Our Favorite Books, Shows, and Podcasts of 2025
As we do every year, we invited our staff to share the books, shows, podcasts, and other content they loved this year—and they came back with a terrific mix of recommendations.
Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, Senior Research Associate
A late-year favorite was The Gales of November, about the 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, packed with fascinating details about the Great Lakes, lake freighters, and the crew that went down with the ship. One of the most impactful housing books I’ve read in recent years is There Is No Place For Us, which follows working families struggling with housing instability. On the lighter side, I enjoyed the easy humor of the romantasy series that starts with Assistant to the Villain. And if you have kids in your life, the hilarious Bear’s Lost Glasses was the cutest book I read this year.
Patricia Bravo Morales, Research Assistant
One of my best reads was American Indians and the American Dream by Kasey Keeler, which reframes Native homeownership by centering land, sovereignty, and federal policy rather than treating housing as a market outcome. Powerless by Diana Hernández and Jennifer Laird has been on my mind since I read it. The book illustrates how energy insecurity intersects with housing, health, and education and exposes a dimension of inequality often missing from policy conversations. Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane uses travel writing and historical case studies to explore how recognizing rivers as living entities has reshaped legal decisions, community action, and environmental responsibility. I also enjoyed Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer, which shows how immigration enforcement, foreign policy, and asylum law have produced prolonged displacement and instability for migrants. A few documentaries stood out to me for how they connect individual experiences to broader systems of policy and governance. The Alabama Solution exposes how state officials concealed unconstitutional conditions in prisons, using incarceration as a substitute for mental health care while hiding violence, neglect, and deaths. The Perfect Neighbor offers a chilling look at how stand-your-ground laws and policing practices intersect with race, community conflict, and uneven access to protection. Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time revisits the disaster through the lens of race and government response, documenting how emergency management failures and long-standing inequalities shaped who was protected, who was displaced, and who was left behind.
Kerry Donahue, Director of Communications
Many of my favorite reads this year were memoirs: Solito by Javier Zamora, a harrowing account of the author’s journey from El Salvador to the US as an unaccompanied child; Patriot by Alexei Navalny, about the anti-corruption activist’s resistance and conviction inside an authoritarian state; My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss, about the author’s complicated relationship with food; and The Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland, about vision loss and what it means to live in a world built for the sighted. I also loved a number of novels: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, in which a sharp, retired lawyer uses letters to her family, friends, and famous authors to find connection and forgiveness; Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, a generational story set in small-town Ohio; The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb, a sometimes-difficult read (especially if you’re a parent) about redemption; Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, about a mysterious woman who washes up on a remote Antarctic island where a peculiar family is guarding a seed vault; and Heart the Lover by Lily King, a gut-wrenching book about lasting first love. And while I can’t say I enjoyed Invisible Women (Caroline Criado Pérez) and Everything is Tuberculosis (John Green), both were undeniably eye-opening.
Rachel Drew, Director, Remodeling Futures Program
Immediately before (re)joining the Center this summer, I had the unusual luxury of free time, during which I read a few books from my TBR (to be read) pile. One was Horse by Geraldine Brooks, which beautifully entwines the stories of a racehorse from the antebellum South—and the enslaved groom who cared for him—with the journey of a painting of that horse through many hands up to modern day. Another was The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson, who is known for his meticulously detailed retellings of historical moments. This one recounts the days leading up to and through the attack on Fort Sumter, which was the catalyst to the Civil War and, in characteristic Larson fashion, was as gripping as any novel I’ve read in years. I also binged the Ken Burns documentary, The American Revolution. I got a sneak peak at a spring event marking the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, at which Burns and his co-creators spoke about the relevance of the series to current events. And on a lighter note, my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the rom-com series Nobody Wants This.
