realisations 2025

and books!

It’s been half an hour since Christmas started (e.g. I’m off work!!!) and so, to celebrate, I opened my laptop to create #content because I haven’t written on here for a few weeks/do not know how to be off work.

Anyway thought I’d do a light fun book recommendations post today, for that reason. And if you don’t fancy recommendations from a woman who, shall we say, isn’t your average reader (every single book on this list is a well known bestseller that definitely had gigantic window displays in Waterstone’s where, if you didn’t buy a copy upon arrival, you got shot in both eyes) I’ve interspersed them with Deep Realisations From The Year. Something for everyone! Unless you’re really into politics or current affairs or software development or greyhounds.

Behold some books that blew me away alongside musings that also blew me away but in a different, less dramatic fashion. In fact some of the realisations didn’t blow me away at all, at most they made me go ‘hmm’ with my eyebrows slightly raised. Oh, and most of these books didn’t even come out this year, I just read them this year. It’s going to be a good post ok, it’s going to work, relax.

Wolf Hall trilogy

Yeah I guess I read two thousand pages of historical fiction on Thomas Cromwell in two months while on tour don’t worry about it. Struggled with the style for the first twenty pages or so because it’s a stream of consciousness from Cromwell’s perspective (and everyone either has fourteen interchangeable titles or is also called Thomas) but then not only did they become the most enjoyable books I read this year, but I think they’re my favourite books full stop ever. Even though I had to check the character list at the front of the book every four seconds.

Everything feels spoonfed now, but this was medicine for my Tiktokified frontal lobe. I could almost feel it gouging out new neural pathways in my brain that years of scrolling had smoothed over. Also, it’s a brilliant story, a fascinating lead character, I cried my eyes out and am thrilled to have enjoyed them as someone who presumed Thomas Cromwell was the same person as Oliver Cromwell and doesn’t even know the Henry VIII ‘Divorced, Beheaded, Whatever’ rhyme.

There is something sinister happening with headphones

Why is everyone wearing wired headphones now? I am suspicious and don’t buy that it’s a retro thing i.e. when teenagers get all excited about cameras. I believe there has been some terrible scientific research done about Bluetooth that normal people haven’t been told yet, lest we stop buying Beats. Or those Sony ones. Should say at this point this theory is based on nothing other than a dream I had where my wireless Sony ones became attached to my skull and started whistling this haunting song like a little bird. When I woke up I saw an Instagram reel where a guy was like ‘wired headphones are the new thing’, put two and two together and suffice to say this has become my 5G.

You know what, I’m not convinced this was the best Deep Realisation to start with. I should have buried it further down after I’d instilled you with more confidence in my ability to have Deep Realisations that aren’t insane.

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

Was enjoying this portrayal of a young gay guy’s life (from the 1960s to present day) and then the final part of the book floored me senseless. I became a floor. Afterwards, I had a 57 minute shower while shouting about the book to my partner, which was tricky because he hadn’t read it and I didn’t want to spoil anything, so just kept saying ‘very powerful’ and ‘what the author does is very powerful’ and ‘could you look up synonyms for powerful? I can’t because I’m in the shower’.

Sometimes, saying no to a job feels as exhilarating (is that a synonym for powerful?) as saying yes.

Oh boy have I never done this before, and oh boy am I terrified because I don’t have any alternative lined up. I think this is a good thing though, because it’s just put a right old firecracker up me. Nay, a bonfire! I have the 1605 Houses Of Parliament up my arse right now and it feels like living. Like Guy Fawkes! This analogy is terrible. Anyway I turned it down for various reasons including wanting to write jokes for myself rather than for other people (which I’ve done loads of), so it was valid. Even though I keep thinking christ - turning down a great job with nothing else in the pipeline?! Who do I think I am?! Guy Fawkes?!!!! Sorry.

The main reason for this firecracker/bonfire/parliamentary feeling is a) I really can’t emphasise enough how little I turn down and b) now I’ve got to justify it, haven’t I? Might have to submit those scripts I’ve been calling my own bluff on or risk writing a ‘Why I Shouldn’t Have Said No To The Great Job’ post this time next year.

