The best books of 2025

This list is part of the best books of 2025.

Join 1,210 readers and share your 3 favorite reads of the year.

My favorite read in 2025

Book cover of We Have Never Been Woke

Cory Hartman ❤️ loved this book because...

I did not want this book to end. Every so often a book thrills me because I can never look at the world again the same way. This is one of them. Also, aside from the substance, al-Gharbi can write, which is by no means a given in academic writing.

As a nonmainstream symbolic capitalist, the argument was easy for me to accept. But it bit down on me as well, challenging me and my wife to make practical changes in how we live.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Originality 🥈 Thoughts
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Musa al-Gharbi ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked We Have Never Been Woke as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How a new "woke" elite uses the language of social justice to gain more power and status-without helping the marginalized and disadvantaged

Society has never been more egalitarian-in theory. Prejudice is taboo, and diversity is strongly valued. At the same time, social and economic inequality have exploded. In We Have Never Been Woke, Musa al-Gharbi argues that these trends are closely related, each tied to the rise of a new elite-the symbolic capitalists. In education, media, nonprofits, and beyond, members of this elite work primarily with words, ideas, images, and data, and are very likely to identify as allies of…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of Hyperion

Cory Hartman ❤️ loved this book because...

Page-turner and pathos aren't words I usually combine in one sentence (or see in others'). But they both apply—deeply—to this novel, a far-future "Canterbury Tales." For a complete narrative it requires the terrific sequel, "The Fall of Hyperion," but as a work of art, horrific and humane, it stands on its own.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Originality 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Dan Simmons ,

Why should I read it?

19 authors picked Hyperion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A book of mystery, legend, romance and violence.


My 3rd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of They Flew: A History of the Impossible

Cory Hartman ❤️ loved this book because...

Impossible accounts of saintly miracles, witch hunts, and demon-possession are "medieval," right? Wrong—or not quite. The fever pitch of these phenomena struck in early modernity—precisely when Newton and Descartes were alive and kicking—and not merely among the illiterate unwashed but among the most learned elites of the age.

Eire, an award-winning historian, takes the reader on a fascinating expedition through the most famous (and infamous) levitators and bilocators of that era and the voluminous documentary witnesses to their feats. At the end he brings the pile-driver. In the 16th and 17th centuries, "everybody knew" that levitation was real. How did it come to be that in the 20th and 21st centuries "everybody knows" it ISN'T real independent of data one way or the other?

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Teach 🥈 Immersion
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Carlos M. N. Eire ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked They Flew as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An award-winning historian's examination of impossible events at the dawn of modernity and of their enduring significance

"Historically rich and superbly written."-David J. Davis, Wall Street Journal

Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era-tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft-even as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos M. N. Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals.

Eire observes how levitating saints and flying witches were as essential a component of early modern life…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Future Church: Seven Laws of Real Church Growth

By Cory Hartman , Will Mancini,

Book cover of Future Church: Seven Laws of Real Church Growth

What is my book about?

Church growth models have often been long on promises and short on disciple-making. We continue to watch consistent church attendance shrink, and our desire to reach the lost is infected with a need for self-validation by growing our numbers at any cost. If we believe that God wants his church to grow, where do we go from here? What is the future of the church?

Drawing from his 20 years and 15,000 hours of consulting, author Will Mancini shares with pastors and ministry leaders the single most important insight he has learned about church growth. With plenty of salient stories and based solidly on the disciple-making methods found in Scripture, Future Church exposes the church's greatest challenge today, and offers 7 transforming laws of real church growth so that we can faithfully and joyfully fulfill Jesus's Great Commission.

Book cover of We Have Never Been Woke
Book cover of Hyperion
Book cover of They Flew: A History of the Impossible

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