Ten books for those who want to think beyond AI this Christmas.
- Aege Steensma
- Dec 17
- 5 min read
For a few years now, I've been sending you book recommendations before the summer and Christmas holidays, a chance to clear your head and discover fresh perspectives.
In previous editions, Summer Reading 2025: Books on AI, Unpredictability and Leadership and Books to Pause and Reflect On, the focus was largely on AI, geopolitics and personal development. Those pieces are still available on the BrightHeads website; most of those titles remain well worth reading this winter.
AI, unsurprisingly, is still high on the agenda. The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt, my first recommendation last summer, has since been crowned Business Book of the Year 2025 by the Financial Times: an inside story about Nvidia and Jensen Huang, written at the peak of the AI hype. House of Huawei by Eva Dou, which I also recommended at the time, made the shortlist. I won't repeat those two here: if you haven't read them yet, they now sit at the top of your catch-up pile.
This Christmas, I wanted to dig a layer deeper: not just technology, but power in the broadest sense. Who is steering the climate transition? How are businesses and markets actually changing? What does all this turbulence do to our private lives and to the relationships that matter most? The books below are attempts, from very different angles, to sharpen those questions.
Leadership & Management
The memoirs of the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, who became the world's youngest female head of government at thirty-seven and only the second prime minister ever to give birth while in office. Ardern describes how she rose from being a police officer's daughter in a small town to become a global icon for empathetic leadership. From her response to the Christchurch attacks to navigating a pandemic while raising a baby, this book poses a fundamental question: what if kindness came first in leadership? The Washington Post called it an implicit repudiation of the strongman style gaining ground worldwide.
Economist John Kay dissects the myth of shareholder value with surgical precision. The pursuit of quarterly earnings has brought corporate giants from ICI to Boeing to their knees, Kay argues. The modern corporation is no longer a collection of physical assets, but a bundle of human capabilities. Amazon barely owns its own warehouses, Apple owns little beyond its Cupertino campus and a mountain of cash, and airlines don't even own the planes painted with their logos. Kay calls for a return to entrepreneurs who want to build great companies, not inflate share prices.
Sustainability & Energy
As co-architect of the European Green Deal, Samsom knows what he's talking about. Nuclear physicist, former Greenpeace campaign leader, parliamentary leader of the Dutch Labour Party and chief of staff to Frans Timmermans in Brussels, he offers a revealing look behind the scenes at how Europe works, where it stalls, and what it takes to wean the world off fossil fuels. Batteries have become ninety per cent cheaper over the past fifteen years; their volume has increased two hundredfold. Samsom demonstrates: humanity, it turns out, is still capable of something close to magic. Several Dutch podcasts feature him discussing the book, including BNR Boekestijn en de Wijk, de Ongelooflijke Podcast, Europa Draait Door and Café Europa from the Haagsch College.
The story of Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, who started out as a penniless climber, a "dirtbag" happy to sleep in the dirt, became a billionaire, and then gave away his entire fortune to fight climate change. The Financial Times selected it as one of the best books of 2025. New York Times journalist Gelles shows how Patagonia proved that capitalism can be a force for good. Bill McKibben summed it up: if you're looking for the opposite of Elon Musk, that would be Yvon Chouinard.
Speculation & Crashes
Two books about the same phenomenon: the blinding hubris of financial markets and the crashes that follow. Sorkin, author of Too Big to Fail, reconstructs the 1929 crash in gripping narrative style, a number one New York Times bestseller, praised by The Wall Street Journal as one of the finest narrative histories ever written. Maarten Biermans, in Windhandel (available in Dutch), compiles five centuries of eyewitness accounts of speculation, euphoria and loss on the stock exchanges, from the tulip mania of 1637 to the credit crisis of 2007. The line between fortune and ruin, it turns out time and again, is wafer-thin. Anyone who believes 'this time is different' would do well to read both.
Literature & Psychology
An ambitious novel about two men: James Drayton, a brilliant mind who doesn't know how to connect with others, and Roland Mackenzie, charismatic and impulsive but with a talent for derailing his own plans. Against the backdrop of the financial crisis, Brexit and the pandemic, they build a tidal energy venture together and, more importantly, a friendship. The Financial Times compared it to Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay – high praise indeed. Anyone who thinks business novels are dull will be proved wrong here.
Psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz opens the door of his consulting room just a crack and lets you observe people stuck in love, marriage and longing. No tips and tricks, but short, literary case studies that reveal how much baggage from our youth and past relationships we carry without realising it. Grosz is ruthlessly honest about his own mistakes and doubts, which makes the book feel more like a long, sharp conversation than remote therapy. Ideal reading in the quiet of the Christmas holidays, and perhaps afterwards you'll look a little more kindly on yourself (and on others).
Technology & Society
We think of the internet as wireless and weightless, but its true foundation lies on the ocean floor: nearly 1.5 million kilometres of fibre-optic cables pulsing with all the world's information. Subramanian travels from remote Pacific islands to secretive cable-laying operations and reveals what happens when a volcanic eruption severs Tonga's only internet connection, or when ghost ships cut the cables of other countries. The Economist called it a timely reminder of just how vulnerable our connected world really is.
Jenkins takes you through the history of private life, from the ancient city-state via the Victorian parlour to today's data-driven platforms. Her argument: we have given away our privacy step by step over recent decades, sometimes out of convenience, sometimes under pressure from governments and corporations, sometimes because we wanted to share everything "authentically". The book shows why a robust private sphere is not a luxury, but a precondition for thinking, doubting and loving freely. An uncomfortable but much-needed countervoice in an age when everything, from your relationship to your grief, can become content.
I wish you a wonderful Christmas holiday, happy celebrations and a good turn of the year, with enough time not only to catch up on reading, but also to pause and reflect. May 2026 bring you health, joy and rewarding challenges. And I hope to see you again soon in the new year, here or elsewhere, for new conversations about leadership, organisations, life, and perhaps about the books you've read.
Warm regards,
Aegeus
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