All the Books: 2025

If you're looking for a new book, I'm here for you

I’ve always been an active reader. And while much of my reading does focus on music, this year I decided to branch out a little. I took down classics (e.g., The Secret History by Donna Tartt), contemporary best-sellers (e.g., It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover), random histories (e.g., 1861: The Lost Peace by Jay Winik), and so much more.

Given that the holidays are approaching, I figured I’d run through everything I read this year. Maybe it will inspire a gift for your friends and family. Books are sorted alphabetically by section: Music, Recent Literary Fiction, Classic Fiction, History & Biography, Assorted Non-Fiction, and Recent Best-Selling Fiction.

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Music

The B Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song by Ben Yagoda

An incredible history detailing the tumultuous changes that shaped the music industry in the late-1940s and early-1950s.

Death Discs by Alan Clayson

Unless you are deeply interested in how we sing about death, this probably isn’t the book for you. In fact, it’s more of a reference than a typical non-fiction work.

Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty by Ben Ratliff

I went into this expecting to get tips on how to sift through the millions of songs that bombard us on streaming platforms. That’s not what this was. It was mostly a collection of essays. I might have enjoyed it more if I knew what I was getting into.

Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business by Fredric Dannen

Though it was written in the 1990s, this account of the rise and fall of payola remains as relevant as ever.

How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy by Stephen Witt

You would think that every detail about how Napster upended the music industry has been written. Stephen Witt proves that’s not the case. In his compelling narrative, Witt tracks the man that was stealing records out of the UMG plant and uploading them to the web for all to hear.

Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly

Maybe the most talked about music book this year, Liz Pelly’s account of how Spotify does things to hurt artists is well-researched and compelling. The second half of the book where she proposes solutions to these digital problems left me wanting more, though.

Music: A Subversive History by Ted Gioia

I’ve come to expect nothing but the best from Ted Gioia, but this book even outdid those expectations. Gioia traces how music that is truly radical and subversive comes to be accepted by everyone. Your average historian might trace a trend like that over a century. Gioia does it over thousands of years.

The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness by Steven Levy

I read this book while doing research for a recent piece that I wrote about iPods. Here’s what I wrote about this book in that piece: “Though it lacks the hindsight of the last two decades and borders on hagiography, it does capture both how innovative and popular the iPod was.”

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Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past by Simon Reynolds

One of the hottest topics on the internet right now is why culture feels stagnant. Critic Simon Reynolds was early on the trend. He wrote a book-length treatise on the topic in 2011.

Top Eight: How MySpace Changed Music by Michael Tedder

An exhaustive oral history of the MySpace era. If you were on the internet at this time, this is the book for you.

Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves by Chris Dalla Riva

Of course, I read my own book this year. It’s fantastic. You should buy it.

Recent Literary Fiction

The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami

Highly related to Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland at the End of the World, this is the third book that I read by the Japanese master. It made me realize that I might just not be a fan. Sacrilegious, I know, but I must live my truth.

Glass Century by Ross Barkan

A compelling saga that traces a New York City family from the 1970s through today. Whereas most writers want to limit the scope of their narratives, Barkan wants it all. Glass Century touches on Donald Trump, 9/11, COVID-19, and so much more. [I interviewed the author for this newsletter.]

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North Woods by Daniel Mason

Similar to Barkan, Daniel Mason writes a story over multiple centuries in North Woods. But this tale does not focus on a group of people. It focuses on all of the people that inhibit a specific place over a very long period. Because of that, the book feels somewhat disjointed. It is beautifully written, though.

See Friendship by Jeremy Gordon

A reporter attempts to make a podcast investigating the death of his high school buddy. A tale that is both contemporary and affecting.

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

A novella by a master, Johnson’s Train Dreams follows a man in the early 20th century whose life is transformed by tragedy and dramatically evolving technology.

Classic Fiction

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick