What were the books of 2025 that dazzled, challenged, and inspired us?

Storyteller main characters get a bad rap, but these books couldn’t be told any other way

The work of writing—or, at least, my writing—often feels unstructured, additional, shoved like packing peanuts around the non-negotiables: my day job, my family, my doctor appointments, trying to s…

A behind-the-scenes look at what Public Books editors and staff have been reading this month.

Reports of our demise might have been premature

Seven stories this week, all but one are fiction. All new authors except Avitus B. Carle, who seems to be a regular around these parts (and has a new book out) I’m trying out a new format and method f...

I’ve always been drawn to women in fiction who don’t always do the right thing. Toni Morrison’s Sula. Charlotte Brontë’s Bertha Rochester (and Jean Rhys’s Antoinette Cosway). Shirley Jackson’s Mary…

The Democratic Party should jettison its consultant class and move toward a local-membership model that would help to rejuvenate civic life across the country.