My Favorite Books and Audiobooks of 2025 ⭐
I love to read and 2025 was a big year for books, especially technology industry books. Here’s what my year in reading looked like. 📖 Books I read e-books semi-exclusively through Kindle and usually on my iPad Air. 📗 Favorite non-fiction title Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company by Patrick McGee Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company by Patrick McGee is the best and most important book about the personal computing industry in at least a decade. It’s well-researched and well-written, and it unfolds like a whodunit murder mystery in which Apple CEO Tim Cook is revealed over time to be subservient to the Chinese government while undermining his company and country in a manic bid to maximize profits at all costs. It’s such a big deal that I wrote a full review and this book will be heartbreaking to anyone who actually believed that Apple was somehow better than the rest of Big Tech or was in any way patriotic. It may be the most important industry book ever written. 📕 Favorite fiction title Never Flinch by Stephen King That Stephen King is somehow still cranking out books this good is astonishing, as is his late-career turn to crime fiction. This is another book centered on Holly Gibney, the quirky character who first appeared in Mr. Mercedes, still a favorite, and while some of the mannerisms are getting a bit tired, I pretty much can’t get enough of this universe. 🔊 Audiobooks I listen to audiobooks semi-exclusively in Audible, and I still have an Audible Premium Plus subscription. 📘 Favorite non-fiction audiobook Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment by Jason Schreier, narrated by Ray Chase In Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, Jason Schreier documents over 30 years of history in engaging fashion. I’m steeped in the lore of our industry, but this was a story that was mostly new to me, and one I eagerly consumed over a long weekend. And though I didn’t make the connection until I was almost done, this is the third book I’ve read by Mr. Schreier. His previous titles, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made and Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry, are terrific reads as well. He’s been covering the video game industry since 2010 and to unravel this history, he interviewed over current and former Blizzard employees. I recommend it highly. 📙 Favorite fiction audiobook Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, narrated by Thomas Harris This audiobook isn’t new, nor is the original written version. And it’s not even new to me: I first read Red Dragon over 35 years ago and bought the Kindle version in 1999 (!). But this book, which is a prequel to the more famous Silence of the Lambs and is nearly the same story but with a different protagonist, remains one of the all-time great crime thrillers. I bought the audiobook version when I di. The post My Favorite Books and Audiobooks of 2025 ⭐ appeared first on Thurrott. com.
