2025 Reading Log
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Books I read in 2025. You can also browse this list on my bookshop.org affiliate page:
https://bookshop.org/lists/2025-reading-log
I’ll earn a 10% comission if you buy something form there, but feel free to pick your favorite local bookstore from the top right corner instead!
| Date | Title | Author | Commentary |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2025 | The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History | Serhi Plokhy | Comprehensive history of the war in Ukraine and what led up to it. Ends about a year ago and so much has happened since. Looking forward to reading more of his work. |
| February 2025 | What This Comedian Said Will Shock You | Bill Maher | Delightfully Insufferable. He has a ton of really bad ideas and a couple of really good ones. Hard to recommend but I enjoyed it overall. |
| February 2025 | Becoming | Michelle Obama | Listened to audiobook. Really enjoyed learning more about her life. She inspires me and I aim to read more of her and Barrack’s work over next few months. |
| March 2025 | Can’t Hurt Me | David Goggins | Who’s gonna carry the boats and the logs? I am. Super motivational book but I wish the editors let him tell his story instead of shoving LinkedIn style engagement bait to the end of every chapter. |
| April 2025 | China: A History | John Keay | I’ve been reading this book for years, finally was able to finish it. It’s so long. It’s interesting but very difficult to cram 5000 years of history into single volume. I was also surprised that history ends after world war II, similar to most museums in China. |
| June 2025 | Beijing Comrades | Bei Tong | Re-read this with Aosheng, second reading showcases some of the flaws in slapping together a bunch of wattpad-style writing. But it’s still an important piece of LGBTQ+ fiction and I enjoyed it. |
| August 2025 | Presentation Zen | Garr Reynolds | Via Personal MBA Reading List: Overall really great, kept trying to shove Japanese proverbs into everything and it was a bit much. But I kept reading because I got something useful out of each chapter and finished the book feeling inspired to continue my studies and practice. |
| November 2025 | Enshittification | Cory Doctorow | Cory Doctorow coined the term and now he has teed himself up to be able to say “I wrote the book on Enshittification”. I enjoyed the book overall but as an avid reader of pluralistic.net I feel like I got the gist of the ideas already over the last few years. One thing that was wild was the story about copyleft trolls who use some technical details of creative commons licenses to rent-seek the same way patent trolls do. Walked away from this one wanting to do more to help build a better digital future. |
| December 2025 | Simply More | Cynthia Erivo | A memoir buried inside a self-help book full of cliches wrapped in inspirational quotes you see embroidered on pillows at a Christmas market. Left me wanting simply more. |