By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The year in publishing saw such notable releases as the latest “Hunger Games” novel and the first book in years from Thomas Pynchon. Readers also sought life advice from Mel Robbins, campaign books by former Vice President Kamala Harris, among others, and the posthumous memoir from one of Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Giuffre.

Here are 10 notable books of 2025, in no particular order.

“Sunrise on the Reaping,” by Suzanne Collins

This cover image released by Scholastic shows “Sunrise on the Reaping” by Suzanne Collins. (Scholastic via AP)

Suzanne Collins once swore she was done with “The Hunger Games,” but the author has not given up on her blockbuster series and neither have her readers. “Sunrise on the Reaping,” a prequel set 24 years before the first book, sold more than 4 million copies worldwide, according to Scholastic, even as the press-shy Collins declined to promote it or give any interviews except for one with her editor, David Levithan.

Collins began the series in 2008 and many fans have grown up with it. At an opening night event in February, numerous attendees were in their 20s and 30s and spoke of how their teenage appreciation had deepened for Collins’ dystopian world, in which contestants hunt and kill each other — all while being broadcast live. “As a kid you focus so much on the plot and the action,” explained 26-year-old Savannah Miller. “As an adult I connected to the characters a lot more and had more of an emotional response.”

“The Let Them Theory,” by Mel Robbins

The year’s most talked about self-help book, Mel Robbins’ “The Let Them Theory,” offered familiar and assuring messages for a troubled time: Focus on the inner self, don’t try to change what you can’t change. Robbins acknowledged debts to everyone from the ancient Stoics to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the title of her opening chapter reads like a variation of the Serenity Prayer: “Stop Wasting Your Life on Things You Can’t Control.” Released late last year, Robbins’ blockbuster was high on bestseller lists throughout 2025 and the author appeared everywhere from “Meet the Press” to “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” Time magazine named Robbins among its top 100 creators: “She’s empowered millions to stop overthinking, start exercising and ignore their inner critic.”

“Flesh,” by David Szalay

This cover image released by Scribner shows “Flesh” by David Szalay. (Scribner via AP)

Literary fiction traveled in 2025, from India to New York ( Kiran Desai’s “The Loneliness of Sunny and Sonia”), from Houston to Japan (Bryan Washington’s “Palaver”), from the recent past to the 22nd century ( Ian McEwan’s “What We Can Know”).

“Flesh,” winner of the Booker Prize, was a physical, economic and social travelogue. It’s a deadpan account of a working-class, half-dead Hungarian, István, who proves equally attractive to women and disaster as life pulls him along through sexual improprieties, juvenile detention, military service in Iraq, the good life in London and back down again. Happiness beyond the fleshy kind is almost entirely absent from David Szalay’s novel, but “Flesh” has a subtle, uncanny rhythm that made admirers out of everyone from Dua Lipa to Booker judge Roddy Doyle, who told reporters after the award was announced: “It is, in many ways, a dark book but it is a joy to read.”

“Careless People,” by Sarah Wynn-Williams

This cover image released by Flatiron shows “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism” by Sarah Wynn-Williams. (Flatiron via AP)

Some books make news just by existing: Anticipating an angry response from Meta, Flatiron waited until just days before publication to announce an unflattering insider take on Meta by Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former director of global public policy at was then Facebook. Wynn-Williams alleged that CEO Mark Zuckerberg had offered to accommodate the Chinese government’s demands to censor the social media platform and that Sheryl Sandberg, Joel Kaplan and other executives had enabled an abusive workplace that included sexual harassment.

Meta countered that “Careless People” was a mix of “out-of-date” information and “false accusations,” and it convinced an emergency arbiter that Wynn-Williams had violated a confidentiality agreement and should be barred from promoting her book, which went on to top The New York Times’ nonfiction list. A headline from Vice read: “Meta Tries to Kill Damning Tell-All Book, Accidentally Promotes It to Bestseller.”

“Nobody’s Girl,” by Virginia Giuffre

The very existence of “Nobody’s Girl” made news, and kept on making news. Six months after the death of Virginia Giuffre, publisher Alfred A. Knopf released her posthumous “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice.” Her painful accounts of her years as a “sex slave” helped build GOP support for releasing Justice Department files on Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, and to President Donald Trump’s reversing his earlier objections. Her explicit memories of one Epstein client, the former Prince Andrew, helped lead King Charles III to strip his brother of his royal title and banish him to a private residence.

“Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse,” a statement from Buckingham Palace read at the time.

