With far too many books over-marketed and over-hyped, making the most of your precious reading time is getting harder. Here’s what I read in 2025 with some suggestions on definite reads for you as well as what to avoid.
Defend your reading time investments. Things off my 2024 reads you should definitely read as well as some perhaps suggestions and things to avoid. The TLDR are these top 5:
(Though you should read the post for the whys).
I read a mere 39 books this year (still not sure why it was so much lower then recent years.)
Felt like I read a lot, even with the new job and academic pre-PhD side-hustle, but felt there were few books which I felt were must reads or that I gleaned a lot from. Other than Sprint and How Big Things Get Done, your professional and personal life will not get any rocket assists from my recos this year (though those two are definitely worth the reads). I’ve written short summaries for the Must and Perhaps Reads. The Don’t Reads I’ve not commented but doubt they’re worth your time.
Books are never owned, only borrowed…
OK, I can’t actually remember who said that, but it’s something I believe. The experience of the book and tale and the knowledge are what you own afterwards. The gift of the author’s soul you extract from the pages.
These days, I read just about everything on my Kindle, and during CCOVID it was rare for me to thumb through an actual paper book. The last months though, more than a few things on my reading list didn’t have sourceable electronic formats (or worse, were audiobook only), so I’ve been using dead tree versions quite a bit.
I read 45 books in 2022.
Nearly one in three you should probably read too. See the To Read list.
Star ratings out of 5 are below for every book. I’ve also included a “Do Not Read” list for books I wish I had not wasted my time on. I rate books differently: High stars given for new learnings, the surprising or entertaining, or things I can apply to my life. Rehashes or bombastic, unbacked opinions rarely rate. Oh, and am always a big fan of a good tale, well told.
I read 47 books in 2021.
There’s no real trick to reading that number. Make it a daily habit (get an hour in every day) and carry a Kindle everywhere. Block your lunch hour or another time if you need to schedule.
My star ratings out of 5 are below for every book. Good stuff is in the “To Read” list. I’ve also included a “Do Not Read” list for books I wish I had not wasted my time on.
I managed to get through 35 books in 2020. These are the ones you want to read and why. Also, a Do Not Read list to save yourself valuable reading time by not wasting it.
2020 started off really strong, though textbooks sucked up a large amount of reading time this year (and my will to recreationally read as often). Plus, my read-at-lunch-at-work habit crumbled with lockdown and not having to go into the office. So, not a stellar number of books, but respectable. Some interesting pondered and digested.
I read. A lot. And, I’m often asked to recommend books. For business books, I find myself endorsing the same titles to people all the time. Books that give timeless advice, confer skills never learned, or have insights to deal with our rapidly changing business environments in practical ways. These are ones that made big differences for me in an overhyped landscape of business books.
What makes you effective in modern business environments? What skills were you never taught explicitly in school that you need to acquire? A good education is about learning how to learn. Most people reading this will have that. Most aspirants need guidance and material that is going to help them. This was the basis of my thinking on this list:
I managed to read 43 books in 2019. These are the ones you may want to read and why. There’s also a Do Not Read list to save you valuable time.
2019 started off really strong, with a bunch of 5 star ratings of books that I was seriously impressed with. I’m not sure if this is because I changed up my habit of how I add books to the reading list, but I definitely felt like I read better books on whole this year the last. I even enjoyed a programming book (Programming Crystal) which has not happened since Why’s Poignant Guide (though worried that was more about the language, than the book itself.).
From the 40 books I polished off in 2018 these are what I think you may want to add to your own lists and why. There’s also a Do Not Read list to save you valuable time.
For some reason, I have this impression that the books I read in 2018 were less impactful than those I read in 2017, but drilling down on the list, that’s not really true. The ones I did find amazing though were much more eclectic and a much less consistently thematic than my 2017 list. Probably the biggest problem I had in 2017 was reading books that other people or the industry raved about and which I thought were mediocre or higlhy derivative and a waste of my time. I also lament (really!) for the fact it’s impossible to find what I consider a truly compelling programming book in any area I tried to learn more about.