January Recap: An Abundance Of Reading

and some thoughts about learning to be a more fearless reader this year

Hello there! It is officially February. And thank sweet baby jeebus for that because I was officially starting to feel 2025 was becoming one big Groundhog Month, which is funny because, coincidentally, it IS Groundhog Day today. That movie holds up, btw.

Anyway, in a month that had little to recommend itself by, I can proudly report that my whole “stay in/hide/read novels” survival strategy worked in terms of both helping me maintain some semblance of sanity, and in terms of it being maybe one of the single best reading months of my life. I read abundantly AND intuitively AND with zero guilt about missing out on something buzzy or not participating in public discourse about whatever.

I bought no books (well, minus the Book of the Month box, because I do love getting mail and I am obsessed with their monthly bookmarks, and the one pre-order which arrived mid-month, and a copy of “All Fours” for a friend’s 41st birthday - but for me, who can easily acquire 20+ books a month between new books, library book sales, little free libraries, second hand book stores etc - that effectively counts as zero).

But I did go to the library multiple times, picked up unread books that I was excited about 7 months or 7 years a go to find out I could STILL be excited about them, and as a result ….(drumroll please) I finished 11 books in January and they were funny and sad and thrilling, and almost universally all recommendable (3 of them were from your picks for “Most Recommended Books in 2024” - so, thank you for that, I will keep revisiting this list).

Anyway! Lets look at what happened (+ if you reach the end of this newsletter, there’s some lofty 2025 reading notes too, just because)

The 3 Recommended by YOU:

Frozen River - by Ariel Lawhon - A little overdue, but a year after publication, this book is having a mini renaissance of sorts. My neighborhood book club had it chosen as their January book and my guess is we were not the only ones because I was thrilled to see it on the NY Times top 10 bestseller list several times in January. Now, personally, I am not one that reaches for historical fiction often, but this 18th century Maine-in-winter story of family, community, law (there’s a genuine murder mystery AND a harrowing rape trial in the mix) and the cycle of life felt incredibly universal, infuriating and compelling. Martha Ballard, the wise, tough midwife at the center of it all, is a heroine no one will soon forget.

A Week In Winter - by Maeve Binchy - Days after it was mentioned as “extra cozy” in the end-of-year recs round-up, it SNOWED really hard and I felt it was time for some extra coziness. This was AMAZING, and so much more than just cozy. A story of a woman who returns to her little seaside village in Ireland to open an Inn (though there’s a lot bubbling under this relatively straightforward surface to unpack here), it is BRIMMING with wit and charm and the kind of characters that make PBS Masterpiece shows a must-watch. I adored every second of it, want to see it adapted for streaming ASAP, and now have several Binchy books on hold at the library, and am gearing up to re-watch the “Circle Of Friends”. Whatever nightmare this winter is - who knew a prolific, popular-to-a-point-of-maybe-being-dismissed Irish writer who has been dead for over a decade may be just the balm we’ve all been waiting for?

Tell Me Everything - Elizabeth Strout - I procured the new Elizabeth Strout as soon as it came out, but kept putting it off, and I have no clue why. Maybe it was just that I knew I may need it more in January? As all Strout outings - it is spectacular in both its emotional depth and flawless structure. She is one of our most fearless writers, because she writes in a way that leaves a writer with nowhere to hide. Precise yet deep, laid with the kind of clarity that feels almost prophetic. It also, in a sort of a Marvel-universe-for-women-who-love-novels move, brings together two of Strout’s most famous leading ladies: Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge, and sprinkles the proceedings (which involve a murder mystery and a million other intricately woven pieces of life from Crosby, Maine) with characters from her other books. I have been slowly collecting the early Strout novels (“Amy and Isabelle”, “The Burgess Boys”…) around second hand bookstores for a few years, and I feel this may be the year I become a completist. Watch this space.

Some Fun (& VERY dark) Thrillers:

Darling Rose Gold - by

Stephanie Wrobel

- While the story (and variations of story) of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard is almost over-told at this point, this particular play on it still felt fresh and dark, picking up the tale AFTER the mother’s incarceration, with shifting perspectives and a genuinely surprising, and brutal twist/reveal. Dark, dark, delicious fun.

Havoc - by Christopher Bollen - I wrote about this one in my “The Comfort Of Knowing There Is A Solution” newsletter, but in case you missed that particular one, here’s the gist: - “A tight 240 pages of a 80 something year old woman (who is more sinister than she initially seems, but maybe less sinister than she wants us to believe) and an 8 year old boy (who is a probably evil force to be reckoned with) facing off in a luxury hotel in Egypt, it was a perfect little poison pill for the chaos week we were in. The book is set in current times (well, in that weird, not-quite-post-pandemic window of late-2020-into-2021) but it could be set in 1940s, 1920s, 2050s, whenever. It is very Highsmithian in spirit - meaning claustrophobic and darkly funny and not at all going in any direction you assume it does initially, and I cannot wait for it to be made into a movie starring the ghost of Maggie Smith and a time traveling 1993 version of Macauley Culkin. Witty, stylish, deadly.“

Maisie Dobbs - by Jacqueline Winspear - Another long delayed read. If you dare look, you’ll soon learn that there is ALWAYS a Maisie Dobbs mystery at every library sale and every other second-hand bookstore (I can sort of imagine people inheriting their parents books and donating boxes of British mysteries brimming with Maisie) and to me that is always a sign that a series is beloved. I was a little worried the cases would be a tad, dare I say “basic”, but this first one, set a decade after WWI in between London and the Kent countryside, had some genuine psychological darkness in it (PTSD, power and identity all play a prominent role in the solution - making the 100 year old setting very timely right now), while setting up Maisie’s backstory perfectly. I’m excited to read more.

