books in 2025 + an update
A few dawns ago, we saw a brown fox run through our hill under the full moon, swiftly disappearing among the oaks, all bathed in the silvery grey of the early hour. It was such a beautiful image, especially paired with the knowing that our flock of chickens was still safely tucked inside, that I thought I’d start today’s transmission with it. Pair the image with the feeling of frozen fingers, puffy breath, and ice-cold nose tips, and gosh, isn’t that January in a nutshell.
Happy new (Gregorian) year, everyone! ❄️✨
Now, at this moment in the calendar, I always enjoy looking back at the books I’ve read the previous year and sharing some favorites with you. So if you’re ready for some book recommendations, read on! I have some really good ones this year, if I dare say so myself, with nature-based fiction running as a thread among many of them.
📚 The Invisible Hour, by Alice Hoffman
This book kept me in such good company during my hospital stay. It was the perfect escapism, which is so fitting with the book’s underlying theme of literature being a place of refuge. Magical realism was just what my heart craved at that time.
📚 The Overstory, by Richard Powers
I had heard of this book several times, in conversations, podcasts, and articles about whether or not trees can communicate with each other, but nothing could have prepared me for it! In a book with so many different storylines, all of them connected by trees and the natural world in one way or another, the thing that surprised me the most was the sheer amount of research the author did, just to be able to create each character’s own world. This book runs on a different timeline entirely and alters your gaze over our tree kin.
📚 Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
The perfect read after The Overstory above, this very poetic narrative carried me away to a landscape and reality so different from my own. The author is a zoologist and conservationist, as well as a researcher on animal behaviour, and this book is her first work of fiction. Isn’t this enough to tickle your curiosity? Pure magic, intertwined with observation and science, all tucked away in the North Carolina marshes.
📚 The People in the Trees, by Hanya Yanagihara
Earth-centered literature goes on! But how can you love and despise a book so much? The author’s artistry is astounding, as, after all, this is a work of fiction written as a scientist’s memoir, with citations and footnotes referencing studies that live solely in this book’s reality (gasp!). It’s a poignant story, rooted in the themes of extractivist capitalism and colonialism. It’s beautiful, it’s heartbreaking, it’s infuriating, and it’s just one of those that will stay with you for a long, long time.
📚 The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James
Dread, angst, and the apotheosis of Victorian literature’s lack of clear communication. Equal parts frustrating (since I just wanted to sit everyone in the story down for a much-needed household assembly) and fascinating, I can’t believe I hadn’t read this classic ghost story before. Also, such a good short book to read in-between larger pieces!
📚 The History of Sound, by Ben Shattuck
A collection of interconnected short stories exploring themes such as family history, love, loss, and home. It’s heartwarming and thoughtful, surprising and inventive. And if it won’t make you want to delve into folk songs and hidden compartments in chimneys and under floorboards, then I don’t know what might.
📚 Crescent City Series, by Sarah J Maas
Ending things on a slightly lighter note, yes, yes, I did it again. I put off reading this series for a long time because the idea of Fae with smartphones just didn’t do it for me, or so I thought. Well, I was wrong! The SJM vibes we have all learned to love are still all here, no matter the time the narrative takes place in. Unexpected twist at the end of the second book that got me gasping out loud as I reached for the third one!
Want more? Here is the archive from years prior!
✨ 2022 in books
✨ 2023 in books
✨ 2024 in books
And some tiny things I finished recently, though there are more currently on my needles that I really want to share! The little mushroom cardigan is the little cousin to our daughter’s mushroom jumper, and I made it for a friend’s baby (just didn’t share it earlier as she’s on Substack and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise!).
And the red playsuit… Well, that’s for the little one who’s currently kicking around inside my belly.
It feels almost surreal to share it (and live it) after the heartbreaking loss experience from this Spring. But we are so, so happy to announce that our family is growing and we’ll be joined by a new person in early May. Just in time for buzzing bees, flowers, new lambs roaming the hills, warmer days, and butterflies.
2025 was… a lot. So much beauty and grief, inside and out — in the witnessing of the world and in our own family ecosystem. I am most definitely looking forward to a new year bursting with nourishment and creativity, joy and pleasure, magic and hope, for everyone.
I am also seeing so much talk of going analog in 2026, so in case it’s helpful, I’ve recently shared on Substack notes some steps that helped me transition to a flip phone, which I did last May. I am thankful for this swap every day! You can find it here.
I hope you’re all keeping warm and well-rooted, friends 🤎
PS. Care to share which books you loved last year, and which you think I should add to my to-read list? Please share them, every year I look forward to your recommendations!
