My Best Reads of 2025
- David Crow
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
As one year ends and another begins, I always take stock of the books that stayed with me. In 2025, these fiction and nonfiction titles challenged my assumptions, deepened my understanding of power and morality, and reminded me why reading still matters.
William A. Noguera
Through the Lens of a Monster tells the extraordinary true story of William Noguera, who spent nearly forty years on death row at San Quentin. How does anyone survive knowing there is no possibility of parole? Even more remarkable is what he accomplished from inside prison walls: gaining the trust of serial killer Joseph Naso, who admitted to Noguera that he had killed twenty-six women.
At great personal risk, Noguera was able to secure one written confession, help solve four cold cases, and uncover the truth about the final moments of twelve victims’ lives. This is a powerful book about accountability, endurance, and redemption by a man who ultimately found freedom.
David Szalay
Flesh carries echoes of Albert Camus and Franz Kafka. It tells the story of a man unraveled by events he barely understands. His beginnings are ordinary, but his responses to life’s pressures are anything but. He rises from rags to riches, only to fall back to rags, seemingly untouched by the consequences of his actions. Unlike anything I’ve read before, this novel is unsettling and utterly spellbinding.
Brody Mullins and Luke Mullins
The Wolves of K Street offers a compelling history of how corporate lobbying rose to dominance in the 1980s, beginning with the infamous Tommy Boggs. What followed was a system that used billions of dollars to reshape the American economy.
In light of today’s billionaire-driven lobbying, this book feels especially relevant. The power structures we see now are extensions of a model built more than forty years ago. A sobering and important study of influence and political power.
Thomas Paine
After watching Ken Burns’s series on the American Revolution, I reread Paine’s forty-odd-page pamphlet—once the second most-read document after the Bible. The writing remains extraordinary. Clear, urgent, and accessible, it serves as a powerful reminder of what the Founders fought for. This slim but potent work underscores what is at stake for our democracy.
Artis Henderson
This may be the only book on my list where I fundamentally disagreed with the author’s premise. Henderson writes about her father, a drug trafficker who became enormously wealthy running narcotics from Miami to the Islands. Her prose is vivid and accomplished, but she also works to justify his crimes, weaving together circumstantial and unproven theories suggesting he may have worked with the Reagan administration against the Sandinistas. I include this book because the writing is excellent and because, as the son of a convicted felon, I understand how tempting it is to rewrite history to soften criminal behavior.
Jonathan Karl
Many books detail the collapse of the Biden presidency and the return of Donald Trump, but this one goes deeper than most. Karl revisits the extraordinary events of 2024 that led to “Trump 2.0,” adding context and insight. Much of the story is familiar, but Karl’s reporting brings a new perspective to a campaign that defies belief. Well worth reading.
Frederic Forsyth
When Frederick Forsyth passed away earlier this year, his obituary caught my attention. I knew him as the accomplished author of several books, including The Day of the Jackal, but I hadn’t realized how deeply his fiction drew from lived experience. His autobiography, The Outsider, reads like the most daring spy novel imaginable—except it’s all true. From being the youngest RAF pilot at nineteen to surviving coups, arrests, and murder attempts, Forsyth lived an astonishing life. I rarely read historical fiction, but the depth of knowledge behind his storytelling makes his work endlessly engaging
Frederic Forsyth
In The Fox, Forsyth blends fiction with meticulous detail, taking readers inside the world of cybersecurity and modern espionage. His mastery lies in combining hard facts with narrative momentum—a skill earned through a life steeped in intelligence work and geopolitics. It’s both fascinating and deeply informed storytelling.
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