Aaron Bastani’s top literary picks of 2025 probe China’s ‘engineering state’, the underbelly of AI, and the gripping history of British euroscepticism that formed the undercurrents behind Brexit. All writers have been interviewed on Novara Media’s own Downstream, offering a platter of astute political and economic analysis interrogating moments and themes that are set to define the 21st century. Don’t just take it from us, but in Aaron’s own words:  

Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future - Dan Wang

As recently as 1997, as Hong Kong was returned to China, Britain manufactured more cars than the Asian power. Fast forward to today, and the latter is the world’s leading exporter of vehicles and is producing some of the world’s most impressive EVs. In a growing number of industries, from renewables to robotics, it is the global number one. That success, combined with a sense of political and economic inertia across much of the West is, for the first in over half a century, raising questions about the advantages of various economic systems. Is China creating a successor model to that of the free market? Is it actually ‘communist’? And, even if it isn’t, what might we learn from Beijing to help solve the great challenges of our time?

Empire of AI - Karen Hao

Journalism is the first draft of history. Hao’s book goes beyond that, however, with her previous coverage of OpenAI, and a burgeoning AI sector in the United States, augmented here by dozens of interviews from OpenAI staff - both past and present. She also speaks to hundreds of people across the tech industry. Hao studied with the object of her study at MIT, and brings authority as not only a wise observer, but someone deeply familiar with the ideals and presumptions of those people remaking our world: Silicon Valley. Who are these masters of the universe, really?

Between The Waves - Tom McTague 

Brexit happened in 2016 - and it finally became real after 2020. But the political and intellectual currents behind it were decades in the making. In this gripping history of British euroscepticism, McTague examines the thinkers, events and ideas that led to the country’s departure from the European Union. And it all starts in Algiers, in 1943 - with Jean Monnet, Harold Macmillan, Charles De Gaulle and Enoch Powell all being in the North African city at the same time.