The Stackies 2025 Finalists
The Stacks community has spoken, here are our nominees for the best books of the year!
The nominations have been tallied and your 2025 finalists for The Stackies are here. Thanks to everyone who nominated books, we had our largest turnout for nominations ever, and that is reflected in the wide ranging list of books below. The finalists are the five books that received the most votes in each category.
Voting will open up on January 6th for all paid subscribers to Unstacked and run through January 12th. The winners of this year’s Stackies will be announced on Friday, January 16th.
Without any further ado, the nominees are…
Dominion by Addie C. Citchens
The Devil Three Times by Rickey Fayne
Homeseeking by Karissa Chen
The Lilac People by Milo Todd
Woodworking by Emily St. James
Audition by Katie Kitamura
Dominion by Addie C. Citchens
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
These Heathens by Mia McKenzie
The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
Black in Blues: How a Color Tells a Story of My People by Imani Perry
A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children by Haley Cohen Gilliland
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone
Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success by Jeff Hiller
Matriarch: A Memoir by Tina Knowles
Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything: A Memoir by Alyson Stoner
Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir by Martha S. Jones
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okafor
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins-Reid
Back After This by Linda Holmes
Can’t Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan
A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke by Adriana Herrera
A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna
The Bewitching by Silvia Morena Garcia
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
The Grand Paloma Resort by Cleyvis Natera
King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe by Mahogany L. Browne
Exit Zero: Stories by Marie Helene-Bertino
Show Don’t Tell: Stories by Curtis Sittenfeld
Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories by Torrey Peters
Where Are You Really From: Stories by Elaine Hsieh Chou
Dead and Alive: Essays by Zadie Smith
Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
The People’s Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith
Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service by Michael Lewis
You Didn’t Hear This from Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip by Kelsey McKinney
City Summer, Country Summer by Kiese Laymon
Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown by Candace Fleming
Oathbound by Tracy Deonn
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
This Thing of Ours by Frederick Joseph
Defiant: The Story of Robert Smalls by Rob Edwards
Gaysians by Michael Curato
It Rhymes with Takei by George Takei, Steven Scott, and Justin Eisinger
Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology: A Graphic Novel by Angela Hseih
Spent: A Comic Novel by Alison Bechdel
Doggerel: Poems by Reginald Dwayne Betts
Helen of Troy, 1993: Poems by Maria Zoccola
The Idea of an Entire Life: Poems by Billy-Ray Belcourt
The People’s Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith
Scorched Earth: Poems by Tiana Clark
Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa
Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno
Solitaria by Eliana Alves Cruz
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica
We Do Not Part by Han Kang
Audition by Katie Kitamura
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley
The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry
Hot Air by Marcy Dermansky
Moderation by Elaine Castillo
The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories by Torrey Peters
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
These Heathens by Mia McKenzie
Woodworking by Emily St. James
Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success by Jeff Hiller
The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett
Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson
Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart
Woodworking by Emily St. James
Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Antidote by Karen Russell
The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism by Eve L. Ewing
The People’s Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith
There is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone
Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service by Michael Lewis
Christopher’s Books (San Francisco, CA)
Loyalty Bookstores (Washington DC)
Resist Booksellers (Petersburg, VA)
Shop at MATTER (Denver, CO)
Women & Children First (Chicago, IL)
That’s it, that’s the list. You’ve got one month to read the books and form your opinions. Voting for the winners in all categories starts for subscribers of Unstacked on January 6th.
Fantastic! Nonfiction are basically my top reads this year!
I've read a total of...four books on this list this year, but I'm excited to see the four I read - I genuinely loved every one of them and am happy to see others did too! I'm super looking forward to reading all these other ones. This gives me the same dopamine hits that the idea of the GR awards does, but like, way way better.