The Best Books of 2024 and What To Read in 2025

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1:31Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. This is the final episode of 2024. So first off, I hope it was a great year for you and your family, and I'm wishing you health and happiness in 2025. And I certainly want you to be a subscriber to our podcast and our YouTube channel, so please do that as well, because we've got some great things coming up in 2025. But I'd like to spend the next 15 minutes or so in our final podcast, just going over some of the highlights of 2024. We had some of the brightest minds and sharpest thinkers, frankly, in the world on this podcast. It was authors not just here from the United States, but frankly, from around the world.

2:15The first one I want to talk about is Morgan Housel. Beginning part of the year, he wrote a book, Same as Ever. We explored how to live a good life and navigate the future with a clearer perspective. And Morgan Hasel's great insight in this book is that lots of things are the same. What we need to do is adapt ourselves to things that are somewhat unchangeable. And of course, as always, Morgan, who wrote the bestselling book, The Psychology of Money, reminds us that it's just the simple things that we do in life that make all the difference, i.e. myself, just quickly, age 17, I read The Richest Man in Babylon.

2:56Morgan read that as well. He incorporated it into the psychology of winning. It's just a simple trick. You pay 10 % of your income to yourself, and you buy stocks with it, and you hold on to those stocks forever. And if you get to be an old man like me, you turn around and you have a decent amount of money. And so these are simple things. Morgan was a phenomenal, phenomenal writer, phenomenal thinker. You can always go back and check out that podcast. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. No trade is free. What a phenomenal book. If you want to learn about Donald Trump's trade policy, the thinking, the philosophical thinking behind it and why Mr.

3:37Lighthizer believes that no trade is free. Interestingly enough, Robert's going to be an advisor to the administration, but it doesn't look like he's going into the administration this time. But I think his book is a great template for what's gone on in the history of trade with the United States and with Donald Trump. And believe it or not, even some of the Democrats believe needs to be corrected about our trade policy. No trade is free. Another standout for me was the legendary Kara Swisher, not only because Kara interviewed me for my own book from Wall Street to the White House and back for an open book, but she wrote a book called Burn Book, which is a phenomenal idea, actually.

4:17So what is Burn Book to a teenager? That's their diary. OK, no one should read it. It has to be burnt. but Ms. Swisher, she's writing about all great things related to technology, tech moguls, what goes on in Silicon Valley. Important book right now because Donald Trump is bringing in tons and tons of people from Silicon Valley into the White House. Now, a little cautionary tale there for those of you that have an interest in this historically, Jack Kennedy wanted to bring the best and the brightest people into his cabinet. David Habelstein, about five years after that wrote a book called The Best and the Brightest.

4:55And it was about the mistakes that people make. Sometimes when you're too smart for your own good, you have a tendency towards arrogance or hubris. And The Best and the Brightest is a cautionary tale about bringing in super smart people into the White House. Of course, they let us down the road to the Vietnam War. And that was an unmitigated disaster for the US. So again, not saying that will happen with the Trump administration, but people have to be careful with their own smarts, myself included, by the way. I've made mistakes related to stupidity, ego, and arrogance, but these books are a great, great reads.

5:32Byrne book and David Havelstam, the best and the brightest. With it being an election year, 2024, we brought on some of our old friends. General H.R. McMaster wrote a phenomenal book, at war with ourselves, just talking about the things that we're doing to each other inside the country to tear ourselves apart, but also on policy. Why do we have such a violent disagreement on U.S. policy? Years ago, we had a coordinated bipartisan strategy towards certain things that we thought were threats to the United States. And why are we doing that to ourselves today? H.R. McMaster, brilliant geopolitical thinker, and offer some really sound advice for the incoming administration on how to handle things like the Ukrainian war or the Middle East crisis that's going on with Gaza and Israel.

6:22Other books, George Stephanopoulos, Situation Room. While I've been in the White House Situation Room, it's a lot smaller than people think. Even the Oval Office is actually a lot smaller. When you walk in, you're like, wait, this is the Situation Room. But Stephanopoulos writes an amazing book about presidents in crisis, in the situation room, how they make decisions. And of course, one of the things that I learned in my brief tenure in Washington is we just don't know a lot. You know, a lot of the time the president and his team are shooting in the dark as they're trying to make these decisions.

6:56It's not like Hollywood where there's a preordained script and there's going to be a positive outcome. We have so many things that we are guessing at as we try to invoke policy, military policy, and other things. George wrote a great book about this. Franklin Foyer wrote a great book about Joe Biden called The Last Politician. It's an amazing story about how Joe Biden for 40 years ran for president. Literally, he's been running for president since 1988, actually wins the presidency in 2020. United States is exhausted from the first Trump administration and very scared related to COVID. They kick out Mr.

7:39Trump. They bring in Joe Biden. His team actually does a reasonably good job. But we learn we learn in this book that Mr. Biden is actually perhaps too old for the presidency. All of us age at different rates, of course. But Mr. Biden is probably 81 or 82 years old at this point. But the last politician really recounts things that he did in his career and things that he did, which were frankly remarkably good judgment at the beginning part of his administration. Things like the CHIPS Act and the Act to Reshore Manufacturing were great pieces of his legislative agenda. But, of course, Mr. Biden is not able to hold on.

8:19He loses the presidency. Donald Trump returns to the presidency being the first president, actually the second president in U.S. history. Donald Trump becomes the second president in U.S. history, Grover Cleveland being the first, where we have a interruption. Cleveland loses and he returns to the presidency. Trump loses to Biden. He's now back in the presidency. I'm going to make the case here that Biden, ironically, perhaps made Trump and Trump's movement stronger. And of course, not giving Kamala Harris enough time, 107 days to run a campaign against him, even though she only lost by about 270 ,000 votes in the swing states.

9:00It gives Trump a decent, decent mandate, at least for the first 18 to 24 months of the presidency. Anyway, Last Politician is a pretty awesome book. Variety magazine's Ramin Satuta. He wrote an instant bestseller called Apprentice in Wonderland, which told us the behind the scenes story of Donald Trump as a reality TV star. And for you guys in the UK, pay attention because the producer of that star, that reality television show, Mark Burnett, a fellow Brit, is coming back as special envoy to the UK. So Mr. Trump is casting all of his people, just like a reality television show personality would.

9:40It's been an interesting cast of characters. But if you want to learn about how and why, read Apprentice in Wonderland. And if you like going to the movies or you like renting movies, you can buy The Apprentice. It was written by Gabe Sherman. There's incredible performances. Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump. Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohen, this nefarious lawyer that Trump had as a mentor in the late 70s into the early 80s. It's a phenomenal story about the making of Mr. Trump's personality. So Apprentice in Wonderland or The Apprentice, two things I would recommend to people, of course, just to name a few.

10:21We're going to the novels now, switching over quickly to the novels. T.J. Newman, what a great writer, several bestselling books about flying and the fear of flying. And so all three of her books are spectacular. And also she's a phenomenal interview. So I enjoyed seeing her this year again. And I'm looking forward to her next book. Brad Thor with Shadow of Doubt was a great read. Of course, Brad has been with us for many years. And then there's the legendary Daniel Silver with his 24th book on the Gabriel Alon series. And, you know, I love these two novelists. I know it's summer when I get a Brad Thor book or Daniel Silva book in my inbox.

11:03It's time to sit back at the beach and have a lot of fun. So I'll have both of those guys. I'll have great books coming out in 2025. I released this year three of my own books, which is interesting. So how the hell did I do that? Well, one I was writing for a while. I got that out in May. Second book was a little book of hedge funds, which was a second edition. And so I just really went back and revised some of the chapters. I wrote that book 12 years ago. Hedge fund industry has changed a lot over the last 12 years. And so I wanted to reformat that book. about the book that's probably the most important book for me, which came out this December and is available on Amazon, I think January 9th, is The Little Book of Bitcoin.

11:50And so that's a book that I took the full year to write. I wanted to explain to people in 200 pages or less what Bitcoin actually is, how they can get comfortable with it as an investment. If you're not watching me right now and you're listening, you can't see my shirt, But it says Merry Cryptmas. I don't know. I don't like the word crypt that much. But I do like this shirt because it was a phenomenal year for Bitcoin. And I think Bitcoin is going to be one of those things that gets adopted. Legendary Michael Saylor wrote the foreword for my book, The Little Book of Bitcoin. And we just reached 100 ,000.

12:26So just pointing that out to people. It's been an amazing journey this year for Team Skybridge, Team Open Book. a very big shout out to Holly Duncan Quinn, who's been my producer. I tell every author that comes on this podcast, Holly does all the work. I take all the credit. That's been the case for probably three or four years now. So Holly, thank you very much for doing such a wonderful job. Holly also came up with the five words, which for some reason, every author likes. Okay. Before we get on, they always say to me, well, what are the five words? And we're going to get there. We're going comes up with that.

