Books I read and books I wrote in 2025

I'm noticing a trend in other newsletters... a lot of "thank god that year's over". It's been a mixed bag for me, personally and professionally, but I'm excited to start 2026, with a list of projects waiting for me. More on that later!

For now, I'm enjoying the break between Christmas and New Year. It's not as nice weather as one might hope for, but I've been able to sit outside reading, and yesterday went for a nice walk in the local reserve.

I worked on uh probably too many projects in 2025. They included a slipstream novel about passenger rail, fantasy novellas, and a non-fiction work I'm finally ready to pitch to publishers.

Most of those are still to reach the publication stage, but I was excited to release Spellcasting On - my fluffy romance shop romance with magic - and I look forward to continuing the trilogy this year.

I did, however, do a lot of reading, so I thought I'd share some recommendations.

I'm intentionally not calling this my favourite books of 2025. If I try to work that out I'll never get anything done. I'm really selective in what I read, and enjoy most of it - and honestly my favourites change from day to day. These are some that stood out to me for the right reasons, and which I want to share with you.

I can promise you that unlike uh certain other lists, all the books here actually exist and I've read them myself!

And if you want to see more of what I'm reading you're welcome to follow me on The StoryGraph.

Novels

I'd been looking forward to The Incandescent by Emily Tesh and I was not disappointed. This is magical boarding school from the perspective of the teacher. It has its quirks, its dangers, and even its wonders, but fundamentally it's a school with health and safety, reporting requirements, and mock exams. It didn't go how I expected, plot wise, but for all the magic it felt very real.

There's a bit of a theme today - from magical boarding school to magical university. I've been keeping up with H. G. Parry's novels, and they keep getting better; the early ones were filled with ideas and imagery, but the last two I've read have a completeness as a story, as if I feel like I'm returning to a childhood favourite. The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door follows a working class girl who wins a scholarship to what is essentially magical-Oxbridge (ok, so the name is literally Camford, that part isn't subtle). There are toxic class systems, war trauma, and a university system in denial about its foundations (this part is more subtle, but there are obvious real world lessons and parallels) but there's also wonder and genuine passion for learning here. Clover feels like a beloved children's book character at the start, but she becomes a fully drawn, flawed, but sympathetic adult.

One of my goals this year was to read the winners of the International Booker Prize. I had a very mixed experience - with at least two books I remain unsure whether I liked or hated, though I suppose if you can't get a book out of your head that's a sign the author has talent. But one that I definitely did enjoy was Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. It's an immersive, flowing book, intermeshed stories of movements, of disappearances and returns, and the sort of prose I love to read.

Novellas

I'm delighted I got my hands on a signed copy of The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar because the edition I have is beautiful in its prose, but also as a physical book. I mostly read novellas as ebooks - many are too expensive to own in hardcopy at the moment - but I love having this on my shelves. It's told as folklore, lyrical, heartbreaking but satisfying, prose where every single word matters.

A.D. Sui's The Dragonfly Gambit is in some ways the opposite - it's action-heavy, cleverly plotted, high stakes and twisty, with unclear loyalties but a plot that fuses together very well. I almost gulped this one down. It's another in Neon Hemlock's novella series which I'm reading my way through and have very high opinions of so far.

Olivia Waite is probably my favourite romance author - and now she's branched out into SF murder mysteries??? Sign. Me. Up. Murder by Memory is the first in her Dorothy Gentleman series - it's set on a long spaceship journey. It's short, but well crafted, well thought through, and very fun to read.

And lastly another Neon Hemlock novella: The Dead Withheld by L.D. Lewis. Described as "sapphic paranormal neo-noir" this follows a private investigator / witch in search of her wife's murderer. The imagined city is vividly evoked, some of the plot is outright terrifying, some is sad, and some is tender. It's a quick read, and a worthwhile one.

Short story collections and anthologies

Nalo Hopkinson is one of my favourite authors, so it's unsurprising Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions made this list. Hopkinson is just... so imaginative, in a way that elements seem random at first, but you realise it's all very cleverly thought-through, and so vivid.

Call and Response by Christopher Caldwell was another excellent collection. The sort of stories that linger - I'll be thinking about that fish for a long time. Caldwell feels like the sort of writer who isn't afraid to push his stories that bit further, and it's very worth it.

Poetry

I'm slowly completing a challenge to read a book from every country; there were few options from The Republic of the Marshall Islands so a friend recommended me Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. I read it with no expectations and came away feeling like the author had privileged me with an insight into their life, family, and world. There's some clever stuff going on with form and layout on the page that works really well and adds to the poetry rather than just feeling like a party trick. It wasn't always an easy read (the impact of nuclear bomb testing, including cancer in children, was a central theme) but I'm very glad I picked it up.

Manuali'i by Rex Letoa Paget is exactly the sort of poetry I like - filled with detail, seeming disparate images and references run together in ways that make unexpected meaning, as if allowing you to see something in a whole new way. (Reading this was an interesting experience for another reason - while I don't know the author personally, I do know several of the people he names and mentions. This sometimes disrupted my reading a little, but it was also really nice, like running into a friend in an unexpected location.)

Graphic novel

One of the Read Harder challenge categories was a graphic novel in translation. I'm not a big graphic novel reader, and I honestly chose Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed just because it was something the library had on the shelves. These are 3 linked stories - and some related material - set in a world where wishes are real, commodified, and regulated. The very different stories cover everything from impenetrable "justice" systems to depression to dragons(!) - there's a lot of really clever and thoughtful commentary, but none of the storytelling is sacrificed for that.

And the ending? The ending was incredible.

Non-fiction

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein was the work I couldn't stop telling people about this year. Klein's early work - especially No Logo - was very formative to my teenage political awareness and then activism. I'd seen jokes about how people get her confused with feminist writer and lately down-the-rabbit-hole anti-vaxxer Naomi Wolf, but I hadn't considered what a destabilising experience that must have been for her. This is Klein's experience - what that confusion was like, why it came about, and how their approaches and politics differ - but it was so, so much more about the political moment we're in, how conspiracies have taken off, and how we see the world. It's incredibly wide-ranging but also remarkably cohesive and readable. Highly recommend this one.

This next book is a niche one - I don't actually recommend 168 Songs of Hatred and Failure by Keith Cameron unless you're either a long time Manic Street Preachers fan (like me) or someone with broad knowledge and interest in 90s music (not me). But I'm giving it a mention anyway because I really liked how thorough and systematic this was. I've read band bios before - and while that format is probably my preference, there comes a point at which new ones don't add very much. This book was formatted as a brief entry for 168 songs, careful, well researched, surprisingly readable, and a bit of a nostalgic reminder of songs I haven't thought about in a while.

My third non-fiction book is more specific to my day-job in accessible communications, and that was Beyond Sticky Notes by Kelly Ann McKercher. It's about doing co-design right - and even though it wasn't exactly the sort of co-design I'm dipping my toes in, I found it challenging in the best way, encouraging me to question my own assumptions, and a good balance of theoretical principles and practical, actionable advice.

Books for younger readers

Lastly, a couple of books for younger readers. I read Like A Charm and its sequel Like A Curse by Elle McNicoll as part of research for an ongoing project - and yes, what drew me was sharing a neurodivergent experience with the main character (and the author) and that was handled well, but also these were just fun. A couple of my friends have been reading them as well, and I've enjoyed the collective reading experience.

Maya MacGregor's previous YA novel was one that hit a lot of the notes I love in a book. The Evolving Truth of Ever-Stronger Will - about a teen whose abusive mother dies, leaving them to try and take care of themselves, find their former foster mother, and unravel the truth about their identity - resonated less with me but was arguably an even better book. I find about one book a year makes me cry, and this was 2025's entry. Highly recommended for both adults and teens.

I'm looking forward to a whole stack more books next year, but more on that later. Wishing you all a restful end to 2025. I'll see you in 2026.

Mā te wā

Andi