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Apparently I’m not meant to like R.F. Kuang cos she’s from a rich family and young and pretty and takes big swings with her ideas rather than staying in her lane or something? I don’t know, I couldn’t work it out from the tiktoks. Anyway, this is about two magicians in a magic school who go to hell to find their arsehole teacher and it’s a lot of fun. I read it in two days, and it really plugged a gap I previously tried to plug with the latest Philip Pullman but instead ended up brandishing that plug at the moon screaming ‘why did you do this Philip?? This plug is quite bad!!’ etc. Lot of respect for a fantasy novel where spells run off logic puzzles, and the author manages to make this entertaining to someone who has no logic in their brain (me).

Marmite and roast potatoes is a great combo.

Dipped a roast potato in the marmite pot two months ago on a whim. Let’s just say I didn’t not eat eleven of them and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Can’t write much more for fear of being arrested for public indecency in my own home (?).

Still Life by Sarah Winman

Didn’t start this for ages because I thought it was about the war and wasn’t up for a ‘look my lad the bosh are coming’ type of thing (do you know what I mean though? Sometimes you don’t want that type of thing!), but turns out Still Life is this warm funny beautifully perfect story about people making friends, making the best of things, laughing and crying together and I will never get over how much I loved it. It felt like a hug. When it was over I missed them all, and they aren’t even real (in case you haven’t grasped the concept of fiction yet). Read it. It will make you feel happy.

Interior design in hotels is bizarre

I’ve stayed in 28 different hotels this year and:

1. Fifteen of them had mirrors where you could see yourself on the toilet, and eight of them we’re talking full frontal.

2. Seven had showers where, in order to set the temperature of the knob, you had to fully submerge yourself in the water. Something to do with the placement of the door to the taps. I was boiling hot/freezing cold while screaming obscenities so many times.

3. Four had movement sensor lights for if you needed to go to the bathroom that didn’t work, so would just blink on and off all night. Really helpful and restful and calming.

4. Why are there so many cushions on the beds? Eight cushions, four pillows and a long leather sausage the same shade as the carpet. For what? Please comment. I need to understand.

5. One had a snail in the bed but we won’t discuss this because it was too distressing. I buried it in a plant pot in the car park and genuinely said ‘he was a good snail’ out loud. I was very tired.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

Fuck me. Fuck ME. This is about a struggling, dysfunctional family in Ireland but I don’t want to say any more except message me if you’ve read it please. I feel like it’s basically a classic? I don’t really know what to write about it other than: read it, and try not to finish it while you’re on a Ryanair flight. It felt too emotionally charged, momentous and exhausting to then have to deal with, for example, being 30,000 feet above the ground without a tray table or one of those mesh storage pockets on the back of the seat in front of you. What the fuck is going on there? How much could a rectangle of mesh stuck to a seat possibly cost them? Sorry I digress.

Offline 24 is crucial to my wellbeing (and maybe yours?)

My sister deletes all the social media apps on Friday and re-uploads them on Monday, giving herself the whole weekend off scrolling. I said I’d do this with her for 2025, managed it once and kept twitching for my phone like an addict desperate for a fix or an alcoholic who can’t stop drinking phones. Then the following weekend I forgot and decided it wasn’t for me while becoming more and more scroll-sick as the months went by. At the start of the year my screen time was five hours a day, now it’s crept up to seven. In 2026 I am going to go offline every single weekend with no exceptions - feel free to join me. I can’t wait to fuck it up.

All That Glitters by Orlando Whitfield

Rare non-fiction from me but this was just a really readable look at the world of superstar art dealers by the friend of one who turned out to be a gigantic fraud. Reads like a novel, powered through it very quickly, and had no idea about the art world so that was quite interesting. Everyone seems like a bit of a posh twat, to be honest, but I quite like reading about posh twats. The other non-fiction book I enjoyed this year was The Book of English Magic by Philip Cass Gomm and Richard Heygate, but that’s too niche to include here. Less posh twats involved, but the ones that do feature are wearing cloaks and saying they’ve got magical powers, which is fun.

I have to set an alarm to take laundry out of the washing machine

There is no judgement here. No judgement for my tiny stupid sieve-like brain that is unable to hang laundry after hearing the washing machine beep at me to hang laundry. Who every single time thinks ‘I’ll do that in a minute’ and does not do it in a minute. ‘Isn’t the washing machine beep an alarm? Why does the phone alarm make a difference when there’s already an alarm?’ I don’t know stop saying the world ‘alarm’ leave me alone.

