Chosen by our members themselves, these most-circulated titles of 2025 celebrate the curiosity, passion, and wide-ranging tastes of the Athenaeum community. From transporting novels to illuminating works of history and memoir, this list honors the shared conversations, discoveries, and moments of delight sparked by the books our members loved most.

Top 12 Fiction Books

  • James: A Novel by Percival Everett PZ4.E9424
  • Intermezzo : a novel by Sally Rooney PZ4.R77533
  • Tell me everything : a novel by Elizabeth Strout PZ4.S9186
  • Great big beautiful life by Emily Henry PZ4.H5219
  • The lion women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali PZ4.K1493
  • The ghosts of Rome by Joseph O’Connor PZ4.O1857
  • Dream count : a novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie PZ4.A225
  • Best detective stories of the year PZ1.B47
  • Our evenings : a novel by Alan Hollinghurst PZ4.H738
  • Midnight in Vienna by Jane Thynne PZ4.T56
  • Three days in June by Anne Tyler PZ4.T979
  • Midnight and blue by Ian Rankin PZ4.R1944

Top 12 Nonfiction Books

  • Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner by Natalie Dykstra CT275.G199
  • What I ate in one year : (and related thoughts) by Stanley Tucci TX649.T83
  • Kingmaker : Pamela Harriman’s astonishing life of power, seduction, and intrigue by Sonia Purnell CT275.H3709
  • The golden road : how Ancient India transformed the world by William Dalrymple DS423 .D35
  • After lives : on biography and the mysteries of the human heart by Megan Marshall CT275.M3764
  • The loves of my life : a sex memoir by Edmund White CT275.W53396
  • Rot : an imperial history of the Irish famine by Padraic X. Scanlan DA950.7 .S34
  • The book forger : the true story of a literary crime that fooled the world by Joseph Hone Z1024 .H66
  • British dandies : engendering scandal and fashioning a nation by Dominic Janes GT733 .J36
  • Careless people : a cautionary tale of power, greed, and lost idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams HM743.F33 W95
  • Rick Steves Italy by Rick Steves DG416 .S75
  • Baskerville : the biography of a typeface by Simon Garfield Z250.5.B37 G37

Top 10 eBooks

  • James: A Novel by Percival Everett
  • Great big beautiful life by Emily Henry
  • The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
  • Long Island Compromise: A Novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
  • The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
  • Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell
  • The Hunter by Tana French
  • Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten
  • Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
  • Tell me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Top 10 Audiobooks

  • James: A Novel by Percival Everett
  • Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten
  • Tell me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
  • The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
  • Great big beautiful life by Emily Henry
  • Orbital by Samantha Harvey
  • We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
  • A Marriage at Sea by Sophia Elmhirst
  • All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
  • The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Check out our catalog to grab these books for yourself, or read more about eBooks and audiobooks at the Boston Athenaeum.