Craig Pickering

Craig Pickering’s top reads of 2025

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2025 was an interesting year for me from a reading perspective – I shifted to consuming more fiction books than ever before (more on this later). Overall, I started 34 books in 2025; this is less than my target of 52, but I think it reflects the stage of life I am at – with two young kids, it’s becoming increasingly common for me to fall asleep having read just a few pages. I’ve also got much better at stopping books that I’m not enjoying or don’t find relevant; when this happens, I can ask ChatGPT for a summary of the main topics, and get some podcasts from the author to understand the key arguments, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out. Below are my best reads from 2025 – hopefully you find some inspiration from them!

» Related Content: Craig Pickering shares his top books each year. Read his recommendations from 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 for more ideas on what book to pick up next.

  • Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Future of War by Raj Shah and Christopher Kirchoff – In my professional role, 2025 had a shift in focus towards Research and Innovation, and specifically what we can do to try and enhance the overall performance of athletes. One of my big ideas is that there is often more to be learned from outside of sport than from other sports, and I find that the military are often world-leading in terms of innovation – in part due to the high stakes, but also the large budgets. This book explores the development of an innovation unit within the US military, the trials and tribulations of shifting slow moving bureaucracy into a fast-moving machine, but also some cool ideas for where innovation might come in the future. Overall, it was a really enjoyable book, with some key takehomes for those involves in research and innovation.
  • Arsene Who?: The Story of the Wenger Revolution and They Always Score: The Unforgettable, Improbable, Iconic Story of Manchester United’s Treble Winners by Ryan Baldi – When I started my role as relay coach for the Australian Men’s 4x100m team, I thought the role would be largely technical in nature: put together some session plans, deliver those, and everything would be ok. That was naïve of me; in fact, the majority of the role is trying to develop a culture and environment conducive to high performance. To assist me, I read a number of books about high performing teams. These two, from author Ryan Baldi, were two of the best. They Always Score tells the story of the Manchester United team of 1998-1999, who won the Premier League, FA Cup, and Champions League—the latter with two goals in injury time. Arsene Who? explores the introduction of Arsene Wenger, the French man appointed manager of Arsenal in 1996, and how he revolutionised the club.
  • White Gold: England’s Journey to Rugby World Cup Glory by Peter Burns and Dear England: The Real Story of the Three Lions Rebirth by Jonathan Northcroft – Building on the books from English domestic football, I shifted to two that looked at international success. White Gold tells the story of England Rugby’s 2003 World Cup win, which is (arguably) the best example of a sports science revolution driving a team success, along with meticulous planning and talented athletes. Dear England discusses how Gareth Southgate, a genuine hero of mine, transformed the English football team from a seriously underperforming group into legitimate contenders. Most interesting to me was the backdrop of penalty shootouts; England were eliminated from major competitions on penalties in 1990, 1996 (where Southgate himself missed the crucial penalty), 1998, 2004, 2006, and 2012. Since Southgate took over, their record improved significantly—how he did this has implications for skill acquisition and learning design that I’ve taken into my role of relay coach.
  • How to Win: Lessons in Success from the Front Line of Performance Psychology by Dr Kate Hays – It’s not often you get a complete framework for success from someone who has helped deliver it over a sustained period, but that’s essentially what this book is. Here, Dr Hays, recently the English FA’s Head of Women’s Psychology and TeamGB psychologist, outlines here model for delivering successful performances, comprised of understanding who we are, why we’re here, how we perform, and how we win – each section providing invaluable guidance on how to do it yourself.
  • World War 3 Novels – After reading Unit X, I also shifted to fiction, but all centred around one topic; the next World War. I started with White Sun War, which covers the coalition response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. It isn’t highly futuristic (set more or less in the present day), but it highlights how some of the innovations discussed in Unit X might play out in a real conflict. I enjoyed it so much that I then read 2034: A Novel of the Next World War. This was a less tech-heavy look at the same conflict (a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and the US response) that devolves into a tactical nuclear conflict. The sequel, 2054, looks at the impact of this nuclear conflict on the world 20 years later, and contains a lot of futuristic technologies that border on fantasy (and the next book, 2084: A Novel of Future War is due for release in 2026)—it’s interesting, but not particularly relevant to the present day. After this, I read Red Metal, which is a novel about a limited conflict between Russia and the US/NATO in Central Europe and Africa. It’s probably the best story, focusing less on the technological innovations but highly readable – the sequel in out at the end of 2026. Finally, I read Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War, which covers the US response to a Chinese invasion of Hawaii; similar to Red Metal, it’s less tech-heavy but a great overview of what could happen in this scenario. Ultimately, these books highlight the potential use of stories about near-future events, and how we can use these stories to guide that we do now to prepare. I’d recommend starting with White Sun War, and then branching out from there.