What I Read in 2025.
2025 was the year of Ford: crazy days, lots of supported steps, and roughly 4,000 readings of Brown Bear. Travel, work, and sleep deprivation meant the grown-up reading pile grew slower than usual. Still, I carved out enough pages for a handful of books that actually stuck. Some challenged me, some entertained me, a couple changed me.
Here’s the shortlist.
Under Siege: My Family’s Fight to Save Our Nation
I make a point of reading books by people who hold power; a key player in one of America’s most influential families offers a perspective worth understanding. The sharpest, most non-partisan takeaway was his insistence that the people closest to a problem are almost always the ones best equipped to solve it.
A minute-by-minute look at the whirlwind of a presidential campaign’s final stretch. The clearest non-partisan takeaway: real leadership isn’t about having all the time in the world; it’s about making the right calls when every hour counts and the pressure never lets up.
Cry Havoc: A Tom Reece Thriller
I am a huge Jack Carr fan. Though, I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. Being a GWOT Veteran, Vietnam has always felt a bit disconnected from my own experience. Carr corrected that perception with his story of the father of his main character, James Reece. If you haven’t reach Carr’s previous books, don’t start here. Begin with The Terminal List and read the series in order.
The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future
This one is a bit of a horror story, written by one of the people who built the monsters. The next decade of AI (and synthetic biology) will be the fastest, most consequential technological leap in human history, and right now literally no one has a workable plan to keep the benefits while containing the risks.
I was surprised by how much I didn’t know about Trump’s involvement in the modern history of NYC: the Grand Hyatt, Wollman Rink, Trump Tower; he really did reshape huge chunks of the Manhattan skyline in the ’80s. Love him or hate him, the guy has an almost obsessive eye for leverage, timing, and turning constraints into selling points, lessons any builder, negotiator, or entrepreneur can pocket regardless of politics.
A 600-page dissection of why people do the stupid, brilliant, cruel, and heroic things they do. Once you start seeing the predictable patterns (narcissism masks, envy triggers, groupthink spirals, the shadow side everyone denies), you can’t unsee them in yourself or anyone else. It’s like getting night-vision goggles for human behavior.
The #1 Dad Book: Be the Best Dad You Can Be in 1 Hour
Yes, the title is pure clickbait and the book is basically a pamphlet wearing a hardback costume. Still read it in one sitting on a flight. Surprisingly solid reminder that 90 % of great fatherhood isn’t grand gestures; it’s showing up, staying calm when you want to yell, and asking one good question a day.
The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
A manifesto that argues the West’s real power now lives in code, networks, and engineers, not in parliaments or legacy institutions. If democratic governments keep treating frontier tech as something to regulate instead of something to wield, the next century will be written by whoever does master it first.
Attract or Repel: Seven Keys to Magnetize Your Company
A practical sales-culture book that lives up to its binary title: every choice you make as a leader either pulls the right people (and customers) toward you or pushes them away; there’s no neutral. The reminder that culture isn’t a poster on the wall; it’s the cumulative magnetic charge of thousands of tiny daily decisions.
Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong
A former Olympic coach tears apart the grit-is-everything myth and rebuilds resilience: real toughness isn’t pushing through pain while pretending you feel nothing; it’s learning to listen to the discomfort, respond instead of react, and choose the hard thing because it still aligns with who you want to be.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
This one is Ford’s #1 favorite book (and his cousin Luca’s, too.) I’ve read it no fewer than 500 times in the last 10 months.
Ford’s second favorite book, and I’m pretty sure it was my sisters #1 way back in the day.
Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site
And finally, my #1 favorite book to read Ford. Though, he seems to be more interested in eating it than reading it.
That’s the 2025 roster. Fewer books than past years, but every one earned its keep, either by making me think harder, parent better, negotiate sharper, or just laugh at 2 a.m. while a toddler demanded “Brown Bear” for the 47th time.
Cheers!