With the holiday season upon us, the Evenlode investment team have compiled a list of books that we have read over the second half of 2025. Some of these texts are not obvious light-reading for Boxing Day, but we hope you will find something engaging on the list!
I would like to thank all our co-investors for their interest and support this year, and wish you an enjoyable, peaceful Christmas on behalf of the Evenlode team.
Technology
Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today
Naomi Alderman, 2025
(Evenlode Reviewer – Cristina Dyer)
This is a short and informative book describing how every major advancement in communication technology led to enormous leaps in knowledge and understanding, but also to periods of intense instability. From the written word to the printing press, and on to the current means of digital communication, Alderman argues that no technology is inherently good or bad, but each one reshapes the ways we behave, think and organise information in profound ways.
With the most powerful information technology ever invented – writing - came many good things but also taxation, bureaucracy and a new sense of inescapable permanence. As Plato lamented in c.370 BC, “…for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves…they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing”. Similarly, the invention of the printing press brought extraordinary scientific progress, but also centuries of torture and burning at the stake over doctrinal differences that now seem absurd. Alderman uses the ‘burning at the stake’ metaphor to also describe the impact of our current society, in which constant exposure to overwhelming amounts of information makes us anxious, angry and prone to abandon our values in order to win an argument and treat those we disagree with digitally not as living breathing people, but as symbols to be crushed to make a point.
The closing chapter is a critique of current technology companies that would do anything to ‘increase shareholder value’. I would argue that the rush to put capital behind some transformational technologies today has mostly nothing to do with increasing returns to shareholders and may well destroy shareholder value in the short run. Hopefully, we can disagree on this point without anyone starting a pyre.
Money Trap
Alok Sama, 2024
(Evenlode Reviewer – Phoebe Greenwold)
Money Trap by Alok Sama is a compelling memoir from his time as CFO and President of SoftBank Group, working closely with the company’s visionary (and notorious) CEO, Masayoshi Son. Sama pulls back the curtain on life inside one of the most ambitious investment machines in tech, from mega deals like ARM and Alibaba to the infamous wager on WeWork, and he does so with an engaging, accessible style.
What makes the book especially enjoyable is the front-row view into SoftBank’s culture and Son’s singular personality. Son, self-described as “the crazy guy who bet on the future”, is portrayed with humour and nuance; his ability to sit comfortably with both spectacular wins and losses is striking. Sama doesn’t shy away from the darker, messier parts of the story either. He recounts internal struggles, including smear campaigns that threatened his career and took a toll on his personal life. The memoir is written in a conversational tone, and I found it a thoroughly enjoyable read.
This is for Everyone
Tim Berners-Lee, 2025
(Evenlode Reviewer – Lily Postlethwaite)
Since the words ‘This is for everyone’ lit up the arena at the Opening Ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics, the Nasdaq has returned over 750% and Alphabet has grown more than 2,100%. With today’s backdrop of exceptional wealth disparity, it is almost impossible to conceive of Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s decision to gift his invention to ‘everyone’ free of charge. This charming memoir from the mind of the man who brought us the ‘world-wide-web’ is both upbeat and cautionary. He reminds us through his recounting of events that now more than ever we must remember to keep humankind at the very centre of our technological developments. Berners-Lee pays homage to his mathematician mother and paints a very romantic picture of his upbringing which harmonised his remarkable scientific abilities with the ability to think creatively. A combination which makes This is for Everyone a great read for computer geeks and bibliophiles alike.
Economics
The Great Global Transformation
Branko Milanovic, 2025
(Evenlode Reviewer – Hugh Yarrow)
Milanovic is an author, professor and former economist at the World Bank. In his latest book he guides the reader through the end of the ‘neoliberal era’, which he suggests started with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, peaked when China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2002, and ended in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis. He describes our current era as ‘national market liberalism’. Much is unchanged in this new regime. The prioritisation of capitalism and wealth creation remains at least as high as before, while nationalism - already an important feature of the neoliberal era - has become an even greater priority.
The big change is that the world has become increasingly multi-polar. Milanovic attributes this to two major factors. The first is that inequality in the ‘Political West’ has led to the rise of populist politics and more mercantilist economic policies – not least tariffs. The second factor is that the economic re-emergence of China, and many other nations in the emerging world, has been steadily reversing the ‘great divergence’ that was triggered by the industrial revolution; China and India’s relative economic strength versus Europe, for instance, is beginning to look more like it did in the 18th than the 20th Century.
