Don’t know what books to read in 2025? Here’s what ChatGPT recommended to me

Is AI better than #Bookstagram and #BookTwitter feeds? Let’s find out

Lost in a sea of books, wondering where to start? Ask AI for help.

Photo: Arif Riyanto | Unsplash

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links—if you click on them and buy, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

I know I said no to New Year’s resolutions in my previous post (read it here if you haven’t already).

But given the transformative journey I’m on, I still need answers to a LOT of questions, along with some fresh perspectives.

Even after the accomplishment of my goal, I’m not sure what the road beyond holds.

In short, I need a guide in my quest.

And what better than books in this case?! (#PunUnintended)

Especially stories of people—fictional and otherwise—who’ve been there and done that.

However, with so many incredible titles out there, choosing what to read can be overwhelming, especially with my fast-evolving taste.

I want a list that aligns with my purpose, supports my personal growth, and resonates with my readers while also being a whole wad of fun. After all, the right book can be a game-changer.

That’s why, at the end of last year, I thought of trying something different.

Instead of scouring bestseller lists and checking with friends for book suggestions …

I asked ChatGPT to recommend books to me and curate my reading list. 

Based on my prompts (think basic information about me, professional details, past reads, and current life status, in a write-up spanning three pages), this AI behemoth presented a diverse collection of 100 titles spanning fiction, self-help, business, history, and beyond. What I like about this operation is how it’s all so neat and personalised compared to the FOMO-generating experience on social media.

My aim for 2025 is to complete at least one-fourth of this list as part of my #25BookChallenge. 

It’s all flexible, and I’m free to follow my intuition to decide which books to tackle. I can also pick up something outside of these 100. 

The entire choosing and reading process is going to be intuitive, with no kind of forcing or pushing on my part. If I like something, I read it; if I don’t like it, I drop it. Needless to say, I’ll be able to post about how it goes only in the next year.

Meanwhile, here’s the 2025 reading list, as proposed by ChatGPT:

Fiction

1. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

2. The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 

3. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

4. Circe by Madeline Miller

5. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

6. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry 

7. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

10. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

11. Raavan: Enemy of Aryavarta by Amish Tripathi 

12. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

14. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

15. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

16. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts 

17. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 

18. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

19. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

20. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy 

Self-help & personal development

21. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

22. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

23. The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown

24. Atomic Habits by James Clear

25. You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero

26. Deep Work by Cal Newport

27. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

28. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

29. Untamed by Glennon Doyle

30. Inner Engineering by Sadhguru

31. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

32. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles

33. The Intuitive Way by Penney Peirce

34. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

Business & management

35. The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau

36. Start with Why by Simon Sinek

37. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

38. Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek

39. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

40. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

41. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T Harv Eker

42. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

43. Good to Great by Jim Collins

44. Blue Ocean Strategy by W Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

45. Zero to One by Peter Thiel

46. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

47. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

48. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

Biographies & memoirs

49. I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

50. My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi

51. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

52. Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance

53. Open by Andre Agassi

54. Wings of Fire by APJ Abdul Kalam 

55. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

56. Wild by Cheryl Strayed

57. Becoming by Michelle Obama

58. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Food & health

59. Don’t Lose Your Mind, Lose Your Weight by Rujuta Diwekar 

60. The Blue Zones Kitchen by Dan Buettner

61. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat

62. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

History & science

63. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

64. Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari

65. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

66. The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee 

67. Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Culture & Indian insights

68. Chanakya Neeti by Radhakrishnan Pillai

69. The Bhagavad Gita

70. Myth = Mithya by Devdutt Pattanaik

71. India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha

72. The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru

Classics

73. 1984 by George Orwell

74. Animal Farm by George Orwell

75. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

76. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

77. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Other book recommendations by ChatGPT

78. The Art of War by Sun Tzu

79. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

80. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

81. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

82. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

83. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

84. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

85. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma 

86. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth 

87. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

88. The Alchemy of Us by Ainissa Ramirez

89. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein

90. The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

91. Factfulness by Hans Rosling

92. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte

93. The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu

94. The Big Short by Michael Lewis

95. The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

96. The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

97. HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership by Harvard Business Review

98. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

99. Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

100. Daring Greatly by Brené Brown 

(Update: I’ve received a copy of the newly launched SERVE: Business from the Heart by BS Nagesh, the man behind the popular retail chain Shoppers Stop. So, while the book isn’t part of the 100 names above, it’s surely one of the titles I’m reading for my #25BookChallenge in 2025.)

While I’ve read many of these 100 titles before, it would be interesting to see how they stack up in this particular phase of my life.

Nevertheless, there is always something to learn, even in repeated reads, and the plan is to use as many of these books as possible to make 2025 a year of growth, education, happiness, and all the good things one can ask for.

What do you think of these recos? Which of these are your favourites and resonate with you? Let me know in the comments below, along with any suggestions of your own, plus your reading lists if they’re ready. If you’re an author looking to promote your book, drop a comment ASAP! 

Feel free to use this list as your inspiration if it clicks with you. Whether you’re into good ol’ crime-fiction novels or new-age self-help audiobooks (click here for a free trial if you haven’t yet subscribed), there’s something for everyone here. 

And if you’re up for the #25BookChallenge, let’s make it a combined adventure! What say?

Note: A part of this post was generated using ChatGPT.