2025 Summer Booklist: Humans & AI, How Individuals Learn, Joan Didion, and Hidden Libraries

For each of the last two summers, I have provided a recommended summer reading list. You can find those posts here and here. This year, I want to share my personal summer reading list. The books included in this list are ones I intend to read for various reasons. I hope you all find something that sparks your interest, and if not, I hope this list encourages you to discover a book or two to read this summer. 

Why Don’t Students Like School? Second Edition by Daniel Willingham

I am already in the middle of this book, so it may not technically be summer reading, but I decided to add it to this list. While the book has a K-12 focus, anyone who is involved with curriculum, instruction, and instructional design will benefit from it. Daniel Willingham is a cognitive scientist who explains how individuals learn. The insights he provides can be applied in any instruction session or workshop. 

The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Henry A Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher

I am trying to read an array of books about AI and this one was recommended to me. Unlike other books on AI that have to do with education, this one focuses on how AI may affect our future as humans. One line from the description states, “In The Age of AI, three leading thinkers have come together to consider how AI will change our relationships with knowledge, politics, and the societies in which we live.”

It. Goes. So. Fast. by Mary Louise Kelly

I found this book in a bookstore when I was pregnant with my second child. I admittedly have not read it yet, but I want to make time for it. 

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

I have never read anything by Joan Didion, and therefore feel there is a gap in my literary knowledge. I am determined to read this book, which won the National Book Award in 2005—and in 2024, The New York Times Book Review ranked it as the 12th best book of the 21st century. It is a book I must read. 

Lonely Planet Hidden Libraries: The World’s Most Unusual Book Depositories by DC Helmuth 

As a book lover, I want to read, display, and save this title for conversations about libraries. I also want to use it for ideas about future travel! I have always enjoyed coffee table books and this looks to be a good addition.