2025 Reading Journal

2025 was a year of dark corridors, difficult histories, and a search for steadier ways of thinking.

On the fiction side, I delved into the mind of Hannibal Lecter through “Red Dragon”, “The Silence of the Lambs“, “Hannibal”, and “Hannibal Rising” … equal parts disturbing and fascinating. Alongside them came other kinds of dread: the psychological unease of “The Shining”, the grey, suffocating control of “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, the alien invasion and panic of “The War of the Worlds”, and the uneasy, blurry humanity of “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. “The Three Musketeers” added its own flavour of tension, loyalty, and intrigue to the mix, while “The Iliad” pulled me much further back in time, into a world of gods, pride, fate, and glory.

To balance all that, there was a strong current of reflection and practical philosophy. “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” was one of the most moving books of the year, pairing horror with resilience. “How to Think Like a Roman Emperor”, “The Richest Man in Babylon”, “Mind Full to Mindful“, and “Feel-Good Productivity” all, in very different ways, wrestled with how to live better: with clearer principles, smarter habits, and a more deliberate sense of meaning.

Below is the full list of what I read in 2025, with a simple rating for how much each book stayed with me.

Hannibal

– Thomas Harris –

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Silence Of The Lambs

– Thomas Harris –

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

How To Think Like A Roman Emperor

– Donal J. Robertson –

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Richest Man In Babylon

– George S. Clason –

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Shining

– Stephen King –

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Nineteen Eighty-Four

– George Orwell –

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Iliad

– Homer –

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Hannibal Rising

– Thomas Harris –

⭐⭐⭐

The Three Musketeers

– Alexandre Dumas –

⭐⭐⭐

Red Dragon

– Thomas Harris –

⭐⭐⭐