“The Fate of the Day,” by Rick Atkinson

This cover image released by Crown shows “The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780” by Rick Atkinson. (Crown via AP)

The second of Rick Atkinson’s planned three-volume history of the Revolutionary War was published to wide acclaim and helped establish him as one of the foremost military scholars of his time, one given a leading voice in Ken Burns’ documentary on the country’s independence. With some 50 pages of source material listed, “The Fate of the Day” combines precise and bloody details of battles fought between 1777 and 1780 with vivid sketches of protagonists known and obscure. “There is no better writer of narrative history than the Pulitzer-winning Atkinson,” a New York Times review read in part.

“Shadow Ticket” (and “Vineland”), by Thomas Pynchon

This cover image released by Penguin Press shows “Shadow Ticket” by Thomas Pynchon. (Penguin Press via AP)

At age 89, Thomas Pynchon was back after a yearslong hiatus. “Shadow Ticket” was a characteristically shaggy tale of a 1930s private detective, Hicks McTaggart, whose search for a missing cheese heiress lands him everywhere from Milwaukee to Budapest. Meanwhile, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson transformed Pynchon’s 1990 novel about aging radicals, “Vineland,” into one of the year’s most celebrated movies, “One Battle After Another.” Anderson, who faithfully adapted Pynchon’s “Inherent Vice” in 2014, is apparently one of the privileged few to be in contact with the famously private author.

“Realistically, for me, ‘Vineland’ was going to be hard to adapt,” Anderson observed in the movie’s press notes. “Instead, I stole the parts that really resonated with me and started putting all these ideas together. With (Pynchon’s) blessing.”

“Original Sin,” by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (Reliving 2024, Part I)

Books on the winning candidate in 2024, Trump, proved less attractive to readers than accounts about the losing side. “Original Sin,” by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson, was among several notable works that looked back and wondered how it went so wrong for the Democratic Party. The Tapper-Thompson book centered on the aging of President Joe Biden, made painfully public when he debated Trump, and on the aides and family members the authors alleged were keeping his cognitive decline a secret. “The original sin of Election 2024 was Biden’s decision to run for reelection — followed by aggressive efforts to hide his cognitive diminishment,” the authors concluded.

“107 Days,” by Kamala Harris (Reliving 2024, Part II)

This cover image released by Simon & Schuster shows “107 Days” by Kamala Harris. (Simon & Schuster via AP)

The title refers to the hurried (and unsuccessful) campaign the vice president led when she took over from Biden after he dropped out in the summer of 2024. Harris pointed fingers in many directions: at Biden’s staff (“Their thinking was zero-sum: If she’s shining, he’s dimmed”); at herself, and her answer on “The View” that nothing “comes to mind” when asked how she would govern differently than Biden (“I had no idea that I’d just pulled the pin on a hand grenade”); and at the speed of time (“One hundred and seven days were not, in the end, long enough to accomplish the task of winning the presidency”).

“Independent,” by Karine Jean-Pierre (Reliving 2024, Part III)

This cover image released by Legacy Lit shows “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines” by Karine Jean-Pierre. (Legacy Lit via AP)

Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre gained notice simply from the title of her book, “Independent,” an early tip that she had left the Democratic Party. The subtitle promised harsher takes: “A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.” Unlike other critics, she didn’t argue that the party had become too “woke” or had stayed with Biden for too long. She objected to how Biden was treated by the press and by fellow Democrats and contended he “remained thoughtful, clearheaded, and well-informed,” however poorly he came across in his debate with Trump. “We had a major miss,” she concluded about the 2024 campaign, “and I was starting to take a hard look at my party.”

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By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumers’ mood improved slightly this month, with worries about inflation easing a bit, but remains gloomy.

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The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, released Friday in a preliminary version, rose to 53.3 early this month from a final reading of 51 in November. The index beat the 52 mark that economists had forecast but is down considerably from 71.7 in January.

Consumers’ evaluation of current economic conditions slipped slightly, but their expectations for the future brightened somewhat.

Expectations for year-ahead inflation dipped to 4.1% from 4.5% last month to the lowest level since January when Donald Trump returned to the White House and began imposing sweeping taxes — tariffs — on imports from countries around the world. Economists warn that importers pay the tariffs and then try to pass along the cost to their customers through higher prices.

Trump has reached a series of deals with major U.S. trading partners, including the European Union and Japan, that brought his tariffs down from the punishingly high levels he’d threatened in the spring. Still, the average U.S. tariff rate has climbed from 2.4% in January to 16.8% last month, highest since 1935, according to calculations by the Budget Lab at Yale University.

Joanne Hsu, who directs the Michigan economic surveys, said: “The overall tenor of views is broadly somber, as consumers continue to cite the burden of high prices.″

Inflation has fallen from the highs reached in mid-2022 but remains stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

By MARIA SHERMAN

NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press has selected its 10 best albums of the year, presented in no particular order and with a legend describing who might particularly enjoy them, in the vein of our revamped music reviews.

Like our picks and want more? Enjoy bonus recommendations accompanying each entry.

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“Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party,” Hayley Williams

Call her Miss Paramore if you must, but this year, it’s all about Hayley Williams. The fierce frontwoman has detoured on her own before — the explorative interiority of 2020’s “Petals for Armor” and 2021’s “Flowers for Vases / Descansos” — but nothing has come close to “Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party,” her greatest solo work to date. It is a triumph in candor told across varied mediums: ’90s alternative (“Brotherly Hate”), college radio indie rock (“Mirtazapine”) and trip-hop-pop (“Ice In My OJ”). It sounds like freedom for a performer long subject to public expectations.

FOR FANS OF: Autonomy, psychic recalibration, Bloodhound Gang’s “The Bad Touch”

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: Alex G’s “Headlights,” No Joy’s “Bugland,” any of the new Copenhagen school like Smerz’s “Big City Life” and Snuggle’s “Goodbyehouse”

“Addison,” Addison Rae

This cover image released by Columbia Records shows “Addison” by Addison Rae. (Columbia Pictures via AP)

Not so long ago, Addison Rae’s pop ascension would’ve been hard to comprehend. She came from the stiff world of TikTok dance moves and then reinvented herself with the fame it provided, launching an inventive pop career in its wake. Her debut album, “Addison,” is stuffed with sequined pop songs from the pitch-shifted trip-hop “Headphones On” to the Madonna’s “Ray of Light”-channeling “Aquamarine.” At its core is “Fame Is a Gun,” an addictive, early Grimes-ian winner about desire and desperation.

FOR FANS OF: Victoria’s Secret, pouring cherry coke into red wine, the long-tail legacy of Britney Spears

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: PinkPantheress’ “Fancy That,” Perfume Genius’ “Glory,” JADE’s “That’s Showbiz Baby!,” CMAT’s “Euro-Country,” the “KPop Demon Hunters” soundtrack

“Lux,” Rosalía

This image released by Columbia Records shows “LUX” by Rosalía. (Columbia Records via AP)

In the eleventh hour of 2025, Rosalía emerged a savior, offering an album to music’s mainstream that was neither milquetoast nor expected. At the risk of flattening its extravagance: Her fourth studio album, “Lux,” is an offbeat, avant-garde embrace of her classical training. But it is also so much more than that. Across myriad operatic movements — as well as 13 different languages, a phonetic miracle performed by the Catalan singer — “Lux” is an ambitious collection of songs about divinity meant to challenge its audience into active listening. It is refreshing and arduous, a timeless reminder that rules are made to be broken.

FOR FANS OF: Feminine intuition, divine intervention, Hildegard of Bingen

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: Los Thuthanaka’s “Los Thuthanaka,” Aya’s “Hexed!”, Water From Your Eyes’ “It’s a Beautiful Place”

“Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Bad Bunny

Bad Bunny performs during the iHeartRadio Music Awards in Los Angeles on March 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is not just an album, but a cultural reset. At his residency in San Juan, it was evident, as Benito alternated between two stages. One, a rural scene with plantain trees and a large flamboyan tree for the folk movements. The other, a traditional casita for the reggaeton and perreo block — where the pari de marquesina, or house party, happens. It is the perfect representation of his album’s celebration of Puerto Rico and its expert melding of its musical styles past and present. For many, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” is a revolution committed to wax, a global superstar looking inward to his homeland to see the future. He wields his reggaetón and urbana skillsets — and weaves in salsa, bomba, plena, música jíbara — to find intergenerational pleasures.

FOR FANS OF: Cuatros, drinking Medalla beer on the beach, Nelson Antonio Denis’ “War Against All Puerto Ricans”

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: Karol G’s “Tropicoqueta,” Rauw Alejandro ‘s “Cosa Nuestra: Capítulo 0,” Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso’s “Papota,” Fuerza Regida’s “111xpantia”

“Baby,” Dijon

This album cover image released by R&R/Warner Records shows “Baby” by Dijon. (R&R/Warner Records via AP)

For many listeners, Dijon is closely aligned with his big-name producing credits: on Bon Iver’s “SABLE, fABLE,” and Justin Bieber’s “Swag” series, or in his work with Mk.gee. But there’s a reason he is your favorite artist’s favorite artist. His take on R&B-pop and soul is surrealistic and dreamy; compositions are layered and borderline absurd. “Baby” is like peering into the brain of a great dadaist, if he just really loved Prince and springy electronics.

