Welcome to the Tramondo Year-End Reading List 2025, where we explore the enduring questions that shape wealth, leadership, and the quest for meaning in an increasingly complex world.
As another year draws to a close, we find ourselves at a remarkable inflection point—where economic foundations shift beneath our feet, where the very definition of wealth demands re-examination, and where the relationship between individual privacy and collective progress grows ever more contested.
This year’s selection takes us on a journey through four distinct yet interconnected landscapes. We begin with an accessible expedition through economic history, understanding how the forces that built today’s global economy continue to shape tomorrow’s opportunities.
We then move inward, examining the psychology of spending and what it truly means to be wealthy.
From there, we ascend to the heights of geopolitical strategy, learning from leaders who transformed nations through vision and will.
We conclude with a pulse-racing exploration of privacy, surveillance, and the price of freedom in the digital age—a cautionary tale wrapped in the cloak of a thriller.
Together, these works form a constellation of insights for those who understand that stewardship of wealth requires more than financial acumen—it demands historical perspective, psychological wisdom, strategic thinking, and an unwavering commitment to the values that matter most.
May these readings guide your reflections as you prepare for the year ahead.
The team at Tramondo wishes you a peaceful and contemplative holiday season.
"The Shortest History of Economics" – Andrew Leigh
Welcome to an extraordinary journey through human economic history, distilled into a masterwork of clarity and insight. Andrew Leigh’s “The Shortest History of Economics” accomplishes what many have attempted but few have achieved: making the sweep of economic thought accessible, engaging, and directly relevant to understanding our world today.
Andrew Leigh brings a rare combination of academic rigour and practical perspective to this endeavour. A former Professor of Economics at the Australian National University and holder of a PhD from Harvard, Leigh currently serves as Australia’s Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment. This unusual blend of scholarly depth and policy experience infuses every page with both intellectual credibility and real-world applicability.
In just over 200 pages, Leigh traces the hidden economic forces behind war, innovation, and social transformation. He reveals how capitalism and market systems emerged, introduces the key ideas and thinkers who shaped the discipline, and illuminates the economic underpinnings of pivotal historical moments. From the agricultural revolution to the warming of our planet, Leigh weaves a narrative punctuated by insights that transform how we understand the present.
The book offers surprising revelations throughout: the radical origins of the game of Monopoly, why the invention of the plough led to gender inequality, how certain diseases shaped the patterns of colonialism, and the reasons skyscrapers emerged first in American cities. These are not mere curiosities but windows into the deeper logic of economic development.
The critical reception has been exceptional. Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin offered perhaps the highest praise: “If you read just one book about economics, make it Andrew Leigh’s clear, insightful, and remarkable work.” The Financial Times named it among their “Best Summer Books of 2024,” while The Economist celebrated it as essential reading for understanding finance. Betsey Stevenson of the University of Michigan called it “essential reading for anyone looking to understand today’s economy.”
For those who steward multi-generational wealth, Leigh’s book provides crucial context. Understanding how economies transform, why certain innovations reshape entire industries, and what historical patterns suggest about future developments—these insights are indispensable for long-term thinking. The book’s emphasis on the interplay between technology, institutions, and human behaviour offers a framework for anticipating rather than merely reacting to change.
"The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life" – Morgan Housel
Having explored how wealth is created across human history, we now turn to a question that successful wealth builders often find surprisingly difficult: how to spend it wisely. Morgan Housel, whose previous work “The Psychology of Money” became a modern classic in financial literature, and was featured on a previous edition of our Reading List, returns with an equally profound examination of the other side of the equation.
Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund and a former columnist at The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal. He is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, winner of the New York Times Sidney Award, and a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. His ability to transform complex financial psychology into accessible wisdom has earned him millions of devoted readers worldwide.
“The Art of Spending Money” challenges a fundamental assumption: that those who have mastered wealth creation automatically understand wealth utilisation. Housel argues persuasively that most of us don’t know how to spend money well. We chase things that impress others but leave us cold. Or we save endlessly, afraid to spend on what would actually make life better. We confuse admiration with envy, comfort with excess, and utility with status.
The book does not offer budgets, hacks, or one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, it provides understanding—of how your relationship with money shapes your decisions, and how to reshape it so money works for you. Housel demonstrates why the most valuable return on investment is peace of mind, why expectations matter more than income, and why doing well with money has less to do with spreadsheets and more to do with self-awareness.
One of the book’s most powerful insights concerns the definition of wealth itself: “The most powerful definition of wealth is not what you have. What actually matters is the gap between what you have and what you want.” This reframing transforms how we think about financial success and personal satisfaction.
The reception has been extraordinary. The book achieved instant bestseller status on both the Sunday Times and New York Times lists. Kiplinger magazine featured an extensive interview, while CNBC highlighted Housel’s core insight that “wealth is always a two-part equation—it’s what you have minus what you want.”
For entrepreneurs transitioning from active wealth creation to thoughtful wealth stewardship, Housel’s work offers essential perspective. The psychological traps he identifies—the confusion of status with satisfaction, the difficulty of changing from saver to spender in later life, the challenge of finding purpose beyond accumulation—speak directly to the journey many successful individuals face. His observation that “wealth without independence is a form of poverty” resonates particularly with those who have built their success through independent thinking.
"Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy" – Henry Kissinger
Few figures in modern diplomacy have polarised observers as consistently as Henry Kissinger. His actions and legacy have been vividly debated for decades, and that debate will undoubtedly continue. Yet whatever one’s verdict on the man, his final work offers observations and historical insights that reward even his most ardent critics.
“Leadership” is more than a history book—it is a mirror held up to our present. Written at the age of 99, it stands as his final work, a coda to a lifetime of writings that shaped how generations understand power, from “Diplomacy” to “On China.” Through six sharply drawn portraits, Kissinger demonstrates how leadership can bend the arc of events, even when the leaders themselves are as divisive as the times they shaped.
Kissinger served as US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under Presidents Nixon and Ford, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, and advised virtually every American president from Nixon onward. With this work, completed shortly before his passing in November 2023, he offers what only he could: first-hand observation of leaders he knew personally, combined with a lifetime of strategic analysis.
Each portrait carries fresh weight for our times. Konrad Adenauer reminds us what it takes to rebuild trust and legitimacy after national collapse—a lesson with renewed relevance in an age of fractured democracies. Charles de Gaulle embodies how identity and pride can be mobilised to restore a nation’s voice, pertinent wherever states struggle to assert themselves in a multipolar world. Richard Nixon demonstrates that even the most controversial figures can redraw global maps—his opening to China resonates as power realignment once again defines our era. Anwar Sadat shows the bravery of breaking taboos for peace, a reminder that reconciliation often begins with a single risky choice. Lee Kuan Yew proves how strategic clarity and discipline can turn vulnerability into resilience—a model for small states navigating great-power rivalry today, much like Switzerland’s own balancing act in defending its interests amid trade disputes with larger powers. And Margaret Thatcher illustrates the force of conviction in transforming a nation’s direction, still echoing in debates on economic sovereignty and national purpose.
Woven through these portraits are fragments of Kissinger’s own life and vantage point, making the book as much a reflection on his biography as on theirs. The Wall Street Journal called it “an extraordinary book,” while the Financial Times noted that “his books—including this one—will hopefully be read well into the future.”
The result is a powerful reminder that history is not background noise but the very raw material of leadership—and that studying it remains essential for anyone tasked with shaping the future. Kissinger’s reflections are not merely prescient; written only a few years ago, they demonstrate how clearly he foresaw the very struggles unfolding in 2025. By choosing these particular leaders, he purposefully conveyed his own message about how shrewd advisers guide their masters through history’s recurring dilemmas.
"Going Zero: A Novel" – Anthony McCarten
We conclude our journey with a change of pace—a pulse-pounding thriller that nonetheless speaks directly to the challenges of our age. Anthony McCarten’s “Going Zero” takes the anxieties of the surveillance era and transforms them into a gripping narrative that entertains even as it unsettles.
McCarten brings extraordinary credentials to his fiction. He is a four-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, best known for the biopics “The Theory of Everything” (2014), “Darkest Hour” (2017), “Bohemian Rhapsody” (2018), and “The Two Popes” (2019). Three of these films won consecutive Oscars in the Best Actor category. “Bohemian Rhapsody” became the second highest-grossing drama of all time. His non-fiction work “Darkest Hour” was a Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller. McCarten understands how to craft narrative tension while exploring serious themes.
The premise is deceptively simple. Ten Americans are carefully selected to beta test a groundbreaking piece of spyware called FUSION, developed by tech wunderkind Cy Baxter in partnership with the CIA. Each participant is given two hours to “go zero”—to disappear off-grid—and then thirty days to elude sophisticated Capture Teams. Anyone who beats FUSION wins $3 million. If Cy’s system finds them all, he wins a $90 billion government contract.
Among the contestants is an unassuming Boston librarian named Kaitlyn Day. She’s been chosen as the easy target, expected to be found first. But Kaitlyn’s talents at this particular game are far more effective than anyone suspects, and her reasons for playing far more personal than anyone can imagine.
The New York Times named it a Best Thriller, with reviewer Sarah Lyall calling it “crackling… shimmering with alarming portents about the state we find ourselves in.” Booklist gave it a starred review, praising it as “an outstanding thriller” that “cleverly and plausibly extrapolates from today’s technology to what we may well see tomorrow.” A.J. Finn, author of “The Woman in the Window,” called it “a speculative-fiction classic in the vein of I, Robot and Jurassic Park—a thriller you can gobble down with a bucket of popcorn, and also feel smarter for having read.”
Beyond entertainment, the novel speaks to fundamental questions about privacy, autonomy, and the trade-offs we make in the name of security. For individuals of significant wealth—whose financial activities, movements, and communications are inevitably of interest to various parties—the themes resonate with particular force. The book reminds us that in an age of unprecedented surveillance capability, the preservation of privacy requires not just technology but vigilance, strategy, and an understanding of what we are willing to defend.
