DECEMBER 10, 2025

By Anthony Jeselnik

Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Ryan Pfluger, Publishers

I'm a stand-up comedian. Not a book critic. I don’t want to be a book critic. And writing about books is really fucking hard. I don’t want to recap the plots or write shit like “languorous prose.” I can’t even remember character names, much less general themes, and I have zero interest in “what the author is trying to say.” That said, I read a lot of fucking books, and I particularly enjoy reading fiction as soon as it is released to the public. It gives me a pleasure I can only describe as watching a film the Friday it hits theaters, as opposed to two weeks later once the critics and the public at large have weighed in.

As I’m writing this piece, I have read 51 novels that were released in 2025. I chose what to read either based on the description written by the publisher, or because I recognized the author’s name and enjoyed their previous work. For the past five years, I’ve kept a list of everything I’ve read and then gone back through and created a top-ten list of novels I’ve read from that year for social media to admire and/or make fun of. This year, I’ve graduated to publishing my list on Vulture, behind a paywall. So here are my ten favorite novels of the year — all novels that I put down and thought, Well, that was fucking awesome.

By Kathryn VanArendonk

Photo: Berlin Flores/Block Party

Comedian Anthony Jeselnik has been quietly building a reputation as a go-to source for book recommendations for years. It began in 2015 with the launch of his show on the NFL Podcast Network. During the podcast, he and his friend Gregg Rosenthal included weekly recommendations segments, which tended to focus on books. “It almost became a competition between us to see who would have the cooler recommendation,” Jeselnik says. They often included timeless books (“We would recommend Lolita or something”), but over time, Jeselnik has become more interested in debut authors and books of the moment. “I compare it to watching Saturday Night Live live as opposed to on DVR,” he says. “There’s just something to it. It’s a conversation starter.”

When his podcast went on indefinite hiatus last year, Jeselnik wanted to keep recommending books, especially ones that might appeal to a more male, more literary audience open to reading fiction. Every week in 2025, he’s read a new book and featured a “New Book Tuesday” post on his Instagram to promote whatever he’d chosen. “I’d be reading brand-new authors, and commenters would say, ‘It’s cool — this guy he’s talking about works in a bookstore, and it’s his first novel,’” Jeselnik says. “I enjoyed that sort of thing.”

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