favorite books from 2025

A shortlist of books that stayed open on the desk, bled into the music, and kept changing shape after I finished them.

There were more than usual this year. I attribute some of that to a phase where the studio felt stuck, and reading became the thing that loosened it. A few of these I bought twice — once to read, once to have on hand.

The list kept shifting as the year went on. What I ended up with at the end felt different from what I would have named in March. That felt right.

I'm not ranking these. Ranking books feels like a way of misunderstanding why you liked them in the first place. These are just the ones still sitting at arm's reach.