I’ve been listening to Radio Roland Garros this week, as per usual, and really loving the descriptive commentary of matches. I’ve opted not to got access to watch this year so am relying solely on the radio for coverage.

This year I really reigned myself in and clamped down on book purchases so that finally, FINALLY, I have made some progress on the to read book pile. I’m still embarrassed by the number of books that are on that list, but we’ll get there. Meanwhile, I supplemented those books with digital tomes from the library, and really managed to get through a lot of books this year. However, this is a selection of the best of the best from 2025.

This year I have continued reading voraciously, and although I did make progress on the bookshelf backlog, it still seems like the count of unread books goes up rather than down. I’ve enjoyed listening to a lot of audiobooks this year and discovered the wealth of reading material available digitally from the library, which hasn’t necessarily helped things! Anyway, as is now traditional, these are ten of my favourites from the year gone, in the order that I read them.

Apple Music has been doing annual reviews for a while now, looking at the songs you’ve listened to in the year and highlighting your most listened to albums and artists for a good summary of twelve months of music. I’m always disappointed in my Music reviews though, because I don’t listen to enough variety or repetition (outside of musicals) to make it worthwhile. A lot of my listening happens via someone else’s device and a HomePod, so they get all the credit.

I played this when it was first released, one of the early games on Apple Arcade and one that was exclusive to the platform I believe. It captivated me at first, such a good idea of gameplay, and lots of fun. Gradually, I played it less and less and haven’t looked at it in a while. There was an update a few weeks ago that added some new books to the library within, and that made me give it another look and what do you know? It’s captivated me again!

You know that thing where certain things seemed different and nicer and more magical when you were a kid, and then when you view them through adult eyes, you sort of wonder what on earth it was all about? Well, I experienced that recently on re-reading the trilogy of Faraway Tree books by Enid Blyton.

It’s been another year full of reading and it’s been wonderful, the only downside being I don’t seem to be making as much progress on my bookshelf backlog as I would have liked. But nevertheless, each year I like to pick out ten of my favourite reads from the year. These are the ones I have hand picked, listed in the order that I read them, as I refuse to have to do anymore than narrow it down to ten!

I recently listened to the audiobook of Phil Wang’s sort-of-memoir Sidesplitter, where the comedian talks about many areas of his life particularly where cultures intersect - food, family, comedy, and more global topics like the British Empire past, present and future, and how race and racism affects people every single day. They’re heavy topics in places but the book is really well done, with wit and humour but also a great deal of insight and thought-provoking ideas. The section on cultural appropriation has really stuck with me, so I thought I would share some quotes here for future reference.

Apple have released a comprehensive round up of their 2022 entertainment and services - inevitably happy about how successful they have been - with wisdom from VP of the sector, Eddy Cue. There are lots of facts and figures, as you might imagine, but I do like the summary from Mr Cue:

The Guardian published an interesting post last week about audiobook narration and the impact artificial intelligence could have on it. The post talks to an author who was working with Apple on a secret project that allows AI voices to provide the narration on an audiobook - and evaluates whether it’s any good or not.

While we’re talking about books, one of the new year resolutions I haven’t specifically talked about is the one about not buying any more books to take up space on my digital bookshelf. I don’t want to talk numbers because I’m embarrassed, but I’ve built up quite a collection of books for an excessive TBR (to be read) list, and it’s going to take some time to get through them. Instead, I’ll make good use of wish lists and revisit when I actually have made good use of what I’ve already purchased.

I read a lot last year, in all sorts of formats. Along with the poetry and comics that I was trying out for the first time, there were the regularly scheduled books, audiobooks, reference books, shorts and a great mix of genres through them all. I’ve noticed a few more physical books creeping into my life, mostly as gifts but occasionally because that just is the best format for reading something in. Digital is still my go-to though, if only because having a book on hand to dip into at any given moment is a big driver behind how I’ve managed to read so much.

In September, I wrote about the latest updates that iOS 16 brought to the Apple Books app, in particular a consternation about the stupid cross in the corner ruining the reading experience. Well, thank goodness, they’ve fixed it. This week saw a raft of updates to various devices, and as ever, I’m grateful to have a nerd in the house to make sure everything is up to date as and when it’s needed.

Apple released watchOS 9 and iOS 16 this past week which usually means a hideous evening of updating all the gadgets and running around looking at progress bars every which way. But it’s usually worth it for what the new release brings and this year, I’m determined to actually make the most of it and fully understand what upgrades have arrived, rather than just getting on with my day and being surprised when six months later I find a useful bit of functionality.

Before I started building up a digital bookshelf with seemingly every book available via Kindle or Apple Books, I used to pick up most of my reading material from charity shops. There’s usually a good variety to choose from and one of the great things is seeing the older books that are dropped off for re-use. One of the best genres in this category is movie novelisations - an author’s official take on the plot of a film with more prose and less script. They can offer a lot of interesting insight where films don’t do so well, getting inside the head of the protagonists or antagonists, but at the same time can sometimes steer quite far away from your take on the original material. It’s always a bit of an adventure.

I’ve gone down a bit of a subscription rabbit hole recently. In working through various replacements for household goods as I go through this zero-waste obsession, I’ve found a lot of things that offer subscriptions, so that if it’s something you get along with, you can have it turn up to your door without thinking too much about it. Given the current pricing pressures in the UK, subscriptions can be a bit hit and miss - it’s good to know what you are paying out and when, but on the flip side, it’s useful to have control and delay payments where necessary.

In 2021, I managed to read and review about 150 titles in my Books section, which has to be an all-time record. I say titles, rather than books, because some of them were shorts, some reference, some audiobooks, there’s a mish-mash of stuff I’ve enjoyed all year long. But even so, that’s still a lot to have managed to get through. Partly that’s because of the ongoing efforts to Hibernate for Health, but also because I’ve become absolutely obsessed with reading and do it every minute I can - cleaning my teeth, waiting for the kettle to boil, when I’m supposed to be sleeping, you know the kind of thing.

I’ve previously watched all the James Bond movies to date, pending Time to Die, in a big journey from the opening credits of Dr. No to the closing sequence of Spectre. It was a heck of a ride full of highs and lows and good action sequences and questionable moments, and I loved it. So having completed the movies, tick, tick, tick, what next? I decided I wanted to read the books - a series of 12 novels and 2 collections of short stories published between 1953 and 1966. In my research on the books, I found that Audible had the full series of audiobooks read by an outstanding selection of authors. I mean, just get a look at these names:

A medium level spring clean uncovered this little gem in a dusty box tucked away in a random corner. I got super excited when I first saw the edge of it, because I thought it was the original part one book by George Gipe. Sadly that one is still missing in action. And I never did have a copy of part three.

I’ve listened to more audiobooks this year and delving into the world more has opened up a few surprises. I was hugely looking forward to the audiobook of Troubled Blood, the fifth book in the Cormoran Strike series. I’ve exclusively listened to the first four books via Audible because Robert Glenister’s narration is so good, and the content is so detailed and dense that having it read to me helps me not to miss anything. Hooray!

I’ve been reading a lot recently, and trying to broaden my range of subject matters too - fiction and non-fiction, short and long books, as well as catching up on some books I’ve read before but for some reason not reviewed on here. One of the things I’ve always thought slightly cumbersome is keeping track of series that you read, where you are in them, which books you own but haven’t read yet, etc. I used to use FictFact a long time ago but have learned that has since shut down, so that’s not an option anymore. However, in the last few days, I’ve been wondering more about the fundamental decisions behind reading a book series, ie. whether you should or not and when’s the best time to start.

Apple TV+ launched on Friday and yes, you can expect plenty of future updates on the content that came with it. Dickinson was mega! But this isn’t about that. This is about the first episode of Oprah’s Book Club distributed by Apple. I’ve already discussed how I dived right in and started reading the book as Apple quite cleverly coincided the book club with their new reading goals in the Books app.

One of the things Apple is renowned for, and also vilified for, is their unified approach to technology. They make the software and they make the devices which helps to have a more seamless experience as a user (although not at the moment!) and now they’ve added content to their list as well. When I wrote the post about enjoying the new reading goals in association with Oprah’s book club moving to the Apple platform, I hadn’t realised quite what a crossover experience the team have created.

In the latest iOS release, Apple have got a lot wrong. Many things that used to function now no longer do so, and everything is just that little bit more flaky. I’ve never restarted my devices quite so much as I have these past few weeks. However, one thing that I have enjoyed is the new reading goals. The Books app, or iBooks as I can’t help but keep calling it, was always a tangential thing for me. I love reading and books but Kindle was my app and store of choice. The Apple Books app, whilst making a really nice reading experience, didn’t do much in terms of promotion, finding material, or collecting your works once downloaded. Meanwhile, I’ve just spent a significant amount of time putting my books into Kindle collections on the iPad which was an easy process and makes for a nice digital bookshelf.

