New novels from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ian McEwan, plus the return of Slow Horses and Margaret Atwood looks back … Guardian critics pick the must-read titles of 2025

The Guardian’s fiction editor picks the best of the year, from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Dream Count to Thomas Pynchon’s return, David Szalay’s Booker winner and a remarkable collection of short stories.

It’s one thing facing a major diagnosis; it’s quite another dealing with your partner pulling away. But does the stereotype match the reality?

Jess never dreamed that she was going to get sick, nor did she consider what it would mean for her love life if she did. When she first started dating her boyfriend, they were both in their late 20s, living busy, active lives. “Sport was something we did a lot of and we did it together: we worked hard, played hard, we went for bike rides and went running and played golf together.”

But around a year into their relationship, all that stopped abruptly when Jess was diagnosed with long Covid, the poorly understood syndrome that in some people follows a Covid infection. For her, it meant “a general shutdown of my body: lungs, heart, stomach, really bad brain fog”. She went from being a sporty, independent 29-year-old with a successful career to sleeping all day and relying on her boyfriend for everything.

SuperLiz reboots herself inside a utility room, delivering nonsense so pure even her guests look trapped

We happy few. We unlucky few. In years to come when we are all still recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder, we will be able to say we were there. That we have seen things that cannot be unseen. The 8,000 of us who, through a mixture of curiosity and comedy, chose to watch Liz Truss commit a drive-by on herself. Though only a very few will have made it to the end.

Some won’t have even made it to the start. The show started an hour late because Liz forgot to put her watch back in October. Still, this was an award-winning YouTube TV show. Though not the awards anyone would want to collect.

He made buildings that looked like slouching drunks and quarrelling couples but it was the Spanish museum that secured his ‘starchitect’ status – a creation that became something of a curse

Frank Gehry once had a cameo in The Simpsons in which he designed buildings by scrunching up pieces of paper. There was a bit more to it than that, but from Prague to Panama City, his scrunched contours were instantly recognisable, expressed in an exuberant parade of buildings that cranked and slumped as if hit by a wrecking ball, or crashed and whirled like dervishes, defying laws of gravity and structural logic. Though Gehry, who has died aged 96, came of age in the era of modernism, it was as if he were physically incapable of drawing a straight line.

In his prime, Gehry’s architecture was a rebuff to modernist imperators such as Mies van der Rohe and his po-faced injunction, “less is more”. The American postmodern theorist and architect Robert Venturi turned it on its head, quipping “less is a bore”. It summed up the maximalist Gehry perfectly.

The Green party leader on his ‘floordrobe’, doomscrolling, and getting arrested on Waterloo Bridge

Born David Paulden in Greater Manchester, Zack Polanski, 43, changed his name at 18 to reflect his Jewish heritage. He studied acting at Aberystwyth University and worked in community theatre and as a hypnotherapist. In 2017, he joined the Greens. He was elected deputy leader in 2022 and leader in September. He lives in London with his partner.

When were you happiest?
Last summer with my boyfriend Richie. We had no plans – it was just wonderful.

The diminutive Derry Girls star isn’t afraid to speak her mind, even if it costs her fans and followers

Back in 2008, when Nicola Coughlan was at drama school, a guy in her class swaggered over and, with all the brimming confidence of young men in the noughties, asked her, “Do the Irish think the English are really cool?” Coughlan, born in Galway, mimes processing the question. “Well,” she said, “it’s quite complicated. Like, there’s a lot of history there, between the two countries. Like, there’s a lot going on.”

Today, people are more knowledgable about the history of the English in Ireland. Coughlan is happy about that. She’s also happy about the explosion of Irish storytelling in popular culture – Normal People, Trespasses, Small Things Like These, not to mention the series that made her name, Derry Girls. And she’s proud of young Irish actors – Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan and Lola Petticrew, to name a few. She listens to bands such as Fontaines DC, CMAT and Kneecap. “It’s such a small country and the amount of creativity that comes out of Ireland is really extraordinary.”

Neil Couling said failings by individual claimants ‘at the heart’ of crisis, despite a report finding DWP shortcomings ‘unacceptable’

One of the most senior civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has placed the blame for the carer’s allowance benefits crisis on victims, many of who have been left with life-changing debts.

In an internal blogpost written for Whitehall colleagues, Neil Couling, the director general of DWP services, said individual failings by carers were “at the heart” of the issue that has been likened to the Post Office Horizon scandal.

Farage is responsible for ‘dangerous’ culture shift, says broadcaster subject to alleged posts from Reform councillor

Nigel Farage is emboldening attacks on people of colour, according to a journalist allegedly subjected to racial slurs by a Reform UK council leader who the party has been forced to expel.

The broadcaster Sangita Myska, whose long career in British journalism has included presenting shows for the BBC and LBC Radio, said she was told by the former Staffordshire council leader Ian Cooper that she was English “only in your dreams”, because of her south Asian heritage.

Defense secretary defiant but allegations of war crimes and blistering watchdog report increase calls for him to go

Pete Hegseth is facing the most serious crisis of his tenure as defense secretary, engulfed by allegations of war crimes in the Caribbean and a blistering inspector general report accusing him of mishandling classified military intelligence. Yet despite the long list of trouble and as lawmakers from both parties call for his resignation, Hegseth shows no signs of stepping down and still holds Donald Trump’s support.

The twin crises have engulfed the former Fox News personality in separate but overlapping allegations that lawmakers, policy experts and former officials say reveal a pattern of dangerous recklessness at the helm of the Pentagon. Democratic legislators have reignited calls for his ouster after revelations that survivors clinging to wreckage from a September boat strike were deliberately killed in a “double-tap” attack, while a defense department investigation released on Thursday concluded he violated Pentagon policies by sharing sensitive details via the Signal messaging app hours before airstrikes in Yemen.

Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz will also be present for talks on guaranteeing Ukraine’s postwar security

Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Downing Street on Monday for an in-person meeting with Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz in a show of support for Ukraine.

Starmer will use the meeting with the leaders from Ukraine, France and Germany to discuss the continuing talks between US and Ukrainian officials aimed at finding an agreement on guaranteeing Ukraine’s postwar security.