My book bouquet for this holiday

The seventeen best non-fiction books I've read in 2025 – or hope to read soon

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Every year I compile a list of books. Here’s the 2025 edition, in which I discuss the books I most enjoyed reading, my favourite book of the year, and the ones I’m most looking forward to.

Books I enjoyed

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global

Laura Spinney knows how to weave a story together, whether it is about death during the Spanish flu (her previous bestseller) or about something for which there is almost no direct evidence: an ancient language. One qualm: I would have loved to see mention of the most recent incarnation – a distant descendant – of that ancient language, now firmly established at the southern tip of Africa.

Peak Human: What We Can Learn from History’s Greatest Civilizations

If we do not learn from the past, to paraphrase a recent Nobel laureate, we cannot hope to build a better world. Johan Norberg wants to build a better world. To do so, he sticks to a successful formula: you’ll find not so much new insight as packaging that makes it more accessible and entertaining. My only criticism? I would have loved to learn lessons from one of humanity’s longest-surviving civilisations: Egypt.