Dear readers, Here at the Book Review our sheepdog impulses are on full display this time of year. We weren’t content to merely publish lists of the year’s 10 Best Books and 100 Notable Books. We also felt the need to round up our favorite hidden gems of 2025 — the books we filibuster about at parties. My pick for the list? It had to be “Eye of the Monkey,” by the Hungarian writer Krisztina Toth and translated by Ottilie Mulzet. It’s one of the most elegant and disorienting novels I’ve read in a long time, a sort of dystopian diorama that shows how living under autocratic rule infects every corner of our lives. I also loved “The Bombshell,” by Darrow Farr, about a French teenager who becomes sympathetic to her Corsican separatist kidnappers. It has the gloss and sun-soaked appeal of a novel you might reach for on a vacation, and I was genuinely surprised by the ending. If you would like to dissociate from icy, frigid environs and revisit what it feels like to be an adolescent hopped up on newly discovered politics, this is a great choice. See you next week. Like this email? We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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