To-Read Book List for 2025

As I mentioned in my previous post, where I shared an overview of the 28 books I read in 2024, this post focuses on the curated list of books I plan to explore in 2025. I’ve compiled these titles from various sources on the internet. For reference, here are the curated lists from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020.

As always, I share these lists to:

1. To encourage others to read. I will not get tired of saying we need to read more as a people. Joining a book club like the Naija Book Club may not be a bad idea.
2. To provide a list for those who don’t know where to start. With 50 books, there is a lot of options.
3. To document my own personal book history. I take writing seriously because I know that a pen is many times better than the best memory.

So, here you go:

BIOGRAPHY / AUTOBIOGRAPHY / MEMOIR

1. Tap Dancing on Everest, by Mimi Zieman
2. The Copenhagen Trilogy, by Tove Ditlevsen
3. Rembrandt’s Eyes, by Simon Schama
4. Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, by James R. Doty
5. The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions, by Jonathan Rosen
6. Politics On the Edge: A Memoir From Within, by Rory Stewart
7. Finding Chika: A Little Girl, an Earthquake, and the Making of a Family, by Mitch Albom

BUSINESS

1. The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources, by Javier Blas & Jack Farchy
2. The Case for Good Jobs: How Great Companies Bring Dignity, Pay, and Meaning to Everyone’s Work, by Zeynep Ton
3. Seeking Fairness at Work: Cracking the New Code of Greater Employee Engagement, Retention & Satisfaction, by Hanna Hasl-Kelchner
4. The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion, by Eliot Brown & Maureen Farrell
5. Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America by Christopher Leonard

FINANCE & ECONOMICS

1. More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite, by Sebastian Mallaby
2. The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution, by Gregory Zuckerman
3. Trade Wars Are Class Wars: How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace, by Matthew C. Klein & Michael Pettis
4. Growth: A Reckoning, by Daniel Susskind
5. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff
6. Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century, by Helen Thompson
7. Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, by Ben McKenzie, Jacob Silverman

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

1. The End of Everything, by Katie Mack
2. Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War, by Raj M. Shah & Christopher Kirchhoff
3. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
4. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, by Cat Bohannon
5. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake
6. The Log from the Sea of Cortez, by John Steinbeck

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

1. Unfinished Business: Women, Men, Work, Family, by Anne-Marie Slaughter
2. When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, by Pema Chödrön
3. How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between, by Bent Flyvbjerg & Dan Gardner
4. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown
5. Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor

PHILOSOPHY

1. The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus
2. Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, by Rick Hanson & Richard Mendius
3. Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism, by Richard Rorty

POLITICS

1. Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum
2. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, by Cathy O’Neil
3. The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era, by Gary Gerstle
4. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, by Douglas A. Blackmon
5. The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, by Tim Alberta

FICTION

1. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
2. The Storyteller, by Jodi Picoult
3. A Man With No Title, by Xavier Le Clerc
4. The Maniac, by Benjamin Labatut
5. Death of the Author, by Nnedi Okorafor
6. African Possibilities: A Matriarchitarian Perspective for Social Justice, by Ifi Amadiume

NATIONS

1. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang
2. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings, by Neil Price
3. The Nineties, by Chuck Klosterman
4. France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain, by Julian T. Jackson
5. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe
6. By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land, by Rebecca Nagle

Do you want to join our reading club? Here.

Got books you absolutely love and would like for me to read? Please mention them in the comments. I’m always on the lookout for great recommendations.