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

By the author of Fleishman Is In Trouble (if you haven’t read that - it’s good! What a trojan horse of a book!), a traumatic event happens to a wealthy entrepreneur and we see how the shockwaves of this - plus how it was dealt with, or not dealt with - has affected him and his family decades later. Each part explores a different family member’s perspective and there’s absolutely no weak link, you’re all in on every one of them. Oh, and they’re also posh! I think one of my favourite genres is Posh Twats Have Layers Too You Know.

Listening to something boring in order to fall asleep really works

Discovered this on tour while sleeping alone in hotels, and what’s very frustrating is my partner can’t listen to anything while falling asleep. We have tried to compromise by playing rain sounds but unfortunately I need a quiet man on an episode of the Sleepy History podcast telling me about Benjamin Franklin. Or discussing whether the Hanging Gardens of Babylon existed. Not sure how to solve this because I can’t use comfy headphones due to convincing myself Bluetooth is going to kill me thanks to that dream I had.

The Ministry Of Time by Kaliane Bradley

A romantic will-they-won’t-they time travel book with government-y intrigue, lots of action and some top boning? Get innnnnn. Absolutely ripped through this, the perfect holiday read, although had to read the end few pages about twenty times because I was on the way back from a holiday in Malaga and quite drunk on cava, so that’s possibly on me, rather than the book. It’s being made into a film I think, and I can’t wait. James Norton should play the main guy in it, tell me I’m wrong.

Water bottle for home, water bottle for outside

I bought a big water bottle that never leaves the house, and a smaller one for my bag. I used to just carry a big water bottle around with my hands, because it wouldn’t fit in my bag, and then lose it. Over and over again. Last year I refused to buy another reusable bottle for fear of disappointing myself yet again, but am also scared of microplastics so spent 2024 really dehydrated until my friend said ‘buy a smaller bottle’.

She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark

Eliza Clark is another one I get the feeling I’m not meant to like, and I was worried this would be performatively gross or style-over-substance but I liked it! I can tell I liked it because I read it on a sunny, relaxing holiday (no cava) despite all the short stories being quite stressful body horrors. I hate horror and sure, some of the stories made me feel a bit sick but I found myself applauding the vision, you know? Nice to read outside of the box. The Posh Twats Have Layers Too You Know box.

Would you believe I’m running out of realisations?

I know! I was on such a roll with that last one. I guess it’s just books from hereonin. That cannot be a word. Hereonin? Hrieoeorin.

Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan

This starts off as one thing - a privileged public intellectual quite clearly about to have some sort of cancellation shocker - then concertinas out to encompass greed, poverty and corruption across all levels of class and society, the hub being ofc the titular road in North London (Caledonian rd, if that wasn’t clear. I just wanted to use the word ‘titular’ which I’ve been mispronouncing up until last week). Anyway this is the sort of book that makes you Ponder and think about Things. I should be a book critic, I really am bringing a whole new level of insight to the literary medium. I can hear my Literary Criticism tutor from uni screaming at the moon right now.

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

What’s great about this is I’d just read a book about death followed by one about genocide so ran into my local bookshop, grabbed this off the shelf cos it was pink, started reading and it’s about the sorority house Ted Bundy targeted. Excellent. However, it really was excellent. Told through the eyes of the sorority head as she grapples with what happened that night, it examines the culture around the murders as well as challenging that ‘oh he was a handsome guy who charmed his victims’ thing that I totally bought into until I read this. I also could not put it down. I think I read it solidly for about 12 hours. Probs have a fun one lined up afterwards, sure.

The Safekeep

OoOooooOH lots of sex in this! Lots of tension! A very uptight woman meets a very fun woman in a post war Netherlands town and they bone, but there’s obviously more going on than that. It’s really sweet and sad and yearning-y, plus there’s a mystery running throughout that I enjoyed as much as the boning. It’d make a great film and probably is one already. Maybe read this after Bright Young Women?

Okay I should try to relax now, and not work. While I broadly count Substack writing as relaxing, I do want to start the Christmas-themed puzzle I bought from WH Smith in 2018 that’s a painting of people ice skating in Somerset House. Or have a nap.

Thank you everyone who has read my Substack this year. You’re all great. Special thanks to the paid subscribers - I really appreciate you supporting my great and incredibly important art, allowing me to bring such nuggets of wisdom as ‘buy a smaller water bottle if your current water bottle doesn’t fit into your bag’ to the people of the world.

Happy Christmasssssss x