2025 book playlist

Please note that the songs and books mentioned in this post include explicit language, references to substance use, and various other potential triggers.

At the start of this year, I set out to match every book I read with a song in hopes of creating a playlist that would help me remember and appreciate everything I read over the course of 2025. It could help readers find books or music that interested them, while being more approachable than the more open-ended lists I posted in 2023 and 2024.

This project was inspired by a few different methods of drawing connections to art. The most similar was Goodreads users putting songs in their reviews, like this one for Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Another source of inspiration was those signs in bookstores that say “if you liked this, read that!” and, in the same vein, the RIYL (recommended if you like) lists in Pitchfork articles (like this 2025 one). A final source of inspiration was the writer Lio Min’s online presence, including their Spotify profile and ButtonDown newsletter, where they share playlists and discuss music.¹

Once I started to actually match books to songs, I found that it was more fun than I expected. I read a lot of lyrics, browsed a lot of Wikipedia pages, and listened to a lot of new music. Finding matches for some of these books was challenging, especially for wide-ranging books like Take My Name But Say It Slow, but expanding my musical horizons was rewarding. Even separately from books I read this year, I found myself comparing, contrasting, and connecting stories more overall.

However, as time went on, I began to realize that I didn’t want to share the entire playlist. I didn’t actually like all of the books I had read or the songs I had picked, and the playlist was over 3 hours long. I needed a way to narrow things down.

I looked through the songs and books and noticed that a lot of them had to do with growing up. Stitches was largely about being raised by unhappy parents; Let’s Get Burgers depicts two youngsters supporting each other through challenges like bad jobs and bad exes; How to Write an Autobiographical Novel chronciles the author’s pursuit of his vocation. They weren’t all what I would typically think of as coming-of-age stories, but they did all deal with common challenges in personal development.

This makes sense to me because 2025 was the most stable year I’ve had in a while. I worried less about my near-term financial situation as I worked a permanent, full-time job for the entire year. This financial safety made it easier for me to turn my gaze toward areas like belonging and self-esteem, and these books were helpful prompts.

I ultimately chose pairings that I felt good about and that matched this theme. Nearly all of the books and songs were entirely new to me, but I think they will continue to affect my views and reading interests for a long time to come. I hope they will inspire us to keep learning and growing in the years ahead.

The playlist

Here is a Spotify version: