Book recommendations 2025

Summary

A very crappy and strange time, this year has been. The books therefore didn’t have any particuluar thematic origins and are collected at random.

1984 - George Orwell

Published on June 1949, this roman relates a fictional dystopian future. Much of the world is in perpetual war between three major superstates. In Oceania, one of the superstate, reigns a totalitarian regime. At the top lives Big Brother, controling every state of government and assuring that anyone who doesn not fully conform to the regime gets purge. This book relates the story of Winston Smith, as he tries to dispute and fight the government.

This book is very hard to revisit, as it ends on a very bad note, that creates a sense of distaste. I do recommend this book to everyone, as concepts such as “doublethink”, “groupthink”, and “doublespeak” are used in everyday life to manipulate and control.

The Peasant Sage of Japan: The Life and Work of Sontoku Ninomiya - Tomita Ko-Kei

This book portrais the biography of Sontoku Ninomiya (4. September 1787 - 17. November 1856), a japanese agriculturalist. In Japan, Mr. Ninomiya is considered a model, as despite losing his parents when he was a boy, through hard work and diligence, he rebuiklt his fallen family at the age of 20. Later, he rebuilt close to 600 villages through economic reforms, frugal resource management, respect and hard work.

Since the Meiji period, statues of Ninomiya have been installed in many schools in Japan as a model person of diligence and frugality.

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre follows an orphaned, resilient young woman through a harsh childhood, her education and her time as a governess, as she navigates love, societal constraints, and moral diliemmas with enigmatic her employer. She ultimately finds independence and true partnership by marrying her employer after overcoming secrets, tragedy and temptations to choose love with self-respect.

Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours - Jules Verne

Phileas Fogg bets 20000 Euro that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days, starting from London with his new french valet, Passepartout, using steamships and railways. Their travel regorges multiple adventureous moments, such as rescuing Indian princess Aouda, being pursued by Detective Fix and facing vearious travel delays, to only discover that they’ve arrived in Londo a day early.

Dracula - Bram Stocker

Inspired by the 2025 Dracula movie of Luc Besson, i decided to read the roman. The narrative in this book is followed through texts, diaries and newletter articles. It relates the story of the vampire Dracula and his plague of the seaside town of Whiby, where a small group, led by Abraham Van Helsing, hunts and kills him. Unlike the movie, there are barely any romance or fun twisty comments. The roman is rather mostly of gothic and horror origins.

Schachstrategie für Fortgeschrittene - Aleksl Suetin

I got into serious chess this year, hence, i decided to formally learn proper technics and methods. Divided into two parts, this book goes through the various openings of chess, terms and strategies to turn an average Joe like me, into a somewhat beginner chess player.

More books will be added in the future … Can’t find the rest of my list.