Over the last 5-6 years, I had firmly established reading as one of the anchor activities that gives me joy and helps me unwind. Even though it's clear that this is something really good, it has always been a struggle to get away from Digital quicksands which are much more appealing. The whole point of keeping a book list and publishing this post is ultimately not about the count itself or the books - even though they do matter - its the whole journey and holding myself accountable to stay away from other distractions and spend time with books.
Some of the goals for 2025 was to try to read much more fiction than I usually do and that's one thing I made a conscious effort to do. So without much further ado here is the list
Fiction
1. The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley - Much talked about book of 2024 featured in so many year end lists and it was worth that hype
2. A Quiet Life In The Country by T.E.Kinsey
3. In The Market For Muder by T.E.Kinsey
Couple of breezy reads from Kindle Unlimited. Murder mysteries set in early 20th century English country side with a Lady sleuth and her capable maid who doubles up as body guard
4. Orconomics by J.Zachary Pike
5. Son of a Liche by J.Zachary Pike
6. Dragonfired by J.Zachary Pike
This trilogy was easily the most enjoyable reading of this year. Had super fun reading this and ended up laughing out loud quite a lot. I did write detailed reviews in Goodreads. I did audio version for the two and read ebook for the 3rd - both formats this was super fun. This was a genre I had not done that much and discovered this through a book group and really loved this entire series. Take LOTR type world of kingdoms and heroes taking on villains but instead of proverbial good vs bad it's all economics and banks. This is a great satire on capitalism and does a fantastic job of making us question the binary tropes of heroes vs monsters in usual fantasy sagas. Medieval fantasy magical world crossed with capitalism on steroids with bonds, derivatives etc made this a fantastic read.
7. Consider Phlebas by Iain.M.Banks
Fantastic Sci-fi epic set in galaxy far far away - this is true space opera. This is the first one in Culture series which I hope to read more of and is a great start. The world building is really well done with clash of two major alien political ideologies which spills across galaxies. There are sentient machines, mercenaries and battles across space and various alien planets. His writing makes you care deeply for the various characters and some of the battles are written so well which made me glad I picked this saga which part philosophy part sci-fi adventure saga.
8. A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke
9. Orbital by Samantha Harvey
10. The Fifth Season by N.K.Jemisin
11. The Man Who Saw Seconds by Alexander Boldizar
This was a book with interesting premise - A normal guy who can see 5 seconds into future which kinda makes him a dangerous explosive character. Pair that with set of chance encounters with law enforcement which starts as a routine cop pull over which goes wrong setting into motion a chain of exponentially unbelievable set of events turning this into high octane thriller. At the same time there is family and lot of philosophical questions involved on what it means to be free. Was a brilliant thought provoking thriller.
12. The Perfect Murder by H.R.F Keating
13. Inspector Ghote's Good Crusade by H.R.F Keating
14. The Betel Nut Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu
15. The Charity Shop Detective Agency by Peter Boland
16. The Beach Hut Murders by Peter Boland
17. The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey
So many fun murder mystery reads, this has been my go to genre for a pick me up book when in middle of a reading slump or tiring days.
18. Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel. - Alt history version of British controlling India till 60s or so without giving up control and crushing Gandhi and co in 30s. Was an interesting read made more fun because I ended up reading 3 books ( one actual history book by Guha and book#17 above and this one) all set in Bombay with lot of similarities.
19. The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
20. The Housemaid's Secret by Freida McFadden
2nd one didn't quite pack enough punch for me as the first. But the first one was really gripping fun suspense read justifying the buzz around it.
21. Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart - This was a beautiful murder mystery set in 18th century China in a region bordering Tibet. Beautifully written and executed made me want more of this librarian detective
22. The White Mirror by Elsa Hart
23. Ascension by Nicholas Binge. - Truly mind bending psychological horror thriller
24.Where Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Lin
25.The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. - First book of a fantastic series which I hope read more of. Book follows a bunch of con artists pulling off some really smart heists but getting caught in the middle of a huge gang war. Total page turner.
26. James by Percival Everett. - Historical fiction, takes up the story of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain from the point of view of the escaped slave Jim and then flips the whole thing on its head. Packed with lots of dark humor this is a ferocious critique of slavery, racism and overall systemic inequality.
27. Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. - Another rollicking fantasy adventure saga about a bunch of legendary heroes well past their prime coming together decades after their fighting career ended for one last mission. Lots of fun action and tons of humor.
Non-Fiction
Biographies/ Personal essays / Business books
28. The Space Barons by Christian Davenport - on how the privatization of Space happened against so many odds.
29. I Have the Streets by R.Ashwin and Siddarth Monga - Put a detailed review on Goodreads, easily among the better cricket books I have read. Only quibble is that it stops pretty much when his International career takes off.
30. Bite by Bite by Aimee Nezhukumatathil - My 2nd book from the same author - it's another of a very personal essays on the topic of food but her writing is such that you find it instantly relatable. Her writing also reminds me of a dear departed cousin ( who was also a poet).
31. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson - This was a tour de force from Isaacson capturing the origin story and rise of Elon Musk till the point he became the richest man in the world. Love him or hate him, we all have to acknowledge Musk is one of the geniuses of this era. Isaacson does seem to get sucked into magnetic pull of Musk for most part but I felt he redeemed himself by bringing out both the good and the bad part of Musk very well.
32. Super Pumped - The Battle for Uber - by Mike Isaac - Tale of how Uber which is 'the' start-up which set of the whole gig economy came to be. Not a pretty read but was a fascinating look into how Travis Kalanick hustled his way through very tough odds with generous rule breaking and a ruthless rough culture which ultimately claimed him.
