes to terms with how her family have failed her. With help from her friends and her inner resilience, Maame learns to centre her own needs and search for happiness on her own terms. Maame is a resonant and relatable coming of age story that will give you all the feels. I was rooting hard for Maddie and I’m rooting even harder for whatever Jessica George writes next.
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Recent divorcee Phoebe checks into a luxury hotel in Rhode Island with one mission in mind. Only the hotel’s been taken over by a wedding party and before she knows it, her mission is derailed and she’s swept into the proceedings. She becomes the unwitting confidante for a self-absorbed bride and things get even more complicated when she bumps into a handsome stranger in the hot tub. The Wedding People is a rom-com that bursts with so much humour and heart that it’s easy to see why millions of readers have fallen for Alison Espach’s novel. I absolutely loved getting to know these characters who, in their different ways, co-sign the author’s message that it’s never too late to give love, or life, a second chance.
Playing Games by Huma Qureshi
Two very different sisters live very different lives, feeling judged by each other, yet dependent on each other to various degrees. Mira is a bit of a mess, a struggling playwright who relies on her sister for financial (not necessarily emotional) support. Hana is the uptight one who appears to have her shit together, until we discover the painful secret she’s been carrying for years. One day Mira overhears an argument between her sister and her husband, and it sparks an idea for a play. But who owns this story and what will happen if Hana discovers that her sister is planning to spill her secrets on a public stage? Instantly absorbing and often deeply moving, Playing Games delves into marriage and mother longing, ambition and desire, parental loss and the grief that dares not speak its name. I really appreciated Huma’s clear-eyed yet compassionate take on sibling relationships, often the longest and most complex of our lives.
The Middle Daughter by Chika Unigwe
The legend of Persephone gets a modern rewrite in Chika Unigwe’s breathtaking, often devastating novel. Told in multiple voices including one that acts as a Greek chorus, it’s set mostly in Nigeria. We meet a family with three sisters, one abroad in the US who dies in a tragic accident. When her father dies too, Nani (the middle daughter) finds herself leaning on a charismatic young preacher named Ephraim. What she doesn’t know, what only her dead sister can see, is that this man’s obsession will tear her from her family home and force her into a marriage built on abuse and servitude. It’s extremely harrowing in parts but Chika writes so beautifully that it’s difficult to stop reading. We follow Nani’s journey through a living hell, wondering if and how she can ever make it back to some semblance of humanity. The Middle Daughter is one of those books that lingers in the mind for days after it’s over.
Books that were Criminally Entertaining
The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji
God I loved this book. It’s a rollicking, hedonistic family saga that sweeps us from modern Los Angeles to Tehran, across time and locations, spanning five generations of an Iranian dynasty struggling to find their feet after the bloody revolution. The story is filled with big personalities, telling their stories in multiple (often clashing) voices. Everything builds to a head as we uncover the secret that has nearly destroyed the family and what just about kept them afloat. The Persians is fantastical, comical and political and Sanam’s writing holds it all together seamlessly. I laughed out loud, I gasped, I cringed, I curled my toes in pleasure. This is the kind of novel that makes you glad to be a reader and I can’t wait to rediscover it all over again someday.
Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
What’s wrong with Toby Fleishman? On the surface, he’s holding it down as a newly single father surfing the dating scene. He’s enjoying the freedom of weekend parenting between quick hook-ups and aiming for a job promotion. Except things go tits up after his wife Rachel vanishes without a word. How long can he handle the parenting juggle alone and where the hell is Rachel anyway?
Fleishman is in Trouble is a bold, troubling, acerbically funny novel that starts as one thing and suddenly pulls the rug out from under us. The story examines modern marriage and the mother load, the mismatch between perception and expectation, class, wealth, privilege, and friendship. I’m still not sure about Libby, the third wheel in their relationship who feels more like a device than a fully fleshed-out character. Nonetheless, this novel kept me glued until the end and I thoroughly enjoyed Taffy’s literary style.
Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter
Members of a notorious family agree to be filmed for a TV documentary about an unsolved murder that took place in their home. The three surviving adult children appear to be in some disagreement about what happened, and one of the sisters has refused to take part. However, we hear from all of them either on or off camera or via frenetic texts, while a group of experts tries to piece together the case. Murder in the Family is told mostly through newspaper clippings and emails and WhatsApp messages and documentary footage. This gives it the feel of a reality TV show, with the benefit of letting us get inside the characters’ heads. The story takes many turns and after I thought I’d guessed the ending, I had to guess again. Cara Hunter’s plotting is ingenious and this murder mystery deserves all its acclaim.
