The 10 best books I read in 2025
As with last year, this list isn’t composed only of books released in 2025. It’s a list of my favorite books I read this year, regardless of when the book was published. Also, this list doesn’t include books I reread this year, only those books I read for the first time.
Honorable mentions this year include Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, Heartwood, Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away, A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific, and The Children of Men (the adaptation of which is among my all-time favorite films).
I read 56 books in 2025. Here are my 10 favorite books I read (or listened to) this year.
10: The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self
9: A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World’s First National Park
8: Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service
7: Is a River Alive?
6: A Different Kind of Power
5: Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine
4: The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy
3: Train Dreams
2: Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds
