A Year with Iris Murdoch, Author, Book review, England, Faber and Faber, Fiction, Iris Murdoch, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, short stories, TBR 2026 Challenge, Vintage Classics

‘The Sea, The Sea’ by Iris Murdoch

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A Year With Iris Murdoch | #IrisMurdoch2026

Fiction – paperback; Vintage Classics; 608 pages; 2019.

The Sea, The Sea, published in 1978 and winner of the Booker Prize that same year, was my first encounter with Iris Murdoch’s work.

It proved to be a wonderful way to kick off A Year with Iris Murdoch, which I am co-hosting with Cathy from 746 Books throughout 2026.

At more than 600 pages, it was a slightly daunting prospect, but one that turned out to be ideal for a steady, nightly 30‑minute read throughout January before lights out. I don’t think it’s ever taken me so long to read a book — although I did read a few others alongside it.

At its centre is Charles Arrowby, a retired playwright and theatre director who has withdrawn to a house by the sea to write his memoirs. As he announces early on:

I am Charles Arrowby and, as I write this, I am, shall we say, over sixty years of age. I am wifeless, childless, brotherless, sisterless, I am my well-known self, made glittering and brittle by fame. I determined long ago that I would retire from the theatre when I had passed sixty (page 4).

After four decades in the spotlight, this should be a quieter phase of life: time to swim daily in the sea, cook eccentric meals, read books, and transform a ruined martello tower into a private study retreat. But starting over proves far more complicated than Arrowby anticipates.

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Author, Book review, Fiction, Gina Apostol, literary fiction, Philippines, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, Soho Books, South Africa, TBR 2026 Challenge

‘Bibliolepsy’ by Gina Apostol

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Fiction – Kindle edition; Soho Press; 217 pages; 2022.

I have never read a book by a Filipino author before, and I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel set in the Philippines either, so Gina Apostol’s Bibliolepsy proved to be a great way to stretch my reading horizons.

Originally written in English, the novel was first published by the University of the Philippines Press in 1997, earning the Philippine National Book Award for Fiction that same year. It would take another 25 years before Soho Press brought it to readers in the United States in 2022.

One of the reasons I wanted to read it was its setting: the mid-1980s, during the corrupt rule of Ferdinand Marcos, whose iron-fisted regime — and shoe-obsessed wife — dominated the headlines during my teenage years. Yet the politics remain largely in the background, filtered through the eyes of the first-person narrator, Primi, who lives on the edges of these events rather than at their centre.

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Africa, Author, Bloomsbury, Book review, Colum McCann, Fiction, literary fiction, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, South Africa, TBR 2026 Challenge

‘Twist’ by Colum McCann

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Fiction – paperback; Bloomsbury; 256 pages; 2025.

Colum McCann’s eighth novel, Twist, has an unusual premise: an Irish writer boards a cable repair vessel to write about the undersea fibre-optic cables that carry the world’s communications.

The tubes are tiny. They are hollow. They weigh nothing. All they carry is light. I can’t presume to explain this. It is one of the things that still continues to fill me with wonder (page 235).

But Twist is more than a novel about submarine cables. McCann adds human drama by throwing into the mix a ship’s captain leading a secret life, a plot hinting that these critical cables could be sabotaged, and characters with personal obsessions.

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Author, Book review, Fiction, literary fiction, Nadia Davids, Publisher, Setting, Simon & Schuster, South Africa

‘Cape Fever’ by Nadia Davids

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Fiction – paperback; Simon & Schuster; 240 pages; 2025. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

My first book of the year turned out to be both a compelling read and a problematic one.

Nadia Davids’ Cape Fever is a moody, Gothic-tinged novel about the fraught, double-edged relationship between a domestic servant and the once-wealthy woman who employs her.

Their intense, interdependent bond is a powerful lens through which to explore class, race and prejudice, but I struggled with the depiction — and with the way the novel ends up exoticising the very things it appears to be critiquing.

Set in 1920 in an unnamed colonial outpost — most likely Cape Town in South Africa — the story unfolds through the eyes of Soraya Matas, a 19-year-old Muslim girl who takes a job as a live-in maid to Mrs Hattingh, a widowed woman living alone in a beautiful but slowly decaying mansion.

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2025 TBR challenge, Author, Book review, Edna O'Brien, Faber and Faber, Ireland, London, memoir, Non-fiction, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting

‘Country Girl’ by Edna O’Brien

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A Year With Edna O’Brien | #EdnaObrien2025

Non-fiction – hardcover; Faber; 357 pages; 2013.

Edna O’Brien’s memoir Country Girl turned out to be a fitting read to round out A Year with Edna O’Brien, which I co-hosted with Cathy from 746 Books during 2025. It felt like the right book to finish with because it gathers so much of her life and work into one place.

Written in the same shimmering, evocative prose as her novels and short stories, this memoir traces an extraordinary life, from a rural Irish girlhood in a once-wealthy family (“by the time I was born we were no longer rich”, page 6) to the dizzying heights of literary acclaim — and the scandal that came with it.

