The 36 Books I Read in 2025 and What They Taught Me

AI-generated illustration of an open book with a miniature world on its pages, one district for each theme of my reading in 2025.

These are my own lessons from the books I read. They don't mean I'm affiliated with any author, or that I endorse them or everything they say.

In 2025 I finished 36 books and about 9,300 pages. By the end of the year, I cared less about how many I finished and more about which ones I would reread. These are the lessons I kept:

Build a team that can work without you. You don't need to know everything.
Give control to the people who have the information.
Hire for strength rather than lack of weakness.
Behave as if you could go out of business in thirty days, and put the customer first.
Ask for hard news, and let people say what isn't working.
Base each plan on how similar work went, and build in small pieces that you can test and repeat.
Make a big project one team, and remove any reward for blame.
Success comes from plain effort over years. Start with the work you most want to avoid.
Write in plain words, and delete the lines you love if the reader doesn't need them.
You can't control most of what happens, but you can choose your judgement of it. Your emotions follow that judgement.
What people say tells you more about them than about you, so listen without taking it personally.
Expect problems. They are the job.
Every choice has a price, and "I can't" often means "I won't pay it".
Money is most useful when it buys you time.

Of all 36, three books changed me most: Unreasonable Hospitality, Turn the Ship Around! and The Fifth Agreement.

I gave 21 of the books five stars, 10 four stars and 5 three stars. The rest of this post shows where each lesson came from. Thirty of the books sit in five groups below. Each group starts with a short summary, then each book gets my Goodreads rating, the lessons I kept and one connection to another book. The other six are at the end.

Leadership

A leader's job is to build a group of people who can work without them, and to give control to whoever has the information. They hire for strength, repeat a few clear priorities and act as if the company could fail in thirty days. They obsess over the customer, and they make long bets, because a few big reasons to act outweigh a long list of small doubts. They want hard news, and they let people say when something isn't working, even when it is uncomfortable to say. Most of their problems are old, so they read the people who faced them first. Under all of it is plain, daily effort: do the work, keep a good attitude, stay curious and try hard for years.

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Chris Hadfield · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Success comes from four things, kept up day after day for years: do the work, keep a good attitude, stay curious and try hard.
Aim to be a zero. A new person who tries to prove their value on day one often hurts the team. Learn how things work first.
Competence breeds confidence. Astronauts practise for "the next thing that could kill me", so a crisis feels familiar when it comes.

Connection: Shaolin Spirit. Shi Heng Yi warns that the two biggest mistakes are to not start and to not continue. Hadfield kept going for decades.

The Ride of a Lifetime

Robert Iger · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

At the top, you think so far into the future that a bet can take years to pay off. The bet is still worth the risk.
Iger asked Steve Jobs to sell Pixar to Disney. Jobs wrote the pros and cons on a whiteboard, and the cons list was far longer. Then Jobs said, "A few solid pros are more powerful than dozens of cons."
Communicate your priorities clearly, and repeat them, so everyone knows what matters. Iger set three priorities for Disney and kept them for years.
When you buy a company, you buy its people. Iger bought Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm after he built trust with the people who sold them.

Connection: Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman shows that we weigh a loss about twice as much as an equal gain. That is why the cons list grows so fast, and why Jobs had to look past it.

Turn the Ship Around!

L. David Marquet · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

My job is to build a group of people who can function without me, and I don't need to know everything to do it.
Marquet took over the worst submarine in the fleet and made it one of the best.
He stopped giving orders. His officers said "I intend to…", and he replied "very well" or asked a question.
Give control to the people who have the information. Control works only when they also have the skill and a clear goal.

Connection: Extreme Ownership. In SEAL training, the instructors swap the leaders of the best and worst boat crews, and the losing crew starts to win. The crew stays the same; only the leader changes.

The Leader's Bookshelf

James G. Stavridis and R. Manning Ancell · My Goodreads rating: 4/5

Leaders read. Stavridis and Ancell asked senior military officers which books shaped them, and the answers filled a book.
A leader reads to get experience they cannot live through first. A book lets you rehearse a hard decision before you face it.

Connection: A line often credited to Harry S. Truman: "Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers." The officers in this book are the proof.

