My favorite books from the first half of the year are here, but here are my favorites from the second half of 2025!

Fiction:

Earthseed Series, by Octavia Butler - Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents are essential fiction for this century. More thoughts here.

The Culture series, by Iain M. Banks, - In the second half of the year, I wrapped up six more Banks novels: Excession, Inversions, Look to Windward, Matter, Surface Detail, The Hydrogen Sonata. I especially liked Excession! These can mostly stand alone, though I do think something like Player of Games helps to contextualize the universe in a helpful way for certain others like Excession, Inversions, Surface Detail, and Hydrogen Sonata. Banks was such an entertaining part of this year with wonderfully imaginative world-building and thoughtful characters. He’s also pondering empire, cross-cultural interactions, colonization, and the journey towards death in thought-provoking ways.

The Monk and Robot series, by Becky Chambers - Two delightful little books, starting with A Psalm for the Wild-Built, with good reflection on the world we live in and making a small but meaningful difference.

Non-fiction:

The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, by David Graeber - Always fun to read some Graeber. I did a two-part post jumping off from this book, starting here.

Relationships:

All About Love: New Visions, by bell hooks - This was a very good read and I’d recommend it to anybody, especially those embarking on a relationship. hooks draws the lines from love to reflections on many spheres of life, personal and societal, and I think her reflections are very valuable. A good, level-headed approach to the realities of love.

The Art of Asking Better Questions, by J. R. Briggs - A practical guide to questions! Great for improving an essential skill.

Church:

What Gen Z Really Wants to Know About God, by Tanita Tualla Maddox - A good look at Gen Z realities and how to understand the questions and desires common in a generation now becoming adults.

American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church, by Andrew Whitehead - Another good book on Christian nationalism!

Favorite Albums

Also, a few of my favorite new albums that released in 2025: