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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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Generative Energy: Restoring the Wholeness of Life by Ray Peat

A disorganized book by a highly-censored medical iconoclast. Despite its sloppiness, it will still send you down a lot of good rabbit holes. I don't recommend a labored, close reading of this book: just use it as an introduction to Ray Peat's dissident health and physiology ideas. In certain ways, we can think of Ray Peat, along with Robert Mendelsohn and Ivan Illich , as direct ancestors of the courageous COVID-era medical dissidents: doctors like Peter McCullough, Mary Talley Bowden, Pierre Kory, Kirk and Kimberly Milhoan, Paul Marik, Meryl Nass and Peter Gotszche, among others, who bravely spoke out against foolish lockdowns, hospital protocols, government mandates and the use of risky (but of course highly lucrative) therapeutics like Remdesivir--and were censored, suspended or fired for it. [1] As a general rule: in any knowledge domain you should always know who the dissident thinkers are. They are usually the ones who were right all along. [2] [A quick  affiliate link ...
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The Gypsies by Jan Yoors

A beautiful book about a beautiful people. Anyone tempted by the idea of escaping "civilized" society will be fascinated by the Rom people, as they get to pick and choose from the trappings of modernity in ways the rest of us simply cannot. The author, a Belgian, left his own society when he was just twelve and lived with a Rom clan for some ten years--astoundingly, with his parents' consent! This book is one of the rare first person accounts of a notoriously misunderstood culture. [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 Gypsies [1]  live by their wits, by their remarkable resourcefulness, by barter, and at times by petty theft. What they don't do is sit in traffic to drive to a job filing TPS reports all...
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How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne

This book is a praxis: a set of real-world practices for navigating reality as it is, rather than how we wish it to be. The language is clear and direct, and the book aggregates into a highly robust and coherent work of practical, livable philosophy. Author Harry Browne developed this philosophy over the course of many years, and it's inspiring to hear him talk about his mistakes, his refinements in thinking over time, and the surprising and often liberating benefits that came his way as he followed his own practices. This author eats his own cooking, and the result is a generous gift to readers. This does not mean you'll agree with everything the author writes! In fact, Browne encourages readers to disagree with him as we sort out  our specific values, rules and boundaries. He wants volitional readers, not readers looking to be told what to think and do. We'll come back to this idea. [A quick  affiliate link to Amazon  for those readers who would like to support my wor...
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