GFM’s Favorite Books from 2025

We asked our team of staff writers and contributing correspondents to share some of the new books they found most compelling in 2025. Below are a few of their answers.

Craig Nash: Senior Editor

Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success by Jeff Hiller

The title of Jeff Hiller’s memoir, Actress of a Certain Age, is a nod to Hollywood’s obsession with age, once confined only to female actors. It tells the winding story of his two decades spent in improv, commercial acting, and bit roles before landing the part of Joel in the HBO series Somebody, Somewhere. The book has plenty of laughs and insider tales from “the business,” but most compelling is Hiller’s deeply felt humanity and goodness.

At one point in his life, Hiller wanted to be a minister. Even though he may not hold the title “Reverend,” his book is a reminder that all the twists and turns of our lives are sacred.

Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love by Kathleen Norris

When Kathleen Norris received acclaim for her 1993 book Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, her sister Becky was envious. She dealt with her emotions by telling Kathleen, “You should write a book about me so I can be famous like you.” The result of that suggestion is Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love, released 12 years after Becky died from cancer.

Becky lived with severe intellectual and emotional disabilities due to perinatal hypoxia, a form of brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen to her brain during childbirth. Kathleen’s book chronicles her life with the gentle hands of a sister’s love. It is incredibly moving and a testament to the innate value of every life.

Starlette Thomas, Associate Editor and Director of the Raceless Gospel Initiative

Damned Whiteness: How White Christian Allies Failed the Black Freedom Movement by David F. Evans

David F. Evans’ Damned Whiteness details the history of “interracial organizing” from 1933 to 1969, naming the misaligned vision of “interracial fellowship” held by allies racialized as white as rendering them out of step with the dreams of the African American leaders of freedom movements. Pointing to the examples of Clarence Jordan, Dorothy Day and Ralph Templin, Evans shows readers the disconnect between a dogmatic commitment to static strategies focused on friendship and a multifaceted approach that centers the freedom of African Americans.

“The allyship of Jordan, Day and Templin is significant to Black freedom history because they exemplify the practices of white Christian allies. Each of these allies either created or led movements that launched them into similar trajectories with Black freedom organizations that opposed racial segregation, but because the visions of these movements were disconnected from the Black communities they aimed to help, they failed to meet them on the path for liberation,” Evans wrote.

These examples continue with the likes of Robin D’Angelo and Tim Wise, who Evans describes as “elite allies” and who take up space and siphon resources from impacted communities. Still, Evans says there is a better way: “a politics of solidarity with oppressed peoples that will empower them to free themselves. Without it, we may all be damned.”

Cliff Vaughn, senior media producer, Good Faith Media

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson

A neighbor gifted me a copy of The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson. Isaacson penned this slim volume about the “We hold these truths” sentence to mark the upcoming 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence. Isaacson, who has written many significant biographies—including one on Benjamin Franklin—packs in a lot of backstory, both philosophical and practical. He breaks down the words and clauses of that famous sentence that emerged from a five-person committee, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal writer.

In the chapter “Created Equal,” Isaacson quotes Englishman Thomas Day. Day, an abolitionist, said of the Americans after they issued their declaration, “If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independence with one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.” Isaacson closes that chapter by saying it is “a constant American struggle to make the phrase ‘all men are created equal’ truly inclusive.”

Isaacson’s book is more than a factual compilation about the Declaration; it’s also a call to common ground (an idea with roots in physical space, as he notes). As such, he ends the book with Benjamin Franklin, noting the myriad ways in which the man worked for the public good. These included organizing for public safety; providing for public libraries, schools and hospitals; publishing a newspaper; and not only donating to the building funds of Philadelphia churches, but also providing a space “to visiting preachers of any belief.”

When Franklin died, Isaacson writes, “20,000 mourners watched his funeral procession, which was led by all the clergymen of every faith, including the local rabbi, walking arm-in-arm.”

As Isaacson calls us back to the common ground that self-evident truths should establish, he points a finger at technology: “The technology that promised to connect us found a better business model in dividing us.”

As this country marks 250 years, it might be worth noting that 2025’s word of the year, according to Oxford University Press, is “rage bait.” Maybe it’s time to declare our independence from something else.

Justin Cox: Contributing Correspondent

House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home by John T. Edge

In late winter of 2020, I stood in front of a warm stove in a cold Vermont kitchen. The pandemic had descended, and in my isolation, I pined for the taste of the South I’d left the year before. I found answers in cookbooks and in the words of John T. Edge.

Edge was the founding director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. On too many late nights to count, I listened to his voice on SFA’s Gravy podcast while baking.

Earlier this year, Edge released his memoir, House of Smoke. A vulnerable work detailing his life, family dynamics, and the idiosyncrasies he developed from a people and place that are as irresistibly alluring as they are complicated.

Every page of House of Smoke has the feel of a church homecoming. Names I knew, like Will D. Campbell, popped up. Other details, like the sacred barbecue spots spread across Georgia and Mississippi, were unknown to me but left me planning a much-needed road trip.

Moved by the book, I decided to meet Edge in person at a book signing.

Waiting in line, I held his book in one hand and a Styrofoam box of Slappy’s dipped chicken in the other.

I handed him the plate. He laughed. He thanked me. We parted ways.

Weeks later, I got an email from John T. thanking me for the deep-fried yardbird. I printed it out and placed it inside my signed copy of House of Smoke.

Michelle Wahila: Contributing Correspondent

Through Her Eyes: Biblical Women Speak by Rebecca J. Craig

Through Her Eyes is a powerful reimagining of familiar biblical narratives, told through voices we rarely hear: the women whose lives shaped the story of faith. I don’t typically gravitate toward biblical fiction, but Rev. Craig’s approach is so fresh, creative and emotionally resonant that it drew me in from the first page.

In vivid, intimate vignettes, she invites readers into the inner worlds of both well-known figures and the often-overlooked women of Scripture. Their motivations, losses, courage and resilience come alive.

What emerges is not only a deeper understanding of these women, but a renewed connection to sacred stories many of us thought we already knew. Through Her Eyes is a moving, imaginative work, one that stirs the heart and expands the spiritual imagination.