Hello darkness, my old Friend: Summer Reading, 2025
By Randy Kaufman
I have written before about my Russian heritage and fair skin, my love of the cold and the snow, and my general dislike of the summer, the beach, and summer beachy reads. As I said then, why go light when you can do deep and dark?
See: https://randykaufman.com/blog/going-dark-summer-reading-2024
The summer solstice approaches; my in-box fills with summer reading recommendations. As usual, I’m drawn to be different. If you follow me, you just might be different too. So, I hope you enjoy some of my favorite books from 2025 so far.
These books have taken me from Nazi Germany to East Berlin, into the depths of Soviet Union; I’ve lived through the death, corruption, and malaria ravages that plagued the building of the Panama Canal. I fled to, and then barely escaped, a Civil War in Chili. I’ve been hunted by a Category 5 hurricane in the Eastern Caribbean, eventually sinking on a 200 foot Windjammer sailing yacht. I’ve traveled to the ancient city of Niveveh and the banks of the sewage-filled River Thames. I lived with a family, journeying from the mountains of Cilcia to contemporary New York City. Saving the darkest for last, I’ve lived under dictators, from Mussolini to the present.
Here are the books that took me there:
Historical Fiction
My Name is Emilia Del Valle, Isabel Allende
There are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak
The Burning Heart of the World: A Novel, Nancy Kricorian
History, past and presenT
Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame and the Rise of the Right, Arlie Russell Hochschild
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870 – 1914, David McCullough
Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, Fareed Zakaria
Thinking about thinking
How to Think like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, Donald J. Robertson
The Cold War
The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War, Ben Macintyre
A Shadow in Moscow, Katherine Reay
The Berlin Letters, Katherine Reay
Checkpoint Charlie: The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth, Iain MacGregor
The Great War
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, Sonia Purnell
Address Unknown, Katherine Kressmann Taylor
Unimaginable Grit
The Ship and the Storm: Hurricane Mitch and the Loss of the Fantome, Jim Carrier
Courage Under Fire: Testing Epicetus’s Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior, James B. Stockdale
To see the Infinite Library on my website, click here: https://randykaufman.com/books.
To see my blogs on reading, see: https://randykaufman.com/blog/category/Reading+Lessons.
If you have recommendations or thoughts to share, please let me know.
Wishing you a peaceful, relaxing, happy, and healthy summer ahead.
With gratitude for you, my dear readers.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Randy Kaufman, formerly a corporate tax attorney and investment banker, is now a wealth advisor who prides herself on focusing on what matters most: clients’ peace of mind, family dynamics, and getting enough, not more. Randy is a passionate student of impact investing, strategic philanthropy, and behavioral psychology (while not a psychologist, she occasionally plays one in the boardroom). She is dedicated to helping the underprivileged and is a proud member of global venture fund Acumen's advisory board. A thinker, learner, and pursuer of overarching truths, she is always eager to discuss big ideas about money, and its off-and-on associate, happiness.