November 2025 - Reviewed

November felt like it lasted for six months on its own but we made it through and it’s December! December is my favourite time in Sydney, it’s gorgeously warm and sunny, the last of the Jacaranda trees are blooming and everyone is looking forward to the end of year shutdown where most companies will close for a two week break. Early December is still busy but it feels like we’re freewheeling towards the end of the year and I get to start saying things like “can we circle back to this in the New Year?”. Obviously, what I mean by that is “Please leave and never contact me again” but somehow people always come back to me in January!

I managed to read fifteen books this year, mainly due to having a lot of downtime on my worksite, and this is what I thought of them.

Isola – Allegra Goodman

A fictional adaption of the real life marooning of 16^th century French noblewoman Marguerite de la Roque, on a deserted island in Hudson Bay. I really enjoyed this book, the beginning was a chilling insight into the powerlessness of a young woman in Valois France, even with all the privileges and wealth in the world, everything is stripped from Marguerite as her guardian enriches himself with her lands. However my favourite part was the account of her survival on the island, as she digs deep and finds incredible inner strength and persistence to keep herself alive in the harshest conditions.

The Devil Three Times – Rickey Fayne

 A woman trapped on a slave ship makes a deal with the devil, that will have an impact that echoes through the lives of her descendants. Now that’s a hook! I was really excited to read this book but it didn’t quite live up to the promise. I think I was after a slightly more genre take, this felt more of literary version, with very limited fantasy elements. The book is a series of snapshots in the life of each of the first woman’s children and grandchildren, from the antebellum south to the present day, interspersed with glimpses of the devil falling from heaven and wandering the earth. I’d describe it more like Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, which I enjoyed more because I understood the genre before reading.

The Expert System’s Brother – Adrian Tchaikovsky

My latest Tchaikovsky, and a rather brilliant idea, nicely executed. Young Handry is accidentally anointed with a liquid exile, a potion that excises him from his society on a deadly hormonal level. Handry must leave and scrounge a living thieving and hunting, until he discovers the secret that underpins all life on his planet. A fun and quick read.

Automatic Noodle – Annalee Newitz

A sf novella set in a seceded California, where robots of “Human Equivalent Intelligence” have been granted preliminary human rights, a group of robots start up a food delivery kitchen. This was marketed as cosy sci-fi and it definitely fits the bill, with cute characters and a relatively gentle plot. However I found it heavy handed in its approach to promoting “robots rights” as a metaphor for immigrant workers, endebted workers etc. I think it’s because of all the AI discourse but I fundamentally don’t think that robots and humans are the same and I kind agreed with the “robophobic” activists who were trying to protect human run businesses! Additionally there wasn’t any real difference between a human perspective and a robot perspective, it felt more like the author had written a story and then changed the narrator to a robot. I feel harsh for saying this but I did enjoy the writing and I would like to see a more challenging approach from the author.

The Life of Saint Cuthbert – Bede

The Venerable Bede's account of the life of Saint Cuthbert! I don't think I could recommend this to anyone who wasn't specifically interested in the subject or, like me, doing some research. Lots of descriptions of miracles, not enough details of day to day life. 

Thirst – Marina Yuszczuk

 A vampire stows away to colonial Buenos Aires and wanders the city, feeding and hiding in the great el Norte cemetery. I liked this, it was a dark and atmospheric read and it made Buenos Aires feel grimy and grey, which went against all my ideas of what the city is like. The narrative is split between the vampire and a modern woman, and I liked the vampire side much more, though I guess it was supposed to be an analogy for the tolls of modern womanhood. A modern gothic classic.

When The Forest Whispers – Maggie Flynn

 A brilliant apocalytptic eco horror-fantasy that is unfortunately not out until 2027! I was sent a preview copy and absolutely devoured it – knocking it out in just two days. It follows Remy, a survivor of the ‘Pop’, an apocalyptic event that killed almost all humans, as she navigates the end of the world in her prepper family’s escape cabin. I really, really loved it, and I thought it was so clever how it started as a fun horror-fantasy but was actually all about grief and trauma and how we are shaped by it - I love when genre fiction acts as a lens to view the human condition especially when it remains such a gripping read.  An unputdownable debut that interweaves darkness and light into a sparkling story that will both scare and delight you.

