The Economist's Reading List | 40 Best Books to Read So Far This Year

Biography and memoir

Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America William Buckley revived American conservatism in the second half of the 20th century with his love of argument and erudite, incisive prose.

Careless People A riveting corporate kiss-and-tell portraying Mark Zuckerberg as unfeeling and shallow.

The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI and the Race to Invent the Future A deeply researched, gripping account of Open AI and Sam Altman’s leadership.

Source Code: My Beginnings Bill Gates recounts his origin story, from birth to early Microsoft years.

The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip A guide to Nvidia’s rise and Jensen Huang’s visionary leadership.

Business, economics and technology

Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company Explores Apple’s entanglement in China and global trade shifts.

The Art of Uncertainty An invaluable guide to thinking about uncertainty.

Chokepoints An insider’s guide to economic warfare and modern sanctions.

The Corporation in the 21st Century What firms are really for—clear and insightful.

Empire of AI Reveals disturbing truths about OpenAI and Silicon Valley culture.

House of Huawei How Huawei’s founder rose from poverty to power.

Culture and arts

Adventures in the Louvre A chatty tour through the Louvre museum.

Bye Bye I Love You Examines first and last words in life.

Fatherhood How thinking about dads has evolved over time.

John & Paul A rich reading of Lennon and McCartney’s relationship.

Pronoun Trouble An erudite tour of pronouns in culture and language.

Raising Hare A memoir about caring for a leveret and rediscovering nature.

Fiction

Among Friends Tensions and betrayal among wealthy families.

Beartooth Two brothers take on a risky venture in Yellowstone.

The Dream Hotel A dystopian tale blending narrative with corporate documents.

Flesh Stages of a man’s life told with elegant prose.

Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way A woman confronts past pain while caring for her dying father.

Ripeness Explores family ties across generations.

Theft Coming of age and betrayal in Tanzania.

Twist A journalist investigates a mysterious disappearance at sea.

We Do Not Part A novel about the Jeju island massacres.

History

38 Londres Street Explores the connection between Pinochet and a Nazi officer.

The CIA Book Club How the CIA smuggled books into the Eastern bloc.

The Einstein Vendetta Investigates a murder linked to Einstein’s relatives.

Jesus Wept Examines the Catholic Church’s failures through seven popes.

The Last Days of Budapest How WWII transformed Budapest.

Peak Human The rise and fall of golden ages throughout history.

Strangers and Intimates How private life has evolved through history.

The Third Reich of Dreams How authoritarianism invades the subconscious.

Politics and current affairs

Righting Wrongs Insights from three decades of human-rights work.

Russia’s Man of War Biography of notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Science and health

Doctored Investigates dishonesty in Alzheimer’s research.

Is a River Alive? Makes the case for granting rivers legal rights.

More and More and More A critical look at the misunderstood concept of the energy transition.

Waste Wars Examines the global waste trade and the truth behind recycling.

From the June 7th 2025 edition

📚 All recommended books are available in e-book or audiobook format (paid resources).

We assist in finding various English e-books, audiobooks, and foreign publications.

We provide AI Chinese-English对照 versions of the latest English e-books.

Add us on WeChat for more original English book information.

Single book orders are supported, flexible and convenient.

Image

Main Tag:Book Recommendations

Sub Tags:Non-fictionCurrent AffairsBusiness and TechnologyFiction


Previous:SRO Architecture Empowers Qwen-2.5-VL's Reasoning Capability, Boosting Performance by 16.8%

Next:Kaiming He's New Work: Adding Regularization to Diffusion Models for Performance Improvement with No Pre-training or Data Augmentation, Simple to Implement

Share Short URL