Happy New Year!
What to expect in 2025, and looking back on 2024, a year of change.
Well, hello. It’s been a while since I wrote one of these. The latter half of 2024 I felt like I was constantly playing catch up, always trying to just keep things ticking over. Unfortunately consistent posts over here were the only thing I couldn’t quite get a handle on, especially because I was still working out what I was really drawn to. This is a wholly different platform and needs a special kind of touch! I haven’t been completely neglectful though, because the space I left to breathe over here has led me to a few ideas I’m really excited about. And I have really appreciated the symbolic fresh start of the new year to now properly begin. More on the existential crisis that was 2024 below the paywall.
But for now, here is what you can expect in 2025! As a brief re-introduction, I really want this newsletter to help you find great books, expand your reading palate and to get the most out of your reading experience. There will be a personal post from time to time, also, if you’ll indulge me. As there will be a lot more going on around here, I will break it down into sections so that you can adjust your email notifications accordingly.
So, free subscribers will of course receive the monthly reading posts, as well as any wrap-ups or standalone reviews dedicated to new releases. It’s really important to me that reviews of new books—and highlighting great new books and authors—are seen by as many people as possible. And of course my top books of the year posts; my 2024 one will be with you later this month. It’s possible there will be the occasional essay thrown in there, too.
Paid subscribers will have access to the following:
Twice-monthly newsletter The Minutiae, covering current book-related topics, what’s on my mind, what I’ve been reading. The next newsletter will be a full list of authors whose work I’d love to complete (it’s long)!
The Novel Matters series where we dive into the novel as a form. The next of these you should see in February.
Any material based more in the backlist or personal reading lists.
Slow reads
Courses
Slow reads and courses you say!? Yes! I have been thinking about these for a while, deciding exactly how to approach them, but now I am so ready to get started. Had I been less burnt out at the end of 2024, I would have got more of a head start on these, but as it is I have decided to start these bigger projects in Spring. That way if you would like to join in, you have time to procure the books and get started on the reading.
Here is the schedule for 2025:
March to May: How to Read and Analyse a Novel (course).
I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while and I feel like I have to get stuck in or it will never happen! I want to provide a distilled version of everything I’ve learnt over the years about analysing a novel, and help you get the most out of your reading. We will be covering the basics of course, breaking a novel down into its constituent parts; context, genre, themes, prose styling and so on. But my approach is also quite theory-based, so we will be looking at some of the big bodies of theory and how to use that knowledge when you’re reading. Based on what we discover, we can always delve more into theory at a later date in a different course. We will also be reading some books together; a full list to follow in the coming weeks. This will be a weekly post and discussion thread.
June to August: Little, Big by John Crowley (slow read).
I found myself so drawn to this book again recently, and as I read its opening pages again I realised I could just write reams and reams on this book. So I’m giving myself an opportunity to do so, and hopefully introducing some new readers to it (forever thankful to Emily for recommending this book to us over in book club). I really think it is a masterpiece, and as close to magic as a novel can get. We’ll discuss it more closer to the time, but I’ll be posting close to daily about this throughout these months in slow read fashion. You can of course read at your own pace and read my posts as support for your reading at any time.
September and October: Introduction to Speculative Fiction (course).
A short, intense ride through what I consider to be some of the best speculative fiction out there, old and new. This course is intended for everyone, but particularly those readers of literary fiction who are sceptical of wading into the genres. I hope I can change your mind! I also think it’ll build nicely on the earlier course; analysing a great piece of speculative fiction is such a rewarding experience. Again this will be a weekly post, with a full list of books to follow.
November to December/January 2026: Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake (slow read).
Peake’s prose is some of the most remarkable I have ever read. I would love to introduce some of you to this work, read it slowly together and tease out some of its brilliance.
Of course this is subject to slight changes as we go along so do keep an eye out for updates, but I think alternating between courses and slow reads is going to give a nice balance to the year. Naturally you should join for whatever appeals to you.
(Slow reads of course inspired by the king of slow reads, Simon, who is running his extremely popular Wolf Crawl (Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy) and War and Peace readalongs again this year amongst others, do go and check those out if you are interested.)
A note on the differences between here and the Patreon book club. I think of that space as more about the community and the discussions, and also pretty much everything we read is new to me. We are approaching texts fresh together. Here I am intending to ‘teach’ a bit more, and will generally be bringing you books through the courses and slow reads that I am already familiar with. Also the text formatting and function over there is awful and doesn’t really lend itself to courses or slow reads in the same way. You may even want to dip in and out of both. I will always try and keep the price of a paid subscription as reasonable as possible so it’s not out of the question to access both. At the moment to access absolutely everything would be about £12 a month, though there are all sorts of different options. And a paid subscription over here is the price of a coffee per month (or less, actually, than my local London shop…)
Phew! I feel like I’ve been sitting on some of these ideas for so long now that it is so nice to finally have them out in the world and have a schedule on the go. I can’t wait to get started, and I hope you will join me for at least some of the above.