The Books That Captured me in 2025

Inspired by the brilliant Brea Baker

2025 Has been a fantastic year for writing, learning and growing. It has also been an eventful year of books that captured my attention, made me think, and give me opportunities to escape from the stream of A.I. slop and rage-baiting that has become much of social media. When the year began, I promised myself I would take some steps away from the digital world, and find more of my mental freedom in books, and in 2025, I think I did a really good job at that.

But what’s the point of reading something amazing if you’re not sharing it with others. There’s so much fun that can be had when we share our reading list. We get the opportunity to exchange notes and personal critiques. We can have passionate debates about protagonist that we hated (I’m looking at you TAU!) we can put people on to worlds, or idea’s they hadn’t even considered. Sure, there’s book tok, but the best book reccomendations come from writers. So this writer, after being inspired by my friend Brea Baker from Pitch Rejects! -- Brea's Musings has decided to share my 2025 version of Wrapped for my books read. A couple of things to note before we begin. First, I break my list up between books read on Kindle (usually some series I was reading to escape reality) and Physical books, which were generally political in nature. In total, I read 30 books this year, I hope to boost that number significantly next year. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this list, and I really hope this will inspire you to share your list as well.

Series/Kindle Books

1. Dungeon Crawler Carl Books 1-7.- Matt Dinniman

Dungeon Crawler Carl was my favorite book of all of 2025, this series is combines video game structures, world building, comedy, shitty top 40 music that I absolutely love with a class analysis, and deep introspection. I started this book to avoid all of the sad news in the world, and this one more than any other probably helps me face what we’re dealing with, because so much of it, in it’s own chaotic way, is talking about the same things. But through Aliens.

2. The beginning After the end Books 1-6-Turtle Me

I started watching this book because the first five minutes of the Anime was so interesting I decided the book would be better, because it always is. So far, so good.

3. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic Books 1-4- Kurokata Kurokata

This is more Lite Novel slop, the girlies have their romance novels, and I have my Isekis

4. Moonlight Fantasy Book 1.- Kei Azumi

The book is better than the anime, but I had better books to read so I haven’t moved on to Book 2 as of yet.

5. My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero. - Matsuri Akai

The writing isn’t that great, but it’s an easy read.

6. Clout Trails: In Clout We Trust- Naviseh Phelmenas

Physical Single Books.

1. Machiavelli The Prince

There’s a lot to learn from older scholars.

2. People Power Change- Marshall Ganz

Every Organizer should read this book.

3. We are Not Numbers: The Voices of Gaza’s Youth.

If you read nothing else from my list, you should absolutely read this book!

4. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

I picked this book up at the beginning of the year, Its amazing how much her words still stick with me, and how much the ending hurt, even though I already knew what was going to happen. Everyone should read this book, and if you’re in New York, go check out the Anne Frank Exhibit.

5. Jesus and the Disinherited- Howard Thurman

I’m working on an essay which will give you a better idea of what I took from this book. If you don’t want to wait that long, just know that this book is phenomenal, and really eye opening.

6. Why Does he Do that?: Inside the minds of angry and controlling men- Lundy Bancroft.

I wanted to better understand the mind of abusers, and the type of men who do the type of things everyone is always so shocked about, even though much of our society normalizes, and apologizes for their behavior. I ended up learning something about myself. Maybe I’ll write about it, maybe it will stay in my journal.

7. On our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and Price Women Pay to be “Good”- Elise Loehnen

Elise Loehnen is such a fantastic writer, I picked up this book as a reference for a book idea that I want to eventually pitch. It was so damn good I had to pause my idea because there are levels to this, and she’s at the top!

8. The Prison Industry: How it works and who Profits- Bianca Tylek and Worth Rises.

For what it’s worth, Bianca Tylek is a personal friend, and I think Worth Rises is a fantastic organization that does very important work, so I have a very deep bias. Having said that, you will learn a lot from reading this book.

9. Why Christians Should be Leftists- Phil Christman

I’m also using this as reference for an essay I’m working on. It’s been a good read.

10. The Right to Sex- Amia Srinivasan

Amia is a brilliant writer and if you haven’t read this book you absolutely should. The way she breaks down sexual politics left me uncomfortable, frustrated, blown away and challenged. The Right to Sex is one of the best books I have read in the last five years. 5 stars.

11. Words for my Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur- Dean Van Ngyuen

    This one was another heater! Words for my Comrades was so good, I ended up buying a book on the Irish Potato Famine (That’s on my 2026 read list) and wrote an essay that was inspired from the stories in the book. You can find it below.

Ok, there you have it, these are all of the books I read in 2025, have you read any of these? If so, what did you think. What books did you read in 2025? I would love to see your list. And finally, if you enjoyed my list, check out Brea Baker list here. She really went ham in 2025.