If you’re after something worth reading on your break this year, 2025 has delivered. From literary heavy-hitters to murder mysteries and music memoirs, the current airport bookshelves offer too much choice for your suitcase’s own good.
Take Florence Knapp’s The Names, for instance: one of the year’s most talked-about debuts, it’s clever, compelling and the perfect kind of novel to get lost in while on holiday. Terry Deary, best known for Horrible Histories, meanwhile, penned a crime novel earlier this year which is practically tailor made for tearing through at the beach – and if you are yet to get stuck into Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count, now is your moment.
Still searching? Here is our pick of all best books of the year to enjoy this summer…
Men in Love by Irvine Welsh
If you’ve spent the past 30 years wondering what happened to Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie after Trainspotting, Men in Love takes you on a dark journey from the late-80s and beyond to answer that question.
Jonathan Cape, £20
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adichie’s first novel in over a decade explores the lives of four women facing turning points. Intimate and emotionally layered, it’s a meditation on identity, love and the personal cost of truth
Fourth Estate, £20
Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell
As one woman’s partner keeps vanishing, another is drawn in by a stranger claiming to know her dead husband in this fiendishly clever and tense read. As usual with a Lisa Jewell thriller, you won’t be able to stop turning the pages.
Century, £20
The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
After their father’s sudden death, four siblings reunite and confront old wounds and new tensions. Set between London and Italy, it’s a rich, emotionally charged family saga perfect for summer reading.
Doubleday, £20
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
A millennial couple living the “dream” slowly unravel in this razor-sharp novel about digital life, disillusionment and hollow politics. Perfection captures an entire generation’s quiet crisis with painstaking acuity.
Fitzcarraldo, £12.99
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Set during the 1980s space shuttle era, this love story between two women working for Nasa is a textbook summer read from the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones and the Six.
Hutchinson Heinemann, £20
Actually, I’m a Murderer by Terry Deary
Four strangers. One train. One secret assassin. Terry Deary’s twisty, retro-set mystery – his debut adult novel – is full of dark humour, clever reveals and irresistible pacing. Pure crime fiction fun.
Constable, £18.99
The Names by Florence Knapp
What’s in a name? Quite a lot, if this debut novel is anything to go by. Opening in 1987 when a mother is choosing what to call her son, the story charts three alternative lives unfolding according to the name she picks.
Phoenix, £16.99
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
This deserved Woman’s Prize nominee follows a British-Asian academic as she visits Iraq to deradicalise Isis brides – and is one of the funniest books of the year. Based on the author’s experiences, this debut balances big themes with unexpected wit.
W&N, £16.99
The Pretender by Jo Harkin
An ordinary boy becomes a royal pawn in this gripping 15th-century political drama. The Pretender is smart historical fiction with the emotional pull of Demon Copperhead and the scale of Wolf Hall.
Bloomsbury Circus, £18.99
A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant
When a man dies, retired Miss Hortense – Jamaican émigré and amateur sleuth – springs into action. A warm, witty mystery that introduces a brilliant new voice in crime fiction.
Baskerville, £16.99
John & Paul by Ian Leslie
This fresh take on Lennon and McCartney digs into their songs to explore their creative chemistry and complicated friendship. Insightful and original, it’s a standout read in the overcrowded Beatles bookshelf.
Faber, £25
Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
Taking his reader on a journey from Ecuador to India and Canada, Macfarlane makes the case that rivers are living entities. Profound, lyrical, and deeply eye-opening, it will change the way you think about nature.
Hamish Hamilton, £25
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
A former Facebook exec lifts the lid on the chaos inside Big Tech in this gripping memoir of power, privilege and idealism gone wrong. You can see why Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want the world to read it.
Macmillan, £20
