Nonfiction lovers rejoice—this is going to be one heck of a year. From technology to climate action, from psychology to the art of storytelling, 2025 is scheduled to bring groundbreaking books from all kinds of fascinating fields. And this particular list only takes us through May! Read on to discover 25 forthcoming books that we can’t wait to read this year.
January
Aflame: Learning from Silence
By Pico Ayer
From the bestselling author of The Art of Stillness comes a revelatory exploration of the abiding clarity and calm to be found in quiet retreat. View on Amazon
Against Platforms: Surviving Digital Utopia
By Mike Pepi
A bold and imaginative critique of the hidden costs of digital life—and a manifesto for a better future. View on Amazon
How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists
By Ellen Hendriksen
A clinical psychologist charts a flexible, forgiving, and freeing path through the traps of perfectionism, all without giving up the excellence your high standards and hard work have gotten you. View on Amazon
Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working
By Dan Heath
A revolutionary guide to fixing what’s not working—in systems and processes, organizations and companies, and even in our daily lives—by identifying leverage points and concentrating resources to achieve our goals. View on Amazon
Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future
By Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato
While acknowledging challenges like disinformation and potential job changes, this book focuses on AI’s immense potential to increase individual agency and create better outcomes for society as a whole. View on Amazon
Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
By Nicholas Carr
With rich psychological insights and vivid examples drawn from history and science, Superbloom provides both a panoramic view of how media shapes society and an intimate examination of the fate of the self in a time of radical dislocation. View on Amazon
February
The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life
By Sophia Rosenfeld
Drawing on a wealth of sources ranging from novels and restaurant menus to the latest scientific findings about choice in psychology and economics, The Age of Choice urges us to rethink the meaning of choice and its promise and limitations in modern life. View on Amazon
Bye Bye I Love You: The Story of Our First and Last Words
By Michael Erard
A beautiful and intimate exploration of first and last words—and the many facets of how language begins and ends—from a pioneering language writer. View on Amazon
Climate Justice: What Rich Nations Owe the World―and the Future
By Cass Sunstein
Invoking principles of corrective justice and distributive justice, a renowned legal scholar argues that rich countries should pay for the climate change-related harms that they have caused, and that all of us are obliged to take steps to protect future generations from serious damage. View on Amazon
The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing
By Mary-Frances O’Connor
A celebrated grief expert, neuroscientist, and psychologist shares a follow-up to The Grieving Brain, this time focusing on the impact of grief—and life’s other major stressors—on the human body. View on Amazon
How to Win at Travel
By Brian Kelly
Turn your wanderlust into reality with expert strategies from the founder of The Points Guy—the leading voice in travel and loyalty programs—with this ultimate resource for everything from leveraging airline and credit card points to planning your dream itinerary. View on Amazon
Memorial Days: A Memoir
By Geraldine Brooks
A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse. View on Amazon
Shift: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You
By Ethan Kross
A myth-busting, science-based guide that addresses the timeless question of how to manage your emotional life using tools you already possess—from the bestselling author of Chatter. View on Amazon
Source Code: My Beginnings
By Bill Gates
The origin story of one of the most influential and transformative business leaders and philanthropists of the modern age. View on Amazon
Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling
By Henry Lien
An introduction to Eastern storytelling that opens readers’ minds to radically different ways of telling a satisfying story. View on Amazon
March
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
By John Green
The #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and passionate advocate for global healthcare reform tells a deeply human story as he illuminates the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease. View on Amazon
The Explorer’s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map
By Alex Hutchinson
The New York Times-bestselling author of Endure returns with a fresh, provocative investigation into how exploration, uncertainty, and risk shape our behavior and help us find meaning. View on Amazon
Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change
By Olga Khazan
Is it really possible to change your entire personality in a year? An award-winning journalist experiments with her own personality to find out—and reveals the science behind lasting change. View on Amazon
The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More
By Jefferson Fisher
The Next Conversation will give you practical phrases that will lead to powerful results, from breaking down defensiveness in a hard talk with a family member to finding your own assertive voice at the boardroom conference table. View on Amazon
When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines
By Graydon Carter
From the pages of Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, an acclaimed editor’s memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture. View on Amazon
April
Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future
By Alan Weisman
In this profoundly human and moving narrative, the bestselling author of The World Without Us returns with a book ten years in the making: a study of what it means to be a human on the front lines of our planet’s existential crisis. View on Amazon
Like: The Button That Changed the World
By Martin Reeves and Bob Goodson
A riveting, insider’s look at the creation and evolution of the like button, and what it reveals about business, technology, innovation, and us. View on Amazon
The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward
By Melinda French Gates
The Next Day offers guidance on how to make the most of the time between an ending and a new beginning, and how to move forward into the next day when the ground beneath you is shifting. View on Amazon
May
Mark Twain
By Ron Chernow
A Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature. View on Amazon
Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age
By Amanda Hess
A beloved New York Times critic confronts technology’s phantom traumas and seductive idols as they follow her through pregnancy and into her son’s young life, revealing the unspoken ways our lives are being fractured and reconstituted by technology. View on Amazon
The Key Ideas in 15 Minutes
“If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books,” Roald Dahl once famously said. The only trouble is, reading even one book from cover to cover takes hours—and you may not have many hours to spare.
But imagine for a moment: What if you could read a groundbreaking new book every day? Or even better, what if you could invite a world-renowned thinker into your earbuds, where they personally describe the 5 key takeaways from their work in just 15 minutes?
With the Next Big Idea App, we’ve turned this fantasy into a reality. We partnered with hundreds of acclaimed authors to create “Book Bites,” short audio summaries of the latest nonfiction that are prepared and read aloud by the authors themselves. Discover cutting-edge leadership skills, productivity hacks, the science of happiness and well-being, and much more—all in the time it takes to drive to work or walk the dog.
Go Deeper with a Next Big Idea Club Membership
The Next Big Idea App is free for anyone to try—and if you love it, we invite you to become an official member of the Next Big Idea Club. Membership grants you unlimited access to Book Bites and unlocks early-release, ad-free episodes of our LinkedIn-partnered podcast. You also gain entry to our private online discussion group, where you can talk big ideas with fellow club members and join exclusive live Q&A sessions with featured authors.
For a more focused learning experience, we recommend a Hardcover or eBook Membership. Every few months, legendary authors and club curators Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink select two new nonfiction books as the must-reads of the season. We then send hardcover copies straight to your doorstep, or eBook versions to your favorite digital device. We also collaborate with the authors of selected books to produce original reading guides and premium video e-courses, 50-minute master classes that take you step by step through their most life-changing ideas. And yes, it’s all available through the Next Big Idea App.
Learn Faster, from the World’s Leading Thinkers
Whether you prefer to read, listen, or watch, the Next Big Idea is here to help you work smarter and live better. Wake up with an always-fresh Idea of the Day, the perfect shot of inspiration to go with your morning coffee. Then dive into one of our Challenges, hand-picked collections of Book Bites that form crash courses in subjects like communication, motivation, and career acceleration. Later, watch the playback of an interview with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Stanford psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, or philosopher John Kaag. And be sure to check the “Events” tab in the app, so that you can join an upcoming live Q&A and personally chat with the next featured thought leader.
If you’re hoping to grow as a person or as a professional, we hope you’ll join us and tens of thousands of others who enjoy the Next Big Idea. Get started by downloading the app today!
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