I’ve never really got on that well with Siri. Apple’s voice activated assistant can do some cool things but she never really listens to me and I find it easier just to swipe and tap to get what I want. I’m not alone in getting frustrated with Siri, but I’ve long been complaining to Mr C that she just doesn’t listen to me. He’s not experienced the same level of problems and I was taking it personally.

I’m currently listening to the audiobook Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. It’s focus is on the gender data gap - the ways in which the world is often unthinkingly designed for men and how that affects women in real and unexpected ways. I’m finding it hard going, not because of the book itself - it’s well written, researched and read - but because the unintended and far-reaching consequences of a simple lack of thinking weigh heavy on me. I’m having to listen in short bursts and then stop to do something else.

So, we were watching High Fidelity and yes, maybe had had a drink or two along the way. This bit happened: Which I naturally forgot about. So this came as a surprise: And now I have this: It’s a real, physical book because it wasn’t available in Kindle format. And I still went and bought it, which is unusual for me and can mean only one of three things:

I’m surprised that I haven’t written about the Cormoran Strike novels before, but as I’ve just wrapped up reading the fourth installment in the series, I figured now was as good a time as any. As I’m sure everyone is aware by now, Cormoran Strike is the central figure in the series of novels by Robert Galbraith, which is a pseudonym of JK Rowling. The first book picked up decent plaudits before the real author was uncovered, but naturally ever since that info was leaked, the series has garnered a lot more attention than it otherwise might have. Four books in, and a TV adaptation to boot, Strike and his temp/assistant/partner Robin are picking up a lot of fans.

I post the majority of my book reviews to my Goodreads profile, but occasionally like to hand-pick those that have earned five stars to share here. I haven’t been as voracious in my reading appetite this year, and have indulged in some books that I’ve read before, but still there were some great highlights along the way. Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick I love Anna Kendrick a lot, so it was no surprise that her memoir was right up my street. Having said that, I was a bit taken aback by the book because it was basically like reading inside my mind - some of the anxieties, some of the anti-social tendencies, some of the obsessive compulsive stuff, you mean Hollywood stars feel like that too?

This is such a great idea. I don’t read many physical books anymore, but the concept of picking up a random book whilst browsing, truly random, wrapped in brown paper packaging and literally tied up with string, is inspiring. From the website: A Blind Date with a Book is a hand wrapped book, carefully curated from a wide range of popular genres that is tagged with intriguing clues alluding to the book inside. This curated collection includes everything from mystery, romance, classics, horror, adventure, science fiction to young adult.

I can’t remember where I heard of the Serial reading app, but I downloaded it a while back and left it sitting on my phone for a while before I had time to play around with it. After finally investigating what it has to offer, I can’t now decide how I feel about it. As with all the best apps, Serial Reader offers up a simple solution to a problem you didn’t know you had. Classic works, from esteemed authors such as Charles Dickens, H.G. Wells or Philip K. Dick, are broken down into manageable bite-size chunks and delivered to your device in “issues” – twenty minute blocks to help you work through the task of reading.

I was perusing the Goodreads site for a while early today when I noticed their stats page. I haven’t really delved into this side of things much, other than looking at the count of books I’ve read each year. What was I hyped up on in 2014 for goodness’ sake? Today I spotted this graph of books by publication date by read date. Forgive me for this self indulgence, but what an interesting way to view reading habits!

I’ve just started reading Amy Poehler’s memoir Yes Please, and I only got as far as the introduction before I wanted to share some of the incredible wisdom. That’s the sign of a good book, I think. So what do I do? What do we do? How do we move forward when we are tired and afraid? What do we do when the voice in our head is yelling that WE ARE NEVER GONNA MAKE IT?

I’ve managed to read quite a few books this year, dipping in and out whenever I get a spare five minutes. I post my reviews over on Goodreads, but thought I would share those books I’ve enjoyed in 2016 for which I’ve given five out of five stars. Lucky Man by Michael J Fox I was hooked from the beginning, revelling in this calm and rational way of looking at and dealing with the world. It can be a difficult place, but Fox has such a humour and humility about it all, that it was inspiring to read. I liked how it dipped back and forth a bit, but was generally chronological, from his childhood through to his recent advocacy work with his Parkinson’s Disease foundation. Inspiring and insightful, I highly recommend this whether you’re a fan or not.

That’s the key, you know, confidence. I know for a fact that if you can genuinely like your body, so can others. It doesn’t really matter if it’s short, tall, fat or thin, it just matters that you can find some things to like about it. Even if that means having a good laugh at the bits of it that wobble independently, occasionally, that’s all right. It might take you a while to believe me on this one, lots of people don’t because they seem to suffer from a self-hatred that precludes them from imagining that a big woman could ever love herself because they don’t.