Riordan Frost, Senior Research Analyst
I continued my parenting journey this year with a foray into toddlerhood helped by the book Hunt, Gather, Parent, written by NPR correspondent Michaeleen Doucleff, as well as many kids’ books, favorites of which included Bodies Are Cool and Bathe the Cat. My favorite shows were the thrilling dystopian series Silo, the somehow funny spy thriller Slow Horses, the charming live action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the gripping and timely second season of Andor. I’m also enjoying E Pluribus Motto, a podcast about every state’s motto hosted by comedians Janet Varney and John Hodgman.
Alexander von Hoffman, Senior Research Fellow
Hard to recall what I read early in the year, but more recently there was the novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towels. It is an entertaining and at times amusing tale of a count sentenced by the Bolsheviks in 1922 to house arrest at a grand Moscow hotel. Empire of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe, vividly narrates the rise of the Sackler family, known for their aggressive marketing of OxyContin. That’s dramatic enough, but the more significant story is how the founder helped construct a corrupt system of medical drug marketing and regulation. I have also been enjoying sundry articles in County Highway, a sort of heartland version of The New Yorker. Finally, I am halfway through my journey through The History of Ancient Greece podcast.
Steve Koller, Postdoctoral Fellow
As I made progress on my reading backlog, Eric Klinenberg's Heat Wave provided a vivid account of the intersection of extreme heat, social vulnerability, and public health failures during the 1995 Chicago heatwave. Jenny Schuetz's Fixer-Upper served high-level food for thought on housing and land-use policy design. My favorite fun reads were Alfred Lansing's Endurance, an account of Ernest Shackleton's improbable Antarctic quest, and the cozy Thursday Murder Club series. I also tried to make sense of our current political and historical moment. I read American Lion by Jon Meacham to learn more about past waves of American populism, and my favorite thing I read was “The Unfinished Revolution” edited by Jeffrey Goldberg. Housing-related, I also enjoyed John Adams (the first president to live in the White House) and the quirky documentary Secret Mall Apartment.
David Luberoff, Director of Fellowships and Events
Like others, I’ve been trying to understand where we are as a society, where we’re going, and what we might learn from the past and finally read Timothy Snyder’s brief and powerful On Tyranny. Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland is a frightening account of the KKK’s unsuccessful efforts to take over Indiana’s government in the 1920s, while Mark Sullivan’s Beneath a Scarlet Sky, a novel based on a true story, brings to life the Nazi occupation of northern Italy after the fall of Mussolini. Turning to more contemporary issues, Fei-Fei Li’s The Worlds I See is simultaneously a captivating memoir, an accessible history of AI, and a reflection on its benefits and risks. It complements Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus, which examines how societies throughout history have gathered and used information and the unique challenges posed by AI. Finally, I enjoyed rereading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon’s brilliant novel about two cousins who revolutionize American comic books in mid-twentieth century New York City but which is really about much, much more.
Jennifer Molinsky, Director, Housing an Aging Society Program
I started 2025 by reading Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These and Foster. These stories, set in rural Ireland, explore small but profound moments and decisions in pared-down, precise language. (A bonus are the beautiful woodblock covers on the books; I also recommend the movie adaptation of Small Things). I’m also a big fan of Frank Bruni’s weekly column “For the Love of Sentences,” where he republishes gems spotted by his readers. On a housing note, as we have delved deeper into the connections between housing and care in later life, Emma Power and Kathleen Mee’s 2020 article “Housing: An Infrastructure of Care” provides a helpful framework. The authors theorize housing as social infrastructure that shapes the giving and receipt of care. The physical home, housing markets, and policy all play a role in patterning care—and contribute to the rendering of domestic care as invisible. While the authors conceive of “care” quite broadly, their article is especially resonant as more people seek at-home long-term care.
Samara Scheckler, Senior Research Associate
I love how the holidays at the Center bring cookie swaps and book recs! In A Paradise of Small Houses, urban planner Max Podemski traces the evolution of American housing, from New Orleans shotguns to the Boston triple-decker. In Seeking Shelter, Los Angeles writer Jeff Hobbs offers heart‑wrenching insight into families who slip into homelessness while working low-wage jobs. In When We Walk By, Kevin Adler and Donald Burnes argue that we are all profoundly affected by living in a society in which homelessness exists. Thinking about non-urban places, The Injustice of Place (Kathryn Edin, H. Luke Shaefer, and Timothy Nelson) describes the profound health and welfare impacts on residents in the most disadvantaged US communities, which are largely rural. And at a suburban level, Sharon Cornelissen offers rare insight into tensions, hardships, and community formation across a depopulated and disinvested four square miles near Detroit in The Last House on the Block. In perhaps my favorite nonfiction this year, Black in Blues, Imani Perry weaves a remarkable tapestry of Black cultural history around the theme of the color blue. And as politics creep into life and work, I appreciated the perspective of Making the Presidency by Lindsay Chervinsky about the ways our second president defined many modern executive branch norms. History also echoed throughout my favorite fiction this year, The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong and The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck, in which authors employ gorgeous prose and imagery to reflect our modern world as shaped by the past.
Susanne Schindler, Research Fellow
If there is one book that changed the way I think about housing in 2025, it’s legal scholar and activist Joanna Kusiak’s Radically Legal. It’s a slender volume that traces the trajectory of a successful 2021 ballot initiative in Berlin that aimed to resocialize the vast portfolio of quasi-public rental housing that had been privatized since the early 2000s. In the genre-defying book, Kusiak weaves together the personal reflection of a young academic and mother trying to navigate a punishing housing market, an urban history of Warsaw and Berlin since 1989, and a philosophical treatise on property rights based on a close reading of the German constitution. The book left me thinking: how can housing advocates more forcefully foreground the responsibilities that come with property, and the rights that come with use?
Aaron Smithson, Housing Design Fellow
In nonfiction this year, I loved Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs despite its sometimes jarring depictions of what Buford saw while embedded in England’s notoriously rowdy football fan culture in the 1980s. My favorite novel was Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo, which traces the life of a queer kid growing up in Glasgow’s council estates—it’s heartfelt and tragic, but ends with a bit of uplift. I found Richard Powers’ Playground to have rich characters whose lives are intertwined in compelling ways, but I was most drawn to his beautiful descriptions of the ocean and marine life. I also read Hernan Diaz’s In the Distance, a Western that follows the path of a young Swedish immigrant across North America. In memoir, I reread Hua Hsu’s Stay True and liked it even more the second time, mostly for the softness with which Hsu tells the story of grief. Joan Wickersham’s The Suicide Index is one of my favorite memoirs, for the creativity (and, at times, humor) with which she tries to piece together the mysteries of her father’s life after his suicide. I also just finished Zara Chowdhary’s excellent memoir The Lucky Ones ahead of a trip to Ahmedabad, India. Her book elegantly threads personal narrative from family life in the city and the political history of the Naroda Patiya massacre, about which I knew almost nothing. Finally, I would also like to plug the hilarious essay, “Upon This Rock” by John Jeremiah Sullivan, found in the collection Pulphead. In movies, my favorite was Hong Sang-soo’s A Traveler’s Needs, a relaxing and funny watch.
Sophia Wedeen, Senior Research Analyst
My favorite read of the year was Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish, a surprisingly funny book that uses the discovery of an ancient, extinct fish fossil to examine the evolutionary linkages between life on Earth. I was delighted to read I Must Be Dreaming, the latest book by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, in which she reflects on the bizarre, mundane, and horrifying qualities of dreams. For a zoomed-out look at neighborhoods, Alan Mallach and Todd Swanstrom’s The Changing American Neighborhood makes the case for why neighborhoods remain an important unit of measurement to understand inequality and social and economic changes. Finally, I spent many hours watching Brickcrafts, which documents the meticulous design and construction of a LEGO city (recommended for urbanists who lack the attention span even for television).
