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 Hayek's Bastards

Elliot Dolan-Evans ❤️ loved this book because...

Slobodian's latest book, which charts the connection between neoliberalism and far-right politics, is a crucial read for today. The book works to displace the erroneous thought that far-right politics sweeping the globe is a challenge to the neoliberal world order; rather, it has grown from neoliberal doctrine and works to uphold these power structures, in a more violent, exclusionary way

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    🥇 Outlook 🥈 Teach
  • Writing style

    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐕 Good, steady pace

By Quinn Slobodian ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hayek's Bastards as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A revelatory exploration of how today's right-wing authoritarianism emerged not in opposition to neoliberalism, but from within it

Bracingly original... Hayek's Bastards demonstrates how a history of ideas can be riveting. Slobodian grounds intellectual abstractions in the lives of the people who espoused them... His book offers an illuminating history to our current bewildering moment, as right-wing populists join forces with billionaire oligarchs to take a chain saw to the foundations of public life, until there's nothing left to stand on' - Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

After the end of the Cold War, neoliberalism, with its belief in…


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My 2nd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of Towers of Ivory and Steel

Elliot Dolan-Evans ❤️ loved this book because...

Excellent book from Maya Wind, which goes into great detail on the ways that Israeli universities support and uphold the illegal occupation of Palestine. This book was written in response to the usual hesitation for academics to uphold boycott calls on Israeli universities, with the justification that these 'liberal' institutions must be supported to help bolster them against the right-wing Israeli government(s). However, this book dispels these myths, and demonstrates clearly that Israeli universities are crucial for the maintenance of the occupation of Palestinian lands

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    🥇 Outlook 🥈 Teach
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    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Maya Wind ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Towers of Ivory and Steel as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth and documents how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights.

As this book shows, Israeli universities serve as pillars of Israel's system of oppression against Palestinians. Academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructure, and research laboratories all service Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate the rights of Palestinians to education, stifle critical scholarship, and violently repress student dissent. Towers of Ivory and Steel is…


My 3rd favorite read in 2025

Book cover of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

Elliot Dolan-Evans ❤️ loved this book because...

Brilliant book that is a painful exploration into the global response to Israeli's genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. The book also goes more deeply into the broader structures of the Western world and identifies how these bases have fundamentally given rise to the allowance of such horrors to be enacted upon a captured population. This is a crucial read.

  • Loved Most

    🥇 Teach 🥈 Originality
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    ❤️ Loved it
  • Pace

    🐇 I couldn't put it down

By Omar El Akkad ,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 PALESTINE BOOK AWARDS • From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values.

"[A] bracing memoir and manifesto." —The New York Times

"I can't think of a more important piece of writing to read right now. I found hope here, and help, to face what the world is now, all that it isn't anymore. Please read this. I promise you won't regret it." —Tommy Orange, bestselling author…


Don‘t forget about my book 😀

Making War Safe for Capitalism

By Elliot Dolan-Evans ,

Book cover of Making War Safe for Capitalism

What is my book about?

This book investigates the response of the two largest international financial institutions in the world, The World Bank and International Monetary Fund, to the war in Ukraine. These institutions are vital for peacebuilding and reconstruction, but their activities during active war have seldom been investigated or questioned. This book provides a history of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in war, using vignettes of El Salvador, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, before moving to the major case study - Ukraine. The analysis studies the impacts of World Bank and International Monetary Fund financing on everyday people surviving in Ukraine, especially through an investigation of agricultural, pension, and gas reform.

Book cover of Hayek's Bastards
Book cover of Towers of Ivory and Steel
Book cover of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

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