I haven’t really used iTunes for its intended purpose in a long time. It’s very handy for adding id3 tags to things and it’s a nice way of perusing the store for all its many digital wonders, but in terms of syncing devices and storing my stuff, the iCloud has been far more useful. One of the problems with this strategy, however, is that it meant I couldn’t get my hands on any audiobooks that I’d bought from the iTunes store. Up until now, they have been locked away on the desktop, with no means of getting them onto a phone or other device without using a cable. Whereas with most items, you can look through the iTunes store and see whether you already own it thanks to that little “cloud with an arrow” symbol, audiobooks had no such luxury.

I was browsing through the App Store recently and found a new app called Stride & Prejudice - an endless running game with a difference. Instead of traversing through jungle lands collecting coins, or jumping across rooftops to escape the cops, this one is far more simple. You’re a lady in a nice frock, running and jumping across the text of Pride & Prejudice. Makes sense, right? It’s primitive in its design, and could certainly do with a polish around the edges, but it only aims to do one job and it does that pretty well. The real question is: who is going to play a game like this?

When Emma Watson started up a new Goodreads book club that focused on works about feminism and equality, I immediately signed up. That was all I did though, and I’ve thoroughly ignored the email digests that have been emailed to me, and I have yet to buy the first book on the list let alone catch up to what the second one even is. That’s not to say I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s great to see someone famous endorsing something like this, and the joy of it is Watson has really thrown herself behind the idea with great gusto and passion. So much so, she’s reportedly going to put her acting career on the backburner for a year to concentrate on reading a book a week, thus turning the book club into something even more special.

You know, of course, that I’m an insane Back to the Future fan. However, it wasn’t until we watched the incredible Back in Time documentary that I realised I’d missed out on an important part of BTTF fandom - Michael J Fox’s books. I picked up Lucky Man, his memoir chronicling his career and his Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis, and how the two had to fit in his life side by side, and eventually together.

The history My experiences with Harry Potter have been something of a rollercoaster. I enjoyed the books during their first run, but wasn’t hugely passionate about them - happy to wait for the paperback version, rather than stand in line at midnight for the final book’s release. I somehow ended up owning just six of the seven physical books, so was super keen to own them as ebooks so I could a) complete my collection and b) ditch the last standing physical books I owned. JK Rowling finally capitulated and I was able to plow through them all, on my Kindle, for a second read.

Do you read a lot of series of books? I do. Books from the likes of Clive Cussler, Jeffrey Deaver, Bernard Cornwell, and Alex Scarrow all make my list. And the list is the key point here. Sometimes, particularly if there are double digits worth of books in a series, it can be hard to keep track. It’s okay if you’re just working through a trilogy, it’s not difficult to keep your place, but something like the Sharpe series has 24 books, and they’re written out of sequence in terms of dates and history. Tricky.

So, having read Les Miserables and followed it up with World Without End, two of the longest books on the planet, I suddenly realised how many books I have sitting on my Kindle waiting to be devoured. I think I’m going to have to pick some of the shorter ones and start ploughing through. Expect more than a few Casual Reader updates over the next while. Whilst on that subject, it was brought to my attention a couple of times recently that Casual Reader can’t be casual at the frequency I’m posting reviews. But I like to think it is casual as in “not an expert” rather than “not very often.”

Instead of making New Year’s Resolutions each January, I have a long-running Life List that does the same job, only is a constant reminder of the things I want to, and am trying to, achieve. It’s time to have a quick recap of what has been happening on my Life List over the last twelve months. The Amazing A-Z Adventure I’ve only managed two more visits this year, and now we’re getting to the trickier half of the alphabet. Qs, Xs, Zs, that kind of thing. In 2012, I went for a bit of a walk around a park, and a bit of a walk around a gin distillery. I had a plan for Q that did not come to pass, so that will require some rethinking. 2012 involved a bit of saving money, but 2013 may involve more travel.

The Thanksgiving Black Friday sale business doesn’t really reach the UK, although the internet’s ability to shrink the globe means we do get to see some deals. I spotted one such deal on the Amazon site, where they had reduced the Kindle Fire to just £99. Now, we don’t really need another device in our lives, but I was interested to see what it was like, and we could always use another gadget for testing things on.