Agatha Raisin: Devil’s Delight (an MC Beaton mystery) by Marion Chesney and Rod Green
I’m new to Agatha Raisin, the beloved detective created by the late MC Beaton (pen name of Marion Chesney). Friend and fellow author Rod Green has revived her for this cosy village mystery. On her way to attend a wedding, Agatha and her assistant find a naked man running towards them, claiming he’s seen a dead body. But when they get to the site, the body has disappeared. Agatha gets on the case, uncovering a mystery that involves an ice cream syndicate, a spooky legend, sinister twin sisters, and a naturist club. This is a fun, breezy read with a feisty midlife heroine and an ending that I didn’t see coming.
How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie
The title of this book is guaranteed to raise eyebrows — especially in your household (you should have seen my husband’s face). Bella Mackie’s bestselling novel is also full of hair-raising escapades by the anti-heroine, Grace, who’s hellbent on picking off her relatives one by one. We meet her in jail from the start so it’s not a mystery about whether she’s the killer but why she’s going after them and, more importantly, how she (almost) pulls it off. From Ibiza to west London, this novel offers seedy glamour, salacious tales and a cast of increasingly loathsome characters that you wouldn’t mind finishing off yourself. Coming soon to Netflix, I’m looking forward to seeing Anya Taylor-Joy’s take on this killer role .
Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
Having loved Gabrielle Zevin’s novels The Storied Life of AJ Fikry and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I decided to give this a whirl and I’m glad I did. It’s another funny, heartfelt tale that captures universal themes through complicated intimate relationships. The young Jane Young of the title is a woman formerly known as Aviva who is famous for being the love interest of a married politician. Of course it’s impossible not to think of the Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton affair.
Here, the author lets us peek inside a sex scandal with more empathetic lenses. Rather than centring the story on the men involved, as typically happens in the media, she zooms in on the mother Rachel, on Jane herself, and on Jane’s daughter, Ruby. This novel invites us to engage with the mistakes of youth, how middle aged men can manipulate younger women, why it’s always the girls who are blamed, and whether we can ever truly escape our pasts. Above all, it’s a touching story of women learning to forgive and support themselves and each other.
Books that Brim with Insights and Wisdom
How To Be the Grown-Up by Dr Martha Deiros Collado
If you’ve read my books, you’ll know I believe there are few things more important than breaking chains from previous generations so we can raise happier, healthier kids. That’s also the core idea of this brilliant parenting guide filled with practical tips and professional insights. Martha (best known as Dr Martha to her huge social media following) writes partly from personal experience as a parent, but also draws on her many years as a clinical psychologist. She teaches us how to identify and understand the wounds we inherited from our caregivers and how to stop repeating the same harmful patterns with our kids. There’s no blaming or shaming here, though. For Dr Martha it all revolves around care, empathy and self-compassion: three qualities that could heal and transform society as a whole. An essential guide.
Good Anger by Sam Parker
Journalist Sam Parker thought he was suffering from anxiety until one boxing lesson unleashed the anger that had been building up in him for years. Now he’s on a mission to help more people get in touch with their ‘good anger’, first by learning what anger is and how it can be directed in a positive way. He’s careful to distinguish anger from aggression and this book shows us how to embrace and express our righteous anger. It also covers topics such as anger in the workplace, masculine rage, and dealing with anger tropes e.g. the ‘angry Black woman’. In a country and a world that’s so often at odds with itself, and with toxic anger dominating the algorithms, I really think everyone should read this book.
Creating Belonging in the Classroom by Zahara Chowdhury
Zahara Chowdhury is an antiracism educator, former secondary school teacher, and podcast host, and her debut book is all about fostering more inclusivity in schools. She writes with clarity and conviction about why creating a culture of belonging is crucial not just for kids but for the wider school family, and for society at large. Zahara’s done a ton of research and the book is packed with advice and yet it doesn’t feel dense. Creating Belonging in the Classroom is an engaging read that should be in every educator’s toolkit.
