Welcome to the reading recommendations of 2025. Thanks for being here again.
“I don't know many people who think they've been good parents. And those who consider themselves successful parents tend to bring up some benchmarks that indicate their status in the world,” meaning things their kids have done that sound good to us.
How we recite, in our minds, especially failures
“Those of us less willing to compliment ourselves on our parenting skills, in other words most of us, are apt to recite the litanies of our failures, neglects, abandonments, and transgressions.”
Why don't we feel like good parents? One reason is the way the “definition of parenting success” has changed.
When children were allowed to invent their own lives
“In the old days, we were interested in the ability to encourage the child to mature and live an independent life (that is, an adult life), to 'raise' the child, to detach from him.”
If a kid wanted to try out his new bike on the steepest hill in the neighborhood, he might have received a formal warning. But such a warning, precisely because the goal pursued was independence, did not turn into nagging.
The following was natural. “Kids were allowed to make up their own lives. The idea that they could do what they wanted—that it was, in fact, even better to do what they wanted—was never questioned.”
“You can't let them do what we were doing”
And today? “That would be virtually unimaginable today.” Because today “we expect them to answer every time we call them, to report every change of plan. We imagine terrible dangers at every unsupervised exit into the world.” And we leave ourselves anxious warnings: “Life is different now,” “It's not like it used to be,” “You can't let them do what we used to do.”
But what do we feel is their anxiety or ours?
Welcome to the reading recommendations of 2025. You've just been introduced to author Joan Didion, and thank you for being here again. On the last day of the year I make a list of the books that impressed me during the year, without the pretense of being someone who knows, but only in the name of a common passion.
Author of the year 2025: Joan Didion, Pandora M Publishing
Coming as a surprise from the world of the “beatniks” of the 60s, the American writer Joan Didion is considered one of the most unpredictable, empathetic and easily assimilated voices through her books.
Didion was one of the few women in the “new journalism” wave dominated by Truman Capote and Tom Wolfe. Upon her passing in 2023, the state's governor called her “the best writer California has ever produced.”
In Romania, Didion's novels are published by Pandora M Publishing.
“The Year of Magical Thinking”
The above page is from the “Blue Nights” volume. I won't give away the themes, and I'll share why: they might, it happened to me, block your access to an extraordinary writer for a while. Joan Didion writes about chaos and problems, but she does not encourage irresponsibility or gloom, quite the opposite.
If the recommendation of her name convinces you, perhaps it would be best to start not with “Blue Nights” (also an unforgettable volume), but with “The Year of Magical Thinking”, which is a startling entry into the world it offers us.
How Joan Didion thinks about the past
One of the great qualities of Joan Didion is that she shows us how important it is to pick up a generally lost habit: to think about what we have lived through. Let's go back with mind and soul on the scale of time. It is now December 2025 and it seems to us that it has been a difficult year. We don't think so. It was. We are justifiably concerned. But what were we like and where were we and what were we thinking in December 2024?
Each of us has an inner map, roads we've traveled but don't use. Just as mountaineers claim that when you climb a thousand meters in elevation, you are actually going 1,000 kilometers north to civilization, so our inner map unites multiple dimensions. Joan Didion remembers moments, moods, image sequences. She remembers when something impressed her, she describes herself when it was good or difficult. And it brings them into a present which thus becomes better.
The example above, coming from Joan Didion's experience of her relationship with her own daughter, is telling. We often judge ourselves or those around us in the absence of correct memories.
A bow to Ioana Văcărescu, Virginia Costeschi, Bertha Savu and the other translators who did a magical job to bring Didion to us.
And now the books.
- Fiction Book of the Year: Charing Cross Street no. 84, Helene Hanff, Alice Books
“84 Charing Cross Street” “acts as a protective covering for the exposed nerve,” writes The New York Times.
Published here in 2024, “84 Charing Cross Street” came my way in 2025 and I am grateful. Written in the 70s and talking about people and books after the end of the Second World War, the little novel catches your eye from the first page. Then stay open with them for a long time.
But the most important thing about the book is that you will seem completely lost to those around you: you go through the correspondence between an impetuous American woman and a polite British man, and your smile does not disappear even when you are on the subway.
Other recommendations in the fiction category:
- “Little things like that,” Claire Keegan, Trei publishing
Irish writer Claire Keegan never puts her own ideas into your head. It takes you into the world of small towns, leaves you there and you will find the characters who have courage just when you least expect it and when theirs is apparently useless. “Such little things” is an admirable book.
- Prison of Angels, Stephen King, Nemira
Nemira came up with the idea of re-editing “Prison of Angels” 30 years after the release of the film “Shawshank Redemption”, which continues to be one of the most appreciated films of the “popular vote” on IMDB, where 3.1 million people rated it at 9.3.
And Stephen King “suffers” from the same reputation of popularity. This does not reduce the reading value of the book republished in 2025 and which is the work of a master of small human gestures, always valid. King's short story originally appeared in a cycle of the seasons, which can also be found under the title “Different Ancient Times”.
