January and February 2025 reads
By Alana
After a December of speedreading tiny books to hit my arbitrary 130 books/year goal in 2024, I decided to slow down and set a more conservative reading challenge goal this year.
When I was a kid, I loved giant fantasy and sci-fi epics. Robert Jordan, David Eddings, Tad Williams, Diana Wynne Jones, Isaac Assimov, Arthur C. Clarke. Mostly male, white writers, I realize now, maybe because they were recommended by my six foot tall, Ukrainian-Irish-English dad.
I didn’t read many of these types of books last year. But in a snowy winter rife with depressing news, returning to genre fiction helped me unplug. I wouldn’t call it escapism - the best books are the ones that hold up other worlds as a means to better understand our own - but there is a special comfort in that immersive tug of a good story well told.
Keeping these stories, authors, and quotes straight gets hard once you’re reading fifty-plus books a year. So this year, I’m experimenting with the format of my reviews in the hopes that I’ll better remember my reads.
Here’s what I’ve got so far - we’ll see how it goes!
To The Gorge - Emily Hanlon
One sentence summary:
Hanlon’s memoir on running and grief: she recounts setting the fastest known time on the 460-mile Oregon stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail while navigating the loss of her mum to cancer.
Where and when:
Oregon, USA, 2010s
Read if you’re:
wading through the messy feelings of grief
inspired by incredible feats of athleticism
looking for ways to honour the people you’ve lost
Books this reminded me of:
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Made me feel:
Nostalgic. My dad was a runner and also died of cancer. We visited Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland in 2019. It ended up being our last big trip together. I remember trying to scale the Tablelands in torrential downpour; dad just didn’t want to quit. The weird flux of hardship, adrenaline, and big feelings we felt on that climb reminded me of the emotional lows Hanlon describes during her run.
Quote:
“I know that if there’s any place I can find my mom, it’s in every step I run.”
The Pull of the Stars - Emma Donoghue
One sentence summary:
World War One rages, the Spanish flu runs rampant, and an overworked hospital nurse is saddled with unqualified help, only to find she has as much to learn from her new assistant as she has to teach.
Setting:
Dublin, Republic of Ireland, 1918
Read if you’re:
Curious about early twentieth century midwifery and medical practices
Not squeamish about pregnancy
Ready for emotional rollercoaster of love and loss
Books this reminded me of:
Murder by Degrees by Rita Mikurji (both showcase impeccable historical research on medical practices and feature trailblazing female doctors)
Small Things like These by Claire Keegan (both explore the consequences of Magdalen laundries)
Made me feel:
Sad.
Quote:
“That’s what influenza means, she said. “Influenza delle stelle — the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved that the heavens were governing their fates, that people were quite literally star-crossed.”
Intermezzo - Sally Rooney
One sentence summary:
After their dad dies, two brothers discover that they’re really bad at talking about feelings, that relationships - familial and romantic - are messy, and that the key to happiness is not giving a shit what other people think.
Where and when:
Dublin, Republic of Ireland, 2020s
Read if you’re:
Still wading through that grief business
Into chess and solipsism
Not too triggered by suicidal ideation (a couple chapters towards the end made me do a lot of therapy)
Books this reminded me of:
Ulysses by James Joyce (mucho stream of consciousness)
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (both depressing and uplifting)
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (Rooney also hates quotation marks)
Made me feel:
Introspective. Prompted reflection on the ripple effects of death in my own relationship with my family.
Quote:
“Sometimes you need people to be perfect and they can’t be and you hate them forever for not being even though it isn’t their fault and it’s not yours either. You just needed something they didn’t have in them to give you.”
“Yes I would like he thinks to live in such a way that I could vanish into thin air at any time without affecting anyone and in fact I feel that for me this would constitute the perfect and perhaps the only acceptable life. At the same time I want desperately to be loved.”
(p.s. if reading this unpunctuated blob made you grumpy then you should listen to the audiobook of Intermezzo!)
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce
One sentence summary:
A retiree discovers his friend is dying and embarks on a journey of 740+ kilometers to walk to her deathbed, meeting many, and healing his own scars along the way.
Setting:
England, from Devon to Berick-Upon Tweed, 2010s
Read if you’re:
Making peace with unexpected loss
Weathering challenge in relationships
Too hard on yourself
Books this reminded me of:
A Man Called Ove by Frederick Backman
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Made me feel:
Bittersweet. Harold’s generosity and dedication to his absurd self-imposed quest, rediscovering value in marriage, making peace with the past - all very moving.
Quote:
“People were buying milk, or filling their cars with petrol, or even posting letters. And what no one else knew was the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The superhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that.”
The Book of Doors - Gareth Brown
One sentence summary:
A young woman gets an unlikely gift from a man she barely knows and discovers a dangerous world of magic books that people will kill to own.
Setting:
New York, USA, 2010s (with jaunts to New Orleans, Scotland, and Paris)
Read if you’re:
Nostalgic for all the cool places you’ve travelled
A book lover
A fan of Very Evil Villains
Books this reminded me of:
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (with less anti-colonial commentary)
Made me feel:
Entertained. Lots of surprises between the pages of The Book of Door; a creative premise intelligently applied in the oversaturated genre of urban fantasy.
Quote:
“Hold it in your hand, and any door is every door. But you have to let things go or it will eat you up. Let things pass. A good story is just as good the second time around.”
A Sorceress Comes to Call - T. Kingfisher
One sentence summary:
A beautiful sorceress will stop at nothing to get what she wants and it’s up to her daughter and an elderly lady with knee pain to stop her.
Location:
an unspecified medieval fantasy land
Read if you’re:
Craving a quick, fairytale-esque jaunt
Into a little body horror with your fantasy
Not a horse-owner
Books this reminded me of:
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
The Brothers Grimm faerie tales
Made me feel:
Transported. Kingfisher pulls me in every time with her talent for tight, well-plotted stories with unlikely heroes. A binge-read perfect for a snowy day.
Quote:
“Instinct took over. Cordelia snatched the edge of the blanket and dragged it over her head, curling into the smallest ball that she could. If there were monsters, they couldn’t get her through the blankets. Those were the rules.”
The Last King of Osten Ard quartet - Tad Williams
(includes: The Witchwood Crown, Empire of Grass, Into the Narrowdark, The Navigator's Children)
Two sentence summary (gave myself an extra sentence since there are four books!):
A quartet of four 700+ page books that is a sequel to Williams’ iconic Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series published in the 1980s and 90s. A king and queen struggle to maintain peace against plotting nobles, undead queens, and fractious nomadic tribes, questioning what it means to rule and who even deserves that right.
Location:
Osten Ard
Read if you’re:
Into big battles, complex political scheming, and swords and sorcery fantasy
Looking for something to scratch that Game of Thrones itch
Okay with slow-build plots (the payoff is totally worth it)
Books this reminded me of:
The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson (Williams was an inspiration for Sanderson)
The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (but better!)
Made me feel:
Awed. Tad Williams is my favourite epic fantasy writer and his ability to humanize characters, weave complex plots with rotating perspectives, and create memorable, moving scenes is unparalleled. I remember being sixteen and staying up all night to read his first series, never expecting that 30 years later I’d have the same experience reading more stories set in this beautiful world.
Quote:
“Saying peace never lasts, or that an empire must grow or die, is like saying that only birth and death matter,” she told him. “Most of life is not part of either, but what comes between–the simple hard work of living.” (from Empire of Grass)
Mindfulness for Beginners - Jon Kabat-Zinn
One sentence summary:
Renowned doctor and Zen Buddhist student Jon Kabat-Zinn walks readers through the basics of cultivating mental quiet - a task that is way harder than it sounds.
Location:
your brain!
Read if you’re:
Overwhelmed by the ahhhs in your brain
Interested in the basics of establishing a meditation practice
Books this reminded me of:
Embers by Richard Wagamese
Made me feel:
Bad at meditation.
Quote:
“We only have moments. This moment's as good as any other. It's perfect.”
