The 10 Best Books I Read in 2025
Here are the 10 best books I read in 2025. Hope you enjoy some of these. Past lists here: 2024, 2023, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017.
1/ How Economics Explains the World: A Short History of Humanity by Andrew Leigh. An easy read and an excellent overview of all of the major macroeconomic concepts and how they shape human behavior and explain how societies succeed and fail.
2/ The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy by Ray Madoff. Tax policy is really interesting to think through. It’s very difficult to get right, and it’s almost the ultimate form of systems thinking. Madoff lays out the history of the tax code and highlights its major flaws. If you’re looking for the other side of the argument, I’d recommend Taxes Have Consequences by Arthur Laffer. Among many other concepts, the book makes the point that we should optimize for tax revenue rather than optimize for the right tax rate. Those often aren’t the same things. If we tax 0%, we’d have no tax revenue. If we tax 100%, we’d also have no tax revenue. The trick is finding the sweet spot between the two.
3/ The Joys of Compounding: The Passionate Pursuit of Lifelong Learning by Gautam Baid. I’ve always been fascinated by the power of compound interest and how the concept applies to other parts of life, so I was super excited to read this one. Baid applies the theory to things like curiosity, learning, and decision-making, and outlines how small daily improvements lead to outsized results.
4/ The Rascal King: The Life And Times Of James Michael Curley by Jack Beatty. The biography of the first Irish mayor of the city of Boston. A long, sort of slow read, but a wonderful deep dive into one of America’s most driven and charismatic politicians.
5/ Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution by Amy Coney Barrett. Really good, deep dive into how the Supreme Court works and makes decisions. The book also dives into some of the more controversial and recent Supreme Court decisions and the different points of contention. It ends with the Constitution in full, which is worth reading if, like me, you haven’t done so since high school.
6/ Tiger Woods by Jeff Benedict. I’ve wanted to read this book for years because Tiger is such a fascinating character. I knew a lot of the story, but still really enjoyed it. Very well written and an easy read.
7/ The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod by Henry Best. One of my favorite places in the world is the Cape Cod National Seashore. I’ve spent a ton of time there, so reading about the year that Best spent there in 1928, surrounded by nature and the incredible open ocean, was so enjoyable. The book inspired JFK to federalize the land and protect it from development in 1961.
8/ The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest by Edward Chancellor. This is a wonderful book on the history of interest rates, one of the most powerful forces in the economy. A cool way to view world history is through how theyve been set and changed over time.
9/ Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies by Geoffrey West. An excellent overview of how things grow and the common connections and laws that drive growth and its inevitable limits.
10/ When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink. I love all of Pink’s books, and this one was great too. Explains the often underestimated concept of timing and being in the right place at the right time.
Lastly, I don't read a ton of fiction, but I started reading Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles on a recent plane ride, and so far I love it.
