Is it really the end of the year?
The calendar says so, as does the sun setting at 2:30 in the afternoon, which means it’s time for the Biblioracle Book Awards, my bespoke acknowledgements of the most compelling books with which I intersected this year. These are not the “top” or “best” books of the year. (That list was published last week in the Tribune.) These are books I think are very much worth readers’ time for the reasons articulated in the award titles. This week I’m covering nonfiction. Tune in next week for fiction.
Simultaneously Most Disturbing and Most Reassuring Book of the Year
This award goes to “More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity” by Adam Becker, which is an entertaining and penetrating examination of the attitudes and activities of some of our wealthiest citizens as they pursue artificial superintelligence, colonies on Mars and eternal life. An astrophysicist by training, Becker shows how concerns about Terminator-like scenarios are beyond unlikely, while also puncturing the pretensions around cryogenics and colonizing the stars beyond Earth. His clear-eyed look is reassuring. On the other hand, lots of very rich and very powerful people are betting humanity on their delusions.
Sometimes It’s OK to Learn More About Your Heroes Book of the Year
There is no writer working in my lifetime that I hold in higher esteem as an artist than Toni Morrison, so it was a real pleasure to read Dana A. Williams’ “Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship,” which covers her work as a top editor at Random House in the years before her breakout as a generationally great novelist. Smart, savvy, spiky, not afraid to fight a little dirty to get the books she believes in into the world, Williams’ chronicle is a penetrating look at not just Morrison, but the publishing business at the time Black writers were trying to break past token representation in the marketplace.
Most Satisfying Intersection of Biography, Literature and History Book of the Year (Tie)
This award is shared by Ruth Franklin’s “The Many Lives of Anne Frank” and Nicholas Boggs’ “Baldwin: A Love Story.” The title characters are at the center of both books, but in each case, that focus is used as a lens through which to reveal insights about society, literature, memory, and even good and evil. Both are towering achievements.
This Is Why We’re in the Pickle We’re in Book of the Year
“Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America” by Erik Baker is a deep history of the structures and psychology that have left so many of us feeling like life is an endless hustle just to keep our heads above water and a reasonable grip on a balanced life. The first step to progress is understanding what ails us, and this is a powerful and persuasive diagnosis grounded in history.
Wrenching Emotional Experience Book of the Year
“Memorial Days” by Geraldine Brooks, in which she chronicles the immediate aftermath of the sudden death of her husband, the writer Tony Horwitz, along with a later trip to a remote Australian outpost where she finally tries to properly grieve, is a deeply emotional read, but it is only the runner-up this year. “Things in Nature Merely Grow” by Yiyun Li, in which she explores the experience of grief following the death by suicide of her teenage son, years after the previous death by suicide of another son, was an indelible reading experience that I wasn’t sure I could handle but ultimately found transformative.
John Warner is the author of books including “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.” You can find him at biblioracle.com.
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “Heart the Lover” by Lily King
2. “The Ten Year Affair” by Erin Somers
3. “Culpability” by Bruce Holsinger
4. “My Friends” by Fredrik Backman
5. “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans
— Gina F., Chicago
I suppose I have Geraldine Brooks on the mind because I mentioned her just above, but her “People of the Book” strikes me as the right pick for Gina.
1. “Buckeye” by Patrick Ryan
2. “Theo of Golden” by Allen Levi
3. “Grown Women” by Sarai Johnson
4. “Spectacular Things” by Beck Dorey-Stein
5. “Isola” by Allegra Goodman
— Anne J., Evanston
“Infinite Country” by Patricia Engel is a nice fit into these character-driven novels that also don’t stint on setting and atmosphere.
1. “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” by Maria Semple
2. “On the Calculation of Volume” by Solvej Balle
3. “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” by Olga Tokarczuk
4. “The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese
5. “A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan
— Sammie T., Chicago
For Sammie, I’m choosing a book that works a similar structure to “Goon Squad” (linked short stories) that also has the mix of scope and intimacy of some of these other authors, “The Tsar of Love and Techno” by Anthony Marra.
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/13/biblioracle-book-awards-nonfiction-2025/
