These Pulitzer Prize books promise extraordinary storytelling that'll move you and make you see the world in new ways
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Your Guide to the Pulitzer Prize–Winning Books of 2025
Updated on May 09, 2025
Looking for a great read? You’re in luck. I’ve got all the deets for you on the fiction and nonfiction Pulitzer Prize books. This year’s winners and finalists were announced in May 2025 when 25 awards were handed out, including six for books. The list is stacked with books that will get you thinking critically about history and society.
The jurors and board members who sort through the 2,500 entries look for books that fall under the category of “distinguished.” Between the Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists, readers will find books that offer new looks into the lives of famous people and those who should be more well-known, fiction that will break your heart and give you hope, nonfiction that will reshape the way you look at the world and memoirs about life-altering events.
Intrigued? Let’s dive into the latest Pulitzer Prize books and runners-up to read.
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What are the Pulitzer Prize books of 2025?
Get that TBR list ready—you’re going to want to add these six standout books to it, stat. Here are the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists.
James by Percival Everett
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
This fierce satire remixes Mark Twain’s classic American novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by telling the story from the perspective of Jim, an enslaved man, rather than a rambunctious, white teenager. As in the original novel, Jim and Huck go rafting down the Mississippi River after Huck fakes his death and Jim escapes to prevent “Ole missus” from selling him. However, Everett takes enough liberties with Twain’s text that James becomes something wholly unique. The novel veers from strange to surreal, from wild adventure to hair-brained schemes, from philosophical hallucinations to knife-sharp social critique.
Finalists:
- Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
- Mice 1961 by Stacey Levine
- The Unicorn Woman by Gayl Jones
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War by Edda L. Fields-Black
Pulitzer Prize for History
This nonfiction book tells the dramatic story of the 1863 Union army raid on Combahee Ferry in South Carolina. Over one day, three gunships carrying Harriet Tubman, a regiment of Black soldiers and white officers destroyed several plantations, thousands of dollars in inventory and property, and, most importantly, freed more than 700 enslaved people. What makes this book even more impressive is its author’s background: Fields-Black is not only a professor of history but also the descendant of one of the enslaved people who participated in the raid. In Combee, she frames the events not just as one of many in the Civil War, but as one of the most impactful slave rebellions in U.S. history.
Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal
Pulitzer Prize for History
We’ve seen an increase lately in new scholarship that reexamines North American history from Indigenous perspectives; Native Nations is a must-read, and not just because it won a Pulitzer. DuVal looks at a millennium of Indigenous history, starting with some of the earliest urban centers on the continent to the vast trade networks that were thriving when a handful of Europeans blundered into their territory in 1492. She doesn’t stop the story at first contact, but shows how Indigenous people learned to work with, around and in spite of European immigrants, and how they held onto their cultures and values in the face of extreme conflicts.
Finalist:
- Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery by Seth Rockman
Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts
Pulitzer Prize for Biography
In Every Living Thing, author Jason Roberts looks at two naturalists from the 1700s who had an outsized influence on modern science. Carl Linnaeus and George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon were rivals in their field, with opposing viewpoints on the world, nature and humanity. After his death, Linnaeus’ rigidity, piousness, racism and sexism were overlooked as he was placed on a scientific pedestal. Buffon, meanwhile, was consigned to obscurity despite promoting a view of science as complex, fluid and often chaotic. Roberts examines their legacies with thoughtful attention to detail.
Finalists:
- John Lewis: A Life by David Greenberg
- The World She Edited: Katherine S. White at The New Yorker by Amy Reading
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls
Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography
In this stunning, powerful graphic memoir, Tessa Hulls mines her family history. We see the lives of three women: Sun Yi, a journalist in Shanghai who survived the Second Sino-Japanese War only to be targeted by the new Communist regime in the 1950s; her daughter Rose who, after surviving a mental breakdown, immigrated to the United States; and Tessa herself, who grappled with the emotional devastation of their traumatic lives. Hulls only used black-and-white ink in Feeding Ghosts, but the illustrations are so vivid that they practically leap off the page.
Finalists:
- Fi: A Memoir of My Son by Alexandra Fuller
- I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition by Lucy Sante
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Benjamin Nathans
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
In the years after Stalin’s death, a coalition of dissidents demanded the Soviet regime adhere to the constitution rather than the whims of Kremlin officials. These men and women—including Nobel laureates, academics, intellectuals, Leninists, regular people and even the son of a Bolshevik commander—risked interrogation, imprisonment and worse for their activism. Even in the face of certain failure (the title, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause, comes from a speech given by one of the activists) they fought for a better future for their people. Benjamin Nathan relied on KGB records, extensive research and dissidents’ own stories to pull together this compelling look at postwar Soviet society.
Finalists:
- I Am on the Hit List: A Journalist’s Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India by Rollo Romig
- Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala by Rachel Nolan
FAQs
What, exactly, is the Pulitzer Prize?
In the late 19th century, Jewish Hungarian immigrant Joseph Pulitzer owned a thriving journalism empire before transitioning into politics. He set aside a portion of his will to establish a journalism school at Columbia University as well as several awards and scholarships that eventually became known as the Pulitzer Prizes.
The first winners received their awards in 1917. Today, jurors and board members select finalists and winners in the categories of journalism, books (including poetry, literature, nonfiction, biographies and autobiographies or memoirs), drama and music. There are also special awards and citations that go to individuals and groups doing outstanding work in their fields.
Why is the Pulitzer Prize so important?
The Pulitzer Prize is widely regarded as one of the highest national awards. It brings attention to crucial topics the public may not be aware of and honors journalists and writers demonstrating exceptional work.
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Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite books for over 100 years. We’ve worked with bestselling authors including Susan Orlean, Janet Evanovich and Alex Haley, whose Pulitzer Prize–winning Roots grew out of a project funded by and originally published in the magazine. Through Fiction Favorites (formerly Select Editions and Condensed Books), Reader’s Digest has been publishing anthologies of abridged novels for decades. We’ve worked with some of the biggest names in fiction, including James Patterson, Ruth Ware, Kristin Hannah and more. The Reader’s Digest Book Club, helmed by Books Editor Tracey Neithercott, introduces readers to even more of today’s best fiction by upcoming, bestselling and award-winning authors. For this piece on Pulitzer Prize books, Alex Brown tapped their experience as a librarian, Ignyte Award–winning writer and book critic to ensure that all information is accurate and offers the best possible advice to readers. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Source:
- The Pulitzer Prizes: 2025 Pulitzer Prizes
