#Bookstr Recap of 2025 Reviews
I thought it might be interesting for nostr’s bookworms to recap my 2025 reading list.
My first two books “Peak” and “Ultralearning” were both on the subject of expertise, harnessing talent, and methods for learning. If you’re interested in getting better at learning (a skill itself), either of these would be worthwhile (also checkout “Moonwalking with Einstein”) but Ultralearning has helped me more because of its discussion on language learning which gave me some practical insights as I tackled studying Vietnamese this year.
This year I read quite a bit of historical law and philosophy too. Plato, Aristotle, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Bastiat, and ~half of The Federalist Papers. That took me down some YouTube rabbit holes too all in trying to better understand the interplay between peoples, language, culture and politics.
As I keep reading more on this topic, the more I realise humanity has seen all this before. Modern humans aren’t special - we tell ourselves that we are but the echoes of history show that many smart people have already discussed all the issues we face today.
Gustav Le Bon’s book “The Crowd” gave me a really useful lens to think about this - that one is a must read in my opinion. Excellent book. Durkheim’s analysis on the fundamentals of religion is really useful context (and will help dispel any notions you might have of “the noble savage”), albeit quite dry. Parvini’s primer “The Populist Delusion” can help you understand the reality behind ‘The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does’ and would be good for anyone steeped in Austrian/AnCap literature to extend their understanding more practically which is a problem I see amongst many #Bitcoiners.
Prince Han’s-Adam’s “The State in the Third Millennium” (recommended by nostr:npub1gdu7w6l6w65qhrdeaf6eyywepwe7v7ezqtugsrxy7hl7ypjsvxksd76nak)
is a good counterweight to think forward on these concepts. Glad I finally read this one.
Hoppe’s “A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism” and Molyneux’s “Peaceful Parenting” were both decent modern philosophy books, more on the junior understanding end but with highlights for everybody.
Dartnell’s “The Knowledge” was a good interlude read but don’t waste too much time on civilisation scale apocalypse scenarios.
“A Mathematician’s Lament” by Lockhart and “The True Believer” by Hoffer were two short books I really enjoyed - highly recommend these, just knocking over a 2 hour book and coming away learning something is really worthwhile. Particularly Lockhart’s book, it was way out of my regular wheelhouse and has inspired me to read Euclid’s “Elements” in 2026.
Now time for some awards 🏆
🍋 Lemon Of The Year: “The Psychology of Totalitarianism” by Desmet. This was the book which during Covid seeded the idea of “mass formation psychosis” to the public. It starts strong by tearing down modern academia and peer review and then goes, absolutely nowhere.. Completely ignoring the Communist-Dictator-Elephant-in-the
-Room in favour of heavily lifting from Hannah Arendt and reiterating Hitler demonisation - it’s a total bore. Just read “The True Believer” by Hoffer if Desmet’s title interests you, it’s 1/4 the length and 10X better.
🏅 Most Educational Book Of The Year: “The Rise of the West” by William H. McNeill. The way this was structured, it will fill in big gaps for Western-focussed history buffs. Since finishing, this one has sat really well with me and opened up some new areas of interest, helped me better contextualise a whole bunch of other stuff I’d learned previously, and gave me a much better appreciation for The West as part of The World in the context of history. It strikes a good balance between density and surface-level, giving you enough to understand a point without getting bogged down, but giving you launch points to go learn and contextualise a bunch more. One of the best history books I’ve ever read with how much ground it covered and how coherent the broad narrative weave is.
🥇My Book of the Year: “Critical Path” by Buckminster Fuller. A fantastic book. Inspiring, it re-awoke that drive in me that we could have a better future despite my own cynicism. Fuller was a #Bitcoiner decades before #Bitcoin existed and it was the book that had me wanting more, the most. It’s a pity he was wasted on the Boomers. Definitely recommend all Bitcoiners put this on their reading list though.
🎖️That Reminds Me Award: Not read this year, but the book that came back to me the most in my 2025 reading was “Propaganda” by Edward Bernays. I’ve recommended it before on #nostr but it just kept coming back over and over again this year. If you haven’t read this one, make it a goal for January - your understanding of the world will change more with this one book than any other I listed.
In 2026 I’ll be approaching reading differently with Euclid’s “Elements” and Carroll Quigley’s “Tragedy & Hope” both on deck (I just read Tragedy & Hope 101 by Joseph Plummer which is a condensed version extracting key ideas). I can’t just churn through a list willy nilly and hope to get the most out of these two books.
A takeaway this year was I needed more flexibility in my list as I went in oversubscribed. I think a tighter list of must reads supplemented by whatever comes out of that, and out of life, will be a more rewarding approach for me than trying to drawdown my reading list which only ever expands; I just have to deal with that and put my OCD aside.
Join me getting some books into ya in 2026! #HappyNewYear Nostr!
