Los Angeles residents are turning to books for solace and guidance amid a challenging year marked by wildfires, political upheaval, and cultural disruptions, as evidenced by a growing trend toward intentional reading habits.
Beyond the Spotify Wrapped: Finding Meaning in a Stack of Books
A tangible reading list offers a deeper reflection on a turbulent year than any algorithm.
- 2025 proved a particularly fraught year for Los Angeles, with devastating fires, political tensions, and cultural controversies.
- The “book stack” method—physically stacking completed books—provides a tangible and motivating way to track reading progress.
- Several books resonated with readers seeking understanding of authoritarianism and resistance, including works by Timothy Snyder and Hans Fallada.
- Intentional reading offers a more profound self-assessment than passive listening habits tracked by platforms like Spotify.
While December often brings a flurry of Spotify Wrapped posts, revealing our musical tastes, a more meaningful self-assessment might lie in a different kind of collection: the book stack. For those in Los Angeles, 2025 has been a year defined by hardship—the aftermath of the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, haunting ICE raids, the federal administration’s ceaseless attacks on California, and even Jimmy Kimmel getting silenced. Perhaps taking a deeper temperature check is in order.
Unlike the passive experience of listening to music while folding laundry or commuting, reading demands intention. A growing number of readers are embracing the analogue method of the book stack: simply placing each finished book atop a shelf, creating a visible monument to their progress. This tactile approach, while lacking the analytics of apps like StoryGraph or Goodreads, offers a powerful visual reminder and a unique form of motivation.
The practice began in 2020 as a playful response to pandemic-induced downtime, initially yielding just 19 books (despite the challenge of tackling “Crime and Punishment”). However, the gamified approach quickly took hold, transforming reading into a priority. Books now accompany the author to bars, movie theaters, and even the DMV, filling moments of waiting with literary exploration. By 2023, the stack peaked at 52 books, averaging one per week.
But quantity isn’t the sole measure of success. The 2025 book stack revealed a clear theme: a search for understanding and strategies for navigating times of potential authoritarian rule. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s “All the President’s Men,” while a landmark achievement in investigative journalism, felt somewhat dated in its approach. Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America,” depicting an alternate history with Charles Lindbergh as president, offered a chilling portrait of rising antisemitism, though its resolution felt contrived. Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “All the Light We Cannot See,” while beautifully written, seemed destined for a Hollywood adaptation rather than offering genuine insight into living under oppression.
Two titles, however, stood out as particularly relevant. Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny,” a concise handbook drawing lessons from 20th-century communist and fascist regimes, provided 20 practical strategies for resistance—like “Do not obey in advance,” “Defend institutions,” and “Believe in truth.” The book, which has sold over a million copies since its release in 2017 at the start of Trump’s first term, took on new urgency, especially given Snyder’s own recent move to Canada. Hans Fallada’s “Alone in Berlin” (also known as “Every Man Dies Alone”), based on the true story of a Berlin couple who secretly distributed anti-Nazi postcards, offered a compelling example of small acts of defiance with significant impact.
Fallada’s perspective is particularly poignant. Having endured the hardships of Nazi rule himself, his prose carries the weight of lived trauma. He managed to complete and publish “Alone in Berlin” before his death in 1947 at the age of 53.
The overarching lesson gleaned from these books is clear: fear is a tyrant’s greatest weapon. A citizenry unafraid to voice dissent, challenge injustice, and pursue personal fulfillment is far more difficult to control. This realization underscores the importance of actively defending rights, pushing back against wrongdoing, and carving out time for personal enjoyment.
To that end, the book stack also included lighter fare: Jena Friedman’s “Not Funny,” short stories by Nikolai Gogol, Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake” (inspired by Gogol), and novels by Kurt Vonnegut. Even Vonnegut offered prescient wisdom, as in “Slapstick,” where he observes, “Fascists are inferior people who believe it when somebody tells them they’re superior.”
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