Novel Conversations 2025 Recap

Our annual recap featuring the top books and authors checked out by users of our Novel Conversations program, a free lending library for book clubs. 

While there is a reader for every book in our collection, the title that Novel Conversations users checked out most in 2025 was Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Published in 2013, the nonfiction book about indigenous wisdom and the lessons we can learn from plants was rediscovered by many during the pandemic and has maintained its popularity over these past five years. Indiana Humanities was honored to bring Robin Wall Kimmerer to speak to a full house at the Eiteljorg Museum in 2023.

These titles were the next 10 most requested book kits after our top title:

• Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya 

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 

• The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom 

• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 

• Attucks!: Oscar Robertson and the Basketball Team that Awakened a City by Phillip Hoose 

• Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger 

• The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore 

• Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen 

• The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict

• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 

These authors were the top-10 requested authors in our collection this year:

• Fredrik Backman 

• Maeve Binchy 

• Fannie Flagg 

• Kristin Hannah 

• Rachel Joyce 

• Celeste Ng 

• Ann Patchett 

• Anna Quindlen 

• Nicholas Sparks 

• Kurt Vonnegut 

Check out your books for 2026 here!

Novel Conversations is a free statewide lending library, loaning more than 900 titles, primarily fiction and biography, to reading and discussion groups all over Indiana, free of charge.