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Best and Worst Books, 2025

I read another 50+ books in 2025, and these are the ones that stood out--both the good and the terrible. Each link below will take you to my review and discussion notes.

If you'd like to support my work here, please feel free to use this Amazon link to do your shopping. I'll be paid a modest affiliate fee at no extra cost to you.

Thank you for reading, and all the best for 2026!

See also!

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Best (5/5 stars or close):
Deep Response by Tyler Disney
Before the Dawn by Shimazaki Toson
Broken Money by Lyn Alden
The Collapse of British Power by Correlli Barnett
Uncommon Therapy by Jay Haley
The Dhandho Investor by Mohnish Pabrai
The Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner
Perpetuity by Kevin Joseph
Ghost Boy by Martin Pistorius


Worst (1/5 stars or close):
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
By All Means Available by Michael Vickers
Empire Incorporated by Philip J. Stern
The Best of S.J. Perelman by S.J. Perelman
Breaking Twitter by Ben Mezrich
Number Go Up by Zeke Faux

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How to Make Money in Any Market by Jim Cramer

Not Cramer's best, although there are insights here. I recommend instead two of Cramer's earlier works: Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World  and Getting Back to Even . The central idea in  How to Make Money in Any Market  is to structure your portfolio with roughly half of your assets in a low-fee S&P 500 index fund, and roughly the other half in five or so carefully researched "hero" stocks that are meant to be long-term secular growers and compounders over time. A remaining sliver of your portfolio should be in some sort of hedge: gold or Bitcoin [1] . Chapter 7 walks readers through this elegant portfolio structure. [A quick  affiliate link to Amazon  for those readers who would like to support my work here: if you purchase your Amazon products via any affiliate link from this site, or from my sister site  Casual Kitchen , I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!] The books' weaknesses show u...
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The Dhandho Investor by Mohnish Pabrai

Worth reading, and rereading, and re-rereading. An elegant book that teaches fundamental principles of value investing, and much more. The Dhandho Investor  also has the highly unusual quality of being useful at a wide range of reader sophistication levels: you can gain tremendously from this book as a beginner or as a deeply experienced investor. I'll single out Chapters 5 and 6 for particular mention: Chapter 5 describes author Mohnish Pabrai's investing framework, with nine interlocking and synchronistic rules. Chapter 6 describes in very simple language all of the gigantic structural advantages of investing in the stock market, as it offers low frictional costs, a tremendous selection of possible businesses, and, most importantly, periodic incredible opportunities. These two chapters explain why you will take a pass on almost all investments--but then, once in a while, make large bets on specific situations that meet your requirements. [A quick  affiliate link to Amazon ...
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Grow Young with HGH by Ronald Klatz and Carol Kahn

Most readers will get 90% of the value of this book just from reading chapters 16-19, which deal with things you can do you increase/enhance your own GH levels naturally via diet, exercise, (non-pharmacological) supplements and other practices.  The bulk of the rest of the book covers "studies show" theories, explanations and speculations of how and by what mechanism GH works in the body, and since the book was published in 1997, I'm certain most of these studies have been either debunked or better explained by more recent research. Notes:   1) Key supplements to keep in mind:  Melatonin: for sleep/recovery from training Glutamine: up to 2,000 mg/day plus weight training L-Carnitine: one to two grams a day Ubiquinone (Co-enzyme Q10): 60 mg up to 100 mg. Chromium (binds to insulin) 200 micrograms per day Creatine: 45 g per day after heavy exercise Ginseng: for cognition and recovery from stress, 200 to 400 mg a day Dibencozide (coenzyme B12): 1000 micrograms a day Gamma Or...
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