Our 2025 reading list just got significantly longer, courtesy of Chicago’s literary experts. Every year since 1999, the librarians at the Chicago Public Library (CPL) have sifted through a heap of the year’s most exciting new releases to curate their definitive Best Books of the Year ranking. The result is a highly selective and essential cultural syllabus that immediately places you on the city’s literary cutting edge.

The lists span three main categories—kids, teens and adults—that cover a swath of genres ranging from memoir and manga to sci-fi and books in Spanish. All titles are available through the library’s catalog, with many offered as e-books, audiobooks and accessible editions. These titles are already flying off the shelves, so place those holds now or pick up a copy of your ow

See Full Page