It’s an irony of writing a book that one’s time for reading gets rather, well, crunched. Yet the experience of being a reader—receiving beautifully worded wisdom, being swept into a journey, seeing the world in fresh ways—is the very thing that convinces a writer to keep writing. Reading reminds us that books matter. Yes, books. Written by actual humans. Right here on Earth.
As I think back on 2025, there are five books that stand out—books that didn’t just delight or inform me, but books that grew me intellectually, spiritually, artistically, and then some. Who knows? Maybe they’re books you’d like to delve into to close out this year (see ya, year of the snake) or begin the next one (year of the horse, let’s ride).
When No Thing Works by Norma Kawelokū Wong
The first book I read in 2025 was a slim volume, thick with insight: When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose, and Leadership in the Timeplace of Collapse. A Zen master and Native Hawaiian leader, Norma Kawelokū Wong meets us at the fraught juncture between a world that is devolving and one that is emergent—or so we hope. Fear not, she writes, for “it is the crisis that opens the way for big leaps.” In fact, “it is hopeful for humankind that everything feels and looks like a jumble at the edge of a precipice.” Wong shows us why and how we might move in the direction of interdependent thriving. By some good fortune, a work trip brought me to Honolulu the very week she was giving a public keynote. Reader, I tell you this: Norma Kawelokū Wong is not only wise, she is hilarious.
Lost & Found by Kathryn Schulz
It turns out, when one of your parents is dying, people suggest books about parents dying. That’s how I discovered Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness. It’s an absolutely beautiful book by New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz, who braids two tales: falling in love and losing her father. The experiences ran up against one another, swirling her in the emotional extremes of joy and grief—but also opening her to their remarkable interplay, not just in her own life but for all of us. In a year that stretched me to hold more of what being human can ask of us, I was grateful to have Schulz as a companion. I also found the book rich with relevance to the climate crisis. My hand-to-forehead moment: I realized about halfway through, with delight and a dose of “duh,” that I know Schulz’s great love, a fellow Rhodes Scholar.
Wayfinding by M.R. O’Connor
Getting lost—while following a trusty GPS no less—was the very thing that sparked a book idea for science journalist M.R. O’Connor. That idea became Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World. A wonderful storyteller, O’Connor documents her journey to understand how our species manages to navigate this planet we call home. Along the way, she introduces us to master navigators, whose practices have been passed down through generations within Indigenous cultures; neuroscientists, whose work points to the hippocampus as the hotspot of spatial orientation; biologists, whose research unveils the migratory capacities of non-human animals. I picked up Wayfinding as essential reading for my own Climate Wayfinding, but I discovered much more, including greater understanding of the impacts of Alzheimer’s on my father’s brain.
Secrets from the Center of the World by Joy Harjo & Stephen Strom
On the summer solstice, I was in Taos, New Mexico, having dinner with Christian Leahy, a wondrous developmental editor and book midwife who calls the high desert home. In celebration of a final writing sprint on my new book, she gifted me Secrets from the Center of the World by Muscogee poet Joy Harjo and photographer Stephen Strom, first published in 1989. Through words and images, it is an invocation of and invitation into a landscape—what the Navajo (Diné) call the center of the world. I experienced the book as a whisper, yet it evokes extraordinary strength. It reminded me of the unique power of textual-visual collaboration, their echoey exchange multiplying and deepening the reader-viewer experience. (Assignment to self: more of that, please.) And within Harjo’s writing, I found what had been an elusive closing quote for Climate Wayfinding.
By the Fire We Carry by Rebecca Nagle
In November, I dove into By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land. I have admired Cherokee journalist Rebecca Nagle’s podcast work, so I was eager to hear her read this audiobook. (It feels like such a gift for an author to bring their own work to life in that medium.) I was blown away by how she weaves reportage and history with elements of a legal thriller and family memoir and more. I learned a great deal about ongoing struggles for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma, where the legacy of “take it if you want it” colonization lives on, as does resistance by the Muscogee Nation—whose ancestral homelands are where I live in what’s now called Atlanta, Georgia—and other tribes. It’s an infuriating, fascinating, important read, though I might recommend you listen.
What books grew you this year? I’d love to know. Pop into the comments and share.
Thanks for everything, books and bookmakers—
P.S. If you’re looking for more book recs, The All We Can Save Project has a little Bookshop shop, where you can find work we’ve shared in our monthly newsletter and more. Purchases there support independent bookstores and a small nonprofit at the same time! (If you’re so moved, you can also donate to said nonprofit directly.)
Awww...I love that the subtle beauty+ power of "Secrets from the Center of the World" moves you as much as it moves me, KW. I first discovered it over 30 years ago at one of the best indy bookstores I've known. It was called Salt of the Earth and it was across from the main campus of UNM. It uplifted the writers of the borderlands, the indigenous sovereign nations, what is known as the southwest—curating their selection in such a way that it became immediately clear to me that I was living in the heart of a literary renaissance rising from this sacred ground. The Center of the World.
Thank you for curating such a fab list. Adding the other books to my list! xoxo
Excited to dive into some of these! Thanks for sharing Katharine :)