Summarising everything I read in 2025

Wow, 2025 was a year. Seemingly nothing happened, and everything happened. For one reason or another, my reading really dropped off in 2025, so I managed a paltry 13 books. Basically one a month (and at least one of those was more a novella than a full book). However, there were still some highs and lows, so I’d like to share some brief thoughts on each. I’d love to hear what you enjoyed reading in 2025, and if you have any recommendations for what I should add to my list this year.

January

The Heather Blazing, Colm Toibin, 1992

I had previously only read essays by Toibin, which I had greatly enjoyed, so I was pleased to dive into a full novel. There’s something really wonderfully humane about his characters and stories. Essentially not much happens in this book, but in a way that feels so truthful and realistic to human experience that it is nonetheless captivating. His writing is beautiful, and his sense for character and setting is wonderful. A great way to start the year’s reading.

February

My brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante, 2011

I recalled what a massive hit this book was when it came out, but it really did pass me by at the time. That was the year before I started at uni, so I think I was somewhat preoccupied. So it was with fairly high expectations that I finally launched into this novel. Despite knowing about the publicity, and the subsequent bad show of the author’s identity being revealed, I didn’t really know what this book was about. It turned out to be an interesting exploration of a type of friendship I am quite familiar with, one where academic excellence or perceived intelligence are hard to untangle from real feelings and relationships. Despite this familiarity, I did find the novel dragged just a little bit. The mystical elements intrigued, and the setting is wonderfully evoked. But somehow I didn’t find myself rushing to pick up the next book in the trilogy. I’ll get there one day, but not quite yet.

March

Eat Me, Linda Jaivin, 1995

A short but supposedly highly influential piece of Australian literature, this book perhaps just doesnt hit the same thirty yeats later. It is essentially a series of erotic tales shared between a group of four women (think Sex and the City, but only the Samantha bits, and before Sex and the City), with each surrounded by some now fairly mainstream discussion between the friends about ‘what it all means’ for the sisterhood. I can well imagine that this seemed radical at the time, not least for the graphic intensity and absurdity of the vignettes. But in the age of fanfiction and pop feminism, it has rather lost its punch.

April

Wifedom, Anne Funder, 2023

I was initially captivated by this book and the whole premise – revealing the extent to which Orwell was influenced by his wife and that to which her presence has been deliberately written out of his biography. But the further i got through it, the more I felt Funder was doing her own version of this. She speculates on both their feelings continuously, includes very little of the primary sources (letters) which claim to inspire the books, and brings in some truly odd choices when she mentions the modern phenomenon of ‘cancellation’, calls Orwell ‘mixed race’ for being English and French, and seems to not understand at all that bisexual men exist. Overall, an interesting but at times frustrating read, which left me with the question, ‘why won’t she let Eileen speak for herself?’

All Fours, Miranda July, 2024

This book is so strangely gripping. A deeply honest exploration of women’s desires and creativity, it both feels part of a tradition (the disatisfied female creative turned mother/housewife), and totally unlike those other books. Not in the least bit afraid of having an unlikeable protagonist, July creates a hugely real feel. Regardless of whether this is your usual cup of tea, I’d definitely recommend giving this book a go. It’ll leave you asking questions about yourself, and everyone around you.

May

I didn’t actually finish a single book in May! It was once a rarity to go this long without finishing a book, but sadly it would come to be quite normal! Turns out reading and first trimester exhaustion aren’t a great combo.

June

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932

Not sure this was the best book to ease myself back into reading, but it’s one I had been meaning to read for more than a decade, so it was satisfying to pick it up. This is another book which perhaps has lost its punch with age. It is very clearly a product of its time, as well as being ahead of that time. It feels in some ways quite prophetic still, but it is still steeped in the general attitudes of its time and the social circle of its author. Worth a read for its place in literature, but prepare for a slightly odd read.

Want, Gillian Anderson, 2024

Quite a leap from my previous read! This book entered the world under much fanfare. Anderson has gained a reputation for a kind of feminist sensuality, in part due to her role in Sex Education, which I must admit I haven’t watched. Billed in part as a succesor to Nany Friday’s groundbreaking My Secret Garden (1973), it is a collection of sexual fantasies anonymously submitted to Anderson through a global call for stories. Friday’s book, which I also haven’t read, is famous for broaching a topic which was very much taboo at the time. In 2024, Anderson’s work feels a little more tired. Her introductions are interesting enough, although her credentials are largely anecdotal. The stories, broadly arranged by theme, vary hugely in quality. I can’t comment on the scenarios they describe – it’s very much each to their own in this world – but the writing itself swings from literary to bog-standard. I suppose this in itself represents the breadth of the authors. But in a post-fanfiction world (a world this author is admittedly very familiar with!), compiling these stories into this book feels somehow unnecessary? The stories themselves are no better or worse, more shocking or sedate, than one would find with a quick Google search, and Anderson’s insights are not unique or well-researched enough to add much. So, while this was in theory a fun and light read to follow-up the at times drudgery of Brave New World, in fact I found this book a bit of a slog!

