Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

I got back into using e-readers so I read a lot more this year than usual.

- More than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

- Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman

- Hogg by Samuel R. Delany

- The first dozen Discworld books (in publication order) by Terry Pratchet

- The Wall by Mary Roberts Reinhart

- Columbine by Dave Cullen

- Garth Marenghi's TerrorTome

- Stray Bullets: Killers by David Lapham

- Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses by David Lapham

I might be missing a few.

- How big things get done

- The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?

- The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition

- The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully

- Rework

Added them on my blog as well with a small review on each in case anyone is interested: https://www.alexanderlolis.com/my-2025-reads

I got really into Hemingway’s work, reading all the best ones, but my favourite being ‘A moveable feast’ his diary essentially released at the end of his life set when he was mid-twenties in 1920s Paris. Me being the same age, I was inspired enough to go there and retrace some of his steps.

Cutting a long list short, the _best_ thing I read this year was W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage.

It’s not a book where the world changes greatly or great things are done, but honestly that’s kind of nice: It’s a compelling story of a life, the characters were engrossing (one in particular stands out for how strongly _dislikeable_ they are) and the I loved the prose.

Also shoutout to Standard EBook’s excellent, public domain edition (and all their volunteers other work!): https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/w-somerset-maugham/of-huma...

The Will of the Many. An epic high fantasy adventure. I’m just about to finish the second book in the series - The Strength of the Few. I haven’t gasped this many times reading a book in while.

I’ve been working through more Dostoyevsky- currently ending the year reading The Brothers Karamazov (Constance Garnett translation).

It’s topping The Idiot for me- and a fitting way to end the year. I have spent most of 2025 stuck in a 19th Century reading cycle which started when reading Murakamis “After the quake” short story collection, specifically Super-Frog saves Tokyo where he mentions Anna K.

Anna Karenina-> Crime and Punishment-> The Idiot and some various Kafka in the mix too.

Hoping to visit some modern stuff again next year

I stick to HN for finding interesting technical articles (whenever you all aren't bikeshedding about LLMs lol)

2025 Online: Noahpinion, Zeihan on Geopolitics, Ezra's column NYTimes, Where's Your Ed At

2025 Books: Abundance, Human Nature - Thomas Bell, (Plus a handful of books on maintaining faith despite not being politically conservative)

Looking forward to in 2026: Everything is Tuberculosis - John Green

For fiction I read a lot of Brandon Sanderson: the second Mistborn series, plus a few of the Secret Projects. I quite liked Tress of the Emerald Sea. Also currently reading R. F. Kuang's Katabasis which I'm really enjoying so far.

For nonfiction, I found Amanda Ripley's High Conflict to be excellent and insightful. I also finally got around to reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins; I expected it to be fine, but it far exceeded my expectations! On top of that, the edition I read also had "end notes" interspersed throughout the book with retrospectives from decades later, which only added to the book's richness.

My top-rated books this year:

* C++ Crash Course by Josh Lospinoso

* Deng Xiaoping And The Transformation Of China by Ezra Vogel

* Magic: A Very Short Introduction by Owen Davies

* Trigonometry by Hugh Neill

I rated each one 9/10

The Silo series by Hugh Howey -- some excellent sci-fi to go along with the show

The Red Rising series by Pierce Brown -- lots of sci-fi fun, extremely epic

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King -- King's "Lord of the Rings" opus, great writing, ending maybe a little unsatisfying but not abnormal

Artemis - Andy Weir's first book -- Fun read about a heist on the moon. Anticipating Project Hail Mary movie early next year!

Currently in the middle of: The Talisman - Stephen King / Peter Straub

Complications and Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Made me appreciate modern medicine more. One other l book that shifted my thinking completely about AI and how far we are from AGI: A Brief History Of Intelligence by Max Bennett. Evolution is a heck of an algorithm.

Also read Apple In China. Was pretty interesting to realize how much Apple (and China) are what they are because of how much they poured into each other

"Lonesome Dove"

And it's hard to convey how much I enjoyed it. I'm afraid to pick up any other novel of a similar kind as I'll be furiously comparing.

So after it I sterted reading hardcore Sci-fi: Vacuum Diagrams, to not let my mind draw any comparative thoughts:)

Completed books:

Project Hail Marry by Andy Weir

Dungeon Crawler Carl (Books 1-7) by Matt Dinniman

I'm currently reading:

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams

The most interesting books I read this year were:

Acting class - I found this book surprisingly compelling. It made me reflect on my own search for connection and identity, and how easily it is to be misled and manipulated when you've got no one close.

Earthlings - The book's plot gets really horrific (don't let the cover fool you). However, it did make me think about social norms and taboos a little differently.

1984 - It was my first time reading the book, and man, looking around and seeing bits and pieces of the surveillance mentioned in the book in real life is kind of terrifying...

Grapes of Wrath - It's definitely the most heart-wrenching book I've ever read. Watching the Joad family get absolutely devastated by the monster that is unchecked capitalism is so sad :(

Skunk works - Really good book on the development of Lockheed's stealth planes. However, I did wish I got more technical details.

I would love to see some more book recommendations :)

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee stuck with me more than anything else I read this year. It is a work of simple beauty.

It’s a story of several generations of poor Korean women who eventually immigrate to Japan. The front half of the book is wonderfully paced to spend time with the characters. The back half can feel a bit rushed, but it becomes more of a page turner.

The Cold Millions by Jess Walter is another period novel about union organizing in the Pacific Northwest around the turn of the century, and follows two brothers. The depth of research makes this book wonderfully vibrant.

It's a pretty old book, but I think my favorite this year was The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer which was great fun for an avid Simpsons fan (of the first 10 seasons at least).

Of course, I'd also be remiss not to mention that I published a book called Rebooting a Nation about how the nation of Estonia modernized post re-independence and became a hub for startups and e-government in a single generation. Foreign Affairs was kind enough to just do a review: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/rebooting-nation-incr...

Demian by Hermann Hesse. I wanted to scream "Stop overthinking!" to the protagonist. Something I can relate to.

Siddharta by Hermann Hesse. Helped me understand that a perfect life is a collection of ups and downs and that one must accept it all.

Amerika by Franz Kafka. Could relate to the protagonist because people take advantage of his naivety.

Factfulness by Hans Rosling. Made me see the world in a less pessimistic way.

I read a lot of sci-fi. Much of that is bad.

This is not the case.

Dennis Paul Himes: Raisinbread: The Story of Jennifer Choate and Her Role in the Crisis of 2262

After reading the above book (I didn't get much sleep) I e-mailed the author with the subject "Please take my money!" and asked him to write more books.

Michael Moorcock's _The Citadel of Forgotten Myths_ --- probably the last Elric book, it is an interesting closure to a series I've been reading since high school

J.R.R. Tolkien's _The Bovadium Fragments: Together with The Origins of Bovadium_ --- probably the last "new" Tolkien book --- quite the hoot, and an interesting commentary on industrialism and the Oxford Don's opinions on same

Donald E. Knuth's _TAoCP: Vol. 4, Fascicle 7, Constraint Satisfaction_ --- working through exercises now in the hope of finding a typo for the sake of getting an account at The Bank of the Island of San Seriffe to go w/ my physical reward check.

Variety of other things, but those were the notable/interesting ones.

I read close to 40 books this year which I assume is up from the previous year, and way more than I used to read prior to starting to do the Rochester Library reading challenge (which I've done for the past two years). I won't get into a lot of it, but after reading Middlemarch three years ago, Napoleon: A Life two years ago, and The Power Broker last year I decided to read two "big" books.

In the first half of the year War and Peace, which obviously was excellent, although I liked Middlemarch more.

In the second half of the year David Copperfield which was very excellent. Just beautifully written. I still think I probably like Middlemarch more... but it might now require a re-read to know for sure.

This year is going to be Tom's Crossing to start as I just got that for Christmas.

A few years ago I promised myself to read the top of "must reads" from world literature. Many of them were literally unreadable (hello Moby Dick). But some of them are true gems, must-reads indeed. I just finished "The Grapes of Wrath" and holy cow, this is an impressive piece of literature. And unfortunately, more relevant than ever. Why not give science fiction a break and try this classic instead.

After reading Primo Levi's "The Drowned and the Saved", I went on a binge of his earlier works: "If This Is a Man", "The Truce", "If not now, when?". All great, but I keep coming back to "The Drowned and the Saved"; it's hard to put my finger on it, but it's a book that provides more meaning about life than anything I've ever read.

The main thing I read was the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman.

It requires even more suspension of disbelief than a usual sci fi / fantasy combo, but was worth it for the characters and laughs and “where will he take this next?!”.

Started rereading Pratchett's discworld novels. Gosh I love his writing.

Humble Bundle has spoiled me and my ebook library has grown by around a 100 books this year...

Tech book recommendations: 'Secure by Design', 'Designing Data-Intensive Applications', 'Building Secure and Reliable Systems' and 'Fundamentals of Software Architecture'.

For scifi: 'Murderbot Diaries' and 'The Expanse' - both are just great entertainment

My 3 favorites were:

Dungeon Crawler Carl - I laughed, I cried, perfect match for my sense of humor.

The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter - Great read, changed some of my training because of it.

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett (#1 of The Century Trilogy series) - An amazing overview of the 20th century through the eyes of several families accross the globe (fiction).

I’ve been working towards my WSET diploma so not much non-wine related fun reading. That being said:

     - Phylloxera: How Wine was Saved for the world by Christy Campbell is a surprisingly fun read on how the entire wine industry was almost destroyed in the late 19th century.
      - Red/Green/Blue Mars by K. S. Robinson hard sci-fi about mars colonization and terraforming. First rereading in 20 years or so. Holds up extremely well.
      - Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. A thought provoking take on how broad stroke human history developed since the Bronze Age.

Not enough. Going to try to rein in some sustained attention in the new year.

- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

- Playground by Richard Powers

- Designing Data Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppman

I'm curious how much AI-generated stuff I read this year... likely at least a book's worth, but it would be more like one of those books with 365+ random deep dives into stuff that's not really relevant to my life.

