As always, I begin my January newsletter with a list of my favourite books from the year before. It’s always a hard job choosing, and of course this year my list includes some of the truly excellent new books out about Jane Austen. It’s alphabetical from name of the author, but these are my reading highlights from 2025:
- Tracy Borman, The Private Lives of the Tudors – I wrote about this excellent book in a newsletter this year. Just loved all the detailed social history and find the Tudors endlessly fascinating.
- Antonia Fraser, Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King – More fabulous social history, though I felt so sorry for many of the women who were married off to royals without any sort of consent.
- Devoney Looser, Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive and Untamed Jane – This book seemed to be a follow-on from my own Jane Austen and Crime and I loved it.
- Lucy Mangan, Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives – This is a sequel to her fabulous Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading which I adored. Long may she keep writing about her reading life!
- Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs: The Story of Russia and its Empire, 1613 – 1918 – This book, which I wrote about in a newsletter this year, made me understand present-day Russia better. What a history that country has had!
- Barbara Pym, Some Tame Gazelle – I had read a Pym novel years ago, not liked it much, but loved this one on audio and am now reading more of her works.
- Etaf Rum, A Woman is No Man – Powerful and tragic, about the women from Palestine living in the USA in awful conditions.
- Thomas Schlesser, Mona’s Eyes – A book for those of love who love art and want to learn more about it.
- Kathryn Sutherland, Jane Austen in 41 Objects – A wonderful book about the divine Jane.
- Janet Todd, Living with Jane Austen – I wish I had written this book and wanted to reread it as soon as I’d finished it.
When it comes to crime fiction, I loved the latest Robert Galbraith book, relished The Seeker series by S.G. Maclean, enjoyed the Peterborough detective novels by Ross Greenwood, and have just started on Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series, and a promising new series set in the Lake District by Rachel Lynch. I plan to take more with me on holiday in January, as I find crime the perfect holiday read.
My total number of books has been slightly down this year, due to all I’ve had on, but hopefully I can get back to a higher total in 2026. I dream of a fortnight spent in a 5-star resort, by a pool, with cocktails, meals I have not had to cook, and an enormous pile of books. Well, we can all dream ….
I hope that my suggestions in this newsletter enriched your 2025 reading and that this new year will be filled with wonderful books to savour and enjoy. Don’t forget to support your local libraries and bookshops throughout the year. They need our support!
Tell me what books you’ve enjoyed the most this year. Please leave a comment.
Susannah Fullerton: My 2024 Favourites
Susannah Fullerton: My 2023 Favourites
Susannah Fullerton: My 2022 Favourites
Susannah Fullerton: My 2021 Favourites
Susannah Fullerton: My 2020 Favourites
Susannah Fullerton: My 2019 Favourites
Susannah Fullerton: My 2018 Favourites
Susannah Fullerton: My 2017 Favourites
Susannah Fullerton: My 2016 Favourites
The Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman
Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King by Antonia Fraser
Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive and Untamed Jane by Devoney Looser
Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives by Lucy Mangan
The Romanovs: The Story of Russia and its Empire 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Some Tame Gazelle series by Barbara Pym
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser
Jane Austen in 41 Objects by Kathryn Sutherland
Living with Jane Austen by Janet Todd
The Hallmarked Man by Robert Gailbraith
The Seeker series by S.G. Maclean
The Snow Killer series by Ross Greenwood
Slow Horses series by Mick Herron
Susannah Fullerton: Childhood Reading
Susannah Fullerton: The Romanovs
Susannah Fullerton: Jane Austen’s Objects
Susannah Fullerton: Historical Mysteries
MAVIS ROBERTS
Thoroughly enjoyed your talk on Auguste Escoffier yesterday in Wentworth Falls Susannah, and the information about Cesar Ritz too.
