It’s the fifth year running of Larger Us’s books of the year list! As in previous years, we asked some of our favourite thinkers and doers on psychology and politics what they’ve most enjoyed reading this year, and added in a few recommendations of our own. Happy reading!
Chine McDonald, director, Theos – Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein. I’ll confess that I’m one of the people that has mistaken Naomi Klein (left-leaning Canadian author) for Naomi Wolf (former leftie-turned poster girl for right-wing politics and anti-vax conspiracy theories). But Klein uses this regular mix-up between herself and the very, very different Naomi to put forward a gripping exploration of how our fractured digital age breeds confusing, conspiracy and distorted identities. Doppelgänger took me on a journey into the mirror world to paint a compelling picture of the stories we tell about ourselves, the tribes we form, and the truths we’re losing. Ultimately, it served as a stark and poignant reminder that perhaps we’re not as different as we might kid ourselves into thinking we are.
Tom Baker, director of politics, participation and campaigns, Save the Children – Undivided by Hahrie Han. This book explores the experience of four individuals who are members of a racial justice programme within a large US evangelical church. It’s easy to jump to quick conclusions about megachurches – but the relentless focus on a warm welcome for anyone, the importance of nurturing belonging and being community together are lessons that Hahrie unpacks for all of us looking to bring people together for the common good.
Lucy Holdaway, executive director, Local Storytelling Exchange – The Art of Listening by Les Back. There has been a lot of noise this year. Everyone seems to be banging on about something, and it has been easy to get a bit lost in the sheer volume of opinions. So, my book is actually an academic one. This is unusual for me as I love a good story. But it comes with pictures (and tattoos), so it just about passes the bedtime story test. It’s a brilliant reminder to shut up and look and around you. To look past what you hear and to observe deeply, beyond the noise, the opinions, the clamour, to find where truths lie. Often hidden on bodies, faces and the silences in between the words. It’s in the listening where we might just find a way through. There’s got to be something in that.
Ruth Taylor, narrative change consultant – At Work in the Ruins by Dougald Hine. I read this book at the beginning of 2025, but have found myself returning to it multiple times over the months when the world has felt particularly frightening and heavy – as it is wont to do more and more these days. Written with such poetic beauty that it brought me to tears on more than one occasion, Hine invites the reader to slow down, reflect and feel – not just analyse – where we are in the long arc of things. Rather than prescribing solutions or offering false comfort, he reaches for the deeper questions that often are left untouched in systems change work: who are we, really? What have we lost in the name of progress? What might it mean to live a meaningful life in the ruins of capitalism?
Turi Munthe, board member, Larger Us – Making Democracy Work by Robert Putnam is an old book, but a beautiful data-led overview of the importance of civil society for building wealthy, happy and functional societies. He shows statistically how traditions of mutual trust and civic engagement have determined the varying social and economic trajectories of Italy’s different regions.
Anki Deo, HOPE Not Hate – Country by Michael Hughes. It’s a retelling of the Iliad set around the Irish border during the Troubles. It’s both beautifully faithful to the context of the conflict it’s describing and, closely following the plot beats of the Iliad, a crushingly generic depiction of conflict and its human cost (which for obvious reasons has been a bit on my mind this year). One for people who think there’s still lots to learn from history repeating itself, and fun if you like nerding out over all the clever Homeric counterparts.
Pete Moorey, head of church and community, Christian Aid – Faith Hope & Carnage by Nick Cave – it’s an extended conversation between the Australian rock singer and the Observer journalist Sean O’Hagen which examines questions of faith, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It’s particularly compelling at exploring how Nick Cave has wrestled with his faith following the tragic death of his teenage son – unexpectedly pointing towards compassion and love in the midst of pain and suffering.
Alice Sachrajda, UK head of cultural strategy, Unbound Philanthropy – Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It’s a beautifully written memoir that weaves together her personal experience as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and her scientific knowledge as an academic botanist. I loved her reflections around reciprocity and drawing on indigenous wisdom which sees nature and plants as our teachers and guides. It’s a real gift of a book and a joy to read.
Sophia Parker, director of emerging futures, Joseph Rowntree Foundation – Wealth, Poverty, and Enduring Inequality by Sarah Kerr. A clear-eyed, humane diagnosis of an economy that has lost its way. Kerr shows how extreme wealth and deep poverty are twin warning signals of a broken economic system – a system built to reward extraction above all else. She traces how, over a long history, the poor have been scrutinised and judged while the wealthy hide in plain sight. Her blend of cultural, psychological, economic and policy analysis is masterful, and exactly what we need now. It is time for wealth (along with the related issues of ownership and governance) to move to the front and centre of UK policy debates. This book explains why.
Claire Brown, deputy director, Larger Us – Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel. This is the book that’s had most impact on me this year. It’s astonishing. I found myself close reading sentence after sentence, picking apart the prose word by word in a bid to discover the mechanics behind her genius but in the end I just let her story crash over me. Mantel is a colossus and never more powerful than when dragging the shortcomings of the health system that failed her into the light. A taster: Day by day I smouldered in sullen fury, and when I saw a carving knife I looked at it with a new interest. Savage, courageous, unyielding.
Adam Kahane, co-founder, Reos Partners – Outgrowing Modernity: Navigating Complexity, Complicity, and Collapse with Accountability and Compassion by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. Machado de Oliveira is a prolific writer of pathbreaking publications about our current global conjuncture. In this follow-up to her influential “Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism,” she continues to experiment with big ideas including indigeneity and AI, and to offer radically unconventional practices for all of us who are trying to live well in this time.
Kate Pumphrey, behavioural designer and founder of Social Gym – Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships by Robin Dunbar. Dunbar is one of our most renowned contemporary psychologists (famous for “Dunbar’s number” – the 150-person limit to most social circles), and this is a fascinating and highly readable account of what evolutionary science has to say about friendship. It’s full of quirky, surprising facts that you can whip out in conversation / at a pub quizz, but beyond that it has the kind of practical insights that encourage you to rethink how you approach the relationships that matter so much for our health and wellbeing.
Alex Evans, founder and executive director, Larger Us – The Rose Field by Philip Pullman. It’s thirty years since Philip Pullman first enchanted us with Northern Lights, so it feels momentous to see this much-loved saga finally draw to a close three decades later. Nail-biting and at points achingly sad, The Rose Field is also deeply topical with its depiction of authoritarianism on the march and its insistence on the importance of imagination as a form of resistance.
Miriam Juan-Torres Gonzalez, head of research, Democracy and Belonging Forum, Othering & Belonging Institute – Bread of Angels by Patti Smith. This is a beautiful memoir where Smith walks us through a recollection of her past: her childhood growing up in a working class family; her dreams and meanderings; her coming of age as an artist in New York; her retirement and family life followed by years of loss; and her comeback into public life. It’s a beautiful book where Smith’s memories give us perspective as she walks us through the decades. Her musings and endless sense of wonder serve as a balm during turbulent times.
Ayesha Saran, head of migration, Barrow Cadbury Trust and LU board member – Broken Threads: My Family From Empire To Independence by Mishal Husain.This book is a beautiful and devastating account of the disintegration of empire and partition of India through the personal histories of Husain’s grandparents and great-grandparents. Intimate memories spanning across centuries and continents are interwoven with a clear-eyed dissection of a historical period during which the dynamics of inter-ethnic politics are often reduced to crude oversimplifications. The resurgence of the exclusionary politics of ethnic nationalism has made me feel defensive about my own mixed and multiple identities this year, and Broken Threads served as a timely and hopeful reminder of the mutability of borders and nationhood, and the fallibility of divisive narratives that assert dominance over ill-defined “out-groups”.