This spring semester, I was on co-op. From 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., my days were filled with meetings, scheduling appointments and nagging my boss to ask if there were any other tasks I could help her with. But as soon as I got home, my evenings were free. There was no homework, and no reason to study. Aside from the occasional club meeting, I was free to do whatever I pleased once I clocked out.
To prevent myself from doomscrolling into oblivion, I created some personal goals. One example is to work out at least four times a week. Another is to put more energy into the organizations I’m involved with on campus. The goal I’m most proud of, however, and the one I’ve kept up with best, is reading. At the beginning of 2025, I challenged myself to read at least 10 books this year. Just a few months in, I was halfway there. This is a goal that I try to commit to every year, but somehow I always fall short. However, this year has been different, and so far, I’m loving it. This article is dedicated to five books I plan to read in 2025. I hope it encourages and inspires you all to do the same!
1) “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson
I started reading this book in the spring. It discusses the unspoken caste system that has defined and shaped our nation. I chose this book to continue educating myself on the racial inequalities in the U.S. that extend far beyond what meets the eye.
“Beyond race, class or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma and more. Using riveting stories about people — including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself and many others — she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.”
2) “Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm” by Emmeline Clein
I added this book to my “want to read” list to gain further perspective on how debilitating Western beauty standards are and their effects on women and young girls, specifically through eating disorder culture.
“In ‘Dead Weight,’ Emmeline Clein tells the story of her own disordered eating alongside, and through, other women from history, pop culture and the girls she’s known and loved. Tracing the medical and cultural history of anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder and orthorexia, Clein investigates the economic conditions underpinning our eating disorder epidemic, and illuminates the ways racism and today’s feminism have been complicit in propping up the thin ideal. While examining Goop, Simone Weil, pro-anorexia blogs and the flawed logic of our current treatment methods, Clein grapples with the myriad ways disordered eating has affected her own friendships and romantic relationships.”
3) “The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood
I put this book on my list because it’s a little out of my comfort zone. I am unfamiliar with science fiction, but I wanted to explore a new genre. I have read Atwood’s books in the past and have loved them all, so I decided to give this one a try.
“The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God’s Gardeners — a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life — has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God’s Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.”
4) “A Rumor of War: The Classic Vietnam Memoir” by Philip Caputo
As someone who lived in Asia for nearly a decade, I was really intrigued to learn more about the history of China and Hong Kong. This personal story seemed like a wonderful way to educate myself further about the relationship between these two states, and the individualized perspective made me even more interested in reading it.
“In March of 1965, Lieutenant Philip J. Caputo landed at Danang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history’s ugliest wars, he returned home — physically whole but emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism forever gone. ‘A Rumor of War’ is far more than one soldier’s story. Upon its publication in 1977, it shattered America’s indifference to the fate of the men sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. In the years since then, it has become not only a basic text on the Vietnam War but also a renowned classic in the literature of wars throughout history and, as the author writes, of ‘the things men do in war and the things war does to them.'”
5) “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey
I worked in Mass General Brigham’s Psychiatry Department for my co-op last semester. I have always loved reading about mental health and illness, but I have not delved into this classic yet. Given my position working in a hospital, I figured it would be an appropriate time to start.
“Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy — the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy’s heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey’s extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.”
I chose all these books for a reason. By committing to reading a wide range of literature, I hope to expand my knowledge and continue my journey to become a more well-rounded and informed individual. I also hope these book recommendations get you excited about reading more!