The Brooklyn Public Library on Monday revealed the longlists for the 2025 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize. The selections reflect the borough’s diverse, creative spirit and cover a wide range of genres including novels, short stories, poetry, memoir and nonfiction.
Library staff reviewed nearly 100 books, using their deep knowledge of literature and Brooklyn’s vibrant reading community to put together the lists that span a broad spectrum of voices and themes, from social criticism and literary fiction to science fiction and poetry, showcasing the range of experiences shaping Brooklyn’s literary landscape.
“Covering the issues of our time from immigration to addiction to democracy itself, the books on the long list for 2025 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize encompass the full range of our human experience,” Linda E. Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the Brooklyn Public Library said in a statement.
One debut novel follows a Palestinian teacher working at a school for underprivileged boys in New York City, who supplements his income by selling luxury bags through a pyramid scheme.
Another story focuses on a young woman who learns her mother has been deported to Brazil just before her college graduation. Several interconnected short stories portray complex relationships and the challenges of connection.
The nonfiction list of 10 titles covers biography, memoir, poetry, and narrative nonfiction. Among the works are two activist-driven books addressing New York’s housing crisis and how tenants can take action.
A Bed-Stuy home cook shares Caribbean stories and recipes that bring culture to the kitchen table. A historian shines a light on Brooklyn’s free Black communities in the 19th century, drawing lessons on freedom and democracy that still resonate.
2025 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize Longlists:
Fiction
- Wait by Gabriella Burnham (One World)
- The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Calibres (Vintage)
- Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung (Berkley)
- Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood (The Dial Press)
- Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson (Saga Press)
- The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjani Kamali (Gallery Books)
- In Universes by Emet North (Harper Perennial)
- Hum by Helen Phillips (Marysue Rucci Books)
- Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (William Morrow)
- The Coin by Yasmin Zaher (Catapult)
Nonfiction
- Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company by Alice Driver (Atria / One Signal Publishers)
- Belly Full: Exploring Caribbean Cuisine through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes by Lesley Enston (Ten Speed Press)
- The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America by Stephanie Gorton (Ecco)
- Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- First in the Family: A Story of Survival, Recovery, and the American Dream by Jessica Hoppe (Flatiron Books)
- Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities That Shaped a Borough by Prithi Kanakamedala (Washington Mews Books / NYU Press)
- Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can Solve the Housing Crisis by Tracy Rosenthal & Leonardo Vilchis (Haymarket Books)
- Bluff: Poems by Danez Smith (Graywolf Press)
- Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future by Jason Stanley (Atria / One Signal Publishers)
- Forest of Noise: Poems by Mosab Abu Toha (Knopf)
