Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Book club
“I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.”
After eight years as a student and teacher at Lowood School, orphan Jane Eyre is anxious to see more of the world. This desire leads her to Thornfield, a large home in the English countryside, where her lone pupil is a ward of the enigmatic Edward Rochester. Jane believes she has finally found a home — but her joy is destroyed when she learns Thornfield’s horrifying secret.
This was quite the book to start the year with. It’s been awhile since I’ve read one of “the classics,” and it left me with a ton of feelings and questions. Fortunately there’s lots of commentary (contemporary and modern) to chew on. The Close Reads podcast did an excellent series a few years ago — listening to that gave me good things to bring up at book club and think about on my own. The themes of duty versus desire, strength versus weakness, and the importance of having a strong sense of self were fascinating. It’s easy to see why Jane Eyre is still loved, hated, and endlessly adapted. Our book club conversation was one of my favorite things about my January reading.
Give this a try if you like incredible writing, a story with a strong atmospheric feel, and are ready to have lots of complicated feelings.
Farmer Boy
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Book Riot 2025 Read Harder Challenge: Re-read a childhood favorite
“Almanzo ate the sweet, mellow baked beans. He ate the bit of salt pork that melted like cream in his mouth. He ate mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham-gravy. He ate the ham. He bit deep into velvety bread spread with sleek butter, and he ate the crisp golden crust.”
The future husband of author Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in upstate New York and grew up on his family’s homestead. Farmer Boy describes his ninth year, beginning with his first school days, then planting and harvesting, 4th of July celebrations, and the events of that year’s state fair. He wants to be a farmer, but has a lot to learn before he can be all grown up.
The Little House series was probably the first set of chapter books I read as a kid — and I read them so often that the covers fell off. Laura Ingalls Wilder was such a great writer, of both settings and children characters. Each book is wonderful for different reasons, but I love the year-long cycle of Farmer Boy, and each section’s focus on a different aspect of Almanzo’s life. It’s clear from the descriptions of his family’s farm, his mother’s skilled weaving, and the almost ridiculous details about food that he grew up wealthy in comparison to the girl he would one day marry.
Read this if looking for something wholesome, a little funny, and comforting.
The Umbrella Murder: The Hunt for the Cold War’s Most Notorious Killer
Ulrik Skotte
“If I was going to put this all behind me, and that had been my aim, I needed to tell the whole story, which is how I came to write the book that you’re reading now.”
In September 1978 a Bulgarian defector named Georgi Markov died of an apparent poisoning in a London hospital. Years later author Ulrik Skotte meets with a man who believes he has identified Markov’s killer. This meeting kicks off a decades-long hunt for the perpetrator of the most infamous unsolved Cold War killing. It’s a search that leads to greater danger than anyone could have imagined.
Sometimes the best reading experiences are the ones you go into unaware of what’s about to happen. I received a copy of The Umbrella Murder as part of Heywood Hill’s A Year in Books subscription; they figured I’d like it and boy howdy were they right. Like Skotte I figured this case would be straightforward. But halfway through the book I started feeling like I needed to acquire a whiteboard and red string. There are so many bizarre connections and conspiracy theories — it’s easy to see why Skotte and many others have been determined to solve this case for decades.
Add this to your TBR if you enjoy spending time at the crossroads of true crime and Reddit conspiracy theory threads.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Becky Chambers
“They were out in the open, for real this time, as spacers should be. And all around them, black, black, black, full of jewelled stars and coloured clouds. It was a sight she knew well, a sight she lived alongside, but in that moment, she was seeing it for the first time. Everything had changed.”
Making up a fake identity and getting a job on a long-haul ship seems like a good idea to Rosemary until she arrives on the Wayfarer. She grew up planet-side and isn’t used to close quarters and strange species (never mind the “punching tunnels through space” part). But the longer she stays, the more the Wayfarer starts to feel like home — and its inhabitants like family. But will they survive their most dangerous mission yet?
My heart, y’all. I hardly know where to begin. My first brush with Becky Chambers happened last May, when I read A Psalm for the Wild-Built. In that review I said I wished the tale could have gone on longer — and now my wish has basically come true! The books and worlds are very different, but at both of their cores are beautiful stories and themes and characters I can’t help but love. The dangerous mission feels secondary to the characters in the best possible way. I marveled, laughed, and then felt like I got punched in the gut. I can’t wait to spend more time with this author and her stories.
Pick this up immediately if you like character-focused sci-fi, deep themes/questions about war and love and what makes people do what they do, and are okay with books about aliens.