FOR FANS OF: Grooves, the musician Panda Bear, taking a break from social media

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: Nourished by Time’s “The Passionate Ones,” Leon Thomas’ “Mutt Deluxe: Heel,” Justin Bieber’s “Swag” and “Swag II”

“Bleeds,” Wednesday

This cover image released by Dead Oceans shows “Bleeds” by Wednesday. (Dead Oceans via AP)

Let the headline read: Great band gets better. It hasn’t been so long since the AP named Wednesday’s last album, “Rat Saw God,” one of the best of 2023, dubbing the North Carolina alt-country group the most exciting band in contemporary indie rock. Two years later, it appears there are no threats to their title. “Bleeds” is a sharpening of their already present skillsets: folksy and jagged vocals, guitar fuzz, bright and mournful slide guitar. And in singer and songwriter Karly Hartzman, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a keener lyricist.

FOR FANS OF: Urban legends, dive bar regulars, stick and poke tattoos

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: Geese’s “Getting Killed,” Daffo’s “Where the Earth Bends,” Sharp Pins’ “Radio DDR,” Algernon Cadwallader’s “Trying Not to Have a Thought”

“Never Enough,” Turnstile

This album cover image released by Roadrunner Records shows “Never Enough” by Turnstile. (Roadrunner Records via AP)

Lo and behold, an eight-time Grammy-nominated hardcore punk band! Baltimore’s Turnstile were underground stalwarts until 2021’s “Glow On” launched them into mainstream consciousness; they cemented their place there with “Never Enough.” They remain true to their punk spirit, but now with certain sonic deviations, like the ’80s radio rock “I Care” and the fleshy reverb of its title track. There are ferocious moments, too: Hit play on “Sunshower,” “Birds” and “Look Out For Me.” But ultimately there’s no need to don a spiky leather jacket to get into these rhythms; it’s hardcore for every listener.

FOR FANS OF: Fugazi, John Waters, Carhartt jackets

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: They Are Gutting a Body of Water’s “Lotto,” Lame’s “Lo Que Extrañas Ya No Existe,” The Tubs’ “Cotton Crown,” Artificial Go’s “Musical Chairs”

“Let God Sort Em Out,” Clipse

This cover image released by Roc Nation shows “Let God Sort Em Out” by Clipse. (Roc Nation via AP)

They didn’t need to do this. And it didn’t need to work so well. It’s been 16 years since brothers Malice and Pusha T teamed up for a Clipse album — 2009’s “Til the Casket Drops” — and a lot has changed. Their approach, too: Clipse’s return is fully produced by the glossy Pharrell Williams and features Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, the Creator. But ultimately, “Let God Sort Em Out” excels because the pair’s dexterous flows, sinister and motivational, are weighted and worldly. Where Malice’s voice is throatier now, Pusha T offers some smoothing. The combination of new and old makes for one of the year’s best rap records.

FOR FANS OF: Louis Vuitton, the wisdom of distance and experience, family reunions

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: Earl Sweatshirt’s “Live Laugh Love,” Open Mike Eagle’s “Neighborhood Gods Unlimited,” Billy Woods’ “Golliwog”

“Snipe Hunter,” Tyler Childers

This cover image released by RCA Records shows “Snipe Hunter” by Tyler Childers. (RCA via AP)

Tyler Childers is an outsider in the contemporary country music industry; his idiosyncrasies are a kind of superpower. Lest anyone forget the album preceding this one, 2023’s rowdy “Rustin’ in the Rain,” was conceived of as Childers penning song pitches for Elvis Presley. “Snipe Hunter” continues to keep fans on their toes. It’s a wild ride of rollicking songs, sometimes earnest and sometimes ironic, that at least one time ends with some serious consideration of the Bhagavad Gita. File that next to beer, trucks and church as regular country guy topics.