I wrote some initial impressions about the Kindle Paperwhite when it first arrived, and looking back, I think I was very generous. It was a disappointment but I tried to temper the frustrations with the knowledge that there were benefits for me (3G and touchscreen), and it was supposedly a cutting edge product - they knew it wasn’t perfect. Unfortunately, after a month using the device most lunchtimes, I have given up. This week, I deregistered the Kindle, and went back to my previous version - a simpler, but more reliable product.

When the new and exciting Kindle Paperwhite was announced, I was keen to try it out. There’s not much wrong with my current Kindle, but there are a few niggles that the Paperwhite is meant to solve, and they would make me ebook reading experience even more brilliant than it already is. We ordered as soon as we could, and the Paperwhite arrived on the doorstep yesterday. With just 24 hours of experience under my belt, I have some early thoughts on the device - and they’re not as ecstatic as I thought they would be.

We’ve seen the music industry attempt the occasional “pay what you feel” initiative, where a song or an album is released to the public, and they get to choose how much to pay for the item - giving what they think it’s worth. These haven’t revolutionised the industry, but it does cause a stir and can be a good marketing technique to draw attention to yourselves. Now, the concept has moved across to ebooks, and I’ve seen it in two different places.

[I’m one of the Kindle’s biggest fans, and will buy as much as I can in digital form. But there are a few books I can’t get rid of. This is the first in an infrequent and limited series featuring those physical books that mean enough to earn their place in the box that moves house with us.] I loved The Faraway Tree series as a kid. The idea of climbing a tree and finding a multitude of different lands at the top is so intriguing, and so limitless! I’d be the first to buy these in digital form, except the fact that the new books are all modern-kid friendly. These three editions are quite old…

When I was posting Trailer Tuesday a while back, the Paddington poster made me want to read the books, so I had a peek on the Kindle store and found many of them (perhaps all?) available for the device. That got me thinking, what other fab books of my youth are also available for the Kindle? The Worst Witch was one of my favourites as a kid, probably because I could relate. Not being a witch, of course, but being terribly clumsy and not that popular at school. I also quite like witches and wizards as a subject, what with Harry Potter and Buffy’s friend Willow and more. It doesn’t surprise me that Jacqueline Wilson has embraced the Kindle age, she always seemed a very forward thinking, “make books accessible every which way” kind of person. There’s a staggering number of Wilson books available in the e-format. As a kid, I read Tracy Beaker and the Bed & Breakfast star and that was about it. Many of the newer ones have passed me by, although there are still a couple awaiting me in the Big Read List. There are Enid Blyton books by the bucketload, although there is talk that they are not the books of old. Some of the reviews suggest they have been amended for a modern audience, and I am not down with that at all. I can understand a name change here or there, although it still seems weird to think of Franny in the Enchanted Wood. If more of it has been altered, then that’s a real shame. While I was browsing I saw that someone has written more books in the Malory Towers series, but a quick peek proved disappointing. I don’t know why, but reading the “frightfully delightful” style of writing but knowing it was written by a modern author took some of the shine away. The Adventure stories by Willard Price were some of the books that got me into reading action and adventure novels. From Price, you move up to Cussler and from there, the world is your oyster. In my mind, I have the image of the boys scuba diving down to a lost world under the sea, and coming up in a hut where the air pressure was such that you could breathe happily. I may have made that up, but it’s enough to make me remember the books fondly. Roald Dahl! Of course. The books are surprisingly expensive, but I’m gradually building up my Kindle collection. I would have read these all again anyway, but it’s good to get a nudge from my reading list. I also listened to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory via audiobook, read by Eric Idle. This stuff just never gets old. Honourable mentions have to go to Paddington, obviously, as he kickstarted the entire thing. Also the Choose Your Own Adventures, which I was staggered to find on the Kindle. However, as my previous review suggests, they just aren’t as good as I remember. The format is workable, although does avoid the flipping back and forth and holding pages and suchlike. It’s just the writing is nowhere near what I remembered it to be.

To tie in with the Olympics, the Kindle store held a Reading Marathon sale. Oh, how I love a Kindle sale. I delved right in, clicking my way through book after book, pondering some new purchases. I spent more than I would have liked, but equally, came out with plenty of books for my money, so I can’t complain. It wasn’t until I synced them with my actual Kindle that I realised quite how many unread books I have. Since I’ve been doing this 100 Books project, I’ve been trying to work through them as a priority, reading only the occasional outside novel when in need of a break. That hasn’t stopped lots of potential good reads passing in front of my eyes though, and when I have seen them, I’ve added them to my Wish List. Occasionally (or quite often, if the backlog is to be believed), I’ve had to snap up a title when it’s a good deal.