Releasing October 21, The Folio Society’s 2025 Christmas Collection will feature a whopping 13 titles with several surprising, headline-worthy additions.
A year after its TV adaptation took Hulu by storm, James Clavell’s Shōgun may be the biggest showstopper here in a two-volume illustrated edition with art by Chris Malbon — who has designed everything from WuTang Clan tour posters to special edition Blu-ray covers for samurai films. Set in 17th-century Japan and originally published in 1975, Shōgun is easily one of the best works of historical fiction I’ve ever read.
I’m also drooling over Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, which is getting an Oscar-bait film adaptation directed by Chloé later this fall. The new art from linocut mastermind Becca Thorne looks fantastic, and well-suited for the Elizabethan time period.
Science fiction fans are eating good in this collection, with Folio’s fourth book in the Dune series, Frank Herbert’s God Emperor of Dune (I honestly thought they’d stop after Children of Dune, because these books really start going off the rails the later into the series you get), and an omnibus edition of Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy of Africanfuturist novellas. There’s also a shockingly timely new edition of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four with striking art by La Boca (who did Philip K. Dick’s Ubik for Folio a few years ago) and a new introduction by Elif Shafak.
Rounding out the rest of the collection are:
- Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a landmark work of narrative history first published in 1970.
- Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, the bestselling romantic ode to video game development from just three years ago.
- Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing, the second book in his “Border Trilogy.”
- Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, an anthology of his most popular short stories.
- Enid Blyton’s The Folk of the Faraway Tree, the third and final novel in her children’s fantasy series.
- Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking, the Swedish children’s novel first published in 1945.
- Dan Jones’s The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors, a narrative history of the religious order.
- Philip Norman’s SHOUT!: The True Story of the Beatles, a group biography filled with photographs.
Alderbrink 