FOR FANS OF: Wailing, rule breakers, having a sense of humor at the end of the world

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: Charley Crockett’s “Lonesome Drifter,” Julien Baker and Torres’ “Send a Prayer My Way”

“The BPM,” Sudan Archives

This cover image released by Stones Throw Records shows “The BPM” by Sudan Archives. (Stones Throw Records via AP)

There is no more appropriately titled album than Sudan Archives’ “The BPM.” The latest release from the violinist and songwriter born Brittney Denise Parks pulls straight from the beat worlds of 1980s Chicago house and ’90s Detroit techno and evolves from there, developing something truly kinetic and unique that spans more genres than possible to list here. But at its core, this is club-pop-soul music, meant to live in the body of its listener.

FOR FANS OF: Karma, being the hottest person at the party, Jersey club music

LIKE THIS? CHECK OUT: Rochelle Jordan’s “Through the Wall,” Amaarae’s “Black Star,” Blood Orange’s “Essex Honey”

By MIKE STOBBE, Associated Press Medical Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal vaccine advisory committee voted on Friday to end the longstanding recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born.

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A loud chorus of medical and public health leaders decried the actions of the panel, whose current members were all appointed by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a leading anti-vaccine activist before this year becoming the nation’s top health official.

“This is the group that can’t shoot straight,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert who for decades has been involved with ACIP and its workgroups.

For decades, the government has advised that all babies be vaccinated against the liver infection right after birth. The shots are widely considered to be a public health success for preventing thousands of illnesses.

But Kennedy’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decided to recommend the birth dose only for babies whose mothers test positive, and in cases where the mom wasn’t tested.

For other babies, it will be up to the parents and their doctors to decide if a birth dose is appropriate. The committee voted to suggest that when a family decides not to get a birth dose, then the vaccination series should begin when the child is 2 months old.

The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jim O’Neill, is expected to decide later whether to accept the committee’s recommendation.

The decision marks a return to a public health strategy that was abandoned more than three decades ago.

Asked why the newly-appointed committee moved quickly to reexamine the recommendation, committee member Vicky Pebsworth on Thursday cited “pressure from stakeholder groups wanting the policy to be revisited.” She did not say who was pressuring the committee, and a spokesman for Kennedy did not respond to a question about it.

Committee members said the risk of infection for most babies is very low and that earlier research that found the shots were safe for infants was inadequate.

They also worried that in many cases, doctors and nurses don’t have full conversations with parents about the pros and cons of the birth-dose vaccination.

The committee members voiced interest in hearing the input from public health and medical professionals, but chose to ignore the experts’ repeated pleas to leave the recommendations alone.

Dr. Peter Hotez of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development in Houston declined to present before the group “because ACIP appears to have shifted its mission away from science and evidence-based medicine,” he said in an email to The Associated Press.

The committee gives advice to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how approved vaccines should be used. CDC directors almost always adopted the committee’s recommendations, which were widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs. But the agency currently has no director, leaving acting director O’Neill to decide.

In June, Kennedy fired the entire 17-member panel earlier this year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.

Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection that, for most people, lasts less than six months. But for some, especially infants and children, it can become a long-lasting problem that can lead to liver failure, liver cancer and scarring called cirrhosis.

In adults, the virus is spread through sex or through sharing needles during injection drug use. But it can also be passed from an infected mother to a baby.

In 1991, the committee recommended an initial dose of hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Experts say quick immunization is crucial to prevent infection from taking root. And, indeed, cases in children have plummeted.

Still, several members of Kennedy’s committee voiced discomfort with vaccinating all newborns. They argued that past safety studies of the vaccine in newborns was limited and it’s possible that larger, long-term studies could uncover a problem with the birth dose.

But two members said they saw no documented evidence of harm from the birth doses and suggested concern was based on speculation.

The panel was to vote Thursday, but voted to postpone after some members said they had just received the densely-worded vote proposals and wanted clarification and more time to consider it.

Three panel members asked about the scientific basis for saying that the first dose should be delayed for two months for many babies.

“This is unconscionable,” said committee member Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, who repeatedly voiced opposition to the proposal during the sometimes-heated two-day meeting.

The committee’s chair, Dr. Kirk Milhoan, said two months was chosen as a point where infants had matured beyond the neonatal stage. Hibbeln countered that there was no data presented that two months is an appropriate cut-off.

Some observers criticized the meeting, noting recent changes in how they are conducted. CDC scientists no longer present vaccine safety and effectiveness data to the committee. Instead, people who have been prominent voices in anti-vaccine circles were given those slots.

The committee “is no longer a legitimate scientific body,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, a member of Defend Public Health, an advocacy group of researchers and others that has opposed Trump administration health policies.

In a statement, she described the meeting this week as “an epidemiological crime scene” — a slaughter of how disease control professionals usually examine and act on evidence.

AP writer Laura Ungar in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.