I’ll be updating this page throughout the year, hoping to meet my reading challenge of 48 books (eligible books are numbered below) as well as a few other reading goals. You can follow me on Goodreads or Storygraph or read about what I read in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 & 2017.
My favourite reads are marked below with a single star. I’m also adding a note with where I got the book – if it doesn’t have one, it was an ebook offer on Amazon (I’m poor, leave me alone).
January
1. Turtle Bread by Kim-Joy & Alti Firmansyah
Took me a couple of weeks to remember that a free month of Prime includes books and I needed to get on and read some. I was very happy to see this, a very cute and relatable manga by Kim-Joy of Bake Off fame. It’s all about coming out of your shell (hence the title) and based around a baking club.
2. Wheelmen by Reed Albergotti & Vanessa O’Connell
Picked this up in the sale and read most of it on the long journey home after Christmas. In depth account of the whole Lance Armstrong saga from journalists who worked on the story. Bit dated but fine.
3. Not Cool: Europe by Train in a Heatwave by Jules Brown
Browsing Prime books and nearly didn’t download this due to my ‘no books described as hilarious’ rule (a sure sign of a terrible book) but was swayed by a reviewer with a similar rule who said it was actually funny. Sadly it was ‘hilarious’ but whenever he stopped trying to be funny and actually has a real travel moment, it was well-written and engaging, so I kept going. It’s an attempt to relive his young Interrailing days by traveling to 8 cities for one day each, all by train – and accidentally during a major heatwave. Some of the train journeys sounded so cool and I would love to do something similar, but slower.
4. This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay
Another Prime pick and very well-written with extreme gallows humour. You can’t help but feel sympathy for how hard a life it is, with almost no rewards. Managed to balance my Kindle on my handlebars to read this while Zwifting so may have unlocked some new reading gains.
5. Round Ireland in Low Gear by Eric Newby
This suffers a bit from the same ‘too much history’ issue as The Big Red Train Ride but those bits are shorter and more interesting. Mostly it is about Eric & Wanda deciding to cycle around Ireland in the winter, a truly deranged thing to do, especially in your 60s. The weather is predictably horrendous, most businesses are closed and they spend much more time visiting religious sites than would ever be interesting. Despite that, it’s an entertaining read, and especially when they return for a third leg in the summer. My favourite parts were where Newby’s past in retail has him fascinatedly describing the window displays and contents of rural village stores. That would have been an incredible book.
6. Game Changer by Rachel Reid
I am not immune to the gay hockey romance hype. This not great literature but it is fun. The preview of the next book was way better so hopefully that eventually gets a price drop.
7. Hack Attack: The Inside Story of How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch by Nick Davies ⭐️
I watched the recent TV series based on this and it was weirdly patronising, using all these cartoonish stylistic choices to try and help our tiny brains keep up. The book is actually much easier to follow and Davies is an incredible writer, managing to keep all the vast numbers of people, events and threads clear over years of research and coverups and lawsuits. I obviously lived through all this but was still shocked at how horrific the details are. Highly recommend, though it’s depressing to realise that, not only did no one really pay for their crimes or learn any lessons, but the media is actually objectively worse in every way now.
8. All Fours by Miranda July ⭐️
I am bad at visualising things but this is such a vivid intense book that I felt like I was watching a movie, especially the first part. It’s also a very weird book and I never had the slightest idea where it might go next. Also oddly comforting as an aging woman. We are all going through the madness. Should probably be required reading for anyone over 30.