- Down in the valley, Paolo Cognetti, Polirom publishing house
When one brother goes abroad and the other stays at home, a mountain plays a role in their reunion. One of Cognetti's most gritty-realist books, “Down in the Valley” has a completely unexpected description of the connection between animal life and human life, the likes of which I have never seen before.
- Nonfiction Book of the Year: “Adriatica, A concert of civilizations at the end of the modern era”, Robert D. Kaplan
Is there a connection between what is happening in the Adriatic and Romania? Yes. And it is not only related to Romania, but also to migration, to the problems, but also to the chances of the nations, which Kaplan describes realistically, without being either conservative or progressive.
How's “Adriatic, A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age”? As if you turn right in the tourist stream in Venice and end up on a street where you come across someone who tells you how the houses, churches and bridges were raised. And you find out that a lot, whether in Trieste or in Croatia and Serbia, is about you. Fabulous translation by Christian-Radu Chereji.
Other recommendations in the non-fiction category:
- The Weather of Predators, Giuliano da Empoli, Humanitas publishing house
“Time of predators” is Giuliano da Empoli's second book published in Romania. The first was also at Humanitas, “The Wizard of the Kremlin”, about how Vladimir Putin became what he is today. And if you find the discussion of autocracy, Putinism and today's turmoil to be liberal-tiring, I guarantee all those who are more inclined towards conservatism that they will find in “The Time of Predators” the most delicious criticism of “Barack Obama's courts” in recent years.
- “The Labyrinth of the Wanderers, the West and its Opponents”, Amen MaaloufPolirom publishing house
Are we in trouble in the EU? Countless. But no matter how many problems we have, those who challenge the democratic space have infinitely more problems and fewer solutions. A review of some recent or less recent histories by Maalouf in “The Wanderer's Labyrinth” puts us in a much more realistic key. And the chapter on China is a gem of several dozen pages, realistically summarizing a history for which you normally need libraries.
- “Infocracy. Digitization and the crisis of democracy”, Byung-Chul Han, Contrasens publishing house
Byung-Chul Han is a philosopher of South Korean origin who is hugely successful in Germany, the land of philosophers, which speaks volumes for her ability to propose fascinating themes. “Infocracy. Digitization and the crisis of democracy” is not to be missed.
- Thriller of the year, “2034”, Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis, RAO Publishing
“2034” is billed as a “geopolitical thriller,” but I see it more as how humans and science can decrease the likelihood of war to bring, over time and never simply, peace.
An apparent incident in the South China Sea is taking the world in a completely unexpected direction. How important, on a global scale, everyone's gestures are explained, with suspense and humanism, in “2034”.
- Hostage Exchange, John Grisham, RAO publishing house
A new and completely different Grisham. At first, I was disappointed. Lawyers do more than defend the powerless. Then I thought if this novel by John Grisham is not somehow his answer to an age where power plays differently and the rules seem outdated. “Hostage Exchange” leaves you with a different taste than the “classic” Grisham, and maybe that's how it should be realistically.
Book of 2025: Two Choices
- “These Truths. A History of the United States,” Jill Lepore, Three Publishers
“These Truths” is a history of the United States done in a style that confronts, through clarity and modernism, unusual dimensions for a “to read” book. It has 1040 pages, but that's a good thing, because it can accompany you for a long time. She is not overwhelming, but attentive to you, like a smart neighbor, who tells you, now and then, one thing or another that you did not think of.
- “Where to land”, Bruno Latour, Contrasens Publishing House
“Where to land” is an appearance from the wonderful collection curated by the man of culture Bogdan Ghiu, who also translated Latour's work. The book-object gets, thanks to Ghiu and his colleagues, a new appearance. And Bruno Latour, whether we agree with him or not, is worth listening to.
Press of the year: Who?
You know the apocryphal story about the secretary at Apple or Google (it doesn't matter the company) who made the worst deal in history? They were right at the beginning. A few employees were working. They had no money and proposed to give him shares. Her: “No, give me the money, what should I do with the shares?”.
More than ten years ago, two young journalists, Cristian Delcea and Mihai Voinea, from Adevărul, came to GSP to interview me about journalism. We knew each other through writing. At the end they asked me if we didn't want to do something on video, some longer reports. I told them, honestly: “I'm not good at video.”
Cristian Delcea and Mihai Voinea are, today, the leaders of Recorder, which makes “some longer reports” and revolutionizes the relationship between the press and the public. Together with Andreea Pocotilă, they released “Captured Justice”, a kind of “Angels' Prison” in terms of popularity. It's not just the media phenomenon of 2025, it's probably the one of the past decade.
I was visionary, wasn't I, when I turned them down? I laugh at myself in one. All I hope is that I was polite in that interview with them, as I usually am with people. What a sucker!
I also add something else, beyond the usual recommendations. 2025 was the year I discovered the TV series Yellowstone. It's Kevin Costner's best movie and it's a test of how you can resist. The two complementary series are also very good: 1883 and 1923.
