đź“š 2025 in the Books I Read đź“š

I’ve spent almost two decades working in the homelessness sector and I’m currently deep in an MSc in Systems Thinking. On paper, my job is about “flows,” “mechanisms,” and “frameworks.”

But systems don’t exist on paper. They exist in the lives of people who are often invisible to the architects of those very systems. My 2025 reading list (from Ian Dunt to Gabriel Krauze) was a deliberate attempt to look at the UK from both the boardroom and the street corner.

Here are 3 things I’ve taken away:

  1. The “Architecture of Power” is often designed for speed, not empathy. Reading Ian Dunt’s How Westminster Works alongside Lady Hale’s Spider Woman highlights a painful truth: our institutions often favour short-term “narrative” over long-term structural health. When we design policy without understanding the “plumbing” of the civil service or the judiciary, we create systems that are fragile at best and obstructive at worst.

  2. We must account for “The Ghosts” in the system. Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You are reminders that people bring their histories—their traumas, their shames, and their “ghosts”—into every interaction they have with the state. A truly “trauma-informed” system isn't just a checklist; it’s an acknowledgement that the past is always present in the room.

  3. “Voicelessness” is a systemic choice. Katriona O'Sullivan's Poor and Gabriel Krauze’s Who They Was are visceral, first-hand accounts of life at the sharp end of poverty and crime. They remind us that the people we categorise as “service users” often have a higher “systems literacy” than the consultants, simply because they have to navigate the cracks in the pavement every day.

The Lesson for 2026: As a systems coach, it’s easy to get lost in the “top-down” view. But if our models don't account for the messy, and often brutal reality then our models are wrong.

In 2026, I’m challenging myself to design with more active optimism—not just identifying what is broken, but listening to the voices that are already trying to fix it from the inside out.