My 2025 reading highlights
The best of the books I first read this year.
My 2025 reading highlights in reading-chronological order, excluding rereads.
1. Among the Braves (Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin)
2. Sunrise on the Reaping (Suzanne Collins)
3. Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution (Tania Branigan)
4. Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (Lorrie Moore)
5. More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity (Adam Becker)
6. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism (Sarah Wynn-Williams)
7. Velvet Was the Night (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)
8. The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)
The length of this list surprises me, as it’s no shorter than the ones I usually produce. It hasn’t felt like a good reading year. I’ve had several episodes of extended ill health which made it hard to concentrate, especially on fiction. Instead I have spent many hours in the company of podcasts, finding particular relish in the deliciously - and probably unhealthily - smug Decoding the Gurus. Hoping 2026 is a better reading year.
