As 2025 draws to a close, we are very excited to reflect back on a year full of riveting, important and rewarding reads. This year thirteen fiction and non-fiction books have been selected across Swift and Forum as Books of the Year.
Hostage by Eli Sharabi, the first memoir published by an Israeli hostage and published to coincide with the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks, was a standout title, receiving widespread praise and attention. Bloomberg called it ‘A testament to the human spirit’, whilst the Telegraph described it as ‘moving, compelling and deeply harrowing’. It featured on The Times 100 Must-Read Books of 2025 and was noted as being ‘extraordinary’ by The Times’ Josh Glancy.
Another exceptional title for Swift was Alexander Starritt’s Drayton and Mackenzie, being listed as a Bloomberg, GQ and Financial Times Book of the Year. Kate Atkinson at the Daily Express called it ‘a busy, rumbunctious, moving tale’, and The Times considered it ‘one of the finest accounts of 21st-century British life’.
The Bloomberg Book of the Year roundup also included ‘a much-needed focus of hope for the country’ in the shape of Jeremy Hunt’s Can We Be Great Again?, an analysis of Britain’s place in the world, now and in the century ahead. Tina Gaudoin’s The Incidental Feminist, a close-up look at the life of Margaret Thatcher, also received widespread attention, receiving a spot in The Spectator and the Daily Mail’s Book of the Year roundups. Julie Burchill described it as a ‘sparky, seditious re-examination of Margaret Thatcher’. On a similar note, Iain Dale’s Margaret Thatcher also featured as Mark Mason’s Book of the Year. He wrote for The Spectator: ‘Margaret Thatcher is aimed at those too young to remember the Iron Lady’s time in office. Please God let some of them read it and learn what can happen when a nation at least tries to balance the books.’
A Beginner’s Guide to Dying by Simon Boas was released in paperback this year and found its place in the Church Times’ Favourite Books of 2025 alongside Bijan Omrani’s God is an Englishman, which was described by William Nye as having ‘so much detail and insight’, and as ‘superb’ by the Telegraph.
David Hendon’s Pots of Gold was also chosen as a Telegraph Book of the Year: ‘Few guides to snooker are more comprehensive, passionate or personal’ – just in time for the swiftly approaching 2026 Snooker World Championships!
David McCloskey’s The Seventh Floor had a strong start to the year, being listed in The Times Books to Look Out for in 2025. It had an equally strong finish, featuring in The Times Best Books of 2025, with McCloskey being described as ‘a novelist of genuine ambition’ by James Owen. Another Swift thriller to find its way onto The Times Best Books of 2025 list is Scott Turow’s Presumed Guilty, which John Dugdale praised as being ‘superb’.
Swift’s reach spread far and wide this year, with Russell Shorto’s Taking Manhattan claiming a spot in the New Zealand Listener’s 100 Best Books of 2025, where it was described as a ‘lively history which argues that rather than being England’s hostile takeover of a Dutch settlement, New York created something new, tying the British Empire to American values and history.’
Lastly, our Forum imprint also received success in the Books of the Year category, with Nigel Biggar’s Reparations and The War on Science edited by Lawrence Krauss. The Daily Mail described Reparations as ‘impressive and illuminating’ whilst the Telegraph insisted that ‘activists everywhere ought to read this polemic, and start again’. Lawrence Krauss’s collection of essays by a group of prominent scholars who detail ongoing efforts to impose ideological restrictions on science and scholarship throughout western society was featured in The Future Cities Project’s Best Books of 2025, and described as ‘a passionate expose’ by Sue Davies.