What to Read in 2025

"What are you reading?" 📚

In our company Slack channel, across the table while coworking, and amongst friends, this is one of the most-common questions overhead at Team Cultivate. And with good reason! Chatting about books and swapping recommendations with fellow bibliophiles is one of the great joys of the reading life. 

It's also practical. Our time to read is precious, and we want to spend it well! And finding books you love, as opposed to ones you merely like, is the best trick I know for reading more: when you can't wait to find out what happens next, you'll somehow always find time to read.

As you think about all you hope to learn and grow and do this year in your PowerSheets, we hope we can deliver some of those clear-the-schedule picks with today's blog post! A few members of Team Cultivate are sharing three of their favorite books from 2024, three books they're looking forward to in 2025, and three all-time favorite books for specific Cultivated Life Evaluation categories. 

Grab your Cultivated Reading Journal or fire up your Good Reads account and get ready to add an armful of books to your To-Be-Read List! 

Alli:

Three books I loved in 2024:

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Three books I'm reading in 2025:

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Three CLE picks you might love:

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Emily:

Three books I loved in 2024:

• The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon |  This one first caught my eye on a list of books featuring happy marriages (too rare!) and then was enthusiastically recommended (and a copy pressed into my hands) by a dear friend. Both recommendations were spot on – this gripping historical mystery was my top fiction pick last year! I was hooked by the narrator (a midwife in 18th century Maine) a few pages into chapter one and she never let me go. A note that the plot centers around sexual assault ❤️
• The Outlaw Noble Salt by Amy Harmon |  A sweepingly romantic tale that explores an alternative ending for America’s most famous outlaw – a happy one, to boot. I found it fascinating how the author turned the idea of an outlaw inside out, making him the most steady and trustworthy character in the book. You’ll fall a little bit in love with him and be glad you did. I'm still thinking about this one months later!
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi | It took me a decade to read this book, but I'm so glad I circled back around  — it is a stunning, moving, exquisitely-observed memoir of life and death. (And Paul, the author, himself – wow! Hard to imagine a more impressive person.)

Three books I'm reading in 2025:

• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson | This Pulitzer Prize winner has come recommended from many different sources over the years, and not always ones that I'd guess would appreciate a book about a pastor in the 1950's.
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott | I hope to patch a major hole in my classics canon with this pick! And then I'll watch multiple versions of the screenplay :)
• Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes | With a tagline of "how to beat distraction, expand your time, and focus on what matters most," this one seems made for Cultivators, no?! I'll report back!

Three CLE picks you might love:

• The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud and Ned Johnson (Family) | Don't be scared off by the title! This is a wonderfully practical book (takeaways and action steps are summarized at the end of every chapter) that helps parents to cultivate resilience and independence in their kids (and thereby help them ward off anxiety and depression). I first read it in 2021 and am planning to re-read it this year!
• The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel (Finances) | This will be required reading in our home before our kids leave the nest! In short and engaging chapters, the author drives home timeless financial principles that can help anyone make better decisions about money.
• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Health + Wellness) | I have a handful of books that I evangelize about to anyone and everyone, and this one is absolutely included. Split into two parts — terminal illness and deaths of old age — this book, written by a surgeon, tackles how we can live well until the end. And it is not as depressing as it sounds :)

Jessica:

Three books I loved in 2024:

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• opjsdpf
• osidjfs

Three books I'm reading in 2025:

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• oijsdofj
• oijdsf

Three CLE picks you might love:

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• oisjdfo
• oijdofs

Lauren:

Three books I loved in 2024:

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• opjsdpf
• osidjfs

Three books I'm reading in 2025:

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• oijsdofj
• oijdsf

Three CLE picks you might love:

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• oisjdfo
• oijdofs

Your turn! What's on your reading list for 2025?