July

Once again I sank into a reading slump and managed to not finish anything in July!

August

A Room with a View, E.M Forster, 1908

After two slightly underwhelming choices and a bit of a break, I wanted to read something I knew would be a hit. I simply adore this book, which I’ve read at least once before. I fell deeply in love with the incredible Merchant Ivory film as a young teenager, and I don’t think I’d read the book since around then, although I’ve read and enjoyed various other Forster works. But the books just gets better with age, and I was struck once again by its humanity, its sincere and insightful observations of human character, and its wonderful love story. There are so many lines that I love from it, but one which particularly stuck out to me and just felt so true was ‘Then they spoke of other things – the desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other’s arms.’ There is something particularly poignant about this line when one considers that Forster was a gay man living in 1908, when such quiet romantic companionship would have been so hard to achieve.

A book I will always recommend – a tonic to the soul.

September and October

Another long reading break, when tiredness reigned and I could barely stay awake beyond 8:30pm!

November

Murder in Mesopotamia, Agatha Christie, 1936

Once again seeking a book to get me out of a slump, I returned to my old favourite Christie. This is a Poirot book, of which I haven’t read that many. A silly but fun romp with a plot as well thought out and intriguing as one can expect from the queen of the who-dunnit.

Skipshock, Rachel O’Donoghue, 2025

A revelation! It turns out I will just read and love literally anything this woman writes. She has such a knack for creating gripping stories, and in this case a totally unique world. This rivals His Dark Materials for originality, with the reassurance that it’s written by an intersectional feminist. O’Donoghue brings a social awareness to her worlds which is deeply entwined into the plot and adds reality to the world she has created. Normally I’m a little wary of time-travel stories – they can be tedious exercises in tying up loose threads – but her approach is so original and the mechanism so natural it just creates a brilliant setting for the book.

I am eagerly awaiting the sequel to this novel (which I’m pretty sure is in the works, thank goodness!), and I look forward to reading this one again ahead of publication.

December

The Rose Field, Philip Pullman, 2025

Speaking of long awaited sequels and Philip Pullman…This one was a long time coming, and it shows. There were some elements of this book that I really enjoyed, but the ending felt rushed and underwhelming. The central mysteries seemed tied up far too easily, there was no sense of incredible revelation that I’d come to expect from previous Lyra novels, and all in all it felt like he had someone tapping him on the shoulder saying ‘can you get a move on with this?’ Couple this with the increased awareness that Pullman is a man of his generation, and it sometimes shows, and this was all in all slightly disappointing. It’s unreasonable to expect a novel to recreate the experience of picking up His Dark Materials as a young teenager, but something a bit closer to that would still have been nice.

Cinder House, Freya Marske, 2025

A novella by one of my favourite new authors of previous years, this is an original and intriguing retelling of Cinderella. Yes, we’ve seen a lot of those (not least in Bridgerton), but Marske brings her own intelligent and compelling world creation to bear on this little book, making it a satisfying read. Some chapters do feel a bit light on substance, almost as if she was going to go back and work them up a bit more so they rely less on the source material or romantic tropes, but overall it’s a quick and fun read, with a very interesting magic system which you won’t have seen anywhere else. I hope she writes something else set in this universe, as it feels she’s got plenty left to explore!

The Looking Glass War, John le Carre, 1965

Another of my favourite authors of recent years, it’s hard to beat a Le Carre. This looks to the Cold War on a different front, set largely in Hong Kong, but has all the elements we’re used to from previous novels. It suprisingly manages to avoid (most) of the racism one might expect from a British person writing about this part of the world at this point in history, and the plot is twisting and intriguing. It’s quite a hefty read and it took me a while to get through, but kept me gripped and guessing throughout.

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So there we have it, a very much belated look back at what I read in 2025. It was in no way a big year for reading, with only 13 completed. But I did find some new favourites, tick off things I’d been meaning to get to for years, and pick myself out of the lulls. As usual, the dates of my reading were pretty evenly spread from the early 20th century to the present day, and there were more women than men in the author list. As I look back at these from the middle of 2026, I’m struck by the fact that many of them had some sort of ‘comfort read’ element to them, whether that was a favourite genre or author. This year is proving quite similar so far! Maybe by 2027 I’ll get round to reviewing them slightly more quickly?

What are you enjoying reading at the moment? I’d love some recommendations (particularly newer novels and non-fiction), or if you think there’s something I should definitely avoud, please let me know in a comment!