I’m a reader, but I’m not in the habit of recording what I read. In 2025, thought it might be neat to keep a record so that I could carry out a year-in-review type reflection. So I did, and here are some of the things I learned about the 30 books I read in 2025:
Page Count Stats:
- Average: 335 pages
- Shortest: 138 pages
- Longest: 496 pages
- Total: 10,064 pages
Longest Books
- Empire of AI – 496 pages
- A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet – 441 pages
- My Favorite Thing is Monsters – 416 pages
Shortest Books
- This is water: some thoughts delivered on a significant occasion about living a compassionate life – 138 pages
- Persepolis – 160 pages
- Solaris – 204 pages
Most Common Genres:
- Fiction – 20 books
- Science Fiction – 13 books
- Thriller – 9 books
- Humor – 7 books
- Nonfiction – 7 books
A single book can have multiple genres. There were quite a few sci-fi and humor combos on this year’s reading list.
Most Common Themes:
- Power – 16 books
- Community – 9 books
- Corruption – 8 books
- Courage – 8 books
- Relationships – 7 books
A single book can also have multiple themes. I thought it might be interesting to see which ones appeared together. The most common themes that appeared together in the same book were:
- Corruption and Power – in 8 books
- Community and Relationships – in 6 books
- Power and Technology – in 6 books
- Class Warfare and Power – in 5 books
- Corruption and Technology – in 5 books
The reading method (style?) is also worth mentioning. I read 22 books by myself, but I read 8 books with family. We read aloud, asked questions, discussed characters and plot points, and talked about the ways stories mapped onto real life experiences. It was fun reading this way.
Here’s the full 2025 reading list in chronological order:
| Relationality |
| Dark Matter |
| Ready Player One |
| Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism |
| Recursion |
| Solaris |
| Orbital |
| Ready Player Two |
| Persepolis |
| My Favorite Thing is Monsters |
| A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking |
| The Collapsing Empire |
| Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick |
| A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet |
| Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits |
| John Dies at the End |
| The Consuming Fire |
| Zoey is Too Drunk for this Dystopia |
| The Last Emperox |
| A Closed and Common Orbit |
| Tech Agnostic |
| What You are Looking for is in The Library |
| Empire of AI |
| Record of a Spaceborn Few |
| This is Water: Some Thoughts Delivered on a Significant Occassion About Living a Compassionate Life |
| Galaxy and the Ground Within |
| Before Night Falls |
| Starter Villain |
| Raising Hare |
| Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It |
jordan beck, phd 