Reading Roundup!
What I read in October 2025
I started October ‘just getting over’ the bout of Covid that hit me in Fresher’s week… and I ended October still trying to get over it. As a result, I seem to have spent most of the month feeling like I was running just to stand still - but, of course, I managed to get some reading in!
So here’s what I read last month:
As always, a note that these are commission links to Bookshop.org - that means that you pay the same price you would otherwise, but I get a tiny cut of that price.
And Then There Was The One - Martha Waters
The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune
Prudence - Jilly Cooper
The Other Bennet Sister - Janice Hadlow
Dancing With Bees - Anna Maynard
Precipice - Robert Harris
Katabasis - RF Kuang
Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins
The Weight of Nature - Clayton Page Aldern
Lies and Weddings - Kevin Kwan
Anna and the French Kiss was a much-needed re-read of a favourite YA romance of mine. It’s a real comfort story for me - it follows 17-year-old Anna who is sent to the ‘School of American in Paris’ (SOAP) for her final year of high school, at the behest of her Nicholas-Sparks-esque nouveau riche father. Of course, she falls in love with the enigmatic American-British hero, Etienne. It is, naturally, not that simple - but it’s a really lovely read and one I often go to when the world is a lot.
Now time for a wee bit of analysis - as ever, plenty of themes of love and family in those books.
Most of what I read this month was very recent - but a shout-out to Prudence by Jilly Cooper for some solid 20th Century representation there (and what a 20th Century it is, in Cooper’s novels!)
Most of what I read in October was digital, and half of it came from the library, so it wasn’t a great month from the perspective of ‘reading my way through my shelves’…
As of today, 1st October, I have 508 unread books on my Kindle, plus 36 on Audible and 7 on LibroFM, for a total of 551 unread digital books. That’s more than I had last month, so definitely going in the wrong direction…
This morning, I unwrapped my pre-orders of In Love With Love and Courting Disaster (ad - both commissioned links) - I can’t wait to dig into them!
What have you been reading lately?
Speak soon,
Lily
You know Stephanie Perkins has an adult romance out now?