Some awards arrive already steeped in significance—not because of their age, but because of their ambition. The World’s Best Book Awards, a flagship category of The World’s Best Awards presented by The World’s Best Magazine, are among those rare recognitions. These awards aim to celebrate books that embody the fullest potential of literature—not just as art, but as a force for connection, insight, and change.

The criteria are intentionally expansive, yet precise: emotional resonance, originality, cultural relevance, craftsmanship, and the power to spark global conversations. To be considered, a book must not only move individual readers—it must contribute meaningfully to the world around it. Whether through innovative storytelling, urgent themes, or voices long ignored, honorees are chosen for their ability to imprint something lasting on both literature and life.

And yet, as with any prize, some titles leave their mark whether or not they take home the honor. Here are five books from 2025 that weren’t named winners—but whose impact, insight, and imagination deserve the highest recognition.

1. Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq

When Banu Mushtaq writes about women’s lives, she doesn’t shout—she listens. And so do her readers. Heart Lamp, a luminous collection of 12 short stories originally written in Kannada, gives voice to women often left out of literature altogether: widows, schoolgirls, domestic workers, daughters-in-law, mothers, and revolutionaries. Each story hums with quiet power.

In one unforgettable tale, a woman escapes her abusive husband but continues to live in the same neighborhood, walking the same streets, boiling the same rice—but this time, on her own terms. It’s subtle. It's real. It mirrors what psychologists call "post-traumatic growth", the phenomenon where survivors of trauma report increased personal strength, spiritual depth, and appreciation for life.

Deepa Bhasthi’s nuanced translation lets Mushtaq’s language breathe, maintaining the multilingual texture of Kannada, Urdu, and Arabic phrases that add depth without alienation. The result is a voice as intimate as a diary, as sharp as a protest chant.

Virginia Woolf once said, “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” Heart Lamp helps correct that history—gently, beautifully, and with fire.

2. The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

What do we inherit from silence?

Set in the Netherlands just after World War II, Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep unspools like a memory—aching, atmospheric, and not quite linear. Isabel lives with her mother in a large, crumbling house heavy with secrets. When a stranger arrives, the architecture of repression begins to crack.

This isn’t just historical fiction—it’s an excavation. Van der Wouden writes with the precision of someone unearthing fossils. Each scene reveals something old, buried, and hard to face. The book resonates with research on intergenerational trauma, where descendants of survivors—of war, genocide, or displacement—show symptoms of grief they didn’t directly live through.

There’s love here too. Queer desire pulses under the surface of the novel, restrained but radiant. Like a painting viewed through fog, the beauty lies partly in what's obscured.

Isn’t it true that the most powerful stories are the ones that ask you to lean in and listen closer? The Safekeep doesn’t raise its voice. But it doesn’t need to.

3. Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love by Sophie Elmhirst

In 1973, a British couple set out to sail around the world in a 31-foot yacht. Forty days in, a whale hit their boat. The next 118 days were spent adrift in a life raft, eating raw fish and collecting rainwater. It sounds like fiction—but it’s not. It’s the astonishing true story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, retold with vivid compassion by journalist Sophie Elmhirst.

Elmhirst draws from Maralyn’s own diary, as well as interviews and maritime records, to recreate every blister, every jellyfish sting, every moment of marital tenderness. Scientists have studied human resilience in extreme conditions, and the Baileys’ ordeal remains a textbook example of survival through trust, adaptability, and shared willpower.

They weren’t adventurers or influencers. Maurice worked in office equipment; Maralyn was a typist. They just loved the sea—and each other.

The great oceanographer Sylvia Earle once said, “Every time I slip into the ocean, it’s like going home.” For Maurice and Maralyn, that “home” nearly became a tomb—but instead, it became the ultimate test of devotion.

So, why didn’t this story make every headline, every prize list? Perhaps because it’s too gentle for our moment. But gentleness, especially in the face of a violent sea, is its own form of heroism.

4. Glasgow Boys by Margaret McDonald

Some books don’t just tell a story—they speak for those who haven’t been heard. Glasgow Boys, Margaret McDonald’s debut, is one of those rare books that captures the emotional architecture of boyhood in care: the bravado, the fear, the fierce loyalties.

Set in Scotland and written in authentic Scots dialect, this novel follows a group of teenage boys navigating friendship, grief, social workers, and the edges of the foster system. One of them writes rap lyrics to process his mother’s death. Another fears his 18th birthday—not because he’s growing up, but because it means leaving care.

A 2022 report from the UK’s Children’s Commissioner revealed that over 80,000 children are in the care system—many facing instability, disrupted education, and higher rates of mental illness. McDonald, who has a background in community support work, brings that reality to the page without ever lapsing into tragedy or pity.

Instead, she gives us boys who are complicated, joyful, angry, and alive. Like this line from the book: “A boy is no just what the world’s made him—he’s what he makes with what’s left.”

Isn’t that the most radical kind of resilience?

5. The Story of a Heart by Rachel Clarke

This book begins with a heartbeat. Or rather, the absence of one.

Keira Ball was nine when she died in a car accident. Her heart went to Max Johnson, a young boy with end-stage heart failure. Years later, Max would campaign for organ donation laws and change lives in Keira’s name. The Story of a Heart, written by palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke, tells their interlinked story with surgical clarity and enormous grace.

Clarke weaves memoir, medical insight, and ethics into one profound tapestry. She reminds us that the human heart beats over 100,000 times per day—and sometimes, that rhythm continues in someone else’s chest. With warmth and rigor, she shows how love, science, and grief intersect in operating rooms and living rooms alike.

There’s a famous line from Maya Angelou: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Clarke’s book doesn’t just inform—it transforms. Readers walk away not only knowing more about organ donation, but feeling differently about life itself.

Isn’t that what nonfiction should do?

Final Thoughts

Awards are a way to honor excellence—but not the only way. Some books don’t need a gold seal to leave their mark. These five titles proved that literature can still surprise us, still comfort and challenge and move us in ways no algorithm or summary ever could.

They may not have taken home The World’s Best Book Award. But in homes, libraries, classrooms, and conversations around the world, they’ve already won.