The Curse of the Gloamglozer – Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

Reread of a childhood favourite and the chronological first in the Edge Chronicle series. Why isn't this series still popular? It's an absolute classic and I loved returning to the floating city of Sanctaphrax, with its towering spires and scheming academics. If you've got a curious young reader put them onto this series.

To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee

A young girl in the Deep South... wait you definitely know this one! I haven't read Mockingbird since school and I wanted to try it again. It was a different experience for sure, with much deeper racism than I had noticed previously (did I read a redacted child's version???) and I found that even the heroic Atticus has views I would find upsetting today. I did think it was great however, and I picked up on a whole other layer of context and clues that I missed the first time around. I feel as if I read it as young Scout and now I come back, revisiting Atticus as an adult, just as she does in Go Set A Watchman.

On Tyranny – Timothy Snyder

Twenty lessons on how to resist the rise of fascism. This is quite a short book but I found it had some pretty solid advice, all backed up with historical examples. The most important one I think was not to comply in advance – fight for every step.

Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell

To my great surprise this was one of my favourite books of the month! An unbearably low stakes account of Victorian life in a small Cheshire town, populated entirely with Austenian maiden aunts, wittily narrated by Mary Smith, who kindly but accurately skewers her friends. Cranford quite stole my heart and I found myself wiping away a tea or at the end. If you want a book that's funny and sweet and gentle then this might be it.

Empire of the Dawn – Jay Kristoff

Look, I'm not going to be talking anyone in or out of reading this third and final installment in the sexy vampire slaying books. Either you love these books or you hate them and for all its faults, for all that it is Van Helsing meets DaVinci Code meets the Usual Suspects I kinda love it. More of this this please!

How To Blow Up A Pipeline – Andreas Malm

A very interesting, intellectual look at the missing eco-terrorism in the climate change movement and asking whether there is a moral imperative to fight the violence of fossil fuel capitalism with violence of our own. I found it a compelling read and perhaps we should be more active in our protests. Food for thought.

A Piece of Red Cloth – Leonie Norrington, Merrikiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djawa Burarrawnga & Djawumdil Maymuru

A historical novel set in the north of Australia, in the land of the Yolngu people, this is a story of the trade between the Yolngu and the Macassan traders, long before Europeans landed at Botany Bay. For some context on this review, I know the Yolngu culture quite well, I have spent time up in Arnhem land, on country, volunteering at the major Garma Festival, and have worked quite hard to learn as much as I can about them and from them. And yet I STILL struggled reading this book. I felt like every page there was a little voice in my head going, “oh that’s an odd way to do things”, “that’s not right”, “that’s not civilised”. I was fighting really hard to read it without judging and ultimately I failed. What eventually helped me understand and appreciate this book was reading Cranford, reviewed above. The intricate social norms of England are absolutely as strange and ‘uncivilised’ as anything the historical Yolngu were doing, and Cranford is set a hundred years later! I realised that I was completely blind to my own cultural quirks, and judging a historical society in a way that I would never judge my own, or any book set in historical Europe or Asia. So I do recommend you read this, and challenge yourself to see with eyes as clear as you can make them. I am really grateful to have had the chance to read this and to have learnt again from the Yolngu.

Precipice – Robert Harris

Harris's latest is an adaption of the affair between H Asquith, the British PM who brought us into WW1, and his much younger mistress, Venetia Stanley. I thought this book had so much promise, the enraptured PM, sending literally hundreds of letters to Venetia, including extremely secret documents that if captured could have changed the early course of the war. Unfortunately I had mixed up this affair and the Profumo-Keeler one, and Asquith was never outed, or exposed to any scandal. So the book sort of fizzles out, which was a little disappointing. I realise that this is hard to fault Harris for, it’s not his fault that the security apparatus and press were so incompetent, but I was so interested in the start of the book and then rather let down.