It is a life of dramatic ups and downs — remarkable successes alongside devastating personal losses and public vilification — but through it all, she remained steadfast and resilient, revealing a fearlessness that I have come to appreciate as the hallmark of her writing.

Country Girl was published a dozen years before her death, aged 93 in 2024, and is dedicated to her “warrior sons, Sasha and Carlo Gébler”. It’s one of the best memoirs I have ever read (I’ve read my fair share — see  here) and has made me all the more appreciative of her work and the amazing literary legacy she left behind.

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Books of the year

My favourite books of 2025

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Happy New Year, everyone. I’m a little late posting this round-up of favourite reads (I usually do it on New Year’s Eve, not New Year’s Day), but better late than never!

I didn’t read as many books as I usually do over the past 12 months, finishing the year on 62 (I normally manage around 80). That’s largely down to one thing.

As you may have gathered from comments under recent reviews, a new member joined our household in October: a West Highland White Terrier puppy named Darcy (after Australian author Darcy Niland).

Since then, most of my spare time has been devoted to looking after him, as he had a bit of a rough start and had to have his baby canine teeth extracted when he was just 15 weeks old. Over the past two months, I’ve read just three books, snatched in short bursts while he’s been sleeping.

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2025 TBR challenge, Author, Book review, Edna O'Brien, Faber and Faber, Fiction, London, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting, short stories, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

‘Saints and Sinners’ by Edna O’Brien

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A Year With Edna O’Brien | #EdnaObrien2025

Fiction – paperback; Faber; 208 pages; 2012.

Remember how I was supposed to be reading a book by Edna O’Brien every second month during 2025 as part of a Year with Edna O’Brien? I’m a little bit behind schedule, but better late than never, right?

I took my own sweet time with Saints and Sinners, a collection of short stories published in 2012, because I was a little preoccupied with both work and a new puppy at home. But even if I didn’t have those interests to fill every waking hour over the past two months, I would have taken my time to read this one because the stories are so good and worth savouring.

Many of them have been previously published elsewhere, including my favourite in the book, Old Wounds, which you can read in full on The New Yorker website (note, if you visit The New Yorker link, it may suggest the story is paywalled, but if you refresh the screen, you should be able to access it).

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Book lists

Doorstoppers in December: 7 chunky reads to sink your teeth into

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I’m slightly late with this post, given we’re more than halfway through December, but for those of you participating in Laura Tisdall’s Doorstoppers in December, I thought I would compile a list of chunksters I’ve reviewed on this site that might whet your appetite. And even if you are not participating, there may be something here to pique your interest for another time.

Admittedly, my reading preferences tend towards the shorter novel (or novella) — books that are around the 250-300 page mark are the sweet spot for me. But every now and then, I do like to get stuck into something more substantial and whenever I read a big novel I wonder why I don’t read more of them. They tend of be wholly immersive, perhaps because they depict lives and characters in exacting detail.

So here’s a small handful of doorstoppers I’ve loved. As ever, they have been arranged in alphabetical order by author’s name — just click the title to see my full review:

‘The Crimson Petal and the White’ by Michel Faber (833 pages)

One of the best books I have ever read — and potentially my favourite published in the 21st century — this epic tale is about a prostitute’s rise and fall in Victorian England. As you might expect, given the subject matter, it’s lewd and bawdy, gritty and real, but its depiction of the sordid, carnal world of an 1870s streetwalker is absolutely compelling. Highly recommended!

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2025 TBR challenge, Author, Book review, Brian Moore, Fiction, France, literary fiction, Northern Ireland, Open Road Medis, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting

‘The Doctor’s Wife’ by Brian Moore

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Fiction – ebook; Open Road Media; 247 pages; 2018.

The Doctor’s Wife, by Northern Irish writer Brian Moore (1921-1999), was first published in 1976 and nominated for the Booker Prize that same year. It was his 17th novel. He wrote 26 in total, alongside playscripts, screenplays and short stories.

It is a fairly straightforward story about a married woman who embarks on an illicit affair with a man 10 years her junior, but Moore handles it unconventionally. He doesn’t glorify or judge the affair. He focuses instead on the woman’s interior reckoning and her moral ambiguity, almost as if he’s climbed into her head to show us exactly what she is thinking and why she is doing what she is doing.

It’s a remarkable achievement given the author is male and yet it feels so pitch perfect from a female’s point of view.

And the ending — which I will refrain from revealing here — is not what you might expect, adding to the quiet, understated beauty of this story.

Nearly 50 years on, The Doctor’s Wife feels strikingly modern in its refusal to judge or explain away a woman’s desire.

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This Week in Aus Lit

This month in Aus Lit #15

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Welcome to This Month in Aus Lit, your roundup of what’s happening in the world of Australian books and writing (with a slight WA bent). From literary awards and publishing news, to author interviews and standout reads, here’s everything worth bookmarking this month.

This month’s wrap-up includes news of a WA chapter of Sisters in Crime, the State Library’s 20-year literacy program anniversary and Dymocks’ Book of the Year, plus reviews, new releases and the latest book lists for Christmas gift-giving inspiration.

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