Unreasonable Hospitality

Will Guidara · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

This book reset my mindset. If you obsess over the customer, you will always head in the right direction.
Service is what you do for someone. Hospitality is how they feel about it. Guidara calls service black and white, and hospitality colour.
The 95/5 rule: manage 95% of the budget to the penny, then spend the last 5% "foolishly" on the guest.

Connection: It's Not Luck. Goldratt says the solution to marketing is in the market. Guidara found the same answer at each table in his restaurant.

The Art of War

Sun Tzu, translated by Thomas Cleary · My Goodreads rating: 4/5

Many of the problems we face today are old problems. Sun Tzu wrote about them around 2,500 years ago.
The best victory comes without a battle. Win through position and preparation before the fight starts.

Connection: Simon Wardley's essay "On being lost". Wardley builds modern strategy maps on Sun Tzu's five factors: purpose, landscape, climate, doctrine and leadership.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Ben Horowitz · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Hard news is worth hearing when it pulls you back to reality.
It's okay to be upset with each other. It's okay to say that something isn't working, even when it's uncomfortable to say.
Hire for strength rather than lack of weakness. Horowitz takes this rule from Colin Powell. A person with one great strength helps a team more than a person with no gaps and nothing special.
A hard problem has no silver bullet. Horowitz says you need a lot of lead bullets: plain, hard work.

Connection: Meditations for Mortals. Burkeman argues that you don't need a facade of flawless competence, because everyone else struggles too. Horowitz makes the same case for a team.

The Nvidia Way

Tae Kim · My Goodreads rating: 4/5

At company meetings, Jensen Huang told his staff that Nvidia was "thirty days from going out of business". The company acts as if tomorrow could be its last day.
Huang has a large number of direct reports and avoids one-to-ones. He gives feedback in front of the group. His reason is that everyone can learn from one person's mistake.
Nvidia measures each plan against the "speed of light", the fastest the work could go with no waste. Then the team must explain each gap.

Connection: Amazon's "Day 1". In his 2016 letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos wrote that Day 2 is stasis, and that decline and death follow it. Both companies try to keep the urgency of a start-up at a giant scale.

Systems and decisions

Most projects go wrong at the start, so plan from how similar work turned out, rather than from the best case. Then build in small pieces that repeat, and test a thin version end to end before you build the rest. Act on what happens: refill by what sold, rather than by a forecast. A delay passes in full down the line, a single expert is a dependency and a conflict usually hides a faulty assumption. Big projects succeed when people work as one team and nobody gains from blame. Teams learn when errors are open and nobody leaves a broken window alone.

It's Not Luck

Eliyahu M. Goldratt · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Don't call managers incompetent. They are more likely stuck between two expectations that conflict.
Before you define a strategy, define the strategies you won't go for.

Connection: Critical Chain. Both books make the same point: when you see a conflict, a faulty assumption usually causes it.

Critical Chain

Eliyahu M. Goldratt · My Goodreads rating: 4/5

There is no reward for an early finish, only a penalty for a late one. So each delay passes in full to the next step, but the next step never starts early.
A dependency is anything that forces work to happen in series. A single expert is a dependency.

Connection: How Big Things Get Done. Goldratt says every complex system has an inherent simplicity. Flyvbjerg makes the same point: under every complex thing is a simple truth.

How Big Things Get Done

Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

The story of Heathrow's Terminal 5 stayed with me. Its construction finished on time and on budget because of the mindset, the belief and the people. BAA built one team, and its contracts did not reward blame.
Projects don't go wrong; they start wrong. A plan is cheap and the build is expensive, so take your time on the plan.
Build like Lego. The Empire State Building is the same floor built many times, rather than many floors each built for the first time.

Connection: Turn the Ship Around! Marquet changed the mindset of one crew on one submarine. Terminal 5 did the same across a whole building site.

Isn't It Obvious?

Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Ilan Eshkoli and Joe Brownleer · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

A chain of shops keeps most of its stock in a central warehouse. Each shop gets a refill based on what it sold that day.
Fewer items run out, and less stock sits unsold. The refill follows actual sales instead of a forecast.

