Summary
Overview
Gilbert Cruz hosts a holiday gift guide episode with Book Review editors Jumana Khatib and Sadie Stein, discussing the best books of 2025 and providing tailored recommendations for every type of person on your gift list. They share their personal reading preferences, highlight standout titles from the year's 100 Notable Books list, and play a Family Feud-style game about reading habits and preferences.
Reading for Pleasure: What the Editors Love
The editors reveal their personal reading preferences and what draws them to certain books. Jumana gravitates toward translated fiction and narratives featuring characters in distress, particularly avoiding bad dialogue. Sadie's eclectic tastes span from books about dolls and ghosts to interiors and crafts, though she admits to disliking novels about mothers and children. Both editors emphasize how their professional reading differs from their personal choices.
- Jumana loves translated fiction and books about narrators in lowercase distress, but can't tolerate bad dialogue
- Sadie enjoys books about dolls, ghosts, crafts, and interiors, with good food descriptions being important
- Sadie admits she doesn't love apocalypses or novels about mothers and children
- Both editors read eclectically enough to 'break an algorithm'
" I will read any book that doesn't have a plot. I will read any book about a narrator in some kind of lowercase d distress. "
Standout Books of 2025: The Colony and Perfection
The editors discuss two compelling translated novels that made their year's best list. Jumana raves about The Colony by Annika Norlin, a Swedish debut about a burnt-out journalist who observes a mysterious group in the woods, praising it for rekindling her childlike joy in reading. Sadie champions Perfection by Vincenzo Letronico, a reimagining of Georges Perec's Things that examines millennial materialism through a couple's lives in Berlin and Lisbon, though she notes it hits uncomfortably close to home for some readers.
- The Colony is a Swedish debut novel about a journalist observing a mysterious commune in the woods
- The book reminded Jumana of why reading is exciting and gave her childlike joy
- Perfection reimagines a 1960s French novel for the millennial generation, examining materialism object by object
- The book has become ubiquitous on social media, spotted everywhere on the F train
" This was the kind of book that reminded me of why reading is exciting. And I'm not even like, I felt that kind of I made contact with that childlike sense of joy reading this book. "
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