In 2025 I kept the pace of reading before bed. I followed the same habit that worked so well in 2024: reading non-fiction first to satisfy my curiosity and then switching to fiction to wind down. This routine is still the best compromise I’ve found between learning and resting.
During the summer I had to deal with a lot of emotions, so I revisited some Stoic classics. I also discovered Standard Ebooks, a repository of free (and beautifully edited) public-domain ebooks. Looking for light reading, I started with Agatha Christie and soon moved to almost any Sherlock Holmes book I could find.
From the non-fiction list, I want to highlight three books: Turn the Ship Around!, Chip Wars, and Breath. In fiction, I think I made better choices towards the end of the year. I really enjoyed Las gratitudes and El jardinero y la muerte.
One more thing: this year I forced myself to abandon books I wasn’t enjoying. That was hard. Once I start a book (or a series, or a movie), I usually finish it. Letting go felt like a small but meaningful improvement.
Non-Fiction Books
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Turn the Ship Around! — L. David Marquet
My takeaway: one of the best leadership books I’ve read. Although it’s set aboard a U.S. submarine, the lessons apply to any organization: push authority down, develop competence and clarity, and turn followers into leaders. Marquet shows what empowerment looks like in practice. Not slogans, but concrete behaviors and systems that create ownership and performance. -
The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership — James C. Hunter
Another leadership book, structured as a parable. A business executive attends a retreat in a monastery and learns about servant leadership. I felt closer to life in a submarine than in a monastery, but I liked its central shift: leadership is not about power, but about authority earned through service. Hunter emphasizes listening, respect, accountability, and the idea that authority grows through sacrifice and caring for others. -
Chip Wars — Chris Miller
A geopolitical thriller disguised as a history of semiconductors. Miller chronicles how chips became the strategic resource of the modern world, from smartphones to missiles, and how dominance in chip manufacturing shapes global power. The narrative makes clear why Taiwan matters so much, how supply chains became vulnerabilities, and why governments are now treating chips as national security. If you want the context behind why Nvidia is such a giant today, you should read this. -
El arte de mantener la calma — Séneca
Anger management by Seneca. I’m a passionate person and sometimes I get very angry about things that happen in my life. I work hard to manage anger, and I found this book a great addition to my personal development library. Seneca treats anger as a form of temporary madness. It hijacks reason. His advice is practical: slow down, delay action, lower expectations, and avoid emotional contagion. -
Breath — James Nestor
I’ve practiced breathing techniques for sports and relaxation for a few years, but this book still taught me a lot. Nestor explores how modern lifestyles turned humans into bad breathers and argues that breathing properly can improve sleep, stress, and physical performance. The core message is surprisingly simple: breathe through your nose. Even if you are skeptical of some claims, it’s a fun book that will make you more aware of how you breathe. -
A Confession — Leo Tolstoy
A short and intense text about meaning, death, and the limits of reason. If you appreciate existential questions and moral introspection, this is a fascinating companion to Tolstoy’s fiction. -
3 millones de viviendas — Jorge Galindo
Galindo analyzes Spain’s housing crisis and proposes an ambitious plan to mobilize three million homes. If you’re interested in the policy and structural incentives behind the housing problem, this is a solid read. I wrote a longer note here: Tres Millones de viviendas. -
The Lessons of History — Will & Ariel Durant
A concise distillation of centuries of history into enduring patterns: life is competition, inequality is persistent, freedom and equality are always in tension, and civilizations oscillate between liberal and conservative forces. It feels like a compressed “life manual” written with historical perspective. -
Anything You Want — Derek Sivers
A short, energizing book about building CD Baby and staying sane while doing it. It encourages you to keep businesses simple, empower employees, and stay obsessively focused on customers. A reminder that success often comes from curiosity, experimentation, and being willing to course-correct. I have a bundle of Sivers books, so expect more reviews coming in 2026. He is also the intellectual author of now pages. -
The Courage to Be Disliked — Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
A bestseller structured as a dialogue. It introduces Adlerian psychology (which I did not know anything about) and argues that we are not defined by past trauma but by the goals we choose. It’s an optimistic book about responsibility, relationships, and freeing yourself from the need for recognition. -
Power and Prediction — Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans & Avi Goldfarb
The authors argue that AI’s real economic impact will come not from isolated point solutions, but from system-level redesigns. They compare the AI era to the adoption of electricity: we see the potential, but adoption takes time because the real value comes when organizations restructure around the new capability. -
Bulletproof Problem Solving — Charles Conn & Robert McLean
A structured framework for tackling complex problems: define, break down, prioritize, analyze, synthesize, and communicate. It feels like a clean distillation of consulting problem-solving. Good reminder that problem solving is a craft, and that teams with diverse perspectives outperform lone geniuses. -
Influence Is Your Superpower — Zoe Chance
A book about ethical influence rooted in behavioral science. It offers practical techniques: ask permission before making a request, start with soft asks, affirm the other person’s freedom to choose, and use questions like “What would it take?” The emphasis on respecting autonomy makes this especially valuable for leadership and persuasion without manipulation. -
The Money (Anthology) — The New Yorker
A collection of New Yorker cartoons about finance, economics, and wealth. Mostly witty, sometimes cynical, and always accurate. -
El arte de cultivar una mente abierta — Sexto Empírico
A modern introduction to ancient skepticism. Sextus argues that suspending judgment is a path to peace: strong opinions create anxiety, and open-mindedness creates calm. -
Spinoza: The Last Days of Baruch Spinoza — Ian Buruma
A brisk biography focused more on Spinoza’s life than on his philosophy. Buruma makes Spinoza feel human and situates him in 17th-century Dutch society. Accessible and readable, though I found some passages repetitive.
