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Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

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Seascraper

A gloriously evocative Booker Longlisted read

Deservedly longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, the beautiful and evocative Seascraper by Benjamin Wood tells the story of Thomas Flett, a young man living in an English coastal community in the mid-twentieth century. His days consist of drizzle and drudgery, dragging for shrimp on the beaches, a gruelling job that is wrecking his body. Its almost succeeded in claiming his spirit too, except for one tiny flickering flame that Thomas nurtures when he sings and plays guitar. When an American movie director improbably shows up in his village, Thomas is offered a chance of reinvention, if only he can break free from the shackles of his past.

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Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq

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Heart Lamp

A vital and insightful International Booker Prize winner

Winner of the International Booker Prize 2025 and the first ever short story collection to scoop the award, Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq consists of twelve quietly powerful tales centred around the everyday lives of Muslim women and girls in southern India.  As a writer, lawyer, and activist, Mushtaq has had extraordinary insight into a world often typified by struggle and oppression. Here she garners the voices of those who shared their experiences and spins them into stories that, even when painful to read, glow with the love, hope and sacrifices of her female (often maternal) characters.

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Lush

Full-bodied with a lingering aftertaste

If your idea of the perfect summer holiday read calls for secrets, temptation and eyebrow-raising excess, then Lush by Rochelle Dowden-Lord deserves top billing on your TBR list. Its premise is deliciously intriguing: the elderly and charismatic owner of a French vineyard extends a wine-tasting invitation to four well-known figures from the industry. At the end of their stay, his guests will be rewarded with a sup from the last remaining bottle of one of the rarest and most valuable wines in the world. A hedonistic unravelling follows in a suitably potent commentary on ambition, prejudice and our cultural relationship with alcohol,

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The Princess of 72nd Street by Elaine Kraf

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The Princess of 72nd Street

A New York radiance

It’s 1970’s New York, and 72nd Street is a vibrant enclave of arty types, one of whom is struggling artist, Ellen, an abstract expressionist in more than one sense. Sometimes Ellen thinks all she needs is a solvent and dependable husband, but then the ‘radiance’ will arrive, a period of euphoric mania, and her alter-ego Princess Esmerelda takes over. At such times, bedecked in flamboyant outfits, she steps out amongst her people, in search of adventure. First published in 1979 and ripe for rediscovery, The Princess of 72nd Street by Elaine Kraf is a wryly astute exploration of notions of female propriety and soundness of mind.

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Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata

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Vanishing World

Love, sex, and wombs for all

In the vein of her previous gloriously odd books, Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata is one for accidental contrarians, those who don’t set out to defy convention but find themselves unable to flourish within the parameters of societal norms. Here, we meet Amane, a young Japanese woman in an era where marital sex is practically taboo, and children are conceived via artificial insemination for reasons of convenience and hygiene. Amane’s conflict arises from the shameful fact that she, herself, was conceived by the positively barbaric method of sexual intercourse. Navigating her way in this sterile world, Amane has questions to ask and experiments to conduct.

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Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

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Farenheit 451

Scarily prescient sci-fi

Enormous TV screens airing game shows all day, a robot with a mind of its own, persecuted academics, banned books, school shootings, communication through earpieces – sound familiar?  Written in 1953 during the dark days of McCarthyism, American classic Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a scarily prescient sci-fi novel that will leave you gobsmacked.

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Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

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Victorian Psycho

An outrageous unravelling

For those with a deliciously dark sense of humour and a taste for the macabre, Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito is an unmissable treat. Set in 19th-century England, this is the tale of Miss Winifred Notty, both demure governess and vengeful murderess. Arriving at her new placement with the well-to-do Pounds family, Winifred tells us that in three months time everyone in the house will be dead. Cue a journey into the mind of  a female psychopath in a cleverly parodic novel that borrows brilliantly from Victorian literature (with a nod to Charles Dickens, in particular). This sensationally cinematic book is already in the Hollywood movie pipeline.

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There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

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There Are Rivers in the Sky

Sweeping multi-narrative

A raindrop falling on the head of King Ashurbanipal in the Mesopotamian city of Nineveh 2600 years ago kicks off the sweeping novel There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak. The drop of water resurfaces as a snowflake on the tongue on a newborn baby on the banks of the river Thames in 1840, in a water bottle in Iraq in 2014 and, finally, as a teardrop on a houseboat in London in 2018. Shafak interweaves three stories to make an epic, enjoyable journey through time and geographies.

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Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

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Perfection

The Way We Live Now

It’s 2010, millennial couple Anna and Tom are living the dream in Berlin. From their home office – an apartment in the coolest part of the city furnished with Danish design armchairs and exotic plants – they create tasteful websites and clever brand strategies for hip hotels and microbreweries. They hang out with interesting, likeminded people from all over the world. Life seems perfect, but are they happy? Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico is a spot on portrayal of a generation for whom everything is possible, and nothing is permanent. One of my best reads this year.

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Birds as Individuals by Len Howard

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Birds as Individuals

Flights of joy

A delightful read for fans of nature writing, bird life, and old-school English eccentrics, the 1952 book, Birds as Individuals by Len Howard has been deservedly reprinted as a Vintage Classic. The author, Gwendolen (Len) Howard left her life as an orchestral musician in London in the late 1930’s, to pursue her calling as a naturalist in the Sussex countryside. Here, she built a small house, Bird Cottage, threw the doors and windows open to the birds of her garden, and lived the rest of her days in intimate observation of her avian housemates and (literal) bedfellows.

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