Below are lists of staff favorites across various media for 2025 – books, music, video games, board games, TV, movies, podcasts and more. Feel free to share some of your favorites on our social media pages – Facebook and Instagram.
Our staff has created lists in the Library Catalog for the items on the below lists available through the county-wide collection:
Northland’s Best of 2025 BOOKS
Northland’s Best of 2025 AUDIOVISUAL
Kati
2025 Top Horror Novels
- “Lucky Day” by Chuck Tingle
- “Strange Houses” by Uketsu
- “Play Nice” by Rachel Harrison
- “Hungerstone” by Kat Dunn
- “Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng” by Kylie Lee Baker
2025 Top Video Games
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Silent Hill F
- Split Fiction
- Blue Prince
- Dispatch
2025 Favorite Board Games
- Galileo Galilei
- Mistborn
- Above and Below Haunted
- Knitting Circle
- Riftbound: Proving Grounds
- Tea Witches
Kelley
Top Books
- “The Three Lives of Cate Kay” by Kate Fagan
- “Famous Last Words” by Gillian McAllister
Monique
Best Book
- “So Gar Gone” by Jess Walters
Ellen
Best Movies
- Sinners
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Companion
- Drop
- Fight or Flight
- The Wedding Banquet
- Jane Austen Wrecked My Life
- Good Fortune
- KPop Demon Hunters
Best Books
- “Not Quite Dead Yet” by Holly Jackson”
- “Great Big Beautiful Life” by Emily Henry
- “Deep End” by Ali Hazelwood
- “Onyx Storm” by Rebecca Yarros
- “Sunshine on the Reaping” by Suzanne Collins
- “This American Woman: A One-In-A-Billion Memoir” by Zarna Garg
- “Semi Well Adjusted Despite Literally Everything” by Alyson Stoner
- “Everything Is Tuberculosis” by John Green
Best Puzzles / Puzzle Books
- Murdle In the Hedge Maze (puzzle)
- Murdle: The Case of the Seven Skulls by G.T. Karber (puzzle book)
- The Creeping Hand Murder by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper (solve-it-yourself mystery book)
Tom
Best Albums of 2025
- Cautious Clay – “Hours”
- Deep Sea Diver – “Billboard Heart”
- Michael Franti – “Welcome to the Family”
- Indigo De Souza – “Precipice”
- Royal Otis – “hickey”
- The Beths – “Straight Line Was a Lie”
- Molly Tuttle – “So Long Miss Sunshine”
- Samia – “Bloodless”
- Nourished by Time – “Passionate Ones”
- Haim – “I Quit”
- Sharp Pins – “Balloon, Balloon, Balloon”
Best Songs of 2025
- Cautious Clay – “Father Time”
- Jon Batiste – “Big Money”
- My Morning Jacket – “Time Waited”
- Deep Sea Diver – “Shovel”
- Fontaines D.C. – “It’s Amazing To Be Young”
- Wednesday – “Elderberry Wine”
- The Beths – “Straight Line Was a Lie”
- Molly Tuttle – “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark”
- Royal Otis – “Moody”
- flipturn – “Burnout Days”
- Samia – “Snake Oil”
- Sarah McLachlan – “Better Broken”
- Belair Lip Bombs – “Hey You”
- Haim – “Relationships”
- UFOs – “UFO”
Nicholas
Top 15ish Songs
- Fontaines D.C. – “It’s Amazing To Be Young” (*Song of the Year*)
- Matt Maeson – “Halfway to Whole”
- Yueku – “Madeline (If You Wanna Go)”
- Briston Maroney – “Better Than You”
- Sam Fender – “Crumbling Empire”
- Wet Leg – “mangetout”
- sombr – “back to friends”
- Deftones – “my mind is a mountain”
- Royal Otis – “moody”
- Del Water Gap – “How To Live”
- Welshly Arms – “Glorious”
- Spiritbox – “Soft Spine”
- Colatura – “I Wanna Get Better”
- Alex G – “Afterlife”
- Michigander – “Giving Up”
- Sunday (1994) – “Still Blue”
- Alabama Shakes – “Another Life”
Top Albums
- Matt Maeson – “A Quiet and Harmless Living” (*Album of the Year*)
- Yueku – “Learning How to Dance” (EP)
- Briston Maroney – “JIMMY”
- Michigander – “Michigander”
- Sam Fender – “People Watching”
- Royal Otis – “hickey”
- The Blue Stones – “Metro”
- Spiritbox – “Tsunami Sea”
Alexis G
Books
- “To Clutch a Razor” by Veronica Roth
- “A Drop of Corruption” by Robert Jackson Bennett
- “Cinder House” by Freya Marske
- “But Not Too Bold” by Hache Pueyo
- “The Strength of the Few” by James Islington
- “Hello Sunshine” by Keezy Young
Kate
Books
- “The Three Lives of Cate Kay” by Kate Fagan
- “The Names” by Florence Knapp
- “Show Don’t Tell” by Curtis Sittenfeld
- “Good Dirt” by Charmaine Wilkerson
- “Mother of Rome” by Lauren J.A. Bear
- “Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil” by V.E. Schwab
Michelle
Book
- “Three Days in June” by Anne Tyler
Albums
- “Hope We Have Fun”, Mt. Joy (I didn’t see this in our catalog)
- “Foxes in the Snow” – Jason Isbell
Limited Series
- “Black Rabbit”
Andrea
Best Horror Books
- “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” by Stephen Graham Jones
- “Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng” by Kylie Lee Baker
- “The Works of Vermin” by Hiron Ennes
- “Hungerstone” by Kat Dunn
- “You Weren’t Meant to be Human” by Andrew Joseph White
Willa
Best Books
- “Happy & Sad & Everything True” by Alex Thayer
- “Isle of Ever” by Jen Calonita
- “Just Keep Walking” by Erin Soderberg Downing
- “Mountain Upside Down” by Sara Ryan
- “Once for Yes” by Allie Millington
- “Scattergood” by H.M. Bouwman
- “So That Happened… But Maybe You Already Knew That” by Tami Sussman
- “Sylvia Doe and the 100” by Year Flood- Robert Beatty
- “That Curious Thing” by Chris Raschka
- “The Gate, The Girl, and the Dragon” by Grace Lin
- “The Green Kingdom” by Cornelia Funke
- “The Legend of the Last Library” by Frank L Cole
- “The Peach Thief” by Linda Joan Smith
- “The Playmakers” by Chad Morris and Shelly Brown
- “The Secret of Honeycake” by Kimberly Newton Fusco
- “The Trouble with Sisters” by Naomi Milliner
- “The World Famous Nine” by Ben Guterson
