Top 8+ Bestselling Authors Shared Their Favorite Books of the Year

It's a famous piece of writing advice: The secret to writing well is reading well. So if the best writers are also the best readers, who better to take book recommendations from?

Time recently released its list of the best books of the year. In a video on Instagram, it shared interviews with several of the authors on its list and asked each of them for their favorite book of 2025. Best-selling authors like Taylor Jenkins Reid, R. F. Kuang, S. A. Cosby and more shared their personal favorites (including a GH Book Club pick!). While some authors recommended picks in the same genre they like to write, others shared underrated books they think deserve more love.

Taylor Jenkins Reid: Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Atmosphere, has been obsessed with this HGTV-meets-dark-comedy domestic thriller about a woman who will do anything to buy her dream home.

“It starts out feeling pretty light and fun, but I promise you you have no idea where this story is going,” she said. (We couldn't agree more—that's why Best Offer Wins was one of our 2025 GH Book Club picks!)

$24.35 Shop Now Amazon Prime

R. F. Kuang: Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake

R. F. Kuang, author of Katabasis, recommends this book that blends horror with—what else?—dark academia. An exclusive sorority on a college campus has a reputation for beauty and success...but the truth of their secret rituals and what it costs to attain that perfection is bloodier than it seems.

$20.98 Shop Now Amazon Prime

S. A. Cosby: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

King of Ashes author S. A. Cosby recommends this Indigenous horror and historical fiction story, which follows a Blackfeet vampire confessing to a priest. It combines the real-life horror of Native American genocide with the paranormal for a bloody but gripping tale.

S. A. Cosby also recommended Saint of the Narrows Street by William Boyle as a favorite of 2025: "Seek them out if you haven't already read them."

$26.39 Shop Now Amazon Prime

Ocean Vuong: Palaver by Bryan Washington

Ocean Vuong, poet and author of The Emperor of Gladness, loves Palaver for how it depicts “friendship, redemption, care and estrangement between mother and son” through its tale of a Jamaican mother trying to overcome estrangement to reconnect with her gay son in Tokyo.

$24.36 Shop Now Amazon Prime

Bryan Washington: We Do Not Part by Han Kang

The Palaver author recommends this dreamlike, intensely emotional story by Nobel Prize winner Han Kang. It's a reckoning with the historic trauma of the Jeju Island Massacre and an exploration of humanity, friendship, and remembrance.

$15.11 Shop Now Amazon Prime

Lily King: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Lily King, author of Heart the Lover, loves this touching novel about an outspoken 72-year-old woman who writes letters—to family, famous authors, university presidents, neighbors, and more—to understand her own life.

“I really don’t know how she does it," Lily King reflects. "Even though it is a series of letters, she puts 15 plates in the air. She makes everyone completely suspenseful.”

$22.59 Shop Now Amazon Prime

Kate Fagan: Our Last Wild Days by Anna Bailey

Kate Fagan, the author of The Three Lives of Cate Kay, loves this southern thriller about alligator hunters and small-town secrets. Darkly atmospheric, its creepy swamp setting is the perfect backdrop for a murder investigation surrounding a family of dangerous outcasts and a cast of colorful townspeople.

"[It's] gritty and wildly underrated. Not enough people read this,” Fagan said.

$16.24 Shop Now Amazon Prime

Bolu Babalola: Can't Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan

Sweet Heat author Bolu Babalola describes this book as a "sexy, grown story about surrendering to love."

The third in a series of three interconnected romance novels, this book follows a successful businesswoman as she balances caring for her mother and her forbidden attraction to the handsome tech mogul pursuing her.

$21.30 Shop Now Amazon Prime