The facade of the Peter White Public Library in Marquette. (Photo courtesy Travel Marquette)

• “The Emperor of Gladness” by Ocean Vuong — As always, reading a novel by Vuong (“On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” “Time is a Mother”) is an exercise in vulnerability, but it’s well worth the sweat. I cannot say enough about my favorite book of 2025, so I won’t say too much.

This novel opens with a description of East Gladness, Connecticut, a blue-collar town left behind by the manufacturing boom. A teen boy stands on a bridge preparing to end his life, but an elderly woman intervenes and an unlikely friendship forms.

The writing is full of compassion and insight for how we create found family, in ways that are both freshly unsentimental and unforgettable.

• “What We Can Know” by Ian McEwan — McEwan has a soft touch for posing existential questions that challenge us (“Atonement,” “On Chesil Beach”) on a molecular level.

In “What We Can Know,” he brings us nearly a century into a future where half the world is submerged, and chaos has ensued from war and ecological disaster. Scholar Tom Metcalfe is on a quest to recover a long lost poem, a piece that reveals the pinnacle of self-deception on the cusp of disaster.

In an interview with National Public Radio, McEwan called this work “science fiction without the science,” asking “What is the future of history? … of universities? What is the future of thinking and loving and daily life?”

• “The Garden” by Nick Newman — In this hypnotic novel with an apocalyptic feel, Newman sets a scene of two elderly sisters living in isolation.

Following the instructions of an almanac written by their mother, they tend to the world of their walled garden, with no knowledge of what is outside. Inevitably, this quiet existence is disrupted, setting into motion a series of happenings, and causing questions of the past and future to emerge.

While Newman’s descriptions of the natural world are stunning, what I liked most about this novel — compared to many others in a similar vein — is its unsensational style and how the pace of the plot puts trust in its reader.

• “Audition” by Katie Kitamura — “Audition” is a novel for shaking up expectations.

An actress finds her life disrupted when a young man materializes in it, claiming to be her son. Two simultaneous (think 1998’s underrated film “Sliding Doors”) narratives follow, each exploring themes of authenticity, performance and social roles, within oneself and also relative to their outside relationships.

Most memorable for me was Kitamura’s fresh structure, and her sleight of hand with low-maintenance prose.

Ann Richmond Garrett is an administrative assistant at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette.