Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?

I have recently been RTO'ed so I'm expecting to have a lot of time to read in coming months - yay for all transport between two points in London taking ~1 hour no matter what the actual physical distance - but in the last year I've been pretty busy with stressful projects and homelife, so feel lightly read compared to previous years.

Despite that, some recommendations:

First, remember that everybody's reading list is naturally capped. If it takes you a week to read a fiction book, and you're 30 years old, you have ~2,500 books left in your life. If you're closer to 50, it's more like ~1,500. And if it takes you a month to finish a book, you're at ~600 and ~350 respectively.

This means being picky is a necessity. Do not read books on "100 hundred books you must read before you die", style lists unless they all appeal to you. Do not try and cover the ground of every Nobel laureate unless you're a) a prolific reader, b) multi-lingual, and c) not easily bored. The same goes for any other prestigious prize, list, etc.

The most important thing is to read things you like reading. Don't read classics unless you like classics. Don't read sci-fi just because you work in tech unless you like sci-fi. I like a lot of contemporary "high brow" literature because I enjoy how people discover new ways to play with language to convey emotions. A lot of people find this incredibly dull, and that's fine.

You do you. You don't have time to read books somebody else says you "should" or "must" read.

One thing I think we can all agree on though is that almost all self-help books and airport style management or "popular science" books do not return the investment they demand. It's for you to decide how to interpret this, but please, read things that bring you a depth of joy not because they're popular or on a list or seem to be "everywhere".

For my style of reading, I like to get pointers from two magazines I subscribe to: The Literary Review [0] and Granta[1]. I am sure there are other sources for your preferred type of reading. Go support them. Be prepared to hand over cash to writers who publish a physical artefact, it's the only way they'll keep eating and doing that thing.

I would like to find time to add other magazines to my list (TLS, Paris Review, etc.), but I have limited time, these specific two tick boxes for me stylistically, have proven the test of time indicating quality, and even if I only find one or two books or authors a year out of them, have paid for themselves many times over. Further, I get a reasonable review of what's out there and can get a sense of what isn't for me, without reading it or feeling guilty about not reading it even though others tell me I "must".

As an aside, Lit Review's history reviews often are so good at covering the ground of the material the book covers, I feel like I've had a 1,000 word Cliff Notes version of the book in my hand and can decide to dig deeper if I want, but if not, I could understand a basic conversation about that topic if I needed to, and on occasion something I read has helped in a pub quiz.

One last point: try and break out of your echo chamber sometimes. It is easy to pick up and enjoy books that support one's own World view, but I like to challenge mine and keep it in check.

Reading the Communist Manifesto will not make you a Communist. Reading Mein Kampf will not convert you into a Nazi, because you have the perspective to rip it to shreds and see it for what it is.

Buying (OK, pirating, maybe you don't want to vote with your money in this category), books that heap praise on people you perhaps don't like or disagree with - Trump, Obama, Putin, Fidel Castro, Biden, Palosi, Blair, Thatcher, Pinochet, whoever... - these books will not make you those people or somebody who heaps praise on them. Develop the critical muscle to question things you read.

I say this because not only has this helped me navigate the news and political cycles of my life, but because it's helped me improve relationships with friends and family and even my reading of fiction.

Books really are the most marvellous things, and they all deserve more of our attention, even the bad ones.

[0] https://literaryreview.co.uk

[1] https://granta.com

I started the year with "Right thing, right now", and I'm ending it with "wisdom takes work" (R.Holiday), but I'm happy to say that I'm now a bit "tired" of re-reading the same rehashing of other people's book, and I want to read the original ones. Which, actually, is the pont.

I wanted to read classics, and devoured "The portrait of Dorian Gray" (O.Wilde), where maybe 50% of all the "as O.Wilde said..." quotes seem to come from (uttered by a single, incredibly obnoxious character.)

I challenged myself to read "Les Miserables" (V.Hugo), and actually managed to get two tomes out of five down. Eminently quotable, heavily skippable - why on earth spend half a time on describing the ins and out of Waterloo, except to show off ? - and, surprisingly, at times, _funny_.

The bio of Pierre Mendès France (J.Lacouture) was very much topical, given the mess in Franch politics. We had more PMs in one year than in a few chapters of the book. It's very weird to read that, at some point, some politicians were "liked" by the people - but lost power anyway.

A small Edouard Phillipe book called "Men who read" almost made me like the guy - his next book is more serious and expected. It pains me to think that our next election is going to be about "well read people who disappointed everyone" vs "popular jocks with no education who will end up disappointing everyone".

"Abundance" (E.Klein / D.Thompson) is an attempt from "well read people" to at least try and understand why everyone is disappointed and prefer the jocks. I don't think they included any solution in their book, though - maybe they save it for the sequel, or for E.Klein's presidential bid.

I want to read all Stripe press - if only, because the covers rock, and they're optimistic. Started with "Poor Charlie's Almanach" (C.Munger), which a disappointing rehash of the same funny speech seven times. (Tldr : be multidisciplinary, study cognitive biases, don't trade). In the middle of "The Origins of Efficiency " (Potter)

"The Wave" (Souleymane) was not optimistic. And not practical at all - sure, AI enabled drones carrying bioweapons will suck. "The Age of predators" (G. Da Empoli) reminds us that the AI enabled bioweapons carrying drones will come from an illiberal state enabled by billionaires from Silicon Valley, and Russian trolls. I wish someone told me where to go to avoid being targeted too early.

"Everything is tuberculosis" (J. Greene) reminded me of a time when scientists were trying to solve problems as opposed to creating brand new ones - but at least the next generations won't die of boredom.

"We, programmers" is a rehash of Uncle Bob's pre talks "history of programming". I loved the long and detailed parts about G.Hopper. He ends with a (failed) attempt to convince that programmers will still be needed in the age of AI.

Steve Yegge's "Vibe coding" goes full "resistance is futile" about programming with agents, and, interestingly, ends up talking more about TDD than Uncle Bob - but the words "electricity consumption" and "climate impact" are not utured, because, why spoil the fun.

"The Common LISP cookbook" tried to explain me the difference between ASDF, quicklisp and whatnot - 2025 was the closest year I ever go to actually writing something in LISP instead of reading books about it.

And also, "The baby is a mammal" (M.Odent) and "Becoming a dad for dummies", because this year was probably the last one we're I'll get so much time to read :)

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I had ChatGPT create a list of the top 100 literary classics of the past century and summarize them for me. While I'm waiting for Claude Code to write code for me I listen to the summaries like an audiobook. I'm planning to read a lot more than 100 books next year!