Hello reader,
How are you doing? Did you make any resolutions? I hope they’re treating you well, and that you know you’re wonderful as you are (only cool n nice people read my blog), so don’t panic if it falls by the wayside ❤
My New Year’s resolution is to go outside more, which I’m tracking via sticky stars on my calendar. This is a tried and tested technique to make me behave, and was originally used on my at age… 4? I got stars for a whole month and me and my sibling were rewarded with a VHS of Disney’s Aladdin. The video tape is long gone, but maybe not so the mental scars our parents bear from exposure to our singing along to A Whole New World over and over and over…
Anyway, what you’re really here for! There are even (some) comments this year! Also the heart system (readjusted because I just looked at last year’s post and they don’t seem to be displaying properly, let’s see if grey and pink work?)
2025 saw a lot of audiobooks, which I’m seeing as a neutral thing at the moment. paper books have been hard to stick with, and I’m not sure why that is, although right now I’m reading a fantasy novel that’s about 3 inches thick, which I started in November, so expect 2026 to also be audiobook heavy. Fantasy seems to have taken over the list, which has been fun, but I’d like to work through my backlog of nature / environment / art books I’ve been amassing, as I’ve just built some shelves that are not big enough. At some point in the Autumn the fantasy stories kind of blended into each other, and I was mixing characters and dragons and spaceships up in my head, so I’m going to try to alternate between fiction and non-fiction more this year. Probably.
I get my audiobooks through my local library’s Borrowbox – it’s FREE! I love it. Ask your favourite librarian / library assistant about it. Actually, I’m going to add ‘library book’ notes to these, too, so you can see exactly how many books were from the glorious thing that is the public library (most of them).
🩶 DNF / load of crap / no thanks
🩶💚 Meh
🩶💚💛 Fair to middling / It was a while ago and I can’t remember, sorry
🩶💚💛🧡 Pretty good
🩶💚💛🧡❤️ Great, would recommend
🩶💚💛🧡❤️🩷 New favourite
Cassandra Clare – City of Ashes (audiobook)(library book) 🩶💚💛
Juno Dawson – Wonderland (library book)🩶💚💛🧡❤️
I’m desperate for the audiobook of Juno’s latest HMRC book to get to Live Borders’ Borrowbox. Please let it be soon!
Cassandra Clare – City of Glass (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛
Camila Nord – The Balanced Brain (book club) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Sciencey and actually helpful!
Olivie Blake – The Atlas Complex (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Last (I think?) of a series of long books, worth the wait.
Andrzej Sapkowski – The Last Wish 🩶💚💛🧡
Enjoyed but it’s basically the same as the first series of The Witcher, so felt a bit of a pointless read, sorry!
Suzanne Collins – The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Suzanne Collins – Sunrise on the Reaping (audiobook) (library book)🩶💚💛🧡
Samantha Harvey – Orbital (book club) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Short n sweet, find myself thinking about it more often than others I’ve read this year
Henry Dimbleby / Jemima Lewis – Ravenous (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛
I vaguely remember this being more interesting than I’m giving it credit for?
Delia Owens – Where the Crawdads Sing (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡
I am reliably informed that the Piggly Wiggly is a real place.
Rebecca Yarros – Fourth Wing (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Finally some steamy dragony fantasy to listen to in the office!
Jen Williams – Titanchild (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️🩷
Really loved this, and the second part too – enjoyed the British-ish landscape and wild wood and people with horns and the Green Man and all of that stuff
Milo Allan – Murray Hall 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Rebecca Yarros – Iron Flame (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Holly Jackson – A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (audiobook) (library book)🩶💚💛🧡
Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff – Aurora Rising (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡
Hannah Kaner – Godkiller (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Christopher Paolini – To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Maybe didn’t need to be this long… but I should have known this after the Inheritance Cycle books, which feel like a very long time ago. It was really nice going back to an author I read as a teenager, and feeling like we’ve both grown and learnt things since then. Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe I’ll revisit Eragon etc if they appear on Borrowbox…
Hannah Kaner – Sunbringer (audiobook) (library book)🩶💚💛🧡
T. Kingfisher – Hemlock and Silver (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Tom Wheeler – Cursed (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛
Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for King Arthur?
Dawn French – The Twat Files (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚
Funny, of course, but it got on my nerves?
Louise Welsh – To the Dogs (audiobook) (library book)🩶💚💛
Hanya Yanagihara – A Little Life (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡
Marked down only because it Did Not Need To Be That Long! But I did cry a lot at this, and would recommend, I think? *sniffle*
Edward Ashton – Mickey 7 (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Still haven’t seen the film… but this was fun.
Tayari Jones – An American Marriage (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡
Maybe I’d have got on with this better if I read it on paper, I think it deserved more time than I gave it.
Martha Wells – Exit Strategy (audiobook) (library book)🩶💚💛🧡
Can’t really remember what happened in this one, but I love Murderbot, his terror of eye contact and passive-aggressive use of seating (also I watched the TV series this year, so the book Murderbot is now nicer to look at in my mind’s eye than when I read previous books in the series. Thank You Alexander Skarsgård). *wistful sigh*
Adam Silvera – Infinity Son (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛
Daphne Du Maurier – Rebecca (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Do not tell my godmother I didn’t give this six hearts. Impact possibly watered down by the film adaptation I saw fairly soon before reading? Or that I was listening on an aeroplane.
Karsten Dusse – Murder Mindfully (audiobook (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡❤️
Should I be worried that I started to use the mindfulness techniques after reading this?
Olivie Blake – Girl Dinner (audiobook) (library book) 🩶💚💛🧡
Jessie x
I’ve got Patreon! Signing up to it will encourage me to write more things to put on the internet for anyone to read for free, so if you’ve got money you’d like to send to an artist, click here! Patreon Patrons get to see new things earlier than everyone else, and can watch more of my films at their full lengths.
I’ve not got affiliate links to buy books, but I like to shop at bookshop.org, because they send money to indie bookshops when you buy books, and you can choose to send it to your local (or whatever nice bookshop you like), which is great, especially if you live somewhere like I do, which has bookshops that are either a bit of a drive away or have really limited stock, so you can still support them, and get the exact book you’re looking for at the same time. Yay!
But mostly – join your local library! Do it now! If you’re in the Scottish Borders, do it here!
okay no more p.s.-ing, It’s bedtime.
Jessie Growden 