13:04It's just a great part of this podcast. We've got big plans for 2025. So lots of conversations coming up. Fiction writers, nonfiction writers, people that write pieces that we think are interesting, things related to history, but things related to contemporary society. We'll all be on Open Book this coming year in 2025. So I hope I'll see you guys on Open book. Of course, you can always write to us in the comment section. You can tell us what you like about our podcast, what we need to do to improve our podcast. We look for any and all comments. I've heard so many things about myself, some of them very derogatory.

13:45I can take it. So I can take the pain. You write anything you want. Help us get better. I guess the things I would say to you is we've left out perhaps the star of open book, and that's my mom, Marie Scaramucci. Now, so many of you have written into me and said, hey, why don't you just let her take the hosting job? I would. But, you know, she's got to get her hair done. She's got to get her nails done. She's got to travel in and out of these department stores here locally on Long Island. So not going to do it. OK, she's just got too nice of a life. OK, so she's not doing it, but I'm here to do it.

14:22And she's here to ring in at the end to give you her thoughts and insights. It's turning 88 this year. The very lovely Maurice Garamucci, who I love dearly. And I think if you listen to Open Book, you know you love her, too. You can't help it. She's just irrepressible. New Year's Eve. I hope you guys are having a great celebration this year. I expect to be with Michael Saylor. Fingers crossed that Bitcoin will stay over$100 ,000. And we'll be down at his house celebrating that and welcoming the new year. and I guess as Holly says, any thoughts or final pieces of words of wisdom? I will say this, two short years ago, I was getting creamed.

15:06My Bitcoin positions were in the 15, 16 ,000 range. I was embroiled in the bankruptcy situation with Sam Bankman Freed. The funny part about this stuff, my PR staff doesn't like me talking about this shit, but I actually don't care. I think it's important for viewers and listeners to hear the good, bad, and ugly about life. But the big learning lesson, something I'm constantly reminded of throughout my life, is stay with things. Keep going. As Churchill said, when going through hell, keep going. And you can't give up. I think if you do that, you'll find yourself in a positive place. Even if things don't work out perfectly, the fact that you were willing to have the courage to push yourself through a journey, a journey of your dreams, that's the thing that matters the most.

15:54So those are my final thoughts on the year. Happy, happy new year. God bless everybody for being a part of this. And, you know, we've listed some of the books and I'll have Holly put up a whole list of others. I'm just going to read out some of my favorites quickly so everybody can get a sense for what I read this year that I loved. One, Anthony Pompliano, How to Live an Extraordinary Life. What a great manual, particularly for young people. Jared Cohen, Life After Power, Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House. Mary Murphy, Cultures of Growth. What a great story about how to build a company or how to think about things.

16:39Saul Gittleman wrote a great book about universities here in the United States. If you want to learn why we've got such successful universities, Saul Goodman wrote a book called The Accidental Triumph, turning 90 this year. My former faculty advisor and provost emeritus at Tufts University, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove. For such a time as this, I'm being Jewish today. I thought he was an amazing guy. And I'll tell you right now, it's somebody that I will go back to. I will read his stuff in the future. Whatever he's writing, I'm going to be listening to. Beirut by Jack Carr. We couldn't get Jack on this year, but I'll tell you what, if you want to learn about what's going on in the Middle East today, the incidents that took place in Lebanon in 1983 are a good place to start because it's the same story, just remix.

17:32So Jack Carr targeted Beirut. Someone that we haven't interviewed yet, but I think we're going to, is Sonia Purnell. She wrote a book called Kingmaker. She wrote a great spy book a few years back with Kingmaker, Pamela Churchill Harriman's Astonishing Life of Seduction, Intrigue and Power. It did read like a novel. And I relish that book. Chris Dixon, a venture capitalist out in Silicon Valley. Hopefully we'll get him on the show. Read, write, own, building the next era of the Internet. These were phenomenal books that I read this year. super excited about. Here's a few coming. If you like books, these books are stuff, things that I've already pre-ordered.

18:16Sahil Bloom, The Five Types of Wealth, Douglas Murray, On Democracies and Death Cults. This would include Israel, Hamas, and the Future of the West. So it's phenomenal. He's a brilliant writer, brilliant speaker. And of course, he's somebody that I adore because he speaks out against the scourge and the hatreds related to anti-Semitism. Bill Gates, Source Coat, obviously an autobiography from Bill. We'll look forward to that. Ken Follett, one of my favorite authors. I think I scared Ken by naming protagonists in his first couple of novels that I read back in 1978 at the age of 14. But Ken is a favorite on Open Book and perhaps my favorite fictional novelist.