This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosley
I’m a sucker for storytelling guides and I’ve read many writing manuals over the years. However, writing guides by Black authors are few and far between. While designing my own creative writing programmes, I came across this one by celebrated crime writer Walter Mosley. It’s a quick read that nonetheless offers plenty for beginner writers. Although it’s definitely more useful if you’re new to creative writing, there are still lots of takeaways for more experienced writers. I’m already familiar with the tools and terminology Walter mentions but I enjoyed his use of literary examples and his witty turn of phrase. If you’re thinking of starting a novel, this is a helpful primer from a master at his craft. For more dedicated support, sign up to hear about my upcoming writing workshops.
Children’s Books Worth Adding to Your Collection
Taylor Meets the Trick by Lauren Currie
Lauren Currie OBE is a renowned founder, women’s advocate, and now children’s author. Her book is inspired by the comedian Robert Webb who has written about talking to his child about ‘the trick’, their shorthand for the patriarchy and how it ‘tricks’ us into gender-biased conditioning. Her picture book brings this idea to life with a character called Taylor who finds out about this ‘trick’ and learns how to challenge it. Picture books can be great conversation starters and this book helps parents and kids to engage with a big topic in a simple way. The illustrations are lovely too. Lauren has envisioned the book as part of a series and she’s keen to spread the message far and wide. Buy the book and join the movement.
Wildlands by Brogen Murphy
As Judging Chair for the Children’s Wainwright Prize for Fiction, I read some incredible books in 2025. Our winning choice was Wildlands by Brogen Murphy, a tale of two sisters who get lost in an imagined ‘wildlands’ somewhere in a future Britain. It’s a thrilling adventure story where they have to use their wits and skills to survive, while also helping to protect the wild animals whose habitat they’ve invaded. Brogen’s immersive storytelling plunges us into the action from the first page as they vividly bring to life a future that feels immediate and a present that feels ever more urgent.
Greek Myths by Vicki Psarias-Broadbent
You’ve heard about Zeus, Achilles, Eros and Medusa. Now you can learn all about these legends in an exciting modern retelling by author and influencer Vicki Psarias-Broadbent. Passionately written (Vicki’s heritage is Greek Cypriot), these myths read like mini soap operas with all the fighting and falling in love. Vicki has carefully tuned these stories for the age group (around ages 7+) but no matter whether you’re a child or a parent reading along, you’re guaranteed to have fun. I love how she’s included lessons at the end of each chapter to reflect on values shared like courage, self-belief, wisdom and empathy. Greek Myths is already a bestseller and you can read my full review here.
This Book Will Make You An Artist by Ruth Millington and Ellen Surrey (illustrator)
I was lucky to read this book as part of the shortlist for The Week Junior Book Awards. We picked it as our winner in the Hobbies & Interests category. Ruth Millington uses colourful illustrations and creative ideas to encourage kids of all ages (and their grownups) to make their own art, inspired by some of the masters. I loved the inclusivity of the artists featured, ranging from Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat to Frida Kahlo, Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Yayoi Kusama. This book not only taught me a lot about art but it made me feel like all I need is a few materials and a little imagination to create magic. The true definition of art in all forms.
Flower Block by Lanisha Butterfield and Hoang Giang (illustrator)
Winner of the 2025 Children’s Wainwright Prize Book of the Year, Flower Block is a simply gorgeous picture book with an important message. When mum leaves for work, she reminds Jeremiah and his brother not to bother their neighbours. However, Jeremiah’s special sunflower seeds create vines that burst through the ceiling and then it’s a mad dash to the top of their council block to stop the plant from growing any further.
As they climb, they encounter neighbours who join them all the way to the roof garden where new wonders await. Beautifully written and illustrated, Flower Block tugs at the heart with its themes of love and loss, community and the healing power of nature. The author says the book is a twist on Jack and the Beanstalk that deliberately focuses on Black boys growing and nurturing beauty in a council estate — something that sadly too many feel excluded from in real life. I hope this book plants seeds that flower in the minds of every young reader.
My Current TBR (To Be Read) short list aka my tsundoku pile
We Need Your Art by Amie McNee, Bitter Honey by Lola Akinmade, Dream Count by Chimamanda Adichie, The Possibility of Tenderness by Jason Allen-Paisant, The Waterbearers by Sasha Bonet, The Line of Beauty by Allan Hollinghurst, Question 7 by Richard Flanagan, Til Death by Busayo Matuluko.
Plus many more on my 2026 reading radar. Yes, I’m GREEDY for books!
My Previous Book Lists
***Find more of my reading lists on Bookshop.org. I’ll be sharing book recommendations via my social media throughout the year (follow @BabesaboutTown on Instagram and Twitter).
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