Fiction Books
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El jardinero y la muerte — Georgi Gospodinov
A tender tribute to the author’s father, blending grief with reflection. It touched me deeply. It captures loss with a kind of quiet precision. -
Las gratitudes — Delphine de Vigan
A short novel about Michka, an elderly woman losing language due to aphasia. Through two narrators, Marie, who cares for her, and Jérôme, her speech therapist, we follow her attempt to express gratitude to the couple who saved her as a child. Minimalist but emotionally rich. A meditation on memory, aging, and the words we don’t say in time. -
El verano en que mi madre tuvo los ojos verdes — Tatiana Țîbuleac
Brutal but lyrical. A teenage boy who hates his mother is forced into intimacy with her as she becomes gravely ill. Resentment slowly turns into understanding. A painful exploration of family, guilt, and transformation. -
El hielo de los suyos — Montse Sánchez
Based on the true story of Ada Blackjack, an Iñupiat woman who joined a 1921 Arctic expedition. She survived extreme cold, hunger, and male violence, becoming the sole survivor. More than a survival story. It’s about identity, oppression, and resilience. And speaking of endurance… I found it much more interesting than The Martian. -
The Yellow Wallpaper — Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Still disturbing. A woman undergoing a “rest cure” for postpartum depression is confined to a room with sickly yellow wallpaper. She becomes obsessed with it and descends into psychosis. A sharp feminist critique disguised as psychological horror. -
Detrás del cielo — Manuel Rivas
Set in a Galician village. Rivas blends noir atmosphere with social commentary: machismo, violence, environmental destruction, trafficking, corruption, emigration. A crime tale that also feels like a portrait of rural decay. -
La mala costumbre — Alana S. Portero
A powerful novel about a trans girl’s childhood and adolescence in working-class Madrid in the 1980s. Identity, class struggle, heroin, violence, survival. Brutal at times, but deeply human. -
Mi hermano vive sobre la repisa de la chimenea — Annabel Pitcher
A children’s/YA novel about a family after the death of a daughter in a terrorist attack. Her ashes stay on the mantelpiece. The father drinks, the mother leaves. Ten-year-old Jamie narrates with innocence while navigating grief, prejudice, and friendship. -
La muy catastrófica visita al zoo — Joël Dicker
A family-friendly mystery narrated by a child, set in an inclusive school. A group of special kids investigates who caused a flood. It’s humorous and designed for reading aloud. It took me back to juvenile books. -
The Colorado Kid — Stephen King
A mystery told as a conversation between two elderly newspaper editors and an intern. The point isn’t resolution. It’s storytelling, uncertainty, and how mysteries remain mysteries. Very King. -
Ortega y Pacheco (Vol. 2) — Pedro Vera
I’ve loved Ortega y Pacheco since I read El Jueves. Their humor is scatalogical and irreverent, and it never pretends otherwise. Not for everyone, but very much for me. -
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd — Agatha Christie
A classic Poirot novel famous for its twist ending. Dr. Sheppard narrates a story of blackmail, manipulation, and deception, while Poirot slowly steers everyone towards the truth. It’s a masterclass in misdirection. -
A Study in Scarlet — Arthur Conan Doyle
The first Sherlock Holmes novel. It introduces Holmes and Watson and establishes many series conventions. The structure is odd (it suddenly becomes a Western), but it’s still a joy to see Holmes being invented on the page. -
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes — Arthur Conan Doyle
Eleven stories ranging from petty theft to national intrigue. More than the mysteries, what stands out is the rhythm: observation, reasoning, smug brilliance, Watson’s admiration, and the comfort of the formula. -
The Martian — Andy Weir
One of the books I liked the least in 2025. It’s a bestseller about an astronaut stranded on Mars, constantly solving technical problems to survive. I love problem-solving, but for me it became repetitive and boring. I can see why people love it: it’s competence porn, but it wasn’t for me.
Unfinished
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El arte de hablar con niños — Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish
A practical, empathetic guide to communicating with kids. I was enjoying it, but I felt like I should have been taking notes, which I wasn’t doing at the moment. I’ll start it over again in the next few weeks. -
Ben Franklin — W. Cleon Skousen
A biography that portrays Franklin as a blueprint for character, discipline, and civic responsibility. I found it inspiring, but in summer I needed other kinds of books. -
Straw Dogs — John Gray
I couldn’t get past a few pages. I don’t plan to return to it soon.