Connection: It's Not Luck. There, Goldratt warns that a market forecast is like an attempt to catch the wind. This book shows what to do instead.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

The fast mind answers first and feels right. The slow mind checks the answer only when you make it.
We plan from the best case. Kahneman's fix is the outside view: look at how similar plans turned out.

Connection: How Big Things Get Done. Flyvbjerg's reference class forecasting comes straight from Kahneman's outside view.

Black Box Thinking

Matthew Syed · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Aviation runs a closed loop. Investigators study every crash, and the lessons reach every pilot. Syed argues that healthcare often runs an open loop, where errors stay hidden and happen again.
A blame culture hides mistakes. When people fear punishment, they stop reporting errors, and nobody learns.

Connection: After-action reviews. The military learns from each operation in the same way: a review without blame.

The Pragmatic Programmer

Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Don't live with broken windows. One bad piece of code left alone tells the team that quality no longer matters.
Tracer bullets: build a thin version that runs from end to end, then fill it in.

Connection: Shaolin Spirit. Shi Heng Yi says each of us contributes to order or disorder. A broken window left alone is a vote for disorder.

Writing and craft

Good work starts when you sit down to do it every day, above all the work you fear, because the fear shows that it matters. Read a lot and write a lot. Write each idea in a system you trust, so it no longer takes up space in your head. Write the first draft with the door closed, then keep it simple and cut the lines you love when they don't help the reader. Learn a craft through a long apprenticeship with a good mentor. Never complain, and never explain.

How to Take Smart Notes

Sönke Ahrens · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

An open task stays in your head until you finish it or write it in a system you trust. Psychologists call this the Zeigarnik effect.
If you ask a team to follow a plan, you teach them to follow plans. Teach them to move between the most important task and the most promising one.

Connection: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. Ahrens says experts build intuition through feedback and practice. Hadfield shows the result: competence breeds confidence.

The War of Art

Steven Pressfield · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

We resist the work we care about most. Pressfield calls this force Resistance, and the more you fear a piece of work, the more it matters.
Turn pro: sit down and do the work every day, and don't wait for inspiration.

Connection: On Writing. King taught me the same lesson: sit down and write. He aims for 2,000 words a day.

On Writing

Stephen King · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Keep it simple, and say it in plain words.
Kill your darlings. I do this all the time: I write a line I like, then delete it.
"Read a lot and write a lot." King says there is no shortcut.
Write the first draft with the door closed and the rewrite with the door open. The second draft is the first draft minus 10%.

Connection: George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language". His third rule is the same idea: if it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Mastery

Robert Greene · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

My biggest lesson is an old rule, often credited to Benjamin Disraeli: never complain, never explain.
Mastery starts with a long apprenticeship. Choose a job for what it teaches you, and worry about the pay later.
Find a mentor, learn all they can teach, then move on.

Connection: Extreme Ownership. Jocko Willink says it another way: own everything, even the mistakes of the people you lead.

Philosophy

Most of what happens is outside your control, so care about people and outcomes without a need to control them. Your judgement is yours, and emotions come from it, so change the judgement and the emotion changes. What other people say comes from their own beliefs, so don't take it personally, but still listen. Many of your beliefs came from other people, and you can choose which ones to keep. Calm in a quiet room is easy; the practice is for the busy train, where you notice a negative thought and swap it. Rules and fewer possessions free up energy, and self-control is one of the biggest achievements there is.

Lessons in Stoicism

John Sellars · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Epictetus split the world into what is up to us and what is not. Our judgements are up to us; almost everything else is not.
Emotions come from our judgements about events. Change the judgement and the emotion changes.

Connection: Shaolin Spirit. Shi Heng Yi says the same thing from another tradition: emotions come from our expectations of a situation.

The Fifth Agreement

Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Don't take anything personally. What people say about you comes from their own beliefs.
The fifth agreement is "Be skeptical, but learn to listen." Doubt the story, then listen for what the person means.

Connection: The Four Agreements. This book repeats those four and adds a fifth about listening.

The Mastery of Self

Miguel Ruiz Jr. · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

We learn most of our beliefs from others as children. Ruiz Jr. calls this domestication. Mastery of self starts when you see which beliefs you never chose.
Love without conditions, for yourself and for others. A need to be right turns love into control.

