Buy a book? Exactly, because that might just be the last good idea of the year. If you’re still looking for inspiration, for yourself or for others, we’ve put together a selection of books from different genres. Not all of them are new releases, but all of them have actually been read here this year. Here’s the Cee Cee Studio reading list with hand-picked favorite books. Some of the selected titles revolve around questions of meaning, inner attitude, and how we want to live. Ikigai by Ken Mogi approaches the Japanese concept of a fulfilling life with calmness and clarity and shows how meaning often lies in small, everyday things. Sacred Business by Nikki Trott, recommended by Mirco, our studio neighbor and founder of Piggyback, also rethinks work as something that can unite intuition, values, and economic action. The principles “From Busy to Present” and “From Overthinking to Intuition” resonate strongly with him, especially in everyday agency life. Both books encourage us to slow down and question our own priorities. Other titles focus on language, thought, and social constructs. In Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson explain how deeply our thinking is shaped by metaphors and how language influences our worldview. Arne, Director of Design & Strategy at Cee Cee Creative, says he has since begun to see language in a completely new light. Joan Didion goes one step further and uses precise essays to show why we need narratives to make sense of experiences, crises, and memories. In Ugliness, Moshtari Hilal examines how beauty standards emerge, who they exclude, and why it is political to question them. The book combines personal stories, poetic passages, and clear reflections, elevating it far beyond a conventional nonfiction read. Art, space, and history are at the center of several other books.
Ruby from the Cee Cee Content Team recommends The Story of Art Without Men. Across 512 pages, Katy Hessel retells art history and brings visibility to artists who have long been ignored. Cee Cee founder Nina’s holiday souvenir from Greece is The Architect Is Absent, a book that explores power, design, and invisibility in architecture and design. Meanwhile, Cee Cee author Milena Olivia Laing’s The Garden Against Time views the garden as a place of hope, resistance, and utopia, personal, cultural-historical, and strikingly topical at the same time. The selection is rounded out by novels and poetic texts that deal with closeness, loss, and belonging. Aimée, Team Lead Strategy and Consulting at Piggyback, recommends The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. The book retells the Iliad as an intimate love story and lends emotional depth to an ancient myth. C Pam Zhang’s Land of Milk and Honey paints a haunting picture of migration and survival in an apocalyptic world. Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, by contrast, looks at Earth from space and quietly reflects on time, humanity, and the fragility of our planet. Things become very personal in Darling Days by iO Tillett Wright, a memoir about friendship, growing up queer, and telling one’s own story. Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, recommended by Cee Cee designer Chloë, moves fragmentarily between essay and poetry and circles love, pain, and the color blue as a metaphor. Cee Cee author Inga’s recommendation is equally poetic and experimental. The title says it all: Chelsey Minnis’ one-page poems in Baby I Don’t Care are bratty, blasé, and too honest. “Let’s be objectionable and immoral and utterly no good,” says her narrator, who exists at the uncomfortable space between relatability and obnoxiousness. Baby I Don’t Care is so greatly unbearable and unbearably great that it’s Inga’s love-hate book of the year. Cee Cee Editor at Large, Laura has chosen Happiness and Love, published in 2025. In this novel, Zoe Dubno dissects the vanities and power games of the art scene in a single, biting inner monologue that is relentless, self-deprecating, and uncomfortably close. Finally, Lisa from the agency’s design team has two novel recommendations. Park by Marius Goldhorn tells the story of a young man traveling between Paris and Athens through an uncertain Europe and searching for what still feels real in a present shaped by news, screens, and inner distance. She particularly appreciated the writing style and narrative voice, the strangely fragmentary, hopeless, and at the same time banal tone. She keeps checking her iPhone as the world around her swells with motion, yet somehow stays utterly still. Although Lisa hardly found time to read this year, she devoured the book in one sitting. The final book is Noto by Adriano Sack, a touching literary journey between Berlin and Sicily that tells a story of farewell, grief, and new beginnings. Warm-hearted, intelligent, and full of life, it may be exactly the book you need right now, whether for one of your loved ones or for yourself.
Text: Susi Churas / Photos: Elisabeth Rogov
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