2026 Book List - Veridiction Consulting

This post will be updated frequently as a live-log, but I expect it to be shorter than what I consumed in 2025.

Reading for Students, Parents, etc…

The Art of Insubordination. Kashdan. This book is about (and includes practices, checklists, etc., for) cultivating curiosity in oneself and others. Highly recommended for students who have been incentivized to into conformity, but is also good for professionals who have a duty to resist undue social pressures from people with more status than sense.
Platonic. Franco. While this book feels a bit over-stuffed with case study narrative, it is certainly a recommended read for students who will soon be faced with having to intentionally compose their social circle in the first new place of their choosing.

Recommended Non-Fiction

A Physical Education. Johnston. There is so much for me to love about this mixed-mode memoir. It dredged up some deep feelings from when I was somebody quite different.
We Need New Stories. Malik. Sharply strikes deeply into a good set of core cultural targets. Compares favorably to Lies My Teacher Told Me.
Imagination. Benjamin. While not particularly distinguished from Dr. Benjamin‘s other books, this short volume is an excellent and accessible entry point to her work. Pairs well with We Need New Stories.
The Extinction of Experience. Rosen. This is a well-selected and effectively edited set of humanist screeds against the techno-capitalist digitization and mediation of all embodied human experience. There are many books in this category (from Shop Class as Soulcraft on down in my bibliography) but Rosen does a distinctly commendable job of packing her pages.
The Haves and Have-Yachts. Osnos. A modern attache to The Great Gatsby and Theory of the Leisure Class, extends Winners Takes All with particular anecdotes of the sociology of American wealth taken in depth. I appreciate the postscript updates added for publication.
Wordslut. Montell. While I didn’t like this as much as I wanted to (sloppy structure, obviously missed opportunities) there are enough fascinating chunks of research that Montell includes to recommend going and digging them out.
Hate in the Homeland. Miller-Idriss. This covers a lot of the seemingly-infinite ground available to it and uses its breadth to do so in a less-dismal way than many of its more-focused peers (ex: Blackpill), though it is mostly still limited to 2014-2019.
Self-Made Man. Vincent. Amazing bit of gender study conducted in the early 2000s, even if technological change (the ubiquitous smartphone) has undermined multiple points of reference in ways both predictable and for-the-worse. I vibed with the Trickster archetype lead and adored the sharp analytics throughout.
The Persuaders. Giridharadas. Comparable to McRaney’s How Minds Change, but with a bit more pragmatism late in the process. Fluffed up with a bit of political science from progressives. Introductory investigation of foreign wedging was underdeveloped.
Gilded Rage. Silverman. More gilded than rage, reports a set of recent events at suitable depth to demonstrate billionaire impunity. I had hoped for more cultural analysis but grant that this is good for what it is.
The Truth About College Admissions. Clark. These sorts of books all start to sound the same, so this is a tepid recommendation and limited to the folks looking for this sort of faintly-praised book: this one is fine. But there are plenty of blog posts and webinars saying the same things.
Free. Ypi. Much of this memoir feels loose in a bland sort of way, but the epilogue clarifies that the effect is intentional for the author’s target audience, so: success. For my part, I really like the last two chapters which are a mixture of absurdly daunting and resolutely inspiring.
Deeper Dating. Page. In case you were wondering what “done the work” means when a prospective romantic partner insists on it, this appears to be the implied work. I do not know how practical it still it, but it seems to have been valid for when it was written and chapter 3 still hit like a ton of caring bricks so I recommend it for that.

Fiction

A Prayer for the Crown Shy. Chambers. I’m in for the series, but can’t recommend prioritizing this (intentionally?) meandering entry.
The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald. Re-read this for the sake of writing a rather long decomposition of it. I just wanted to explain Tom’s behavior but then it got (22 pages, “mythical method”) out of hand.

Not-Recommended Reading

Indignity. Ypi. An almost-fascinating fiction spun together from confused archives of a country buffeted by war and revolution, even the best parts of it leave doubts as to whether an insight is factual or contrivance. In the end, this feels too much like a book salvaged from a deeply personal project to recommend broadly.
How to Write Well. Zinsser. Many books on writing and narrative dispense good advice that the author failed to take, and this is one of them.
How to Write a Lot. Silvia. While this was a lighthearted expansion on “set and stick to a schedule,” it was also targeted for academic (graduate student and up) writers and not me or my peer group.
Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow. Almond. While this has some good parts, particularly the titular essay near the end of the book that is definitely worth reading, there is simply too much fluff and unfulfilled promise to recommend the book as a thing.
The Thin Book of Trust. Feltman. Still too thick: trust is “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions” based on your assessment of their “care, sincerity, reliability, and competence.” The rest is fluff.
Strong Ground. Brown. While there are some good bits, much of this book is cribbed from earlier or other works; the triggering disqualifiers are the blithe opinings on Transformation that are incompatible with being on, you know, Strong Ground.
The Income Factory. Bavaria. Spends a lot of time saying very little and contradicting his raison d’être: income. And the recommendations that were published in 2020 are out of date now. I’m big on the strategy and it’s still worth watching the author on Seeking Alpha but the book is an artifact.
Educated. Westover. This is the sort of book to read when you want to deepen your misanthropy, which is not something you should ever really be wanting to do. I only completed it because I was tasked with it.
Among Others. Walton. This book ended well enough (if unexpectedly), but felt too much like Ready Player One level pandering—name dropping where exposition should—be for Boomer/GenX book girls which is not my demographic and probably not yours.
The Age of Extraction. Wu. Too much credence is given to repeating bad-faith claims, too much squirrel-chasing distracts from the central thesis and shorts any interest depth in research.
Fluke. Klaas. There is a lot to like in this book, but it is rather undermined by both the beginning and the end of it. I would recommend any/all of Messy (Harford), Seeing Like a State, and the notably grim and dark When We Cease to Understand the World before this.
10 Day MBA (4th ed). Silbiger. It is difficult to discern how many of this book’s deficiencies can be attributed to the author being specialized in accountancy, the book being quite old and not fully revised this century, or an MBA being more of what you might call “guidelines” than a practical education. The 5th edition was recently released but I do not know if it is better.

Abandoned Reading

The Mountain is You. Wiest. Turned out to be a generic self-help book with inadequate citations for its unoriginal material; I read the source material, not this.
The Benefits of Being an Octopus. Braden. Not for me. But also plotted and arranged in a way, with such an over-freighted protagonist, that I’m uncertain on who it is for.
Men Who Hate Women. Bates. This book was apparently 8+ years in the making but neither brings new material to the table nor synthesizes the deeper research (from Phillips in particular, also Reeve, et cetera) into the product.
Living In Data. Thorpe. The author’s style did not convey any sense of respect for my time. Might make a good non-fiction companion to Ulysses, though?
A More Beautiful Question. Berger. The title is misleading, Berger leans into the capitalist utility of questions. But this book has also not aged well since the cutting edge of 2014, citing since-defunct technologies and people whose failure to ask questions landed them, disgracefully, in the Epstein files.
Down the Drain. Fox. The author’s youthful monstrous wretchedness in this book was making me despise children.
Love and Limerence. Tennov. Followed a recommendation looking for a specific body of psychological work that was not substantiated here. Tennov reaches in too many directions in an attempt to be relevant and comes up meaningless.
Moral Ambition. Bregman. Started strong but fizzled out quickly.
There Are Places in the World Where Rules are Less Important Than Kindness. Rovelli. Started off with interesting and inspiring stories of science, but fell apart halfway through.
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. Dispenza. Same old gnostic whatnot, now with a veneer of quantum mechanics.