Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The Best Books We Read in 2025

Transcript

The Best Books We Read in 2025 · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hi, Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Sometimes it's nice
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: to escape the daily grind. Sometimes it's nice to step
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: away from parenting and step in to I don't know,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: like just being a normal person who has time to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: read a book. I know it's a luxury. I know
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: not everyone gets to do it, but there's something almost
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  Speaker 1: sacred about reading. It's an indulgence, a form of intellectual
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and emotional nourishment that feeds part of me that not
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: much else reaches. And at the end of the year,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: at the start of the year, every year I write
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  Speaker 1: a blog, I write an article about my best books
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  Speaker 1: of the year just gone. And it was just yesterday
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: or the day before that we realized we haven't done
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: it this year. So missus Happy Families has her book
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  Speaker 1: lists all ready to go. I've got mine as well.
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  Speaker 1: After the break, we talk about our best books of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. If you're a reader, I hope that
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you love this episode. Stay with us. Hello and welcome
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to the Happy Family Podcast, where you get real parenting
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: solutions every single day except today on Australia's moost downloaded
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: parenting podcast. Why except today? Well, we are Justin and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Kylie Colson and normally we're talking parenting, but today we're
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: talking books. Our favorite books of twenty twenty five. Normally
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: we talk about this at the end of the year,
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  Speaker 1: or maybe at the start of the year. I can't remember,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: but we've kind of let it slip. It its February
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  Speaker 1: and I just realized, So, Kylie, let's follow the usual pattern.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: You first, what were your favorite books of last year?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know how much honesty you want right now,
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  Speaker 2: but I literally completely just grabbed last year's diary out
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  Speaker 2: of the rubbish pin, right, because did you actually I did?
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  Speaker 2: I literally did.
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  Speaker 1: Diary is done and taken to a February.
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  Speaker 2: Because you asked me how books I read, and I
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  Speaker 2: was like, oh, I read that in last year's Diary,
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  Speaker 2: and I'd only just decided to get rid of it.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm looking at this list of books that I
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  Speaker 2: read in January and February of last year.
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  Speaker 1: You stopped the list.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think I stopped the list stop reading. I
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  Speaker 2: think I stopped reading.
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  Speaker 1: Lives like that.
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  Speaker 2: And the only reason I can tell you with all
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  Speaker 2: certainty that I did read Essentialism by Greg McKeon is
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  Speaker 2: because as I go through the pages of my diary
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  Speaker 2: from last year. I have filled it with quotes that
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  Speaker 2: came from the book. They are brilliant.
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  Speaker 1: You don't remember it.
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  Speaker 2: I don't remember reading.
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  Speaker 1: It's really bad. It's a good book. It is a
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  Speaker 1: good book. Can I read a few quotes?
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  Speaker 2: Since I don't have a review, you can determine whether
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  Speaker 2: or not it's worth reading based on these. Tell me
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  Speaker 2: what is it you plan to do with your one,
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  Speaker 2: wild and precious life.
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  Speaker 1: He didn't say that that's somebody else's.
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  Speaker 2: It is somebody else's, Mary Oliver, but it was in
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  Speaker 2: the book right. It's not about getting more things done,
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  Speaker 2: it's about getting the right things done. If you don't
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  Speaker 2: prioritize your own life, someone else will. I feel that
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  Speaker 2: all the.
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  Speaker 1: Time, pushing buttons. There someone not respecting boundaries.
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  Speaker 2: And we can either make our choices deliberately or allow
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  Speaker 2: other people's agendas to control our lives. The thing, the
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  Speaker 2: ability to choose, cannot be taken away or even given away.
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  Speaker 2: It can only be forgotten. So you read Essentialism and
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  Speaker 2: did and you read it was clearly a brilliant book, because,
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  Speaker 2: like I said, every other page is full of quotes.
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  Speaker 1: You said that you had January and February books plural.
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  Speaker 1: Was there anything else that's worth talking about?
