New year readings
And themes for 2025
Happy new year!
It’s crazy that we are halfway through the 2020s.
For a few years now I’ve gotten into the habit of settling into a new year with a small pile of books to go through the year. Yes, I could have used ChatGPT or NotebookLM to quickly “squeeze the juice” out of them, but what’s the fun in that?!
Or maybe it’s a matter of perspective. Why do we read? We all do it to live and earn a living. Is it for of self-fulfilment and joy, or is it to accomplish a task. If reading is a task - like doing research for this newsletter - then I would absolutely go to an AI tool to help me make the most out of my increasingly time-poor days.
But if we’re trying to relax, why rush? Our brains are already a user interface between us and the world, so surely it brings us less enjoyment if we layer that with another piece of technology, beyond the medium of paper or Kindle, to give us content.
Maybe it’s because I’m a millennial and my brain / user interface is partially wired in the pre-Internet era and the Gen Z / Alphas (Beta begins in 2025!) enjoy generative AI output as leisure reading, I’m happy to stay with my cardboard and paper media for stories I want to take my time with.
With that, I bring to you an eclectic list of what I’m reading. I definitely didn’t just pull six random books off my shelf for this post. If you think you’ll enjoy reading something, I am linking to their publisher so to encourage keeping a bit more cash money in writers’ pockets than Jeff Bezos.
Threat Multiplier by Sherri Goodman, the first US undersecretary of defense for environmental security and a pioneer in the climate security community. I’ve been enjoying reading about how her journey as a senior Pentagon official, building support and changing minds about the national security impacts of climate change, which has created the academic and policy space in and outside of the US to make this a priority for more governments. I’m still reading it so am keen to read her views about the different ways climate change impacts hit security risks, and how we may gather more focus and resources to tackle the problems driving and leading from climate security.
I finished Power to the People over the holidays and thoroughly enjoyed the breath of fresh air offered by Danny Sriskandarajah on how we would revitalise democratic institutions and civil society in a positive, turning the tide on political and social disengagement we see in so many democracies. Working in geopolitics can often be a bit of a downer, what with the focus on conflicts, tensions, and sometimes skullduggery, so it’s easy to become cynical about the future. What resonated the most from the former head of Oxfam offers is that his suggestions are not pie in the sky, but grounded in real-world case studies. From the Trust Relationship Project by UK nonprofit Shift to successful virtual movement platform Avaaz, he offers tangible, scalable solutions to build and sustain people power. Positive and sustained collective action is the best way we’ll get through climate realities. Trust is at the heart of resilience, and is also at the heart of the roles of security and climate practitioners alike. We’re not just here to protect people, but to help them bounce back and keep going. There’s so many good anecdotes that I will go back to this book from time to time.
Climate Change, Conflict, and (InSecurity): Hot War is a fantastic compendium of some of the latest thinking around how climate change is impacting conflicts, competition and insecurity around the world. Timothy Clack, Ziya Meral and Louise Selisny bring together authors highlighting potential impacts in different regions, as well as implications plus responses from militaries.
My friend Lewis Sage-Passant’s first book, Beyond States and Spies, breaks new ground by going in-depth about the history, dynamics and possible futures of intelligence work outside of government and public entities. Lewis is one of the thought leaders in this space, and if you’re curious about how companies are going to need to navigate today and tomorrow’s geopolitics, grab a copy and while you’re at it, check out his website and the How to Get on a Watchlist podcast.
We have cats and I always wondered, do our two fur babies dream? How much are our own senses confining how much we understand what they see, feel, hear, touch and taste? So here’s Ed Yong’s An Immense World which was recommended deep in one of the cat subreddits. High hopes that this book will validate my conviction that my boy knows his name when I call out to him for roasted chicken bits.
So many people have raved about and recommended Termination Shock to me since uni I’ve lost count. I’m a big fan of post-apocalyptic novels and films, and with the climate theme in this Neal Stephenson classic, it’s a no-brainer that finally has made it to my bedtime reading.
I’m also looking forward this year to tucking into, and bringing in practitioners and thought leaders across a range of topics around climate security, from migration to finance, defense, AI, the “dark side” of climate security, and risk management. Let me know if there’s something you’d like to particularly learn more about or specific people to hear from!