Ep. 193 - The Year's Best Books on Changing the World

What a year of changemaking books taught us about how to drive meaningful impact.

In this special second annual How to Change the World Book Club episode, Catherine is joined by book club regulars Maggie Bauer and Eric DeMarco to share the standout reads of the year, the themes that kept surfacing, and the "book awards" they handed out along the way. From most hopeful to most likely to shift your perspective, they dig into big topics like AI bias, climate resilience, disability justice, emotional labor, and the role of community in creating real change — and reflect on the surprising ways reading together can move you from awareness to action.

Here are the 12 books we read in 2025:

January - Atomic Habits by James Clear (personal growth)

February - Demystifying Disability by Emily Ladau (disability/advocacy)

March - What the Wild Sea Can Be by Helen Scales (nature/environment)

April - Factfulness by Hans Rosling (society/economics)

May - Emotional Labor by Rose Hackman (workplace/gender)

June - Murder the Truth by David Enrich (government/politics)

July - Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (economics/technology)

August - Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman (society/change)

September - We All Want to Change the World by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (society/politics)

October - Unmasking AI by Joy Buolamwini (technology)

November - Medicine River by Mary Annette Pember (Native American history)

December - Hope Dies Last by Alan Weisman (environment)

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