It’s the time of year for the biggest prize of all….

I thought I hadn’t read as much in 2025 due to general busy-ness of the day job, but it turns out that was a misperception. Having gone through my notebooks, here is a rather long longlist for this year. A reminder of my rules – I read the book during the past 12 months, I liked it, and my view is final. The prize – I offer lunch to the author(s) if we happen to be in the same place.

The first group are selected from what I think of as books that dive into the detail of how things are – in order of my reading them:

There is Nothing for You Here – Fiona Hill (what it means for places to be ‘left behind’)

Challenger – Adam Higginbotham (all about organisation and incentives, in the context of the Challenger disaster)

From Beacon Fires to Fibre Broadband – Stephen Unger (communication technologies, how they work, how their markets evolved)

Greyhound – Joanna Pocock (the deterioration of social capital in US communities)

The second group are more closely related to my day job and research:

Innovation in Real Places – Dan Breznitz

The Means of Prediction – Maximilian Kasy

On Natural Capital – Partha Dasgupta

How Progress Ends – Carl Frey

Breakneck – Dan Wang

The Infinite Alphabet – Cesar Hidalgo.

There are also two bonus categories this year. One is older books I read again and my goodness do they stand the text of time:

Information Rules – Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian (seems to be out of print but 2nd hand copies around)

The Limits of Organization – Kenneth Arrow (I borrowed the Marshall Library copy)

And the other is neuroscience/cognitive science because I’m pondering how humans + AI take decisions:

The Experience Machine – Andy Clark

Being You – Anil Seth

There were several others bubbling under, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. Final winner announced before 2026 is upon us.