Feminist Horror (Is There Any Other Kind?):

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls - by Grady Hendrix - It has been well documented here that witches are my favorite kind of supernatural horror and FINALLY we get a Grady Hendrix witch book. Set in a just-before-Roe-v-Wade America (or, you know, tomorrow?) it follows “a garden of girls” (all have botanical names which are used instead of their Christian ones, a decision open to endless book club interpretations) at a home for unwed mothers in Florida. Stripped of their identity, family, and virtually ANY joy or choice, they turn to witchcraft to try and solve a very pressing (dare I saw, HARROWING) problem one of them is experiencing. The book is equal parts groovy (all those early 70s vibes are captured flawlessly) and harrowing, and Hendrix may be the only man in America who should be allowed to write from the female POV right now. Highly recommended.

The Vegetarian - Han Kang - This was my NY Times best-books-of-the-century book for the month (it clocked in at #49). It involves a formerly meek woman (which was seen as her primary virtue) decide to take charge of her life/body in a seemingly small way: by becoming vegetarian. I don’t want to reveal too much, but the aftermath of this decision is harrowing. Did I enjoy it? No, it truly made me want scream. Did I appreciate it? Absolutely. Is it timely? Yes. Should you proceed with caution? Very much so.

The Three I Didn’t Plan On Reading But Made Me Itch To Want To Write A Book In 2025:

Strangers I Know - by Claudia Durastanti - I picked this up on a whim in the library because it had Jumpa Lahiri, Ocean Vuong and Lauren Groff quotes on the cover (come on!) and OMG I am so glad I did. Billed as “a work of fiction about being a stranger in your own family and life” it is an autobiographical (I think?) novel about the mythologies of author’s family. Unabashedly Italian (passionate, philosophical, often irrational, stubborn), it set up in segments of a traditional horoscope structure (love/money/health etc), and intended to be able to be read from different entry points (something I learned after reading it linearly and look forward to revisiting). It is truly a stunning, compulsively readable achievement exploring identity, money, love, and perception of ourselves by those we love, those we don’t know, and those in between. I can’t stop thinking about it, and in extension the stories that shaped my family.

Evenings & Weekends - by Oisin McKenna - I love a novel about a city and a novel about London (alongside novels about NY and LA) is right there at the top of my list. Set over the course of a long, heatwave weekend (and then an aftermath), a cast of characters crashes together propelled by some life-changing news (a pregnancy, a cancer diagnosis, an impending marriage, and a whale stuck on the beaches of Thames). It is the kind of kaleidoscopic city-sprawling writing we love from Zadie Smith, but also very Irish and very queer, which makes one compare it to Sally Rooney AND Torrey Peters, all of which is high praise. But it maybe reads best without comparisons, because it deserves to stand on its own two feet? It also made me think about how no matter how specific a setting, the stories of our formative years always ring universal.

Be Ready When Luck Happens - by Ina Garten - Now, I am a card-carrying Ina Garten fan (I own 6 of her cookbooks, and have been known, like every good woman of a certain age to sit with a cocktail and watch 20 minutes of her making something on TV “just to come down from the day a bit”). So, I bought her autobiography as soon as it came out, but then discovered that I wasn’t all that excited about reading it - maybe because I always felt while I do love Ina (I do!), I didn’t think of her as a literary writer, per se? And I am happy to report I’ve been proven wrong. Yes, she is a very straight-forward writer, but the candor and hard-won truths in this book more than make up for lack of compositional flair, so to speak. It almost reminded my of Elizabeth Stout in a way - a simple style, with hard-won clarity. She talks openly about a million things women of her generation have been raised not to talk about: money, marriage (the trial separation from Jeffrey was a jaw-dropper to me), therapy, emotional trauma, complicated friendships, business mistakes, and that nagging search for something (purpose? joy?) that often feels elusive, but can be achieved and not just through luck, but mostly through hard work. I adored it.

So, what are some of the lessons I learned this month via the books above and I am hoping to carry with me to the rest of my reading journey in 2025?

That I shouldn’t try to reduce a book to a stereotype - Maeve Binchy and Maisie Dobbs and Ina all proved me wrong.

To trust recommendations - from friends, librarians, booksellers, substacks - in the end, this is still the single best way to discover books - especially books that currently don’t have a marketing machine behind them.

That I should be ok to read books that scare me (often times this is mainly related to books I fear will make me angry or, worse, sad - I am genuinely hopeful this is the year I get the guts to dive into “A Little Life” or “Shuggie Bain”)

That the TBR pile is not a fixed thing - if you are in the mood for cozy, go for it. If you are in the mood for a solution, go for it. If you are in the mood for spectacular literary fiction, go for it. The right book will find you at the right time.

And while 11 books is a lot (and will likely not be a number replicated in months to come), an abundance of reading is achievable if you let yourself read what you need in the moment.

And with that - cheers to a good, tricky, challenging, scary, funny, maddening, life-affirming 2025 for all us readers out there.