2025 book list
#268 - Jan.2026
Hi there! (and 'Feliz dia de Reyes' for people in Spain)
There is a lot to unwrap but keeping it short: I was offline for a while from posting. After writing a lot during 2024, the last 2 months had many changes (including a change in my new role at Amazon). I was not able to put my attention in writing. It happens...
But we are back! I've renewed my energy to continue sharing interesting stuff on design, innovation, and creativity!
To break the ice this year, I want to keep the ritual from previous years and share the list of books I read during 2025. Many of them made it to my favorite list.
Looking in retrospective, there is a bit of everything. I went back to old friends (Awareness and Design as Art) in search of perspective - so much needed in these times. Others were a gateway for topics that are impacting our lives today (Nexus).
- Awareness (Anthony de Mello): Reading this book at the start of every year has become a ritual! De Mello teaches that most of our suffering comes from wanting reality to be different than it is.
- A Morte é um Dia Que Vale a Pena Viver (Ana Cláudia Quintana Arantes): A profound book. The author explains how death teaches us how to live by forcing us to confront what truly matters.
- How to Take Smart Notes (Sönke Ahrens): If you are a productivity hacker this could be for you. Over the years I've struggled to organize my notes and this brings a very practical approach to solve this problem.
- Redescubrir la vida (Anthony de Mello): 2nd book of De Mello. Great perspective of what life is about and the power of wonder.
- Ways of Seeing (John Berger): This was an interesting book that navigates across different art disciplines and how to teach your eyes to "see" beyond the common appearances.
- La ciudad y los perros (Mario Vargas Llosa): What a novel! It's like being in a movie. A powerful and engaging story that only Vargas Llosa was able to put together in such a beautiful prose.
- Nexus (Yuval Noah Harari): This was a long and insightful book. Harari has been famous for calling out the risks about AI. I was curious to understand why. The book does a good job explaining the reasons. Some of them I truly agree with.
- Design as Art (Bruno Munari): Another re-read of this year, returning to the basics of design. Good design isn't decoration; it's communication that makes life more meaningful and accessible.
- The Prosperity Paradox (Clayton M. Christensen): This book is eye-opening about what true innovation is about and the power of new markets that are often ignored by many people. Opportunities often come from the "non-consumers".
- Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli): A short and engaging book that brings simplicity over the complexity (and beauty) of our universe and the fundamental laws that control it.
- Humano, más Humano (Josep Maria Esquirol): This is without a doubt the most difficult book I read in 2024. It is very deep in the philosophical ideas about what makes us human. I wanted a bit of perspective given today's AI wave. What makes us different?
- Wisdom of Insecurity (Alan W. Watts): This was my first time experiencing Alan Watts's writings. What a book! It sounds so fresh in today's world of anxiety. It questions. It proposes. It inspires.
- El Cerebro del Artista (Mara Dierssen Sotos): A light and easy book that looks at creativity from a biological perspective. Interesting facts on how our brain works and what happens in the mind of painters, writers and musicians.
- Hold Me Tight (Sue Johnson): A very practical book on how to develop lifetime relationships. While this is designed for couples, I think that many of the insights apply to many other types of relationships: friends, daughters, sons, etc.
Happy Reading!
¡Saludos!
