Turns out, a lot of Plato this year. See https://vtomole.com/ for the list.
Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
31–40 of 459 posts
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#32Getting into reading again this year after a long break. The most memorable read of this year was "The Count of Monte Cristo" (1846) by Alexander Dumas . It's one of the greatest stories ever told. It's ~1250 pages but I sped through it in 3 weeks even if I'm a slow reader. Highly recommended! I also read The Stranger by Camus and the two top Orwells which lived up to the hype.
Loved the stranger, I read it for the first time this year too. I read plenty of sub culture (mostly modern; Irvine welsh etc) but the stranger was just so different than anything I’ve ever read. Like the language is so olan yet it works so well, and then you have this great finish, it’s a weird masterpiece.
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#33How to Think Like Socrates - I normally have a difficult time digesting philosophy in older translations or language, but this one was really nicely written and well communicated.
Water by Rumi (translated by Haleh Liza Gafori) - also unexpectedly good. She uses a modern style and it reads so beautifully. It gave me glimpse of the beauty of the Persian language.
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#34For fiction I read a lot of Brandon Sanderson: the second Mistborn series, plus a few of the Secret Projects. I quite liked Tress of the Emerald Sea. Also currently reading R. F. Kuang's Katabasis which I'm really enjoying so far.
For nonfiction, I found Amanda Ripley's High Conflict to be excellent and insightful. I also finally got around to reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins; I expected it to be fine, but it far exceeded my expectations! On top of that, the edition I read also had "end notes" interspersed throughout the book with retrospectives from decades later, which only added to the book's richness.
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#35I gave Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations a go and gave up around half way. Maybe if I knew the historical context it would seem more profound? I enjoyed Three Body Problem a lot more than I thought I would. That was probably the best book I read in 2025.
Which version did you read? I read this one: https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Penguin-Classics-Hardcove..., which provides a lot of context. Here are my thoughts on it: https://vtomole.com/blog/2025/12/14/aurelius
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#36I reread “The Screwtape Letters” by CS Lewis for the first time since high school and appreciated it even more. Although it’s written from a Christian point of view, the principles are applicable to any moral framework.
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#37My goal for the year was 15 books. I've finished 14 so far and should finish #15 in the next couple of days if all goes well. Here's what I've read (it's a mix of fiction and non-fiction) in reverse order by completion date:
Nash Falls - David Baldacci
Exit Strategy - Lee Child & Andrew Child
Perceptrons: An Introduction to Computational Geometry - Marvin Minsky & Seymour Papert
We are Legion (We are Bob) - Dennis Taylor
Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition: Volume 1: Foundations - David Rumelhart & Jay McClelland
Semantic Information Processing - Marvin Minsky
Associative Engines: Connectionism, Concepts, and Representational Change - Andy Clark
Associative Networks: The Representation and Use of Knowledge of Computers - Nicholas Findler
The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science - Dedre Gentner, Keith J. Holyoak, Boicho N. Kokinov (eds)
Similarity and Analogical Reasoning - Stella Vosniadou (ed)
Never Flinch - Stephen King
The Bad Weather Friend - Dean Koontz
Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind - Gary Marcus
After Death - Dean Koontz
The 15th book that I hope to finish will be:
Principles of Semantic Networks - John F. Sowa (ed)
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#38I gave Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations a go and gave up around half way. Maybe if I knew the historical context it would seem more profound? I enjoyed Three Body Problem a lot more than I thought I would. That was probably the best book I read in 2025.
I also read Meditations this year. Definitely not what I was expecting. It's not cohesive at all. My biggest takeaways were the inevitability of death and generally letting go of our sense of control.
Re: Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
#39I reread “The Screwtape Letters” by CS Lewis for the first time since high school and appreciated it even more. Although it’s written from a Christian point of view, the principles are applicable to any moral framework.
Would you be open to sharing more? I’m a Christian, and I’d love to hear from your perspective.