some books I read in April and May
Hello and welcome back to the latest instalment of my 2025 reading adventures! As we slowly tiptoe our way into the summer months, my reading has focussed on personal, intimate and emotional stories, and I’ve been using my reading time as a literary exploration of new countries and experiences of life. What follows are my highlights, from short story and essay collections to soul searching narratives. Let’s dive in…
The Hearing Test, Eliza Barry Callahan
Reading this was truly like entering someone else’s thoughtstream. Namely, Eliza, a young woman who’s suddenly diagnosed with ‘sudden deafness’ and has to witness the gradual disappearance of a world of sound from her experience of living.
We follow her journey making meaning in a new world of growing silence, as she loses conversation, music, birdsong, and her relationships around her change (most of which take place via telephone calls). A composer, she describes the experience as “a silent film with a score that is made with just the clanging landings and takeoffs of my thoughts”.
Though I felt lost with some of her cultural references, it was quite fascinating to be immersed in Eliza’s thoughts for a while. Documenting regular conversations with friends and strangers, if you like Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy you might like this. It’s philosophical, deeply introspective, and certainly makes you view the world differently.
The Nursey, Szilvia Molnar
This book has propelled to one of my favourite reads so far this year. It presents a raw portrayal of motherhood, and the emotions and revelations experienced in the days that follow the unnamed narrator’s labour and new life with her first baby.
Granted, I’ve not had this experience myself, but I can see how vital and important Molnar’s thoughtstream-style prose truly is. Baby ‘Button’ is never actually named, which presents her as this unknown entity around which the narrator’s life now revolves. As here, it’s not about the baby. It’s about the monumental shift the mother experiences in the days after her labour, in her relationship with her body, her work, her husband, her new feeling of purpose, with her idea of time and dependency and safety.
She gives us all the visceral details of how she experiences her post-labour body, and the less angelic side of looking after a newborn. She’s grappling with painful emotions and darker thoughts, with loneliness and fear of the outside world, while her husband goes back to his normal work life and just doesn’t get the all-encompassing, confusing and scarily new experience she’s going through. She’s a mother now. Life won’t be the same again. and her words continually deliver an incisive perspective around the emotions that envelope this very fact.
Our narrator is a translator, and I loved her playful exploration of the words she uses to describe her begrudging embracement of motherhood. Her commentary that translation is all about representation (there is no absolute solution when translating for new cultural references) can be applied to the urgently refreshing way she portrays a time of life that is overly gold-tinged in fictional retelling. That is, becoming a mother, while she’s still becoming a person.
I loved and I blitzed through it, and I really recommend it for thoughtful, original reading.
The Edge of the Alphabet, Janet Frame
A truly original piece of literary fiction exploring human connection, purpose and identity. It tells the story of three characters travelling by cruise liner from New Zealand to London; one leaving the island for the first time in search of a fresh new start, one returning to life in England, and one starting yet another new chapter on his travels beyond a past life in Ireland.
I’ve never read writing like this; Frame’s command of language is truly unique. Her expressions and descriptions spiral and twist and turn, and they always left me wanting more as I ploughed my way through the book. It’s certainly an intimate exploration of how these characters see the world and the people around them, as they make and remake their lives in new and unfamiliar settings. I recommend for a truly thought-provoking read, and an inspiring one for the writers out there.
Let Me Tell You What I Mean, Joan Didion
After reading A Year of Magical Thinking last summer, Didion has remained on my mind and it was certainly about time I returned to her writing. I blitzed through this wonderful essay collection in a day, sat out in the sunshine without being able to take my eyes away from her words and reflections. It’s a commentary on a life of writing and becoming a writer; insightful and introspective and honest.
I found the essay ‘Why I Write’ particularly fascinating, being able to access Didion’s introspection on why she has embraced writing and exploring the world in this way. I also found her experiences of rejection and setbacks as a writer comforting, coming from a heralded beacon of women writers and essayists.
Overall, I just loved it. I just want to delve into all of Didion’s back catalogue now. I am very sure many literary treats await me.
Pond, Claire-Louise Bennett
Pond is a collection of short anecdotal stories told by a woman living alone in a cottage in rural Ireland. In a meticulously detailed thoughtstream, she takes us through her meanderings and wanderings with a likeable wit and eccentricity, from avoiding a neighbourhood party to attempting to fix her oven. She’s a writer, and has many rooms of her own, and a strong self of self and intention.
It’s certainly unique in style, with a mix of short-form prose, poetry and longer monologues. Though I preferred Bennett’s second novel, Checkout 19, this book has the same confident command of language that makes for a full and rich reading experience. I love her writing style and how rich and textured her vocabulary is; no two sentences are the same. I recommend getting lost in her world for a little while this summer.
Waist Deep, Linea Maja Ernst
Another unique novel that’s perfect for a whimsical summer spent getting lost in books. We follow 7 friends spending a week together in a Danish lakeside summer house, reconnecting and reflecting together upon the different paths their lives have taken after attending university together. Some are married with kids, some in committed relationships, some caught adrift as they make sense of newfound identities, and some struggling to make sense of where they are in life, and how they feel about the people closest to them.
In prose that constantly but smoothly switches between third-person perspectives within the friendship group, we access the thoughts and emotions of such a diverse cast of personalities in an intimate and convincing way. I could really see and feel the realness of each character; impressive when Ernst is presenting us with seven very different people, each with their own struggles, memories and feelings.
It’s a novel about desire, friendship, connection, and what life can and ‘should’ look like at the break of your 30s. The friends treat their evening meals as opportunities for debate and group reflection, and while they are moments of pervading tension and differences in opinion, their making sense of the world invites reflection in the reader about how they stand when thinking about relationships, monogamy, ‘settling down’ to have children, and breaking from the mould of expectations upon you. This novel offers a great deal while only spanning 7 days; immense intimacy in a gorgeously dreamy setting.
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And that’s a wrap. Stay tuned for more summery reads where these came from!
I cannot wait for my favourite reading months of the year as we approach the summer; I have so many books on my list to delve into, ready for sun-drenched mornings on my little balcony, and summertime adventures in the city and beyond, always with a book or two in hand. Because you never know when you can steal five minutes of escapism to explore a little more of the worlds that talented writers conjure up and share with you.
