Explore our 2025 Staff Picks for adults, teens, and kids to discover your next great read from our curated selections. Find the perfect audiobook to accompany your morning walk, or choose a movie to enjoy on a cozy winter afternoon. Additionally, browse through our recommendations for holiday gift ideas that will delight your favorite readers. Whether you’re searching for engaging books, entertaining media, or thoughtful gifts, our 2025 Staff Picks offer something for everyone to enjoy.
2025 Gift Guide
We know buying books for others can be overwhelming so we hope that this guide to our favorite books and movies of the year helps you figure out what to get for the people you love. Or, at the very least, we hope you find a new read that YOU will love!
2025 Staff Picks
You can keep up with our staff’s reading recommendations throughout the year by visiting What We’re Reading, What We’re Reading for Teens, and What We’re Reading Kids. Additionally, you can find our suggestions prominently displayed on the Library catalog home page. These resources provide a continually updated list of book recommendations for all ages, ensuring you always have fresh ideas for your next read. Whether you’re seeking captivating books for yourself, your teens, or your kids, our curated selections will inspire and guide your literary journey.
Adults
Biographies & Memoirs
Gossip lovers, dive into our favorite biographies and memoirs of 2025. Gorge yourself on gossip from a Facebook insider, a child star, and historical partier. Don’t worry, classic memoir and biography lovers still should have plenty to delight in! We have a weighty biography of an American celebrity, a politician’s reflections on life in the United States, and a reissue of a memoir from the 70s.
Fiction
Here are a few of our staff members’ favorite fiction books of 2025! You’ll find books from tenured authors like Fredrik Backman, Han Kang, and Taylor Jenkins Reid as well as stellar debuts from Emily St. James and Jane Yang. In these books, reality TV show stars attempt to survive an apocalypse, a group of lumberjacks hosts a gender fluid dance, a girl wants to marry a plane, and everyone is just trying to figure out how to exist in the world.
Graphic Novels
If you’re not sure where to begin with all of our glorious “Best Of… lists,” the graphic novels could be a good place to start. They have everything you could want: compelling and ridiculous storylines, gorgeous art, and the endorsement of your favorite library staff members!
Movies & TV
Even if you haven’t had the chance to . Check out our staff member’s favorite movies of the year. Enjoy live action remakes of kids classics (How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch), even more superhero movies (Superman & Toxic Avenger), and new favorites (Sinners and Weapons)!
Nonfiction: Lifestyle
If your favorite kind of book to binge from the library is anything related to cooking, relationships, art, or health, this list is for you! With cookbooks dedicated to salsas, advice book voiced by frogs, and health guides authored by folks who have experienced things first hand, there’s a little bit of something for everyone.
Nonfiction: Politics, Society & Culture
This year, we had so many favorite nonfiction books we created two lists. This list covers politics, society, and culture. Dive into serious reads, like El Akkad’s memoir-cum-political-exploration of his experience in Gaza or Jeff Hobbs’s chronicle of a family looking for home in America. Or read something silly and absurd, like the story of a couple lost at sea (Marriage at Sea) or the history of Lollapalooza.
Nonfiction: Science & Technology
This year, we had so many nonfiction faves we had to split our list in two. In this list, find the best of science and technology. In a world increasingly shaped by AI, climate change, and disease, we need books more than ever to help us make sense of the changing landscape. Learn about the ongoing tuberculosis health crisis (Everything is Tuberculosis), how environmental toxins might have helped create serial killers (Murderland), and the history of Sam Altman and Open AI (Empire of AI).
Romance
If there’s anything our romance-obsessed staff members know for certain, it’s that love can happen anywhere at anytime in any dimension. Enjoy romances between a villain and his assistant, players on the same DND team, and aliens and their abductee(?). Also travel to different kingdoms, space, or just your local lake.
Science Fiction & Fantasy
In 2025, so many science fiction authors have taken the opportunity to tackle emerging questions around AI and robotics. Silvia Park tackles sibling bonds between organic and robotic people (Luminous), Arkady Martine reimagines the smart house gone awry in (Rose/House), and Nnedi Okorafor explores the limits of technology related to disability and space (Death of the Author).
Suspense
Was 2025 not scary enough on it’s own? Do you need a little more tension in your life, or some manufactured horrors to distract you from some real life horror? Our lovely librarians have compiled some of the most suspenseful books around. Read on for creepy roommates, weird librarians, vampires, and complicated family dynamics.
Kids
Beginning & Transitional Readers
Learning to read is a difficult process and the transition from learning to read to reading for knowledge/comprehension is the next step. This list contains a few of our favorite in the “JZ and JE” selection of our catalog. JZ books are beginning readers with controlled vocabulary. JE books are the next level up – they might contain chapters or contain one flowing story ore have subject matter that is more complex than a picture book or JZ.
Fiction
We had eight different staff members send some of their favorite “j Fiction” titles. The list includes the newly named National Book Award winner for youth (Teacher of Nomad Land) and the surprise bonus entry in Jason Reynolds’ Track Series – Coach. Reynolds mentioned in a recent interview that he really was not going to write another book in this series, but his young fans wanted more and specifically wanted to know more about Coach.
Graphic Novels
Graphic Novels for kids has been an explosive market for publishers as well as authors and cartoonists alike. Anyone with a child around 8 years old already knows that the Dog Man series by Dav Pilkey has a new installment out. (Dog Man: Big Jim Believes). The list below provides a glimpse into some of our staff’s favorites that they read and were published in 2025 including The Cartoonists Club by Raina Telgemeier and the silly Cabin Head and Tree Head by Scott Campbell.
Nonfiction
Bees, whales, octopus, oh my! From tiny creatures to large, this list has a little something for most readers. There are also a small selection of biographies of some amazing humans on the list.
Picture Books
Our overwhelming favorite vote getter from 2025 is the very sly and funny Don’t Trust Fish by Neil Sharpson followed closely by the adorable Every Monday Mabel by Jashar Awan. See some beautiful art in several titles (Possible Caldecott contenders, we hope) such as: Cat Nap (Lies), Little Rebels (Morales), Fireworks (Burgess), and A Place for Us (Ransome).
Teens
Best of Teen
This year we loved so many Young Adult books that we had to split them into two lists. This list covers everything except SciFi/Fantasy– including nonfiction, suspense, romance, and historical fiction.
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Some things never get old and YA SciFi/Fantasy is certainly one of those things! This year, revisit the world of the Hunger Games in Suzanne Collins’s Sunrise on the Reaping. Or, indulge in all of your favorite YA fantasy tropes: teens with and without powers, prophecies galore, and of course, a touch of romance!