For many years we have had a tradition here in Silklist of sharing book recommendations around this time of the year. This is the 2025 edition.
What are some good books you read in 2025 that you recommend? I quit my podcast habit (cold turkey) at the end of last year. So I find myself with more time to read and to listen to audio books.Here are the top memorable books I read this year (in no particular order): Japanese crime fiction. That's right, I am recommending an entire genre. This year I discovered this entire genre, the master of which is Keigo Higashino. I recommend anything by him. Maybe start with [Detective Kaga series <https://www.goodreads.com/series/253297-detective-kaga-english-translation>], followed by the [Detective Galileo <https://www.goodreads.com/series/99164-detective-galileo>] series. The Years of Rice and Salt (Kim Stanley Robinson). An alternate History of the last 600+ years if the Black Death had wiped out 99% of Europe's population (as opposed to the 50% it did). The history is told by a handful of "beings" that transmigrate through different milieus through the millenia. Fascinating breadth and depth. The Chinese equivalent of San Francisco develops (with it's own Japan Town) across the Golden gate in Marin in this imagined past. Mother Mary Comes to Me (Arundathi Roy): Equal parts memoir, biography, score settling, and elegy Bhang Journeys: Stories, Histories, Trips and Travels (Akshaya Bahibala). A former addict writes comprehensively, though a bit piecemeal, about the weird legal/illegal limbo of Bhang (and Ganja) in India, and approaches it from several different angles (that of an addict, that of a "certified to use" addict, that of bureaucrats who administer the sale in the Government-system, that of enforcers in the Excise department trying to control illegal farming, ....) Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI (Karen Hao). Excellent book. For those looking askance at the author's post-modernist post-colonial look at the field it is good to remember that Hao used to write for such communist rags as the MIT Technology Review and the Wall Street Journal. A good look into the moral vacuum that lies in the heart of the race to the bottom in Generative AI generally, and Open AI specifically. Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth (Audrey Truschke). A slim volume that presents the Historian's understanding of the life of Aurangzeb, not what you would find posted by Nationalists in India or Pakistan. Trushke focuses on what we can say with confidence, and what we can only guess from the sources. Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (Gaiutra Bahadur). I thought I knew about the experience of Girmityas before. This book - from the perspective of women (and a woman - the author's great-grandmother) "coolies" - opened my eyes to many new things. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Shehan Karunatilaka). Fun read (despite the dark subject). But a little too long. Sky Daddy (Kate Folk). Hilarious, dark, heart-warming. I am surprised I am stringing those words together to describe this work, but they are all appropriate. The local details of life in and around San Francisco brought this alive for me. To Lose a War: The Fall and Rise of the Taliban (Jon Lee Anderson). A collection of essays that the author wrote for The New Yorker magazine on Afghanistan over the years: from the anti-Soviet fight in the 80's to the American departure (and the aftermath of the resurgence of Taliban) in the 2020s. Reading these pieces with the benefit of hindsight the tragedy of Afghanistan becomes clearer. The failure of the American project was there from the seeds. The Message (Ta-Nehisi Coates). Powerful. Searing. Bookended nicely in the beginning with Coates' trip to Senegal - a "return" to a supposed place of origin and by comparing in the end what such "return" has wrought in Israel-Palestine. Parable of the Talents (Octavia Butler). Prescient (up to including the phrase "Make America Great Again"), scary. A candle of hope in these stormy times. I am glad to say it left me hopeful (but immensely sad) at the end. Private Revolutions: Four Women Face China's New Social Order (Yuan Yang). Tracing the lives of 4 extraordinary women in contemporary China as they deal with the vagaries of the government and the patriarchy. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
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