OBD 100 Notable Books of 2025 New York Times Book Review - Adult

"The critically acclaimed author of the "crazily enjoyable" (The New York Times) Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war. Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate...

"Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner . . . in Chinatown. The bloody messes don't bother her, not when she's already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train. Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater. Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. . . . Cora tries to ignore the rising dread in her stomach, even when she and her weird co-workers...

"A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice. A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who...

Combining dark humor, memorable characters, and sharp social commentary, the Colony is a moving story about love, community, and the power we have over others and that they have over us.

"G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him. When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself...

"In 1941, SS Major Hans Lichtblau is put in charge of a research program that uses concentration camp prisoners as guinea pigs, but also as lab assistants, organized into a unit known as the Kommando Gardenia. The experiments are conducted as part of the infamous 'final solution to the Jewish problem' and with the Nazi advance in Russia and the colonization of the Eastern territories as the backdrop. The Kommando includes Shlomo Libowitz, born in...

"The notoriously eccentric Lord Christopher Eden is a "man of unusual make" and even more unusual habits: he wears pastels year round, prefers to live as far from the prying eyes and ears of the ton as possible, and wholeheartedly prefers the comfortable company of his childhood cook and aged butler, Plinkton, to any swarm of servants that would normally befit a man of his station. His penchant for privacy makes for a pleasant, if occasionally lonely...

"In a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and blight, Ma, her two year old daughter Mishti, and her elderly father Dadu are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma's husband in the home he has been building for them in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After procuring long-awaited passports and visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America. But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma's purse, with all the...

"In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie,...

"The Crucible meets The Virgin Suicides in this haunting debut about five sisters in a small village in 18th century England whose neighbors are convinced they're turning into dogs. Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbed to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking,...