Connection: Shaolin Spirit. Shi Heng Yi gives a test: check whether each strong opinion is your own, or one you adopted from someone else.

Think Like a Monk

Jay Shetty · My Goodreads rating: 4/5

Meditation prepares you for the busy, chaotic train. The quiet room is only where you practise, so you can stay calm in your mind when the world is loud.
Self-control is one of the biggest achievements you can aim for.
Spot, stop and swap: notice a negative thought, pause it, then replace it.
Find your dharma, the work where your strengths meet what other people need.

Connection: Shaolin Spirit. Shi Heng Yi puts it in one line: lead your emotions and feelings, and don't be led by them.

The Art of Detachment

Shubham Kumar Singh · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Detachment means you care about people and outcomes without a need to control them.
Peace comes from attention to the present moment, rather than to past mistakes or future worries.

Connection: Meditations for Mortals. Burkeman made me see that most of what we worry about never comes true. When we worry, we spend today on a debt that tomorrow never asks us to pay.

Shaolin Spirit

Shi Heng Yi · My Goodreads rating: 4/5

Restriction creates freedom. Rules remove the energy you spend on constant decisions.
Everything you own takes energy to keep, and so does everything you push away.

Connection: How Big Things Get Done. Both books come back to the same old idea: repetition is how you learn.

Living well

Problems never stop, and they are the job, so don't wait for a life without them. Every choice has a price; when you say you can't do something, you often mean you won't pay it. Spend money on the life you want, and value it most for the control it gives you over your time. Ask whether a hard task could be easy, and decide what done looks like before you start. Question the rules you assumed about how to live, and own your choices. Langer argues that beliefs shape the body too, so notice how you feel from day to day.

The Mindful Body

Ellen J. Langer · My Goodreads rating: 4/5

In one small study, Langer told hotel cleaners that their work counted as exercise, and their weight and blood pressure fell. A later attempt to repeat it found no clear effect.
Langer argues that if you notice how your symptoms change from day to day, you find more control than you thought.

Connection: Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman shows how fast the mind jumps to a story. Langer argues that the body follows the story.

This Book Will Make You Dangerous

Tripp Lanier · My Goodreads rating: 4/5

Our instinct to stay safe often blocks growth. Lanier asks you to question the rules you assumed about how to live.
Lead yourself: own your choices, even when your circumstances are hard.

Connection: The Mastery of Self. Ruiz Jr. asks the same of you: find the beliefs you never chose.

Meditations for Mortals

Oliver Burkeman · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

The problems are the job. If no problem ever needed me, anyone or any tool could do my work.
Every choice has a price. When I say I "can't" do something, I often mean that I don't want to pay the price.

Connection: Four Thousand Weeks, Burkeman's earlier book. That book counts a life in weeks. This one turns the idea into 28 short daily chapters.

The Art of Spending Money

Morgan Housel · My Goodreads rating: 5/5

Spend for the life you want, rather than for the person you want others to see.
Money is most useful when it buys control over your own time.

Connection: Meditations for Mortals. Burkeman's point is that every freedom has a price. Housel shows that money is one way to pay it.

Effortless

Greg McKeown · My Goodreads rating: 4/5

When a task feels hard, McKeown asks whether it could be easy.
Define what "done" looks like before you start, so you know when to stop.

Connection: Meditations for Mortals. Burkeman asks a similar question, and it showed me that we sometimes make things hard on purpose, so they feel worthwhile.

What I learned about myself

These books also taught me something about how I read. I read some on paper and some on my Kindle, and I listened to others on Audible. I started some in one format and finished them in another, because the right format depends on the book. Biographies work far better for me as audiobooks.

My measure of a good reading year changed too. This list counts 36 books, but the number I care about now is how many I reread. In 2026, that number will be one of my main measures.

I also made my Goodreads profile private. I noticed that I picked some books, and read others faster, to please the people I chatted to in my Goodreads feed. I didn't like that feeling.

Almost every book on this list is non-fiction, so in 2026 I will also read more fiction. I will choose each book for a problem I face or a feeling I have at that time, and for no other reason. Before I start a book, I will write down what I want to learn from it.

Which book changed how you work this year?