33. A Century is Not Enough by Sourav Ganguly / Gautam Bhattacharya - True to his reputation Ganguly is pretty candid in giving his version of his cricketing journey. As someone who grew up in 90s, Dada holds a special place for how he created Indian Cricket team into what it is now. There is quite a bit of that but lot more of personal journey of what has been a very eventful career with so many ups and downs.
34. Not Just Cricket by Pradeep Magazine - This is more like a veteran journalist sipping tea or something strong in the late evening and talking about those days. Was a nice read
35. The Master : The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer by Christopher Clarey - A very nice bio of Federer with full access to his team to construct what created Federer the player and what made him last so long on tennis tour. It's a nice nostalgia trip as he revisits some of those epic matches. Really loved this one.
36. Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. - Scary scary book on how Facebook just did not realize the impact it was having on the world in general and Silicon Valley's growth obsession without spending enough time on the social impact. Much needed counter narrative and it does seem like the company itself and much of the industry didn't realize what was going on and acted too late or too little. Does contain brutal take down of Sheryl Sandberg and to an extent Zuck as well toxic workplace they created.
37. Chaos Monkeys - Obscene Fortune And Random Failure In Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez
38. Poor Charlie's Almanack - by Peter D. Kaufman
History / Geography / Economics
39. White Malice : The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa by Susan Williams - Scary and sad book which is a must read on how Africa got continuously destroyed by European colonial powers looting them for resources, people and then post 1950s by brutal dictators enabled by west especially CIA
40. Edible Economics : A Hungry Economist Explains the World by Ha-Joon Chang
41. Pure Invention : How Japan Made the Modern World by Matt Alt. - Lovely book covering the huge impact Japan has had on pop culture. Starts from more than 100 years back and chronicles how Japan emerged from World war defeat and picked up pieces and transformed itself and became culturally influential.
42. Material World : The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization by Ed Conway - A must read on Salt, Copper, Lithium, Sand, Oil and Iron and its impact on modern world and its economy.
43. The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski - This was a re-read of a really old book written perhaps in late 90s of the author's time in African continent as a foreign correspondent in 60s to 80s with ring side view of so many coups and major events. The book though is more about people, landscape and the bleak conditions, difficulties in which most live. It is in describing the scenes from everyday life that his writing shines. One particular chapter/passage is his short description of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Rwanda that stayed with me long after. Kapuscinski might be writing these diary entries in different era/world for western audience of 1980s/early 1990s but his whole experience of living there, the details, vivid descriptions and narrative style makes this a really nice read.
44. Africa Is Not A Country by Dipo Faloyin - takes a giant axe and hacks through so many stereotypes of Africa as a single entity in the way its considered in popular imagination.
45. The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
45. Rebels Against the Raj : Western Fighters for India's Freedom by Ramachandra Guha
46. Kohinoor : The Story of the World's Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand
Inspired by both the wonderful history podcast hosted by this duo and also my UK visit where I got to see this fabled diamond.
47. Breakneck : China's Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang - Really good book on China's growth and how the state sets it up for success with mega engineering projects and at the same time also looks at social costs with such projects. Some parts were very depressing.
AI
48. Brave New Worlds : How AI Will Revolutionize Education - Salman Khan
49. Competing In The Age of AI : Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World by Marco Lansiti, Karim R. Lakhani
50. Genius Makers : The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook and the World by Cade Metz
51. Empire of AI by Karen Hao
52. The Shortest History of AI by Toby Walsh
These 3 books worked together in tandem. Genius makers and this history of AI book was a good primer of how from 1950s - the whole AI world and Neural networks evolved. This context helped me under and appreciate the Empire of AI book which is one of the books of the year and widely read this year. Empire of AI is a much needed reality check on the whole AI hype cycle and specifically on Open AI which has been upset with this book for good reasons. Covers a lot of ground on the formation of Open AI and the whole is it nonprofit or most profitable company angle well. Also covers the whole power struggle and internal coup at Open AI and is particularly brutal on Sam Altman. Though at some point when it went into his personal life and his estranged sister I was not very sure but all the same this is much needed reality check or counter narrative to whatever AI hype doctors as spinning on a glorious future powered by AI. Book takes a look at environmental damage, mental damage caused by AI content moderation and a few other things in global south by these large corporations driven by AI arms race.
53. Co-Intelligence : Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick - Read this earlier this year as we increasingly started using AI at work and in personal life, this made a very meaningful read in that context
54. AI Snake Oil : What AI can do and What It Can't and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor
Science
55. Cosmos - Carl Sagan
56. There are (No) Stupid Questions in Science by Leah Elson
57. Caffeine by Michael Pollan
58. How to Die In Space by Paul M Sutter
59. Why Are Orangutans Orange? - Science Questions in Pictures with Fascinating Answers by Mick O'Hare
60. Think Faster, Talk Smarter by Matt Abrahams
61. The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
62. Super Communicators by Charles Duhigg
63. Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell - totally hilarious breezy read
64.Word Perfect : Etymological Entertainment For Every Day of the Year by Susie Dent
Delightful read for someone who likes trivia, language and word origins. One page for each day of the year covering one word and its origin and how it came to be - was a pleasure to read and I really stretched it through the year savoring it slowly
So it turned to be a pretty good year for reading where I did meet my goal of crossing 60 books. At some point in the journey I thought I will easily cross 75 books for the year but then badly veered off the course in the 2nd half of the year and then had to scramble and read like 15 books in the last 2 months to stay on track. Hope to maintain better consistency in 2026 given how rewarding the whole reading journey is.
Also pretty happy with the amount of Fiction reading I did in 2025 which was way more than what I have done in a long long time. Hoping to continue with a similar ratio of Fiction to non-fiction in the coming year as well.
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