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  Speaker 2: No, No, you're cracking up. Most of them were church related.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: I did read the Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: which I do remember that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about it. I didn't like it at all.
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  Speaker 1: I thought it was a five page book that was
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  Speaker 1: stretched out for two hundred and eighty pages.
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  Speaker 2: Well, when you think about the fact that we need
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  Speaker 2: to hear things repeatedly for them to sink and for
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  Speaker 2: you're making fun of me. But I actually, as a
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  Speaker 2: woman who has been conditioned to believe that it's my
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  Speaker 2: job to control everything in my environment, learning to actually
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  Speaker 2: let other people make their choices for good or bad
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  Speaker 2: is really hard. Like it's completely a retraining. It's a
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  Speaker 2: reconditioning of everything I've grown to believe is my role.
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  Speaker 1: So you rated the book, I did write it, I didn't.
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  Speaker 1: I did, and I think.
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  Speaker 2: That it was I think that it was a necessary book.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, anything else on your book because I'm
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  Speaker 1: asking because I have a lot to talk about today.
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  Speaker 2: It did take me take me about seven months to
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  Speaker 2: finish the last book that I read. But again, another
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  Speaker 2: church book, right, and what's so crazy about it? And
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  Speaker 2: this is this is the crazy thing is I actually
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  Speaker 2: saw this guy speak and I loved what he shared,
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  Speaker 2: like it revolutionized the way I saw my life. And
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  Speaker 2: I just struggled to pick up a book. You know,
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  Speaker 2: there are times in our lives where I just I
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  Speaker 2: feel so encumbered by life that the idea of taking
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  Speaker 2: someone else's thoughts on is just beyond me.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, can I do my turn? How many books did
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  Speaker 1: you read this last look? Well, I didn't actually read
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  Speaker 1: as many as normal. The indulgence of book reading was
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  Speaker 1: really hard to come by because, because you're right, I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: was writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting my book
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: about boys, which comes out on June too, And you
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  Speaker 1: can join the wait list for the book. Oh my
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: website Happy families dot com dot Are you just putting
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  Speaker 1: it out there? The book I'm holding. I'm holding a
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  Speaker 1: copy of it. Nobody can see it, right, I know,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm just going to see I'm holding it. It's
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  Speaker 1: called Boys, Building Strong young Men from the inside out.
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  Speaker 1: Not what today's podcast is about it all, But if
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  Speaker 1: you're raising tween of teen boys, this is the book
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  Speaker 1: that you definitely want and I'm just looking at the
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  Speaker 1: cover makes me happy, I does, I'm so excited.
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  Speaker 2: And and again I look misconnection. Yeah, you've got this
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  Speaker 2: really angsty teenager.
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  Speaker 1: On, this teenage girl who's looking at the camera like
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  Speaker 1: come on, bring it on. Yeah, yeah, define, let's go.
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  Speaker 2: And then the cover of this, you've got a couple
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  Speaker 2: of boys who are just so carefree, and they looks
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  Speaker 2: like they jump.
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  Speaker 1: Rocks into the water, into the water. I can't even
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  Speaker 1: see their faces though, Like it's just these these these
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  Speaker 1: bodies enjoying life and everything that you can throw at it.
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  Speaker 1: It's wholesome childhood at its best.
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  Speaker 2: And what I love about that depiction is just if
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  Speaker 2: we can just bottle that up, so we can bottle
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  Speaker 2: up that beautiful, positive, exciting energy of boys and help
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  Speaker 2: them to navigate the challenges ahead.
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  Speaker 1: You really don't want me to do my book reviews?
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  Speaker 1: Do you'd rather talk about the book that I wrote
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  Speaker 1: that stopped me from reading books this year? I'm feeling
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  Speaker 1: you know what's coming, that's why, isn't it? You're just
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  Speaker 1: just stalling. I read twenty five books this year.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, which that's about half what you normally do.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, normally get somewhere between forty and fifty twenty five books,
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  Speaker 1: smallest canon years because writing and rewriting and refining arguments
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  Speaker 1: and wrestling with work and trying to articulate ideas that
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: were urgent but elusive is what my year was. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: even in a year of fewer books, there were a
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  Speaker 1: handful of transformative And we're going to have to do
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  Speaker 1: it after the break. Now, how am I going to
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  Speaker 1: get through eight books? My eight frames?
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  Speaker 2: You're not going to get through eight books?
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  Speaker 1: How many am I allowed?
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  Speaker 2: You're that too?
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  Speaker 1: Once?
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  Speaker 2: And two terrible ones?
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  Speaker 1: Well I didn't. I didn't keep a record of the
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  Speaker 1: terrible one. No, actually I did, but I'm not. I
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  Speaker 1: just I can't throw shade at people because writing a
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  Speaker 1: book is such an it's such a big deal. But
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  Speaker 1: it just feels unfair to tell people.
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  Speaker 2: All Right, So here's the deal. You can share two
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  Speaker 2: books that transformed your life, and you can share two
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  Speaker 2: books that you read that was super fun.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, after the break, the best books that you should
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  Speaker 1: read this year based on what I read last year.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Stay with us. We're back as the Happy Families podcast.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I feel like I'm under so much
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  Speaker 1: pressure this is kind of the pad and of every
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: one of our book club book discussions, isn't it. I
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  Speaker 1: get excited about too many books and then you get
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  Speaker 1: cranky at me and tell me that I'm not allowed
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  Speaker 1: to talk about them. Let me do my two best
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  Speaker 1: books of the year. I'm just I only put eight
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  Speaker 1: in this time, like I was really really well behaved,
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  Speaker 1: So I'm not going to talk about essentialism. I also
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  Speaker 1: read it last year. You've already talked about it. I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to cross that off. Also, I read two memoirs
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  Speaker 1: from Victoria Vanstone. One was called A Thousand Wasted Sundays
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  Speaker 1: and the other was called Mumming. They were delightful and
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  Speaker 1: I loved them, but I'm not going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: them either. Okay, So that takes three off eight straight out. No,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not cheating, not cheating. I also read some classic
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  Speaker 1: literature that is so durable. I read nineteen eighty four
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  Speaker 1: by George Orwell and Lonesome Dove by Larrying Murtry, and
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  Speaker 1: I completely I inhabited Bluntsome Dove, and nineteen eighty four
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  Speaker 1: was so precient, like I was written in nineteen forty nine,
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  Speaker 1: and it felt like it was about what's going on
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  Speaker 1: right now in terms of the political landscape. So rather
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: than talking about them, I'm just going to talk about
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: two books, because that's what you said I could talk about.
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  Speaker 1: Is that? Okay? First one, Careless People, a memoir by
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  Speaker 1: Sarah Win Williams. You're looking at it right now, it's
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: directly above your head. This is my non fiction book
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: of the year. So I picked it up. And everybody
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: knows how I feel about Facebook. The people who run
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: it are the most mendacious people on the planet. I
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  Speaker 1: think that Facebook is responsible for more suffering, particularly for
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  Speaker 1: young people on our planet, than perhaps any other Specifically,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg is responsible for more suffering in the lives
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  Speaker 1: of young people than any other person who has ever
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  Speaker 1: inhabited the planet. By the time I finished the book,
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  Speaker 1: I could not find words to describe my revulsion when
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: it comes to meta and what they're about. When Williams
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't just critique, she was working at the highest levels,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: like she was catching Zuckerberg's private playing with him to
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: go and meet with presidents and prime ministers. She prosecutes,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: and she very very clearly. I mean, she has to
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: have so much evidence for what she's saying because otherwise
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Facebook would take her down in court, and they haven't.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: She lays the Rahinga genocide in Myanmar entirely at Facebook's feet,
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  Speaker 1: deaths of despair, points a finger at Facebook the erosion
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  Speaker 1: of our democratic institutions Facebook. This is a meticulously documented
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: indictment of what happens when a company prioritizes engagement metrics
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  Speaker 1: over human welfare. And the thing that I found most
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  Speaker 1: challenging about it is that nothing's going to change. So
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  Speaker 1: the book left me furious. It left me feeling helpless
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  Speaker 1: and just profoundly unsettled, which is precisely why the book matters.
