The best books of 2025 so far

We Do Not Part, is Nobel Prize winner Han Kang’s latest novel. It starts with a curious premise: A woman, Kyungha, sets on a mission from Seoul to Jeju island on behalf of her artist friend, Inseon, who has badly cut her hand in an accident. The task is to feed her bird Ama before it dies.

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Kyungha arrives unwell on Jeju in the middle of a snowstorm and whilst in a fever dream, she looks back to the story of Inseon’s mother and the tragedy of the Jeju uprising and massacre, where 30,000 residents were murdered.

A poetic and political novel, We Do Not Part ultimately traverses trauma, loss, reparations and the desperate need not to forget the past.

I love that feeling of dropping all responsibilities because of the compulsive need to read. Two memoirs that I have satisfyingly raced through this year are Ali Mau’s No Words for This and Jacinda’s Arden’s A Different Kind of Power.

Both contain vivid and evocative descriptions of childhood, pioneering careers as women in their field and how those experiences have led them to where they are today. Knowing there are incoming revelations kept the pages flicking, however the distinctive and authentic voice of each author gave a sense they were speaking directly to me.

On the Calculation of Volumes I & II are the first of a VII volume series by Danish author, Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland.

Belgian-English antiquarian book dealer Tara Selter lives in the north of France. While on a work trip, she wakes on the morning of November 19 to find herself living a repeat of the day before. It doesn’t stop.

With each repeat of November 18, she tries to solve this problem. First, returning home to her husband Tomas - but an emotional distance becomes apparent as she moves forward, while he stays the same.

In Book II, she’s on the move - searching for different seasons, create her own year. The books are repetitive and domestic, yet hypnotically compelling. They comment on loneliness, consumption and self. Volume I was shortlisted for the International Booker and Volume III’s translation will be with us by the end of the year.

The South is a quiet, atmospheric family drama and the first of a planned quartet, by twice Booker-longlisted Tash Aw. Jay, his parents and siblings have traveled from Kuala Lumpur to their drought-stricken family land in Southern Malaysia.

An intimate romance between city-educated Jay and farm worker Chuan, unsettled family relationships and distant memories are drawn together through different points of view and deceptively simple storytelling. The past and present are visited as two families are brought together as they are on the cusp of great change in a time of financial, political and environmental unrest.

I’m not sure when future titles in the epic are due to be published, but I’m looking forward to revisiting both the Lim family and Aw’s atmospheric writing.

Tina Makereti’s This Compulsion in Us covers 15 years of creative non-fiction essays.

Makereti’s voice is searching and reflective with new writing threading this body of work together. Parihaka, pūrākau, Mana wāhine Māori, whare taonga, Māori literature are analysed and tied into the deeply personal - whakapapa, whānau, whenua me te tinana.

While writing has also taken Makereti all around the world - I feel there’s always a reach towards home. This is a collection to be dipped into and read over again.

Jenna Todd (Kāi Tahu) is the manager at Mt Eden’s Time Out Bookstore in Auckland, New Zealand. She's a book reviewer for Radio New Zealand's Nine to Noon and 95bFM, and co-hosts book podcast Papercuts. She currently sits on the boards of Auckland Writers Festival and Auckland University Press.