What I Read While Learning How to Stay Human in 2025

Books about power, faith, history, and wonder during a year of political and personal reckoning

Inspired by my friend Kate Moon’s “2025 reading pilgrimage,” I decided to make a list of the books I completed in 2025.

I had already shared short reflections on most of them on Facebook as I finished, so I could piece the list together from those dates. An asterisk after an author’s name means it was an audiobook.

Like always, this list only tells part of the story. I started at least a dozen more books that I didn’t finish yet. I tend to read widely and in parallel, moving between history, psychology, politics, theology, memoir, and science depending on what I’m trying to understand or heal in a given moment.

Alongside all of that reading, I published nearly 400 essays last year. I wrote several hundred more pages that were never meant for public eyes.

What’s different now is that I can feel my capacity returning. As I’ve been healing, my ability to read, think, and write has been opening back up in ways it simply wasn’t able to before. In 2025, what I was reading and writing wasn’t just “content.” It was part of a long process of making sense of both the present political reality and the long, complicated history that shaped me.

These books were not entertainment. They were companions, teachers, and sometimes lifelines. They helped me understand power, trauma, faith, identity, resistance, and what it means to remain human in systems that often try to flatten or erase us.

This list is a kind of map. Not of everything I learned, but of where I traveled.

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My 2025 reading, by the questions I was trying to answer

Looking back, I wasn’t just reading books. I was circling a handful of big, urgent questions. These clusters show what I was trying to understand, make sense of, and heal.

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1) Power, democracy, and what was happening to America

These books were my attempt to understand what I was watching unfold in real time: how democracies erode, how lies spread, and how authoritarian systems quietly take root.

• Beyond the Big Lie — The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy — Bill Adair

• Pipeline to Power — The 40-Year Plan to Capture the Supreme Court — Vicky Ward

• Preparing for War — The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism—and What Comes Next — Bradley Onishi

• The Shadow War — Inside Russia’s and China’s Secret Operations to Defeat America — Jim Sciutto

• America’s Secret War — Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies — George Friedman

• The Longest Con — How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism — Joe Conason

• The Project — How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America — David Graham

• Erasing History — How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future — Jason Stanley

• Money, Lies, and God — Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy — Katherine Stewart

• The Power Worshippers — Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism — Katherine Stewart

• The Founding Myth — Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American — Andrew Seidel

What these gave me: language for things I could feel but couldn’t yet fully name. They helped me see that what feels chaotic is often actually very organized.

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2) Christian nationalism, religion, and distorted history

I grew up inside what is now called Christian Nationalism. In 2025 I was learning how to separate spiritual meaning from political power, and how theology gets bent to justify domination.

• Preparing for War — The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism—and What Comes Next — Bradley Onishi

• Catholic Fundamentalism in America — Mark S. Massa, S.J.

• The Power Worshippers — Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism — Katherine Stewart

• The Founding Myth — Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American — Andrew Seidel

• The Bible Told Them So — How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Preserve White Supremacy — J. Russell Hawkins

What these gave me: permission to love faith without surrendering to fear, control, or cruelty disguised as righteousness.

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3) How societies rise, fall, and tell themselves stories

These books gave me a longer lens. They reminded me that today’s conflicts are not new, even if the technology is.

• America’s Founding Women — The Intimate Story of How Our Nation Was Shaped by Women’s Voices — Cassandra A. Good

• Land — How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World — Simon Winchester

• Guns, Germs, and Steel — The Fates of Human Societies — Jared Diamond

• Debt — The First 5,000 Years — David Graeber

• 55 Men — The Story of the Constitution Based on the Day-by-Day Notes of James Madison — Fred Rodell

• Cod — A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World — Mark Kurlansky

What these gave me: humility. We inherit systems far older than we are, but that doesn’t mean we are powerless inside them.

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4) Resistance, courage, and ordinary people in extreme times

These were the emotional heart of my year. They kept reminding me that history is not only written by tyrants, but also by people who refuse to become what those tyrants demand.

• The Woman’s Hour — The Great Fight to Win the Vote — Elaine Weiss

• A Woman of No Importance — The Untold Story of an American Spy Who Helped Win World War II — Sonia Purnell

• Ordinary Men — Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland — Christopher Browning

• The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line — Untold Stories of Women Who Changed the Course of World War II — Mari K. Eder

• Three Ordinary Girls — Three Dutch Teenagers, Nazi Spies, and the Courage That Changed History — Tim Brady

What these gave me: a deeper respect for quiet bravery and a clearer understanding of how easily humans can slide into both heroism and horror.

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5) Science, math, and wonder (my mind learning to breathe again)

When the world felt heavy, these reminded me that curiosity, beauty, and awe still exist.

• Is Math Real? — How Simple Questions Lead Us to Mathematics’ Deepest Truths — Eugenia Cheng

• X + Y — A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender — Eugenia Cheng

• Stealth — The Secret Contest to Design Invisible Aircraft — Peter Westwick

• Across the Airless Wilds — The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings — Earl Swift

• Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling — Ross King

What these gave me: space. A reminder that humans also build, imagine, and reach beyond survival.

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2025 Reading List Chronologically

Here is the full list, ordered by completion date, with audiobooks marked by an asterisk.

January 2025

• America’s Founding Women — Cassandra A. Good *

• Making Winners — Michael Lewis *

• Jan 5: Beyond the Big Lie — Bill Adair *

• Jan 8: Unit X — Raj M. Shah & Christopher Kirchhoff *

• Jan 8: Pipeline to Power — Vicky Ward *

• Jan 26: Land — Simon Winchester *

• Jan 31: Guns, Germs, and Steel — Jared Diamond *

February 2025

• Feb 5: Preparing for War — Bradley Onishi

• Feb 13: Debt — David Graeber *

• Feb 16: Stealth — Peter Westwick *

• Feb 19: The Woman’s Hour — Elaine Weiss

March 2025

• Mar 1: The Shadow War — Jim Sciutto *

• Mar 30: Is Math Real? — Eugenia Cheng

June 2025

• Jun 1: A Woman of No Importance — Sonia Purnell

• Jun 2: America’s Secret War — George Friedman *

• Jun 8: The Longest Con — Joe Conason *

• Jun 9: The Project — David Graham *

• Jun 17: Erasing History — Jason Stanley *

July 2025

• Catholic Fundamentalism in America — Mark S. Massa

• Jul 3: Ordinary Men — Christopher Browning

August 2025

• Aug 2: Money, Lies, and God — Katherine Stewart *

• Aug 16: The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line — Mari K. Eder

September 2025

• Sep 1: Cod — Mark Kurlansky

• Sep 6: The Power Worshippers — Katherine Stewart *

• Sep 27: Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling — Ross King *

October 2025

• Oct 3: X + Y — Eugenia Cheng

• Oct 4: Across the Airless Wilds — Earl Swift *

• Oct 26: 55 Men — Fred Rodell

November 2025

• Nov 9: The Perfect Heresy — Stephen O’Shea

• Nov 15: The Founding Myth — Andrew Seidel *

December 2025

• Dec 25: Three Ordinary Girls — Tim Brady

• Dec 29: The Bible Told Them So — J. Russell Hawkins *

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