Regards, Mave
Fiona McKenzie
Thank you for your list Susannah – always wonderful to have the heads up from other avid readers. Several weeks after reading the Romanovs, I read my quarterly old scholars newsletter from school days and in it was a note about a book written by Alex de Fircks which is actually a second edition of a fascinating autobiography written by her grandmother Olga Woronoff UPHEAVAL in 1932, with extended footnotes and other (important) information by Alex. Woronoff’s story is extraordinary, growing up within the Imperial family’s orbit as a member of the Russian aristocracy and marrying just months before the commencement of WWI. The book is a personal tale of privilege and then sudden and harrowing tumult as she and her husband escape Russia. It is a thoroughly engaging book with a personal view of extraordinary times that shaped global geo politics. I found it especially engaging for Olga’s innate resilience, transitioning from privilege to scrabble-class – an entirely different book to that about the Romanovs. Alex’s research really adds to the readability of the book. I recommend it.
Susannah Fullerton
That memoir sounds most intriguing. Thanks for the recommendation. I am endlessly fascaitned by Russian history – it is so tumultuous!
I hope 2026 is packed with good books for you.
Margaret Debenham
Thank you, Susannah – you have provided me with several more books to add to the “must buy” list. I don’t write down the names of books I read during the year, so I always have to think “What on earth did I read? And was that this year, or last year?”. But there are four books that have stayed with me – one I have just recently finished reading: “A Woman’s Eye, Her Art” by Drusilla Modjeska, about women artists in the early twentieth century and their struggles to make their way in the world of modernist art dominated by men who were also often their friends and their lovers, and who commonly treated them as subservient to the male genius (think Dora Maar and Picasso, Lee Miller and Man Ray) – a fascinating book. Another was “A Different Kind of Power” by Jacinda Ardern, whom I very much admire – an excellent and fascinating read (I read it before I saw the movie “Prime Minister”, also very enjoyable). The third was “The Beekeeper of Aleppo” by Christy Lefteri, a fictional work but based very much on fact – the horror of the civil war in Syria, the loss of a child, the horrors faced by asylum seekers and the traumas they go through to reach safety, with the aching loss of their homes and the way of life they loved. Number four was “Wilding” (which also became a movie), about a (rather aristocratic) family who decided to give up trying to scrabble a living on their marginal agricultural/stock property in Sussex (which had largely survived on EU subsidies, no longer available) and return the land to a more natural state, or at least to a pre-large scale farming state. This involved returning prairie-like fields to small fields enclosed by hedgerows, not using fertilisers and pesticides/herbicides, etc. The neighbours hated it (weeds!), but they were rewarded by the return of hedge-nesting birds that hadn’t been seen in the area for years, they installed beavers who naturalised the river banks and so stopped flooding, and so much more good stuff. Oh, and there was another book I really enjoyed – it was about authors and cats. (This year I must write down books I read – I know I will be re-reading “Hamnet”, the movie is beautiful.)
Very best wishes for 2026 and for your travels.
Susannah Fullerton
Oh you have now added so many more books to my To-Read list. I am very keen to read ‘Wilding’ which sounds fabulous.
So glad you enjoyed my new book, which seems to be selling like hot cakes. I’m delighted.
I hope 2026 is packed with good books for you.
Louise Owens
Thank you for your newsletter – what great way to start the year! I have quickly put Bookish, Mona’s Eyes and Living with Jane on my TBR list. Some of the best books I read in 2025 include Hello Beautiful; Anna Neopolitano, Homecoming; Kate Morton, Horse; Geraldine Brook, June in the Garden; Eleanor Wilde, Recipe for Murder; Duncan McNab, The Chocolate Factory; Mary-Lou Stephens, The Correspondent; Vanesa Evans, The Glass Maker; Tracey Chevalier and The Invitation; Belinda Alexandra.
Susannah Fullerton
Thanks for sharing your lovely list. So many books I need to read, and also to discuss with you next time we get together.
Happy New Year.
Cheryl
Hi Louise, I also loved Homecoming by Kate Morton and The Glass Maker by Tracey Chevalier really stuck with me because I visited Murano fairly recently. I love your suggestions.