One of the “trends” in the Bookstagram community on Instagram that I like is “Ten Before the End,” in which readers share the ten books they plan (hope) to read before the end of the year. You might see a stack of recent buzz books or books that have been on their TBR list for too long and, dang it, they’re going to read them before 2026!

There are so many books I want to read – new releases, “recent” books from 2024 and earlier in 2025, and a few backlist titles that I just never got around to reading or I didn’t learn about until recently. So I thought this concept might help me focus my reading energy in November-December and get some of these books read.

Here are the ten I’ve chosen. I probably won’t manage to read all of them since the holiday season is approaching, but dammit, I’m gonna try!

2025 Releases

A Guardian and a Thief – Megha Majumdar (Oct. 14)

I loved Megha Majumdar’s first book, A Burning, so her new book was on my “most anticipated” list. Set in Kolkata in the near future, it’s the story of Ma, her young daughter, and her elderly father as they prepare to leave for the U.S. to reunite with Ma’s husband. When her purse with their immigration documents is stolen, Ma is determined to find the thief. The narrative then alternates between those two characters’ desperate attempts to improve their families’ lives.  

Becoming Sarah – Diane Botnick (Oct. 28)

Sarah is one of the handful of babies born in Auschwitz who survived. She has no memory of her mother or her first three years in the death camp. Eventually, she leaves Europe for the U.S. Untethered to a family or a past, she creates her life as she goes. The heart of the novel depicts Sarah’s life as the matriarch of an American family and the way her traumatic beginnings affect her daughters and granddaughters.

The Book of Guilt – Catherine Chidgey (Sept. 16)

Chidgey has become one of my favorite authors in the last few years. Pet (2023) and The Axeman’s Carnival (2024) are riveting stories of young women caught up in difficult circumstances. Both are distinguished by Chidgey’s insight into relationships (friendship in Pet and marriage in Carnival) and sharp sociocultural commentary. The Book of Guilt is an alternate history of the decades after WWII; it focuses on 13-year-old triplets who are the last residents of a home for boys in the English countryside. They are being protected from a mysterious illness and dream of leaving for another home by the sea. In time they discover the truth of their upbringing and the society which they hope to rejoin.  

She’s Under Here: A Love Story, A Horror Story, a Reckoning – Karen Palmer (Sept. 16)

I’ve been following Karen Palmer on Facebook for a long time and knew she was working on a memoir. Now it’s out and it sounds horrifying. Back in 1989, Palmer and her husband quit their jobs, pulled their kids out of school, and tried to disappear. Palmer’s ex-husband had been stalking and threatening them for years and had even kidnapped their three-year-old daughter. She’s Under Here describes her effort to save herself and her family and to create a new life.

Mona’s Eyes – Thomas Schlesser (Translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle) (Aug. 26)

Mona’s Eyes is one of those rare books in translation that catches fire and becomes a bestseller. Last week, Barnes & Noble announced that it was a finalist for Best Book of the Year. When 10-year-old Parisian Mona experiences an episode of temporary blindness, doctors can’t figure out why. But they believe she may lose her vision permanently. So her grandfather, Henry, decides to take her to a museum one day a week to expose her to some of the greatest artworks in the world. Naturally, she learns about more than just art as their relationship deepens and Henry shares his wisdom with her.

So Far Gone – Jess Walter (June 10)

Jess Walter has written one terrific book after another since 2001. I discovered him with his fifth book, The Financial Lives of the Poets, which I loved. But most people know him from his huge bestseller Beautiful Ruins (2012). When So Far Gone came out last summer, I grabbed a copy, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, which is ridiculous. Rhys Kinnick has bailed out and decided to live off the grid in a cabin out in the woods. But when his daughter goes missing, he’s forced to re-enter a world he considers insane to search for her. Fortunately for Rhys and us, he’s aided by his ex-girlfriend, a retired detective, and his only friend. The situation is further complicated by the fact that a rural militia is threatening his grandchildren.

Fagin the Thief – Allison Epstein (Feb. 25)

I’ve been a Dickens reader since college, where I took a class taught by Dr. Harry Stone, a well-known Dickens scholar. I read Oliver Twist when I was younger but re-read it for this class, along with Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, Dombey and Son, Hard Times, A Tale of Two Cities, and his final, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. So I was intrigued when I learned about Fagin the Thief, in which Allison Epstein provides the dastardly Fagin, the leader of a gang of young pickpockets, with a back story that would bring him fully to life. I intended to read it much sooner, but I kept postponing it because real life has felt sufficiently Dickensian since January. Fall seems like the right time to revisit the denizens of Victorian London’s grimy, fog-shrouded streets.

Backlist Books

The Hebrew Teacher: Three Novellas – Maya Arad (2018, English translation by Jessica Cohen 2024)

I started hearing good things about The Hebrew Teacher, the first of Arad’s eleven books to be translated into English, last year. In it she examines the lives of three Israeli women in the U.S. Ilana teaches Hebrew at a Midwestern college but finds herself feeling threatened by a young Hebrew literature professor with different political views. Miriam travels to Silicon Valley to visit her son and his family and finds that everything is not as she expected. Efrat attempts to support her middle school daughter but makes a serious lapse in judgment when she jumps into the social media fray. The Hebrew Teacher won the National Jewish Book Award for Hebrew Fiction in Translation in 2024. (Other notable winners include The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden for Debut Fiction, Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari for Fiction, and 10/7: 100 Human Stories by Lee Yaron for Book of the Year.) Arad’s latest novel, Happy New Years, was published in August.

In Memoriam – Alice Winn (2023)

I probably don’t need to say much about this acclaimed debut novel set during WWI, since it was very popular in 2023 and 2024. It’s the story of Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood, classmates at a boarding school in the English countryside. When WWI breaks out, Gaunt, who is half-German, is encouraged to enlist by his parents to counter the burgeoning wave of anti-German prejudice. When Sidney joins up too, they find themselves together at the Western Front. From what I’ve read in reviews and social media posts, In Memoriam is a love story set against the horrors of war that has already achieved the status of a modern classic.

Light Skin Gone to Waste: Stories – Toni Ann Johnson (2022)

This collection of interconnected stories, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction in 2022, depicts the lives of Philip and Velma Arrington, an educated and sophisticated Black couple who decide to leave their Bronx apartment and rent a house in a working-class town outside New York City in 1962. The stories, most of which are set in the 1960s and 1970s, follow the Arringtons and their daughters as they face a range of struggles as they move up professionally and economically. While there are some sociocultural changes as Livia and Madeline become adults, racism is omnipresent, either explicitly or as a potential issue. Johnson will publish a sequel, But Where’s Home: A Novella and Stories, on February 10.