The 12 Non-Obvious Trends From Books Published In 2025
What were the biggest themes across more than a thousand business and non-fiction books published in the past year? Here's a roundup from the Non-Obvious Book Awards ...
One of the more fun roundups I get to do as part of the book awards judging process is identify some top level trends across more than 1200 books that were published over the past year. Think of this as a sort of cultural zeitgeist powered by the unique opportunity we have to consider so many newly published books altogether as a group.
After several months of reading, judging and research, here are the trends we identified and recently shared:
1. The Morality Challenge
A year ago, as AI started to affect work and life in deeper ways, there were many books that raised the question of how we might save humanity. This year several books posed a clear answer: we need more leaders and organizations alike to prioritize morality in their decision making. These books explore this antidote and offer lessons on how we can act in more morally positive ways.
2. The Joy of Less
What if you had less work, less stuff, less ambition and less hustle? Doing less is a common piece of advice but this year several books took it to deeper level by suggesting that our quest for the things we often describe as good (ie – ambition) may not be the true path to success and instead happiness may come from the things and ideas that we are able to sacrifice.
3. Make Your Art
Now is the time to lean into your creativity and make the art you’ve always dreamed of. That was the argument for a range of books this year that encouraged readers to write, draw, paint and use their creativity and imagination to make something fulfilling. The other benefit? A world of people making their art can inspire every day to be happier and more full of life for everyone.
4. Embrace Risk + Uncertainty
Live more dangerously and embrace risks to create more luck for yourself. That’s the idea that dominated several books about appreciating the power of uncertainty, welcoming doubt and thinking like an explorer to achieve unexpected success. The secret is finding more bravery and self confidence to do it.
5. Stop People Pleasing
Last year, quiet leadership was big, but this year many books advocated to overcome our more silent tendencies. Too often we resort to people pleasing, silence our inner rebel and prioritize keeping the peace. Several described it as fawning (becoming overly agreeable to avoid conflict) and all of them suggested defiance by worrying less what others think and putting yourself first.
6. Financial Trauma
The financial world is broken and is societal trauma is the result. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few. To blame are a combination of unchecked greed from private equity and VCs, poor economic policies holding sensible solutions (like home building) back and immoral organizations extracting profit at all costs. These books explore the problem and some offer prescriptions to fix it … starting with exposing the evildoers.
7. Take a Break
From spending more time offline to integrating more rest as a part of your day, the advice from many books this year came down to this: take a break. As a counter to hustle culture, the new wisdom for career success, healthier lifestyle and better relationships seems to start by finding time to relax and breathe. Be happy with what you have. Enjoy your time alone. Work four days a week. And sleep more.
8. Globally Better
In response to the disturbing rise of xenophobia across many cultures, there were a number of books this past year reminding us all that there is significant wisdom that comes from listening to voices from other cultures and countries. From optimal parenting techniques to finding more joy at work, thinking globally and taking insights from other cultures was the big picture lesson here.
9. Trust Your Intuition
Your intuition is your superpower … if you can remember to listen to it. That was the premise of many books this year that argued you can sell more, better understand people, and find your purpose all by being more attuned to listening to your inner voice and acting on those things you already know in your gut.
10. Make Work Better
The modern workplace is filled with terrible bosses, ineffectual leaders, mistaken incentives and unleadable people. We can make it better and these books all show us how to fix the things that are wrong with systems at work
(or the people behind them) by rethinking work, not emailing at midnight, talking nicer and understanding what makes a terrible boss … so we can avoid it.
11. Natural Lessons
How can nature make us better? That was the question explored in many books this year that looked at everything from trees to fishes to birds to snakes to pets … in order to compile the many forms of wisdom we might take from the non-human species living all around us. Paying more attention to the natural world around us isn’t just important for environmental reasons. As these books suggest, it might be the key to solving many other problems too.
12. Democracy Under Seige
Responding to a year filled with unprecedented threats to the foundational ideas of democracy across the globe (and particularly in the U.S.), these books explored what happened, why we are divided, whether it can be reversed and how to preserve the delicate idea of democracy against it’s ongoing dismantling by the oligarchs who stand to profit from its demise.