As we close in on the end of 2025, I wanted to spend a moment on the books that had the most significant impact on my thinking this year. As a warning, my reading (or listening) tends to be heavily biased towards investing, economics, leadership, and geopolitics.

 

There were no additions or deletions to Delli's Top Eleven, but the three books that had the greatest ​​​​​influence on my thinking, in 2025, are:

1. The Wealth Ladder, by Nick Maggiulli. There are few books about how to spend your money. Nick does an excellent job of presenting a framework that addresses the complexity created by increased wealth. The book helps readers understand the scale of purchases that require scrutiny and the freedom achieved as liquid net worth increases.
2. Apple in China, by Patrick McGee. A fascinating look at China as an end market for Apple and the incredible supply chain enhancements the company drove there. Apple created some fantastic capabilities for itself, as a company and for China, as a country.
3. 1929, by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The book reads like a screenplay that ties together many of the era's events, culminating in the 1929 crash and the Great Depression. Labelling the crash a 'depression' might have been one of the worst marketing blunders ever. The most significant takeaway was that the events leading up to 1929 had closer parallels to the lead-up to the Global Financial Crisis than today's AI-fueled market.

The most entertaining book I read this year was Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams. The most constructive takeaway would be that Facebook/Meta Platforms has been and remains relentlessly focused on engineering and growth.

 

If you'd like to see brief reviews of most of the books that we read or listen to in 2025, you can find them here. The most recent reviews are at the top, and the first of the fifteen books I reviewed in 2025 was What Went Wrong with Capitalism, by Ruchir Sharma.

 

If books aren't your thing, we have highlighted some newsletters and podcasts that we find helpful in the Useful Links section of our website.

 

There is a lot of content on each link, so feel free to reach out if you'd like a personalized recommendation.

 

Have a great holiday, and we'll be back in a couple of weeks with some reflections on 2025 and thoughts about 2026.

 

Delli (Delli@cibc.com)

 

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