18:59He's got a great book coming out, Circle of Days. Anyway, it's going to be a great, exciting year on Open Book. We want you to be with us, wishing you and your family a very, very happy new year. Hopefully you had a wonderful holiday. Let's get after it in 2025.

19:25Ma, you ready to be on the podcast, Ma, or what? Yes, maybe. Of course you are, right? While I got you on the phone, this is my last episode of the year. So let's talk a little bit about your field trip to the Hunt and Fish Club, which was like a breakout at the nursing home, right? I mean, how many people did you have with you, Ma? Fifteen. All right. And how did you get to the Hunt and Fish Club? By a bus limousine that you had for us. And the driver was wonderful. An angel was an angel. Right. So you had somebody helping you. had doug romano's uh a daughter helping you get in out of the restaurant right but you're moving pretty i didn't i didn't need help you didn't need help right you were bragging about that right you were moving your friends needed help but you were moving pretty fast right ma you're pretty proud of yourself huh yeah yeah yeah tell me why tell me why you're so proud of yourself ma go ahead why am i so proud of myself yeah go ahead you don't want me to tell you no no go ahead go ahead why not ma you know you you know you're the store of this podcast you know i mean basically if you read the comments on YouTube, they're like, when's your mother coming back on?

20:35Okay, so go ahead. Tell us why you're so proud of yourself. Go ahead, Mom. My mother died young, and my father was 87, and you looked like my father when he was young, and he had beautiful skin. So half of my skin is my father, where I don't have any lines at 88. And then I guess my mother had a bad neck, because I have a bad neck. Well, you have a turkey neck, right, Mom? I have a turkey neck. Right, that's why you wear turtlenecks in the middle of the summer, right? Yeah. You're really unbelievable. I'm very vain, and that's where you got it from, Kukul. Oh, you think I'm very vain, Ma? Yeah, I do.

21:15Yeah. I think you're a wonderful, wonderful human being. You help many, many people survive life. Okay. I do think that you like to look good because you're good-looking. Let's say it the way it is. All right, Ma. All right, Ma. What else do you want to say? It's going to be 2025. What do you want to say to your fan base about the coming year, Ma? I love people, and I love life. And when I was young, I had a few difficulties with one individual, and I didn't know I was going to be so happy in my life, and I didn't know my children would be so good to me. So it made up for the sorrow that I had.

21:53Okay. All right. So there's a little bit of good, a little bit of bad in everybody's life, but mostly good, right? All right, so you're having a good time. You're enjoying yourself, Mom? Yeah, I have good friends, and I have wonderful children. And you are the exception, not the rule. You're very, very good to me and good to people that you know. You help my niece who has many problems, and you do it without no stress. You're just a giver of life, and I think you're wonderful. What can I tell you? I can't help saying that. All right, Mom. All right, I love you. You too. Merry Christmas. You don't want to give a piece of advice, Marie Scaramucci wisdom for 2025, to all your fans?

22:38Yeah, I'll give you a piece of advice. If you are so conceited in every way of life, you never get there. But if you're conceited enough and you share who you are to other people in need, you always get it back. because my mother was an immigrant and she, I'm sorry, I get a little emotional because I can see her saying it. She would say you have to do good and forget it and do bad and remember it because when the world turns, you got to pay. All right. So it's about karma, right? It's about being good karma. Yeah. And I try very hard in my life to be good. I have a niece that has a problem, and your wealth and kindness allows me to get her food, and I shop and bring it to her with my other niece.

23:38So she had a terrible accident, and she's not doing very well. So John B. Ham did it for me today. All right, good. All right. One day at a time, Mom. That's all. One day at a time. And I look at you. I'm sorry. I don't care who likes it or who doesn't. as the top of the class. Okay. Just a very good human being. All right. Thanks, Mom. And I look at you, that you have a little bit, or not a lot, you have a lot of my mother because my mother was a giver to people that didn't have money because she always had a dollar. And you're like that. All right. Thanks, Mom. Merry Christmas, Mom. All right.

24:18When am I going to see you, Mom? I'll see you this weekend like you always do. All right? All right. Okay. All right. Merry Christmas, Mom. Thank you, baby. Bye. I am Anthony Scaramucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat more about the discussions, it's at Scaramucci on Twitter or Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week. Thank you.