What I've Been Reading Lately

Over the end of May and into June, 2025

This list of books is a lot shorter than I’d normally expect (for me!) for a period of five weeks which included three weeks’ holiday, with plenty of time spent on trains. What can I say, other than “I was exhausted and slept a lot!” It was much-needed rest and recovery time - and I was also out and about and doing things a lot of the time, or doing reading for my Master’s dissertation. While I find climate and environment law, and the narratives that drive it, incredibly fascinating, I’m not sure you’d all want to see those reading lists…

So here’s what I read in June (and the last week of May):

As always, just a note that these are commission links - that means that you pay the same price you would otherwise, but I get a tiny cut of that price.

1. Consider Yourself Kissed - Jessica Stanley

2. The God of the Woods - Liz Moore

3. Normal People - Sally Rooney

4. The Art of Taking It Easy - Brian King

5. Maybe Meant To Be - KL Walther

6. Intermezzo - Sally Rooney

7. When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson

8. The In-Between Bookstore - Edward Underhill

9. The Geographer’s Map To Romance - India Holton

10. Outlawed - Anna North

11. Read Between The Lines - Emily Kerr

It’s always an odd experience to read a hugely hyped book a few years after the hype has died down. Friends, I’m not going to lie to you, I would have been obnoxiously into Normal People if I had read it at the peak of its popularity. I really, really enjoyed it, and got a lot out of reading it. I will admit that I had the memorably-titled Vogue essay “Why are all the characters in Sally Rooney’s novels so thin?” in my head at multiple points throughout the book, but knowing that this was ‘a thing’ going in helped me not to internalise it in a way I might have if I’d read it without being forewarned. Also, I need to give a shout-out to a pal of mine from Dublin (they don’t read the newsletter, so this is fairly ineffective) who filled me in on more of the Trinity College lore that forms the backdrop for much of the book. I do, however, have a potentially controversial opinion: if you want to read a book about people figuring out who they are while playing chess, skip Intermezzo and read Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood instead. I said what I said!

In terms of clearing my own backlog of books (you really don’t want to know how many unread books I have on my Kindle virtual shelf, let alone how many are in my flat…), most of these were library ebooks - but I had bought Outlawed as an ebook back when it was a Reese pick in 2021, so it felt good to tick that one off. One of the interesting things about reading Outlawed - which I hugely enjoyed and which is very much in the running for my top books of 2025 - was how prescient it felt for our present moment. Like The Hunger Games or The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s set in the territory once known as the United States, some years after a devastating event caused the collapse of democracy. The world building was incredibly clever and subtly spread throughout the book, and it was both gripping and thought-provoking. Those same descriptions can be applied to Liz Moore’s The God Of The Woods, too - it’s been huge in the US but I’ve not seen it much yet on this side of the pond. I’d love to read more of these action-packed literary thrillers - literary romps, almost.

What have you been reading lately?

Speak soon,

Lily