2025 Reading List

My reading in 2025 not much different than past years. I continued to learn history, including Iran, Africa, Chinese Americans, Native Americans, Abolition, Reconstruction, Civil Rights, and the rise of the new right and our current polarizaiton. I also read a few books that made many best of lists and especially liked the Brian Goldstone’s Pulitzer Prize winning There is No Place for Us about homelessness that really humanizes the issue and speaks about the cracks in our systems that people sadly and too easily fall through. The book Illiberal America really got me thinking of history in a new way: that we effectively have had two parallel lines run through our history of people fighting to make the Declaration of Independence real (liberal America) and those who have fought against the ideal (illiberal America). Once can pick apart any era of history and find both inspiring visionaries for justice and reactionaries against progress. It helped me think of history in a new way. And as usual, a few music biographies – especially enjoyed the biography of Yoko Ono and understanding her first as an artist and not first as a John’s wife.