9 Reading Ideas for 2025

Perhaps you are thinking about what you want to read in 2025. I’ve put quite a bit of thought into it, as I’m too busy to be a mood reader these days. I came up with a long list of books I’d like to read in the new year, and as I came up with that list I came up with some ideas for structuring your reading.

The point is to read more, be intellectually engaged, and (of course) to enjoy myself. Maybe you’ll find these suggestions helpful.

#1: Join a Book Club on Substack

I decided that I would be joining

Simon Haisell

’s slow read of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy. I love Mantel, and I love that trilogy, and I wanted to go back and savor them. I’m using Simon’s timeline and resources to really savor it.

Of course, we do something similar at Commonplace Philosophy: in 2025 we’ll finish Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition, and then we’ll move on to several other philosophical books.

As part of those read-alongs, I host Zoom calls for paid subscribers. The next one is December 15 at 8 PM Eastern. I send the link out to paid subscribers that day. If you want to join that call, click on the button below to become a paid subscriber.

Of course, you don’t have to pay. The read-alongs primarily consist of a weekly post I send out, and those posts are never behind a paywall. Anyone can join in that part of the discussion.

#2: Pick an Author and Read His Complete Works

Or her, of course.

The idea behind this suggestion, the real reason for doing it, is that most readers (myself included) tend to go and grab the best books by an author, though ‘best’ here could be replaced with ‘most famous.’

If you’ve read Dostoevsky, odds are you’ve read Crime & Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, and perhaps Notes from the Underground. If you were to encounter Nabakov’s comment that Dosoevsky was a ‘slapdash comedian,’ you’d be a little perplexed. When a friend of mine who has read all of Dostoevsky, along with several biographies, saw that, he shrugged and said ‘I get it.’ The lesser-known works can tell you quite a bit about an author.

In 2025, I’m reading all of Plato. Every dialogue in Hackett’s complete works, including the dialogues that were attributed to Plato in antiquity that we no longer consider authentic. I’m also going to read most, though not quite all, of the Le Guin novels that I haven’t read yet.

I’m already thinking about 2026, and I think that might be the year to read every bit of Nietzsche I can find.

#3: Pick a Topic and Really Master It

Is there some topic – an area of history, a subfield of philosophy, a certain aspect of culture – you’ve always wanted to understand better? Why not make a good reading list for yourself and try to master it in 2025?