For the past several years, I have started the New Year with a recommended reading list. In general, I include five books that I have read and highly recommend, as well as five books that I am planning on reading. Here is the 2025 version:
The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps Between Plans, Actions, and Results by Stephen Bungay: Bungay is a management consultant and military historian, and as I have written in several posts, I absolutely loved this book! I don't like to over-exaggerate, but Bungay's book could be one of the best leadership books that I have ever read. If you read just one leadership book this year, please do yourself a favor and choose this one!
Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife: I have had this book on my "want to read list" for a long time. I have been fascinated with the concept of zero, particularly in the context of how we define "zero harm" in the hospital setting. I wrote an editorial on this subject a few years ago in the journal Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. How do you define "zero" when it comes to one of the most common health care-associated infections, central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSI)? Can you say that you've reached "zero" after having no CLABSIs in your hospital for six months? One year? Forever? Needless to say, the concept of zero is more complicated than it seems, and I've wanted to dig into it a little more with this book.
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr: I referenced this book in a post late last year (see "Are smart phones making us dumb?"). I found this book after reading two of Carr's essays, "IT Doesn't Matter" (published in Harvard Business Review) and "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (published in The Atlantic). Carr suggests (and provides convincing evidence) that our online reading habits have changed not only how we read, but also how we think - not in a positive way. I went on a Nicholas Carr binge after this book, so you will see his name appear a few more times in this list.
Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholas Carr: I am waiting in eager anticipation for this book to come out this month. Nicholas Carr has published a number of books, articles, and essays on technology, business, and culture. Carr is a welcome voice given that technology plays such a central role in society today. We've all heard about the unintended consequences of social media, and I suspect that Carr will have a lot to say about that in this new book.
The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us by Nicholas Carr: Here is another book by Nicholas Carr that I found this year and highly recommend. Carr writes about how technologic innovations such as factory robots, self-driving cars, wearable computers, and digitized medicine have contributed to our disengagement and burnout. His argument can be summarized with a quote by the American science writer and technology historian George Dyson, who asked, "What if the cost of machines that think is people don't?" It's a great question and an important one.
Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Craig Mundie: If you are sensing a theme with this year's book list, you are correct! I've been interested in reading about how technology has changed (and will change further) how we work. Artificial intelligence is definitely a hot topic right now. I don't usually think of Henry Kissinger as an expert on artificial intelligence, so this one definitely caught my attention. It's actually the second book that Kissinger has authored on the subject (I am currently reading The Age of AI: And Our Human Future, which came out in 2022). I've enjoyed some of his other books, so I am putting this one on the list of books that I want to read this year.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond: I purchased this book during the COVID-19 pandemic and finally read it last year. It's a great read that won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1998. I really enjoyed this book, and I can't wait to dive into Diamond's other books. Basically, Diamond asks the question, "Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse?" His answer to this question is the rest of the book.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond: Diamond's next book in a three book series called "Civilizations Rise and Fall" (the third installment is Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis) explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. I've mentioned this book in a post last year on the collapse of civilization on Easter Island ("Butterfly Wings and Stone Heads").
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson: I read this book several years ago and really enjoyed it. Daron Acemoglu is a MIT economist and James Robinson is a political scientist at the University of Chicago. Together with MIT economist Simon Johnson, they won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics "for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity". It's a great book that seeks to answer the question, "Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, or geography that determines prosperity or poverty?"
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari: Based on a number of recommendations, I've been wanting to read this book for a couple of years and just haven't picked it up at the library yet. Both Bill Gates and Barack Obama placed the book on their summer reading lists. It looks interesting, and it's probably time that I read it.
Happy reading in 2025!
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