I keep changing the format of these year-end posts. This year I’m highlighting the books I read that I broadly recommend. Maybe one or two will make it onto your 2026 great books list.

Enjoy the holidays, hopefully next to a cozy cat, holding a warm drink, and reading a good book. I would be delighted to receive any and all cat-with-book photos.

The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, Gene Roberts, Hank Klibanoff

My favorite book I read this year, encapsulating both the best and the worst my profession has to offer. I’m confident non-journalists will also love this book because, unlike most books by journalists about journalism, it is not interested in professional navel-gazing.

This book came to my attention via a recommendation from Adam Forman, a friend I have enjoyed talking about books with for years. A very grateful hat tip to him. If you have any recommendations for me, always feel free to reply to these emails.

The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land, Thomas Asbridge

I already wrote about how much I loved this book, which I found through the highly scientific process of searching r/AskHistorians for “Crusades book.” I don’t recall what made me think to do that.

Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence, Bryan Burrough

This was one of the titles I talked about in Book Time #20: Rage, but at the time I had no idea how profoundly it would affect me later. I am extra glad I read it before I saw One Battle After Another. One of the many reasons the film worked so well for me was the fact it was in dialogue with our past as much as our present, something I can only appreciate after having read Days of Rage. Burrough is one of those “add the entire bibliography to my list” authors.

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, Bryan Burrough, John Helyar

Speaking of, I’m way late to this one, but it is as great as advertised. The access Burrough and Helyar got is unfathomable in the current age. Even though it was written in the 1980s, it is one of the most helpful things I’ve read this year to understand the whole “private credit” thing.

Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA, Tim Weiner

I read a few books on covert CIA operations this year. This usually happens when I add a bunch of titles to my reading list from the citations in a single book, then when I finally get around to them I forget which book they came from. Legacy of Ashes was far and away the best of the bunch.

Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric, Thomas Gryta, Ted Mann

Disclosure: Ted Mann is a colleague of mine. However, I had this book on my list before he became my colleague. Along with Barbarians at the Gate and Flying Blind, it’s one of the best business books I’ve ever read.

I suspect this book didn’t get the attention it deserved because it came out in the summer of 2020 when some other stuff was going on. But, like Barbarians at the Gate, this is a “business” book that transcends the category. It made me reflect on a lot of aspects of the way our society is structured and the inverse relationship between power and accountability. On a less profound note, it also solved a longstanding mystery for me: Why there were so many special edition and director’s cut DVD releases in the 2000s. I won’t spoil it for you.