I read a handful of books this year, primarily on my Kindle (my current preferred medium since I can read it at night in bed with all the lights off and won’t wake any sleeping toddlers up). My tastes are generally pretty varied, and I usually try to alternate non-fiction and fiction to keep things from getting stale, but even that isn’t really a rule.
The books below are written down in the order that I read them in 2025. I did not include any books I did not finish, nor any book that I read this year that was not new to me (ie, a re-read). I’ve included a brief write-up and a score ranking. I did not include any discussion around plot on the off chance that you want to read the book. (I have, however, included Amazon links in case you want to buy one. You can see a bit more about the book there. They aren’t affiliate links, so I will not get paid either way).
The score is not based on anything scientific, but is simply an attempt to put a number around how much I enjoyed a specific book, or the impact that it had on me.
The rankings:
5 – Excellent, phenomenal, highly recommend
4 – Quite enjoyable and a lovely way to spend an afternoon or evening
3 – Worth the time, but probably wouldn’t need to read again
2 – Probably not worth the time to read the whole thing, but may have some redeeming qualities that you could enjoy if you are really intent on reading this book and finding them
1 – Did not enjoy, not worth the time, barely scraped through out of a strange misplaced sense of duty to not letting the book win
Hopefully this helps you find something new to read (or, selfishly, inspires you to send me something new that you think I would like to read).
Enjoy!
Score: 5
Thoughts: This is the best business book I’ve ever read. I’ve given multiple copies of it away to people and am planning on buying more copies to continue that practice. Slootman was the CEO who took both ServiceNow and Snowflake public (and took Data Domain to a billion dollar exit too). A phenomenal playbook on how to get things done as an organization, and the importance of moving quickly with focus and intensity in the workplace. I’ve literally used multiple things from this book at my own job and it is shocking how much you can accomplish. Everyone who works for a living should read this book, especially if you want to be a leader in the workplace and to be on a winning team. The only downside is after reading it I watched every Frank Slootman interview on youtube and now my wife makes fun of me.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Score: 4
Thoughts: A classic for a reason. What a rollicking good time. The original swashbuckling adventure. The black spot. Long John Silver. Rum all over the place. Dudes shooting each other with muskets. Cutlasses flying. Poor Jim Hawkins holding his own among a rash of dastardly mutineering pirates. Buried treasure. It’s Treasure Island baby. What more do you want?
Score: 3
Thoughts: This was Frank Slootman’s thoughts after heading his first major company, Data Domain. A good read if you like Slootman, but just stick with Amp it Up – it’s way more fleshed out. You can probably bang this one out in an hour or two. Glad I read it and have it, but his later book is better.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Score: 4
Thoughts: Loved this book. This is the first book in a series of three by Scott Lynch. It’s essentially Oceans 11 set in a historic, stylized, fantastic Venice. I’ve always been a sucker for characters that are thinking like ten steps ahead in their little schemes and plans, and this book has that in spades (but also every once in a while the main character here gets caught and punished, and realizes that he’s not as smart as he thinks he is, either). What fun. Great world building, fun characters, lovely capers. Prose can be a little clumsy but who cares. Great book if you’re into this sort of thing.
Red Seas under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
Score: 4
Thoughts: This is the second book in Scott Lynch’s series. This one is is like if Oceans 11 and Jack Sparrow had a baby. There are even some scenes in the book that the discerning reader will note seem to be directly from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Whatever. I loved those films and I enjoyed this book. Ending felt a little rug-pully and flat, but who cares. Would read this again. Fun read that just takes itself seriously enough to not feel like junk food. Hooray!
High Output Management by Andrew S Grove
Score: 3
Thoughts: This book is a classic management book. Ultimately I liked it. It will be good to have on my shelf to refer to now and then. Some good thoughts on performing high leverage tasks, time management, etc. I liked this book but didn’t love it. Worth a read if you’re interested in this type of thing though.
Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday
Score: 3
Thoughts: A great, anecdote-driven meditation on the virtue of courage. I enjoyed it. Seems like something I would find in the airport or in a monthly subscription box for men. However, there really were some great thoughts in there and it did get me thinking about the idea of courage for a while, so I guess it did its job. I read this book because Frank Slootman mentioned it in an interview.
The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
Score: 3
Thoughts: This is the third and final book in Scott Lynch’s series. There were some really neat elements to this book; the setting was fun and the main characters are now trying to rig a high stakes election. Great stuff. Who doesn’t love a good caper with both sides trying to stay two steps ahead of the other? Ultimately though, one of the central narratives of the main character’s romantic history with the antagonist dragged this whole thing down. You could tell the author was either going through, or just went through, a divorce. Glad I wrapped up the series, just wish it went out on a higher note.
Lemon Curd Killer by Laura Childs
Score: 3
Thoughts: This series is about a lady who owns a tea shop and solves murder mysteries. Formulaic but who cares. Banged this out in an afternoon. Lots of descriptions about scones and teas and interior decorating and lilac in the countryside and whatnot. Not gonna blow your socks off but again, I wanted to read a mystery solved by a lady who owned a tea shop and that is what I got. Tremendous. Can’t wait to read another one.
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
Score: 4
Thoughts: A guy named Tom Quigley who runs a biodiversity based venture fund called Superorganism gave me this recommendation in the comment section of a LinkedIn post. This book is wild. Extremely inventive and exceptionally sobering, it’s part madcap adventure, part ecological horror, part science fiction apocalypse, part financial market fiction(?) It’s essentially biodiversity banking and environmental destruction taken to a dystopic scifi extreme and is worth a read for anyone in the green adjacent space.
How to Raise a Venture Capital Fund by Winter Mead
Score: 5
Thoughts: If you are going to raise a venture capital fund, read this book. A phenomenal resource that covers everything from legal and compliance to LP updates to fundraising and more. Easy to read too, which is always a plus when you’re reading what is essentially a cleverly done textbook. I immediately went out and bought a hard copy to have on my shelf as a reference guide for a project that shall be named later.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Score: 3
Thoughts: The first part of this book rocked. Ned Land is an all time character. Finding the mysterious submarine and attempting to harpoon it is fantastic. Really fun to read how an author in the 1870s explains how a submarine can breathe under water. You can really see Jules Verne’s mind at work here and why he is one of the fathers of science fiction. Unfortunately, and this is probably something that everyone went nuts for and loved in the 1870s, I don’t need to read just pages and pages of Professor Pierre Aronnax cataloguing random fish and seaweed and rocks that he sees outside the window of the Nautilus. This book is tremendous for what it is, and you can see why Jules Verne is so revered; it just has a few passages in there that might be a slog for a modern audience who already knows that different fish exist and that they live in the ocean.
Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne
Score: 1
Thoughts: Prose was miserable. Hyper violent. No idea how anyone grows old in this world if everyone in every village is getting brutally slaughtered all the time. Overly relied on some (terrible) faux-Norse stylistic language. Got great reviews, but I can only assume the reviewers were just the author and his friends.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Score: 4
Thoughts:
I read this in one sitting at the San Francisco airport, waiting for my flight which had been significantly delayed. A beautifully written book. A phenomenal meditation on life and what it means to live it, as well as memory, duty, etc. A lovely narrator who is ultimately unreliable. I guess it won a Nobel prize. I can see why. Parts of this book stuck with me for a long time.
Score: 2
Thoughts: I really wanted to like this book more. The first half was wonderfully atmospheric, with some really interesting meditations on memory, exploration, etc. It really had lots of potential. The second half was essentially just an exposition dump that you could see coming from miles away. I feel like the author wasn’t sure if she wanted to explore a philosophical concept or write something plot driven, and ultimately chose to do both – and failed to do either satisfactorily. If she leaned hard towards one way she probably would have saved it. Tremendous idea and some really strong writing ultimately marred by just poor execution. If you want to read someone who’s written what this book should have been, just pick up some Italo Calvino.
Mick Hammock 
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