Since the new year is already getting up to speed, passionate readers have been setting their reading goals and compiling their reading lists. As some people occasionally ask me for recommendations, here are a few great books that I recommend to read in 2025.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

This book started my self-improvement journey. Habits described in this book are foundations of my way of working and achieving goals. Content described there can be applied not only to make your personal and professional life more effective but also to make your business or projects more effective.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

The previous book introduces us to some habits that we need to build and this book teaches us how to set them. Building good habits and breaking bad ones is a cornerstone aspect of self-improvement. This book introduces techniques on how to adjust your mindset and routine in order to establish habits that you want to develop.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

As I am an introvert in nature, this book helped me to become more comfortable talking with people and establishing relationships. The rules outlined in this book are really simple, but as Einstein said “The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple”. So if you want to be more communicative and build stronger connections with people - learn and follow those rules.

The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford

The phrase “the grass is always greener on the other side” is totally opposed to what you read in the beginning of this book. This book tells us a story about a company that definitely would not win “The most desirable employee” reward. Some people might see reflections of their own companies, colleagues or even themselves in this book.

But this is not a horror, but a motivational story. Characters understand that there are some issues and aim to fix them by introducing modern practices like Agile, Lean, DevOps and etc. to improve not only their well-being but save the company itself from total destruction.

This book helped me to understand that there is no ideal company or workplace and we must be motivated to push ourselves and our colleagues to improve every day with the goal of becoming a better workplace.

SQL Performance Explained by Markus Winand

This last book is purely technical. This is THE book if you want to understand and learn SQL performance. In my books (pun intended), this is definitely a must read book if you work with SQL databases. Also, some content is available for free on the author’s website.