1. Write a brief overall summary of your findings.
None of these publications release a single "Best book of the year" so the way the Bluesky post is worded is misleading.
Instead, all three of these publications release a large list of their “Best books of the year” across a variety of genres.
In the NewYorker’s article “The Best Books of 2025”, “In Covid’s Wake” did not make their “The Essential Reads” list, and instead was featured in the “Also Recommended” section. Making “In Covid’s Wake” only technically on their Best Books list.
The Economist's “The best books of 2025” article is separated by genre, with “In Covid’s Wake” being featured as part of their “Politics and current affairs” genre.
The Wall Street Journal Article, “The Best Books of 2025 and More”, was the only one I was unable to circumvent the paywall, so I was unable to view it myself, but according to secondary sources “In Covid’s Wake” was featured on their “Top 10 Across Genre” list.
2. What primary sources did you find (e.g., transcripts, videos of politician speeches, tweets from public figures, scientific studies)? For each source, write at least one or two sentences explaining what you learned. Include all links.
https://www.newyorker.com/best-books-2025 - The New Yorker, “The Best Books of 2025”
https://www.economist.com/culture/2025/11/20/the-best-books-of-2025 - The Econimist, “The best books of 2025”
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/the-best-books-of-2025-and-more-0260ebd6 - Wall Street Journal, “The Best Books of 2025 and More”
3. What secondary sources did you find (e.g., newspapers, magazines)? Only use secondary sources if sufficient primary sources are not available. For each source, write at least one or two sentences explaining what you learned. Include all links.
https://www.keplers.com/wall-street-journals-10-best-books-2025 - This article shows the top 10 books across genre list from the Wall Street Journal and where to buy them.
https://www.librarything.com/award/15745.0.0.2025/The-Wall-Street-Journal-Best-Books-of-the-Year-2025 - Another source which displays a list of books on The Wall Street Journal’s best books list as well as what category they were in.
4. What potential biases or interests might each of your sources have?
Though the claim that these books were on these best books of the year lists is correct, how these publications decide what books will make the list can be biased. A topic like “The best books of the year” is already very subjective, even what aspects makes a book “the best” is subjective. To curate these lists, teams of staff are involved, including people like journalists, editors, and book critics. Having a team of people can help to eliminate some bias, but a large group of professional journalists and book critics is a very specific group of people that isn’t representative of the general population, their definition of what makes a book “the best” most likely differs from the average person’s definition. There are also millions of books published each year, too many even for a whole team to read, so what books are even in contention in the first place is drawn from a biased list. Already established authors, books that already have wide appeal, books on a hot topic, books from the bestseller list, books from popular publishers, etc. are all more likely to be read by the team curating these lists than self-published books, books by new authors, or books that didn’t sell well.
5. What evidence supports the claim you are fact-checking?
The books “In Covid’s Wake” appears on all three of these publications lists of “The Best Books of 2025” in some capacity.
6. What evidence undermines the claim you are fact-checking?
The original Bluesky post uses the wording “Best Book of the Year” which is misleading wording as none of these publications release a Best Book of the Year.
In the New Yorker Article specifically, the book didn’t even make the essential reads list, instead only being featured as “Also Recommended"
