2025 Wrapped
Welcome to our wrap up of the most checked out items for 2025!
There are a few items in every category that our community enjoyed again and again. Let's take a look:
Top 3 DVDs: Ken Burn's Civil War, Conclave, and Wicked
The South Burlington Public Library offers information and entertainment in all areas of storytelling. In the DVD category, we offered the community access to insightful documenturies as well as blockbuster hits.
Top 3 Audiobook CDs: My Friends by Fredrik Backman, The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez, and The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny
Audiobooks are a bit like the oral storytelling of times past. With Audiobook CDs, patrons can read while reducing screen time, combine stories with crafts and work, and find new perspectives on old favorites.
Top 3 Graphic Novels: On tyranny by Timothy Snyder, Spent by Alison Bedchel, and Cat + Games by Wataru Nadatani
What's better than concise wording for your first introduction to a complex topic? Or for a break from text-heavy literature? The wonderful medium of Graphic Novels combines the visual and written arts to create the books South Burlington loved this year. From resistance, to wry humor, to heart warmining cuteness!
Top 3 Large Print: Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnson, and James by Percival Everitt
Our Large Print catagory offers huge new hits for folks with visual impairment, or who just prefer a larger text and a more even word-to-page ratio. Large Print also helps some folks read faster, which is useful in meeting your reading goals as well as for tackling those daunting resolution reads.
Top 3 Magazines: The Atlantic, Consumer Reports, and Kiplinger Personal Finance
Print isn't dead and magazines aren't either. Lots of community members enjoyed informative articles, detailed product breakdowns, and financial advice from our 2025 magazine selection.
Top 3 Passes: Echo Center, Shelbourne Museum, and Vermont State Parks
Nothing beats a pass to our excellent local museums. South Burlington residents enjoyed one-day passes to learn about science and enjoy the majesty of nature.
Top 3 YA Non-Fiction: A Deathly Compendium of Poisonous Plants: Wicked Weeds and Sinister Seeds by Rebecca E. Hirsch, Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights by Ashley Hope Perez, and An Illustrated History of Urban Legends By Adam Allsuch Boardman
In the Young Adult Non-Fction category, the top three choices proved that younger readers are full of intellectual curiosity. Everything from a Vermont Golden Dome nominated tome on deadly plants, to every day mysteries and the crucial topic of book banning.
Top 3 Adult Non-Fiction: The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, Abundance by Ezra Klein, and The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
And of course, adult readers are also curious! In 2025 it was important to learn about focusing on oneself, about the truths of our society, and the ways technology influences us all.
Top 3 Library of Things Items: Mobile Hotspot, Epson LCD Projector, and Metal Detector
In the Library of Things, our community found connection, creativity, and curiosity! The mobile hotspot allowed us to connect with each other, our work, our education and millions of online possibilites. The LCD projector could be used for a family movie night under the stars, or to help an artist create a painting. And the metal detector allows folks to find what's lost or find buried treasure.
Top 3 YA Fiction: Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow, Sunrise On the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, and A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
In YA Fiction, the young and young-at-heart devoured tales of tragedy, dystopia, and the twisting roads of happily ever after.
Top 3 Adult Fiction: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, My Friends by Frederick Backman, and James by Percival Everett
And finally, readers of Adult Fiction were enraptured by mysterious romance, emotional nuance, and groundbreaking literature retellings.
Come down to the South Burlington Public Library to get started on your 2026 reading list (or resolution) and help create next year's Top 3s.