The White Darkness
David Grann
Book Riot 2025 Read Harder Challenge: Read a book about obsession
“Men go out into the void spaces of the world for various reasons. Some are actuated simply by a love of adventure, some have the keen thirst for scientific knowledge, and others again are drawn away from the trodden paths by the ‘lure of little voices,’ the mysterious fascination of the unknown.”
At the dawn of the 20th century, men like Ernest Shackleton enthralled the world with their attempts to conquer the unknown. This drive became bloodborne, springing up in the descendents of those famous explorers and pushing them to succeed where Shackleton could not. In 2009, three men made history when they crossed the Antarctic on foot in 63 days. In 2015 one of those men, Henry Worsley, decided to do it again: a solo trek across 900 miles of a frozen continent where a single wrong step means death.
For most people the idea of walking across a continent — especially one whose temperature averages -30F/-34.4C — is insane. Where does this obsession originate? What makes a person attempt such dangerous things? David Grann’s book is a short but compelling study of those who have attempted to conquer the most inhospitable terrain on earth. For some it was about bragging rights or glory; others, like Worsley, saw it as a trial of character and a testament to the power of endurance. This is another home run from Grann, and further proof that he belongs on my auto-read list.
Read this if you want a taste of the history of Antarctic exploration. Just don’t be surprised if you too start to hear “the lure of little voices.”
Dreadful
Caitlin Rozakis
“Who’s the real anyone? When does who you’re pretending to be stop being a pretense and turn into who you really are?”
Waking up with no memory in the laboratory of an evil wizard is bad enough; it gets worse when Gav realizes the evil wizard in question is actually him. There’s a princess in the dungeon, his new valet is terrified because the last one was immolated, and he’s meant to be hosting a conclave that it’s probably safe to say will be a little bit murdery. Can Gav find a way to return to his old self in time…and does he even want to?
This book was like a recipe that looks great but doesn’t come together quite right. The ingredients — premise, themes, characters, plot twists — were interesting, but the final result felt underdone. It couldn’t decide if it was cozy, slapstick, or dark and serious. Maybe anything I’d picked up after my previous two reads would have suffered by comparison, but overall it was kind of a “meh” experience.
Give this a try if you like genre-defying reads and are looking for something on the lighter side.
Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
Ryan Holiday
“[News sources] are assailed on all sides by the crushing economics of their business, dishonest sources, inhuman deadlines, pageview quotas, inaccurate information, greedy publishers, poor training, the demands of the audience, and so much more…Taken individually, the resulting output is obvious: bad stories, incomplete stories, wrong stories, unimportant stories.”
If you’re able to read, you probably hate the news. Clickbait and manufactured scandals aimed at selling papers is nothing new, but the internet has made it much more lucrative. Chances are good that no matter what you see online, there’s a manipulator behind it.
I can understand why this book is used both by instructors to teach the dangers of media and by jackasses looking to line their pockets. It’s a fantastic look at how media has changed, and how those changes led directly to the clusterf*ck that is the news. Unfortunately if you’re younger than about 40, none of the info is really a surprise. Elder millennials and the generations after them are well versed in the grossness that is media manipulation; most of us don’t follow traditional media sources for this exact reason. Holiday is an excellent writer, but he didn’t share anything I didn’t already know or provide fresh ideas for how the reader can avoid being manipulated (it’s the same as always: check your sources).
Pick this up if you don’t know much about media and suspect you’re being had — because you definitely are.
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Emma Törzs
“She just wanted to take one step that belonged to her, make one move that she had independently decided to make, but at every turn it felt as if her strings were being pulled by unseen hands.”
Half-sisters Joanna and Esther know what it’s like to feel trapped. Joanna remains in her childhood home, hidden by wards and studying the magical books collected by their family; Esther travels from place to place, trying to avoid the danger that always seems to find her. It takes their father’s mysterious death and a series of almost-deadly encounters to force the women together again. What secrets did their father keep from them? Who can they trust? And are there some books that should never be read?
I’m so glad I enjoyed this book. Not only because I wanted it to be as good as it sounded, but also because I’m pretty sure my local library lost their only copy for several months — the irony! This was a great read for the stormy days of late January. A cozy old house, creepy British magicians holed up in a castle, magical books written in blood, and smart characters focused on solving some truly twisted stuff. I’m a little grumpy about the miscommunication-esque trope — seriously, knock it off with the “it’s what’s best for you” secret keeping — but the rest of the reading experience was so fun that I’ll let it slide.
Give this a try if you’re looking for a standalone speculative fantasy with solid characters and an interesting magic system. (Also, Sir Kiwi and the cat are fine.)
Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash