7am The best books of 2025
Dec 22, 2025
Marieke Hardy, writer and sharp literary critic, shares her five favourite books of 2025. She highlights a sprawling friendship-and-love saga, a memoir grappling with sudden loss, a tense road-trip debut about toxic masculinity, a book on Jewish identity after Gaza, and a provocative collection about internet-era violence and isolation.
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Lives And Landscape Decay Together
- Eric Puchner's Dream State traces characters and climate change across decades to show how lives and environment deteriorate together.
- Marieke Hardy says the novel subtly uses cli-fi to mirror personal change and aging rather than preach about climate collapse.
Grief Mapped Through Place And Ritual
- Geraldine Brooks' Memorial Days uses personal grief to explore rituals and cultural approaches to mourning.
- Marieke Hardy notes Brooks travels to Flinders Island and studies history and First Nations practices to make sense of loss.
A Friend's Novel That Demanded Three Days
- Vijay Karana's debut The Passenger Seat came to Marieke from a friend she knew at Triple J and surprised her with its power.
- She read it in three days and called its final chapter an extraordinary editorial choice that intensified the book's impact.
