There are loads of exciting titles being published this year (see our full 2025 lookahead for a more comprehensive list), with new novels by Ali Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and newly anointed Nobel laureate Han Kang among the books I’m most excited about. Zadie Smith is also back in October with a new collection of essays, while Bill Gates and Pope Francis are set to publish their life stories. And I suspect that it won’t just be teenagers who will be itching to get their hands on the latest Hunger Games novel – a prequel that tells the backstory of beloved character Haymitch Abernathy – when it comes out in March. Meanwhile, romantasy readers don’t have long to wait for the next book in Rebecca Yarros’s bestselling Fourth Wing series – Onyx Storm will be published on 21 January.
Yarros fans may have further delights in store this year – a Fourth Wing TV series and a film adaptation of the author’s 2023 novel, In the Likely Event, are both in the works (although neither has a release date yet). One screen adaptation confirmed for 2025, of course, is the new Bridget Jones film, Mad About the Boy, out on Valentine’s Day, based on Helen Fielding’s 2013 book of the same name about Bridget’s life after the heartbreaking death of Mark Darcy. And Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein appears to be in vogue in 2025, with not one but two film adaptations: Guillermo del Toro’s take on the classic gothic novel starring Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth will be released on Netflix, while Maggie Gyllenhaal has written and produced The Bride!, inspired by the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein. Gyllenhaal’s film, starring Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale and Penélope Cruz, will hit cinemas on 26 September.
Squeaking into 2025 is the film adaptation of New York Times bestselling thriller The Housemaid. Freida McFadden’s twisty tale of a live-in housemaid to a wealthy family who is concealing her true identity is set to star Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney, and will arrive in cinemas on Christmas Day (in the US at least – a UK release date has not yet been confirmed).
A clutch of Pride and Prejudice screen adaptations were announced last year, two by Netflix (one based on Pride, a YA novel by Ibi Zoboi which resets the story in Brooklyn, the other a direct adaptation scripted by Dolly Alderton, and rumoured to be starring Emma Corrin) and one by the BBC, which has commissioned a drama based on Janice Hadlow’s spin-off novel The Other Bennet Sister. None of the three has a release date yet, but I expect at least one of them will come out this year, given that 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth.
Anniversaries can be a good excuse to read or revisit an author’s work, and 2025 will see the centenaries of two greats: Japanese writer Yukio Mishima (14 January) and American novelist Flannery O’Connor (25 March). And the Women’s prize for fiction will celebrate its own landmark anniversary: this summer will mark 30 years since it was first awarded, while its new sister prize for nonfiction will announce its second winner. I expect more eyes than usual will be on this year’s Booker prize for fiction, too, given that Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker has joined the 2025 judging panel.
All in all, 2025 already promises to have plenty in store for book lovers, and there will surely be some surprise announcements along the way. Let me know which books or book adaptations you’re most looking forward to this year at bookmarks@theguardian.com.
A still from the forthcoming film adaptation of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy