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  Speaker 1: And I wish more people would read Careless People by
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Sarah Winn Williams more politicians, particularly because it could actually
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: change the world if they did.
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  Speaker 2: So.
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  Speaker 1: That's my first of the two that you've given me
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: to talk about. Super Blue by Nicholas Carr. I loved it,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to move instead to Searching for Normal
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: by Sammy to Mimi, which we did talk about of
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the podcast a couple of times last year. It's dense,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: it's often technical. Occasionally it's just way too wordy, but again,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I just think it's absolutely essential for the same reason
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: like Careless People, it's a brilliant book that's unsettling, and
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: it matters tremendously. Raises really complex questions about big farmer,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the mental health industrial complex, the usefulness of psychology and psychiatry,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: and it asks a whole lot of questions that people
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: in psychological and psychiatric practice particularly would rather avoid. I
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: think that I think that this is a book that's
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: going to have more impact on my work than maybe
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: anything else that I read in twenty twenty five, and
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: it's definitely forced me to reconsider systems and diagnoses and
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: interventions and ways of doing psychology that I've long long
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: considered normal and taken for granted. Searching for Normal Normal
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: by Sammy to Mimy. So there you go. There's my
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: book list. That's my best books I've read in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty five, and I think I did it fast and appropriately.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Any feedback, any response, I'm impressed, Thank you, I feel did.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: You read anything that was fun?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I said, A Victoria Events, Stone Books, Mumming, and
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: A Thousand Wasted Sundays were definitely fun. And as I
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: quickly scanned through the list of others, I mean I
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: only read twenty five, So it's not a particularly deep list.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, I really there's a couple of books that
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to love but they just didn't get
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: me there, Like Green Lights by Matthew mcconnie.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I was looking at that and I'm like, I'm pretty
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: sure I read that last year too.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I read it. I think you told me
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: that you really liked it. I mean, fascinating story, huge adventure,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: nice insights, an amazing life, a guy who's really aware
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: of the change and the growing up and maturation that
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: he's been through. I just I gave it a four.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a five, and I think that's probably probably
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: about it. I mean, I read a lot of serious
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: stuff last year, and I was so absorbed in the
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: book that I was writing, well, I'm.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Pretty impressed because I think that was the shortest book
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: review you have ever.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Done, and it was a whole year.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Well, it's only because you read half the books.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: That I know, none we would care. Maybe I'm off
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: to a good start this year, though. Oh my goodness,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I've just closed the cover of the most exquisite novel
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I've ever read. I think, I mean, I loved Lonesome
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: dub that was pretty that was pretty exquisite. But A
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Gentleman in Moscow you can't share that yet by a hotel.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: That's going to be next year's fiction book of the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Year for sure. Oh my goodness. That was like seventy
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: five out of five. That was You've got to read it.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I've read two books to start this year,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: so I'm doing well.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: That's about how many you wrote down that you read
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: last year.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm on track. Yeah, you're doing really, really well.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Let's see how the rest of the year goes. Hey,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Says you don't read fun books. I just finished reading
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: the Thursday Murder Club.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I'm reading something fun now. That's why I'm reading Richard
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Osman not loving it after reading A Gentleman in Moscow
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and it's just so good.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: It was so much fun, so much fun.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: All right, number of book clubs until next year, but
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: we'll look forward to seeing it tomorrow. On the Happy
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Families podcast, which is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Mimhammonds provides all of our additional admin support. If you've
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: got a child who is struggling with ADHD We've got
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: a course available online that I think might just change
• 14:37
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• 14:40
  Speaker 1: It's available at Happy Families dot com dot au.