What are you reading?

The best books of 2025 (and a few stinkers)

I did not read all these books (Jack Kessler)

We’ve all been there. Idling at a work function disguised as a party, or a networking event disguised as a wedding, stuck chatting with a total bore. You’ve exhausted the classics and can now die knowing what he (it’s usually a ‘he’) does for a living, where he grew up and so on.

You tried to swerve current affairs, but he gamely volunteered an entirely plagiarised take on the latest government U-turn or some such. All the while, your mind wanders aimlessly to… would it be career-limiting to fake my own death within defibrillator range of my boss’s boss?

First of all, I’m so sorry this happened to you. Next time, say to Brian that you’ve really enjoyed talking with him and that you really ought to circulate, but before you do, you have one more question. This could, of course, relate to that spirit-crushing anecdote he shared earlier about his new-ish heat pump (sorry to the fanatical heat pump people). But if you’re really struggling, my go-to is:

What are you reading at the moment?

The question is revealing without being personal, cultural without being television and every so often, you pick up a priceless tip. For today’s newsletter, and with Christmas Party season well and truly underway, I humbly offer a guide to what I’ve read this year. All I ask in return is for your recommendations in the comments.

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Generational trauma, the American family and the knowledge that no amount of money can make a person feel safe. (A+)

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power by Daniel Yergin. Winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize, this is the story of the 20th century told through a single, planet-defining commodity. (A+)

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte. So, I wouldn’t recommend doing what I did, which is to consume this collection of short stories in one sitting, having sprained my ankle the previous day. Suffice to say, my mind took longer to recover from the multi-page, highly detailed sexual fantasy section than my ankle did from a dodgy kerb. (A)

On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything by Nate Silver. I don’t subscribe to the consensus Bluesky view that the pandemic/X/2016 US election drove Silver mad, and generally think humans are terrible at calculating risk, but this is very much a skip. (C+)

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld. What if Hillary never married Bill? This alternative history is deeply funny and touching, though I can’t imagine I’d like someone to write quite so definitively about my life choices. Sittenfeld’s re-imagining of the now infamous 60 Minutes interview from 1992 in which Hillary saves her husband’s candidacy is genuinely spine-tingling. (A+)

Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 and Volume II: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin. Magisterial. No one, alive or dead, has spent more time reading Soviet archives than Kotkin. His central finding? “They were communists”. (A+)

Heartburn by Nora Ephron. Assisted, no doubt, by the fact that the audiobook was narrated by a fabulously wry Meryl Streep, this autobiographical novel based on the writer’s relationship with her husband, Carl Bernstein, mostly made me want to hit ‘pause’ and re-watch When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail and Julie & Julia. (B)