In short, economic inequality has been growing within nations but reducing across nations, leading to a more populist and multi-polar world. For anyone who’s been operating in financial and economic spheres since the Great Financial Crisis, the thrust of Milanovic’s book won’t come as a big surprise, but The Great Global Transformation provides helpful historical context and some great data and charts on the big economic and political trends of recent years.
Investment
1929
Andrew Ross Sorkin, 2025
(Evenlode Reviewer – Chris Elliott)
Sorkin’s retelling of the Great Crash arrives at a moment when markets feel unsettled and small patterns of past exuberance seem to be resurfacing. Sorkin brings the buildup to the crash to life with the same narrative drive that made Too Big to Fail so compelling. By tracing events through the eyes of financiers Charles Mitchell, Thomas Lamont, Jesse Livermore and a range of politicians, he restores a sense of immediacy to a story often reduced to charts and headlines.
Sorkin draws on letters, diaries and contemporary reporting to capture the heady mix of optimism and unease that defined the late 1920s. The world he describes is strikingly familiar. Retail investors had poured into markets, credit was plentiful, and a new technology was reshaping expectations, although in that era it was radio and electrification rather than artificial intelligence.
Despite the broad outlines of the crash being well known, Sorkin’s retelling is fresh, accessible and rich in texture. Galbraith’s classic remains an essential foundation, but this account offers something different - a vivid sense of how confidence builds, mutates and eventually breaks. As ever, history does not repeat, but it does rhyme, and there is value in listening closely to those echoes as we face our own uncertain moment.
Origins of the Crash
Roger Lowenstein, 2004
(Evenlode Reviewer – Chris Moore)
Roger Lowenstein’s Origins of the Crash provides a compelling account of the TMT (Tech, Media and Telecom) boom and bust of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The book traces the profound shift in the corporate and cultural landscape during the 1980s and 1990s, as an excessive myopic focus on ‘shareholder value’ took hold and the rise of 401(k) retirement accounts drove the public’s interest in the stock market. Lowenstein captures the exuberance that fuelled unprecedented valuations for unproven internet business models - Pets.com, Webvan and Kozmo.com among them - despite minimal revenues and unclear paths to profitability. Meanwhile, telecommunications companies, such as Qwest Communications and Global Crossing, raced to lay vast quantities of fibre-optic cable in anticipation of exponential data demand.
The book examines the erosion of accounting standards, the rise of stock-option-driven managerial behaviour, and the gradual dismantling of oversight from boards, analysts, auditors, lawyers, regulators and rating agencies. As corporate and investor decision-making became increasingly distorted, an enormous boom followed, with the Nasdaq peaking in March 2000 at nearly 600% above its 1995 level. Greenspan pushed the Federal Funds Rate up by 175 basis points through 1999 and early 2000, reaching 6.5% in May 2000, and the boom gave way to a severe bust, with major bankruptcies including Enron, Global Crossing, and WorldCom, and a nearly 80% decline in the Nasdaq by the end of 2002. For Lowenstein - combined with the shock of the September 11 attacks - the optimism of the 1990s gave way to an era of caution with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act tightening governance and financial reporting, and the SEC gaining more powers, although the response did not prevent the far more economically damaging crisis that followed later in the decade: the Global Financial Crisis.
With hindsight, the excesses of the period appear obvious, yet the underlying technology was genuinely transformative: many ‘old economy’ business models ultimately failed - Toys “R” Us, Blockbuster, and Borders among the - while durable internet winners emerged in the years that followed the crash, including Amazon, Google, and later Facebook. Origins of the Crash remains a valuable reminder of how bubble mentalities take hold and how transformative technologies can fuel excess as well as progress, with clear parallels to today’s excitement around artificial intelligence.
Politics
The Taiwan Tinderbox
J Michael Cole, 2025
(Evenlode Reviewer – Hugh Yarrow)
J Michael Cole is a Taipei-based policy analyst and military strategist who has lived in Taiwan for over 20 years.
