Books I've read in 2025

It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, Ann de Marcken

The Other Wind (Books of Earthsea #6), Ursula K. Le Guin

Tales from Earthsea (Books of Earthsea #5), Ursula K. Le Guin

Tehanu (Books of Earthsea #4), Ursula K. Le Guin

I was surprised to read reviews of this book afterwards that pointed out nothing happened, there was no magic, it was “too feminist”. To me the focus on the life of Tenar and her adopted daughter felt so alive and magical through the descriptions of the everyday routines and fears. But then again I do apparently like books where nothing much really happens (see the Wayfarers series that I read earlier in the year). Personally I found it more captivating than the earlier stories in this series of powerful magic and more of what you’d expect of this genre. In my minds eye I picture the story as if it were a Ghibli film with all the quirky detail and magic in a domestic setting. I felt Tenar’s pain at realising she’d raised her son to be an entitled jerk who won’t put away his dishes!

American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins (book club)

A thriller (or crime?) story about a mother and son on the run from a cartel, fleeing across Mexico to the supposed safety of the United States. The book starts with a bullet in the wall and a massacre, and doesn’t really let up the whole way. Engaging and entertaining, although I think it falls short of the author’s aim to help readers empathise with immigrants coming from South and Central America into the US. More than anything I think it makes Mexico out to be a dangerous place full of dangerous people, full of the usual stereotypes of how Mexico might appear to a white American woman with little real experience of the place. I don’t think authors should only write about what they’ve personally experienced, but I do think that it’s important to be aware of how you’re representing a group of people who don’t typically get the same access to tell their own stories, especially before getting all white saviour-y.

Ranma 1/2 (Volumes 1 and 2), Rumiko Takahashi

Ranma was the first manga I ever read, found in the local library in my early teens. I’ve read the entire series at least twice since then, but I’ve lost my bootleg copy so am slowly rebuilding my (ebook) collection more legitimately. This wacky harem/reverse-harem martial arts story definitely has elements that are of its time, but I’m just as impressed with Takahashi’s artwork and fun characters as the first time I read it.

The Paper Menagerie, Ken Liu

These sci-fi short stories hit hard. All have elements, characters or settings from East Asia, which makes it a nice change from the usual US focus in most science fiction. There are stories involving space, time travel, AI and cyborgs, but also ones that lean more towards fantasy. I don’t know that I could pick a favourite.

The Farthest Shore (Books of Earthsea #3), Ursula K. Le Guin

Another time skip and more sailing around the ends of the world for the hero of The Wizard of Earthsea, this time seen through the eyes of his young companion. Like The Tombs of Atuan this book felt much more dark than the start of the series.

The Tombs of Atuan (Books of Earthsea #2), Ursula K. Le Guin

I wasn’t expecting the series to shift focus to a completely different character living a very different life in the fringes of Earthsea, although the stories do eventually connect up. Where The Wizard of Earthsea went wide with the main character travelling all over the map, this one is intensely focused on a young priestess bound to a crumbling temple and the labyrinths beneath it.

Everyday Permaculture (2025), Anna Matilda

I spotted this one at the library and was intrigued. I thought I sort of knew what permaculture was, but this book was a nice, illustrated introduction to the main principles and practical real-world applications.

A Wizard of Earthsea (Books of Earthsea #1), Ursula K. Le Guin

Diving into some classic fantasy, I can see how this story of a boy wizard (allegedly) inspired another boy wizard at another wizarding school. It was interesting following up a book about shadow selves with one where the main character chases and is chased by what he calls his shadow.

The City and It’s Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami

Strange and dream-like, which is what I expect of Murakami. There’s a tension throughout the book between the real and the not-real, the self and the shadow self. In the afterword he mentions that he first wrote The City as a short story decades ago, and the idea stayed with him until he could revisit it as an older man and more experienced writer.

Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud

I bought this book because I saw it mentioned in a few different contexts, and I thought it might be interesting since my kids are getting into graphic novels and I’ve had to explain the different patterns to them. But even though this is a comic book about comics, it’s also literary critique, and is more intellectual than I’d assumed. There’s so many interesting ideas in here for anyone who loves comics, literature, art, design and how we communicate.

Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3), Becky Chambers

Again there’s not a whole lot that actually happens in this book, but each of the characters is grappling with place and purpose. Unlike the other books, all of the narrating characters are human and living on huge fleet ships that fled Earth with most of what was left of the human race. What fascinated me about this one was the culture and economic system that had to be adopted by the Fleet to have any chance of surviving without everyone destroying each other. In a lot of ways it was almost easier for me to believe in the dystopian wasteland in Juice, which I read earlier this year, than in humans working together, ensuring everyone has food, shelter and air, living in commune-style arrangements, where everyone goes in the lottery for “sanitation” duty to make sure the shit jobs are taken on by all. But I want to believe it, and whilst it isn’t a utopia for everyone I think this book raises interesting ideas of how humans can live together more kindly and sustainably. Hopefully it doesn’t take the literal end of the world to get there.

The Making of a Manager (2019), Julie Zhuo

Julie Zhuo pulls together advice from her newsletter about her experiences as a design leader at Facebook. She writes about her transition from star designer to manager, and the lessons she learned along the way.

Juice, Tim Winton

A man travels through a desolate landscape with a young girl who doesn't speak, and ends up in a situation where he has to tell his story to save their lives. My first thought was it's The Last of Us without zombies, then Max Max without the costumes and gangs, but it quickly evolved into its own flavour of a dystopian future. It's long but gripping in its story of survival and righting wrongs in a future severely impacted by the actions and decisions we're making today. I hope climate fiction like this takes off and reaches people's imaginations in ways that pure data can't.

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2), Becky Chambers

The second in this series, focused on characters briefly mentioned in the first. This one considers the messy ethics of cloning and sentient AI, through flashbacks of the experiences of a young clone girl and the "current" timeline where the girl, now grown up, cares for an AI illegally housed in a humanoid body. The characters were less interesting to me than the first in this series, but it does a lot more world building and continues on the themes around a found family.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1), Becky Chambers

A human woman joins a long-haul space mission with a multi-species crew. After reading the last book in this series, The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, this first book makes a lot more sense - the main character, Rosemary, lived a sheltered life on the almost completely human populated Mars, and learns about the different species she's working with alongside the reader. There's some interesting exploration of gender, sexuality, family structures and acceptance as human norms don't make sense when applied to, for example, a scaled species that can change sex as needed. It’s thought-provoking and I love it.

How to Take Smart Notes (2017), Sönke Ahrens

A reread of this book that got me started actually taking notes on things that I consume, almost 3 years ago. The high-level how to start a personal knowledge management system is outlined in the first chapter, and the rest of the book gets into the details and the why. I don't follow it exactly as I'm not a writer, student or academic, but my hacky version has enough value for me.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers #4), Becky Chambers

A sweet sci-fi story centering on a group of aliens unexpectedly stranded in transit. I kept waiting for a humanoid character to appear, but all of the main characters are completely alien and creatively imagined. Not a whole lot happens but the developing characters and relationships are worth the read. Everyone is so nice, which feels unrealistic, but also the kind of galaxy I'd like to live in. I only realised after this is the last in a 4 part series, which I'm going to have to read the start of.

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, V.E. Schwab

A book club pick. My favourite so far! A young woman makes a deal with the darkness, who twists her wish so that she is always forgotten, unable to leave a mark. Some unexpected turns and interesting characters.

Meditations for Mortals (2024), Oliver Burkeman

I’ve been a fan of Oliver Burkeman’s Imperfectionist newsletter for some time, and there were a lot of familiar ideas here about time and the futility of trying to control it or optimise it. It’s a lot more digestible and practical than Four Thousand Weeks, written in short chapters intended to be read one a day over 12 weeks.

Animal Farm, George Orwell

Revisiting a classic "fairy story" that lives on my shelf. It's a lot more brutal than I remembered. Something that stood out to me this time was the inspiring power of rituals and song.

Designing Your Life (2016), Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

The authors, both from Stanford, apply design thinking techniques to planning your own life and career. Prototyping and iteration play a big part in this process, as it does when applying design thinking to any problem. Useful frameworks for living an intentional life.
my book notes

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Two combatants on opposite sides in a war amongst time travellers slowly build up a relationship over cleverly hidden letters they leave for each other. Incredibly poetic, I felt like rather than trying to make sense of every sentence I should just let it wash over me. I’ve never read prose anything like it before. Thank you for lending it to me Sandy!

Spider-Man: Animals Assemble! and Spider-Man: Quantum Quest!, Mike Maihack

I don't usually put the books I read to my kids in here, but this made-for-kids graphic novel series is actually really good! The stories are silly and fun, and the art style is cute but still has its recognisable Western comic roots. It's clear a lot of thought was put into how to make it easy for an adult to read to a child, not an easy thing with a graphic novel. I'll always appreciate the way Spider-Man's mask eyes make expressions as if they were actual eyes, a comic effect that just doesn't make sense in a live action movie. More comics for me this year I think!

The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah (book club)

This historical fiction story follows a pair of estranged sisters living in occupied France during World War II. I don't often read books about war, but when I do it's usually stories about the people left behind rather than the ones on the frontlines. There's some romance threads in this one but they're outshined by the beautifully complicated family relationships. I think all the characters started out unlikeable but grow over the course of the book. Starts slow but the second half escalates quickly!

The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss

This epic fantasy novel started out strong for me with its premise of the main character, Kvothe, telling the story of his start in learning magic and music to a collector of stories. The magic system is unique and there are some intriguing characters, but towards the end it dragged on and did not make me feel up to tackling the next book in the series anytime soon.

Orwell's Roses (2021), Rebecca Solnit

For some reason I was expecting fiction rather than a collection of meandering essays following George Orwell's interest in gardening and how it relates to his writing, his politics, and the state of the world then and now. Beautifully written with each chapter weaving in from the previous ones. Makes me want to revisit Orwell's novels and pay some more attention to my poor garden.