Books I Enjoyed in 2025
Short Reviews
Profiles in Courage by JFK. Longer post below but I loved this collection of short biographical stories on various people throughout American history.
Master of the Senate and The Passage of Power by Robert Caro. Finished the third and fourth books in the LBJ series by Robert Caro at the start of the year and I am still reeling from them. The greatest books I have ever read. Can’t wait for the final book which is 13 years in the making (Caro is 90 and has spent 51 years on the 4+1 LBJ books so far).
Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis. Finally read this book this year and while I have a pretty bad opinion of Lewis because of his book Going Infinite and all the inaccuracies in it, this was a fun read into Wall Street in the 80s.
The Man Who Solved The Market by Gregory Zuckerman. The story of RenTech and Jim Simons is always fascinating. Not only did he create the greatest hedge fund of all time but did so disregarding Wall Street so brazenly by creating his own path.
1776 by David McCullough. Picked this up in Boston and the most shocking thing is perhaps how young everyone who led the army was which would be crazy to imagine in any industry in the world today (even AI/Tech).
Milton Friedman by Jennifer Burns. Fascinating read into the life of Friedman who I knew so little about.
Liftoff and Reentry by Eric Berger. Eric Berger somehow managed to find fascinating anecdotes and stories about how this private space company succeeded against all odds. Stories that were somehow missed in the extensive Ashlee Vance and Walter Isaacson books.
Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell. Nixon is so Shakespearean.
The Greatest Comeback by Patrick J. Buchanan. Saw David Sacks post this after the 2024 election. Enjoyed this book by a former Nixon aide about how Nixon won the 1968 Presidential election (after losing the 1960 election and losing in the 1962 California gubernatorial election and ‘retiring’ from politics for half a decade)
Grant by Ron Chernow. Chernow books are always great even if it was pretty heavy to lug around at a thousand pages. Grant is another character whose life arc is so improbable yet somehow true. There’s a great History channel miniseries based on this book as well.
The Power Broker by Robert Caro. I didn’t think a 1300 page biography about a NYC Park Commissioner could match the greatness of his series on Lyndon Johnson but somehow it did. Incredible tale of a man who wielded so much power and influence and (physically) shaped the defining city of the modern world. Caro is in a league of his own.
No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Story of FDR and Eleanor’s time in the White House during the WWII years which gives a fascinating perspective into the domestic front.
