Announcing the Finalists for the 2025 Big Other Book Award for Nonfiction!

We’re excited to announce the finalists for the 2025 Big Other Book Award for Nonfiction. The winner will be announced at the 2025 Big Other Book Awards Ceremony, which will be aired virtually (date and time to be announced).

Without further ado, here are the finalists for the 2025 Big Other Book Award for Nonfiction:

Giorgio Agamben’s The Body of Language, translated by Kevin Attell (Seagull Books)

Laurie Blauner’s Swerve (Rain Mountain Press)

Julie Carr’s The Garden (Essay Press and Pamenar Press)

Molly Gaudry’s Fit Into Me (Rose Metal Press)

Byung-Chul Han’s In Praise of the Earth: A Journey into the Garden (Polity Books), translated by Daniel Steuer

Michael Loughran’s Windower (CSU Poetry Center)

Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive? (W. W. Norton & Company)

Michael Martone’s Table Talk & Second Thoughts: A Memoir in Flashes (Cornerstone Press)

Russell Persson’s These Threads Who Lead to Bramble (Dzanc Books)

Jeffrey Pethybridge’s Force Drift: An Essay in the Epic (Tupelo Press)

Amie Souza Reilly’s Human/Animal: A Bestiary in Essays (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)

D. Harlan Wilson’s Strangelove Country (Science Fiction, Filmosophy, and the Kubrickian Consciousness) (Stalking Horse Press)

(Image: Roberto Matta’s Abstraction (1959-60))

John Madera is the author of Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024) and Nomad Science (Spuyten Duyvil Press, forthcoming in 2026). His fiction is also published in Conjunctions, Salt Hill, Hobart, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His poetry is also published in elimae, Sixth Finch, Contrapuntos, and elsewhere. His criticism is published in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, two-time New York State Council on the Arts awardee John Madera lives in New York City, where he runs Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.

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