How to Think Like Socrates - I normally have a difficult time digesting philosophy in older translations or language, but this one was really nicely written and well communicated.

Water by Rumi (translated by Haleh Liza Gafori) - also unexpectedly good. She uses a modern style and it reads so beautifully. It gave me glimpse of the beauty of the Persian language.

My best reads this year:

Non-fiction:

- The Power Broker by Robert Caro

Fantasy:

- The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

Sci-fi:

- Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio

- A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr

- Ra by qntm

- Jean le Flambeur series by Hannu Rajaniemi

- Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (didn’t like the subsequent books of the series so much)

Other novels:

- Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard

My favorites that I read this year were:

- Playground by Richard Powers: the ocean reminds us that we, along with our obsessions and rivalries, are small - Orbital by Samantha Harvey: a book were not much happens, but a lot goes on below the surface - Hum by Helen Phillips: looks at an AI controlled near future through a different lens - Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow: sex, lies, and video games

I started in August, but the two books I read were Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, and East of Eden by Steinbeck.

I tried reading Catch-22, but 50 pages in it just seemed like a bunch of military guys trolling each other by being as autistically literal as possible with absurdist Airplane-style humor. I noped out at the prospect of reading 500 more pages of it. I don’t get why people here recommend it so much.

I recently started reading Moby Dick.

I read 57 books this year, a mix between fiction and non-fiction

Top 5 fiction

- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

- Trust by Hernan Diaz

- City of Thieves by David Benioff

- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

- Widow Basquiat by by Jennifer Clement

Top 5 non-fiction

- Boom Town by Sam Anderson

- The Second Founding by Eric Foner

- The Club by Jonathan Clegg and Joshua Robinson

- The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel by Douglas Brunt

- The Spy and the Traitor by Ben McIntyre

My favorite reads of 2025:

"Solenoid" - Mircea Carterescu"

"The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie" - Agota Kristof

"Septology" - Jon Fosse

I don't read much any more. Mostly magazine articles.

I did re-read "The Long Run" from Daniel Keys Moran (one of the very short list of books I've re-read, and this was #4 or #5).

"Were you taught to hate Peaceforcers?" "Taught? No."

The only new book that I read was "Heat 2" by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner.

It was "ok". It honestly felt like a mashup of "Heat", "Miami Vice", and "Blackhat". So, not as fresh as I would have liked. (Mind, I really like all of those movies.)

I'll see the movie when it comes out, but the book was just "ok".

How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg

Bhagvad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

How The World Really Works by Vaclav Smil

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Chaos by James Gleick

Wind and Truth (Stormlight Archive #5) by Brandon Sanderson

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle

The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

This year: DirectX12 documentation. Lots of them. Harry Potter part 7 (again). Read Part 1 and 2 to kid.

My highlights were the Edward Ashton books « Mickey7 » and « Antimatter Blues » (sequel to the first).

Haven’t seen the movie adaptation yet but the books are such delightful dark humor SF, loved them

My notable find this year was an author who will serve for me as a successor to le Carré as a reliable source of thoughtful spy fiction and I have a backlog of his work to look forward to, but the first for me was:

The Crocodile Hunter by Gerald Seymour

An elderly MI5 also-ran contemptuously tagged "the eternal flame" by his bumptious young colleagues shows doggedness, courage and unexpected depth as he pursues a dangerous ISIS returnee planning an attack on British soil. Unusual and riveting.

my favorites for 2025

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler the whole Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman

I mostly read non-fiction and technical articles.

My favorite book this year was "Differential Privacy" (2025) by Simson Garfinkel. Differential privacy is a mathematical theory of data privacy sandwiched between cryptography, databases, and ML. This is the first book-length non-technical introduction, and it's well executed.

Here's my full book list for the year: https://bcmullins.github.io/interesting-books-2025/.

- My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner: A Family Memoir - Meir Shalev

- Four Meals - Meir Shalev

- Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Currently reading: Anna Karenina - Tolstoy, The Creative Act - Rick Rubin

Bhagavad-gītā As It Is: https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/ Beautiful translation and purports on one of the most widely read and revered text in India.

The Road to Serfdom - Friedrich August von Hayek

Apology of Socrates - Plato

The Betrayal of the Intellectuals - Julien Benda

I reread “The Screwtape Letters” by CS Lewis for the first time since high school and appreciated it even more. Although it’s written from a Christian point of view, the principles are applicable to any moral framework.

The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter.

Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within by David Goggins.

These two books stuck with me. We are often too comfortable with being comfortable. There is nothing wrong with that, but real growth happens when we step outside our comfort zone. We are far more capable than we think.

More books than I can easily recall or put down here.

Currently in the middle of a re-read of one of my favorites, Ken Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion. Also the first Otherside Picnic light novel, after watching and loving the anime adaptation.

Fiction:

A Little Life - challenging to read but exceptional

Sci-fi

Three Body Problem trilogy - forget the Netflix series the books are excellent, in my opinion #2 was the peak.

The Glass Hotel, Station Eleven, Sea of Tranquility - anything by Emily St. John Mandel - hard to place but her distinct writing style transports me.

Non-fiction:

American Moonshot - fine The Path to Power - anything Caro writes is worth reading