The Taiwan Tinderbox is a helpful primer for anyone interested in understanding the standoff between China and Taiwan. It traces the history of Taiwanese identity, the evolution of the country’s relationship with both China and the wider international community, and how the nation has found itself on the front line of a new ideological cold war. Cole examines the political warfare that China is using in its attempt to break down Taiwan’s democratic firewall and influence domestic politics. This is China’s preferred route to gain control of the island nation, summed up by the PRC’s ‘One Country, Two Systems’ sales pitch and official policy. However, a vast majority of Taiwan’s population - and both main Taiwanese parties - are highly resistant to the idea. He also talks through a variety of potential military strategies that could be deployed by the Chinese government to apply coercive force – from naval blockades to a full invasion. These measures would be a huge gamble for China – militarily, logistically and diplomatically - and would also send shockwaves through the global economy. Cole finishes with an examination of deterrence strategies, both domestically and from the international community, that can help Taiwan reduce the likelihood of an attack from China.
Other Non-Fiction
Ravenous
Henry Dimbleby, 2023
(Evenlode Reviewer – Phoebe Greenwold)
I picked up Ravenous in the Farm Shop at Knepp, which I would thoroughly recommend visiting if you ever find yourself in West Sussex. Ravenous is an unsettling and highly readable exploration of how modern food systems have gone so badly wrong, and why the consequences matter far beyond public health. Dimbleby, best known as the co-founder of Leon and the former UK government’s lead- on-food strategy, combines policy insight with lived experience to explain why we are simultaneously overfed and under-nourished.
The book’s central argument is simple but powerful: ultra-processed food has quietly rewired our relationship with eating. By optimising for shelf life, margin and convenience, the system has created products that overwhelm our biology, drive overconsumption and shift enormous downstream costs onto society. Dimbleby is particularly effective at explaining the science without being preachy, making complex topics like appetite regulation and metabolic health surprisingly accessible. What I found most compelling is how Ravenous frames food as a systems problem rather than a failure of personal responsibility. The incentives facing food manufacturers, retailers and policymakers are laid out clearly, and the parallels with other market failures are particularly interesting. This makes the book especially relevant for investors thinking about regulation risk, long-term healthcare costs and the sustainability of current consumer business models. It is very well researched, and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about our food systems.
A Short History of America
Simon Jenkins, 2025
(Evenlode Reviewer – Hugh Yarrow)
Jenkins, former editor of The Times, approaches history as a journalist rather than an historian; as he put it in a recent interview he aims to “work out what’s going on and abbreviate it”. Following a short history of London, England and Europe, he’s managed to fit the history of America into 270 pages – from the Boston Tea Party to Trump, and everything in between.
Some themes emerge. First, the history of modern America has been chaotic and anarchic right from the start. Second, a variety of contradictory threads have also been there from inception: a commitment to liberty versus slave-ownership and the ill-treatment of indigenous communities, the love-hate relationship with Europe that goes all the way back to George Washington, and the country’s oscillation between isolationism and multilateralism. Third, the US constitution was itself a result of contradiction and compromise knitting together the original 13 colonies of the Eastern seaboard into as much of a coherent whole as could be mustered. Jenkins sees the State-level autonomy that ensued as central to modern America’s incredible success over the last 250 years.
Jenkins finishes by suggesting that Trump can be seen as an escape valve for the nation – “it can be no bad thing for a country to be asked occasionally to question its place in the world, to review its strategies” – and that the US constitution will likely end up stronger rather than weaker, as a result of Trump’s boundary-pushing. He also notes that America has often flirted with autocracy in the past, and that the balance of federal power now being abused by Trump has been abused by presidents throughout history.
The Comfort Crisis
Michael Easter, 2021
(Evenlode Reviewer – Charlotte Lamb)
As humans, we’ve increasingly built our lives around comfort: heated homes, instant meals and endless digital entertainment. While this has made life easier, it has also distanced us from what gives life meaning. In The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter draws on a month-long expedition in the Alaskan backcountry to explore why intentionally seeking discomfort is essential for both physical and mental health. Through a blend of personal narrative, scientific research, and evolutionary theory, he shows how our unprecedented comfort has left us progressively sheltered, underchallenged, and overfed, contributing to rising rates of obesity, anxiety, depression, and general malaise. Easter introduces the concept of ‘Misogi’, a practice rooted in Japanese tradition where one takes on a challenge so difficult it redefines self-limiting beliefs. What I found particularly engaging was how he connects ancient wisdom and evolutionary biology to modern struggles of boredom, stress and wellness, arguing that discomfort functions as a kind of medicine; cold exposure, rigorous physical exercise, fasting, and solitude all offer tangible benefits for resilience and overall health.
Catch and Kill
Ronan Farrow, 2020
(Evenlode Reviewer – Phoebe Greenwold)
Catch and Kill is the inside story of Ronan Farrow’s investigation into the allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct against Harvey Weinstein, and the extraordinary measures taken to silence victims and suppress the truth. Farrow reveals a world of private investigators, secret recordings, and legal intimidation. His writing is urgent and captivating, drawing you into the high-pressure, high-risk environment of investigative journalism where the cost of speaking out can be immense. What stands out most is the courage of the survivors who came forward despite enormous personal and professional risks, and the persistence of those determined to ensure their voices were heard. The book offers important insight into the systemic obstacles that allowed abuse to continue unchecked, and the determined efforts required to break that silence. It is, at times, an uncomfortable read but also, in my opinion, an important one.
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
Amanda Montell, 2025
(Evenlode reviewer: Valerie Jordan)
Cultish is an easy, enjoyable read that demonstrates how vocabulary creation and/or definition (more broadly, language definition) and use within social structures reinforces, strengthens and grows those structures. The book focuses on organisations of US origin, from the more objectively benign fitness programs like SoulCycle and CrossFit to the extreme People’s Temple (notorious for the mass murder-suicide of 900 people in Guyana in the 1970s; also, where the phrase ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’ originated).
The author uses the term ‘Cultish’ not as a byword for ‘something akin to, or (cult) like’ but rather to mark it as a language foreign to anyone not in that particular group and showcases examples of Cultish terms including Monday at Noon (SoulCycle), enturbulate (Scientology) and go-give spirit (Mary Kay).
Using Cultish can be positive for both a group and its members; given that humans are naturally social creatures, a common language and understanding can be beneficial and reinforce motivation to achieve shared goals (fundraising, volunteering) or maintain shared values (abstinence from harmful substances). It can also be extremely negative, if the main outcomes of the group’s use of Cultish include isolation, encouraging or reinforcing abuse amongst members (common when there is a forceful personality at the top/centre), or serving as retaliation against (soon to be former) members. Where is the line? As the author says, “you’ll know it when you see it”.
I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You
Miranda Hart, 2024
(Evenlode Reviewer – Phoebe Greenwold)
Growing up I was a huge fan of the show Miranda - it never failed to make me laugh with its quirky humour and perfectly awkward moments. So, when I heard Miranda Hart had written a book, I knew I had to read it. The book feels like an intimate, unfiltered conversation between Miranda’s past and present selves. She shares openly about the highs and lows of her life, offering a refreshingly candid glimpse behind the scenes of her public persona.
One of the most striking parts for me was her honest discussion of her long battle with Lyme disease, and how living with a chronic illness has reshaped her life and outlook in profound ways. What made the experience even more enjoyable was listening to Miranda narrate the audiobook herself. Her warm, self-deprecating humour really shines through, and I found myself laughing out loud more than once. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an honest memoir with a little giggle along the way!
Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom, 2017
(Evenlode Reviewer – Charlotte Lamb)
Tuesdays with Morrie is a story about rediscovering what it means to live a meaningful life. Mitch Albom - a busy sports journalist - reconnects with his former university professor, Morrie Schwartz, who is dying from ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease). What begins as a reunion gradually turns into a series of life lessons that touch on love, work, family, and the meaning of a well-lived life. Morrie argues that many people chase the wrong things and allow society to dictate their values instead of consciously choosing their own, which leads to an inauthentic life. He challenges us to accept our mortality, which in turn stops us from wasting time on things that don’t truly matter. There’s something comforting yet sobering about Morrie’s calm acceptance of his fate and his insistence that meaning comes from human connection rather than material success. I found the simplicity of Albom’s storytelling powerful - the kind that stays with you long after you close the book.
The Evenlode team
18 December 2025
Please note, these views represent the opinions of the Evenlode Team as of 18 December 2025 and do not constitute investment advice. Evenlode Investment Management Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, No. 767844.