As the year draws to a close, it’s high time to remember all the good things that happened in 2025. Once those two seconds are over, console yourself by remembering that while this year might not have been the best ever, there were plenty of weird and funny things that happened, which is better than nothing. There was no shortage of unusual book-related stories: An author briefly worked as a model; artificial intelligence recommended nonexistent books and lent its voice to Melania Trump’s memoir; and a fan helpfully reminded George R.R. Martin that he is old. When it comes to the best books of the year, we’ve already got you covered, but for a trip down memory lane that won’t leave you lying prone on the floor and groaning, here are our nine favorite book stories of 2025.
January 10: Patrick Radden Keefe, author of the books Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, has everything: a law degree, a bunch of articles in the New Yorker, the respect of his peers, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. It’s not fair. Jealous fellow journalists might be hoping that the guy at least has an unfortunate mug, but no. It turns out that the author moonlighted as a model for preppy clothes retailer J. Crew, and looked good doing it. “They couldn’t get Daniel Craig, and they were like, all right, who’s next on our list?” Keefe joked to the New York Times. Great. So in addition to being photogenic, he’s funny, too.
January 13: Books and professional football intersect more often than you might think. Who can forget Green Bay Packers halfback and kicker Paul Hornung, who attributed his performance in the 1961 NFL championship game to a careful reading of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run? OK, that didn’t really happen, but this year, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown sent Jim Murphy’s Inner Excellence up the bestseller charts after a camera caught Brown reading it on the sidelines during a playoff game. It must have helped—the Birds won the game, and, the following month, the Super Bowl.
March 31: James Patterson has a thing for collaborating with unlikely writing partners—he’s worked on novels with former President Bill Clinton and country music icon Dolly Parton, and he has one in the works with actor Viola Davis. This year, he also announced that he’s working on a novel with a Gen-Z favorite: MrBeast, the YouTuber who delights in giving away vast amounts of money to people who can make it through sometimes fiendishly ornate challenges. Zoomers can look forward to the novel, as yet untitled, next year; we only hope it will be bussin’ and bring the rizz and not just be highkey mid. (Did we do that right?)
May 1: Former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick just can’t catch a break. His new gig leading the University of North Carolina football team is not going as Tar Heels fans would hope, and if he loses the job and gets a lucrative contract buyout, he’ll be forced to add much more money to his already considerable wealth. He had something else to complain about this spring: In a televised interview that he hoped would promote his new book, The Art of Winning, the big meanies at CBS insisted on asking the coach, who is in his 70s, about his relationship with his girlfriend, nearly 50 years his junior. A clip of Belichick’s girlfriend saying “We’re not talking about this” went viral, angering the coach but delighting millions of still–bitter New York Jets fans.
May 21: Bibliophiles always look forward to summer reading roundups from their favorite media outlets, hoping to find something to take to the beach when the weather gets warm. Unfortunately, Marco Buscaglia did not understand the assignment in a roundup he wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times, which contained several books that do not actually exist, including The Collector’s Piece by Taylor Jenkins Reid and The Longest Day by Rumaan Alam. Buscaglia apologized and said he used artificial intelligence to generate the list, but, honestly, we’re not giving up on AI just yet. Stay tuned for our own roundup of 2026 books, including The Peaceful and Uneventful Night by Stephen King, Reminders of Forgetting to Remember That It Ended With Them by Colleen Hoover, and Bow Down to Your New Robot Overlords, Worthless Human, by Mitch Albom.
May 22: Speaking of AI, shortly after the fake book roundup story broke, Melania Trump announced that there will be an audiobook version of her memoir, Melania, which, great for her, would give her something to keep her busy while her husband decides which countries he next wants to hit with 10,000% tariffs. But no! The audiobook, the first lady said, would be narrated by an AI version of herself, “created under Mrs. Trump’s direction and supervision.” The news was heartbreaking to actors with Slovenian accents who’d been hoping for their big break, but given that a Kirkus critic called Trump’s memoir “slick” and “vacuous,” AI might have been the right call after all.
June 2: If you’re craving a nice big helping of frozen yogurt and would like to pretend that it’s still 2007, Pinkberry is a logical choice. The chain also evidently has a fan in author Emily Henry, who earlier this year partnered with the brand to promote her novel Great Big Beautiful Life with a sweepstakes in which readers could win an autographed copy of the book, Pinkberry “swag,” and gift cards to the dessert chain. Make ours a chocolate hazelnut with mocha sauce and yogurt chips, please! We’d also like some of Emily Henry’s money if that’s not too much trouble.
August 21: It would appear that some Game of Thrones fans have decided their era of politely waiting is over. Readers of George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels have been clamoring for the latest installment, The Winds of Winter, for nearly 15 years, and at the Seattle Worldcon convention, one of them said to the author, “Here’s the thing. George, you’re not going to be around for much longer,” then asked if he had considered giving the reins to the series to another author. It was the rudest question posed to an author since Harper Lee got a postcard in 2012 saying, “You will die soon. When do we get 2 Kill 2 Mockingbirds?” Martin declined to answer the question, which means nuclear winter might well arrive before The Winds of Winter.
October 20: It’s been a tough year, so we might as well end on something sweet. Pop star Dua Lipa and actor Callum Turner have been one of the world’s most enviable celebrity couples, and Turner revealed in an interview that the two first bonded after realizing they were simultaneously reading the same book: Hernan Diaz’s Trust, which won the Kirkus Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. (Does this mean Kirkus might have been responsible for their romance? We’re going to go ahead and say yes and not offer any supporting evidence.) This news should give single readers hope: You could just be one book away from finding the love of your life—if you are a celebrity multimillionaire with unfathomably good looks. Otherwise, you might as well just conspicuously read the latest Patrick Radden Keefe book at your local Pinkberry.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
Photo credits, above from left: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Prime Video, Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Peabody Awards, Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, Lester Cohen/Getty Images for the Recording Academy, John Shearer/WireImage, Mitchell Leff/Getty Images, Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images, Arturo Holmes/Getty Images
