Fave Books of 2025 📚
Dec 03, 2025Books!!! 📚
A number of amazing books this past year. Here are the top ones for me. I hope you find something you love!!!
1. From Russia to Joy by yours truly, Mariya Shiyko. I still love this book so much. It's both joyful and deep. And the journey I describe in it isn't really geographical, but internal. I had several readers this year telling me, "It's like I am sitting across from you with a cup of tea and listening to your story."
2. The Pathless Path by Paul Miller, where he shares a story about leaving a high-paying corporate job. It was balm on my Soul. To read about some shared experiences and his choice to transition out. The patterns are so common, and it's good to relate to another human and his journey through it.
3. Good Work: Reclaiming Your Inner Ambition by Paul Miller. Has so many wonderful insights about what good work is and isn't. It shifts the focus to internal motivation and internal drive. It also presents vulnerable stories about money anxiety, choices you make along the way, and priorities and values that develop over time.
4. Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand In the Way of True Inspiration. By Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace. This is a fantastic book about creativity in a corporate world - how it can be intentionally created and maintained. Ed Catmull is a computer scientist and a former president of Pixar, an animation studio that produced many famous films such as Toy Story, Cars, Inside Out, etc. It's a book about a different kind of leadership - humble, open-minded, self-reflective, while also results-driven. I have found so much inspiration and guidance in this book.
5. Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. This book has been sitting on my bookshelf for years, and I finally picked it up and really enjoyed it! In Alignment with Brene's work, it talks about the power of vulnerability and how it can be implemented in leadership and corporate settings. I love her self-humiliating stories and the sharpness of her humor.
6. The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. Another book worth revisiting, as it touches another layer of self-protection called "trying to be perfect," rather than human. Messages of self-acceptance and self-kindness are everywhere in this book.
7. For parents in the house. Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud & Ned Johnson is great. My reminder is that self-regulation is necessary to implement these approaches. To stay connected to your heart, when you want to control and micro-manage what your child chooses and does. In my experience (Amari is almost 5 now), giving choice and freedom creates trust, respect, and love in the relationship.
8. Do Hope. Why you should never give up. By Gain Muller. It's a small yet inspiration-packed book for anyone going through a hard time, and why giving up isn't an option. The personal story shared in the book is about health struggles, yet it applies to any aspect of life.
9. My Brilliant Money Book: For Joyful & Creative Living by Lindsey Hunt & Mariya Shiyko. This is a channeled book that has lots of wisdom. When we were writing it 6 years ago, neither of us fully embodied what we wrote. Coming back to it later hits home on the fundamental beliefs and attitudes about money. Both Lindsey and I (the co-authors) have come a long way, and our relationship with money has surely changed. Hope yours will too.
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That's it for today.