What I Read in May 2025

A perfectly heart shaped petal I came across while walking home

There’s not much in it, but May has ended up being my best reading month of the year so far, with 15 books read and the vast majority of those getting four-star or better ratings from me.

As I said the other week, I want to start focusing this newsletter on books that I haven’t heard others talk about much, if at all, and so I’ve selected three great May reads to talk about in detail here. You can also scroll down to the bottom to see a one-sentence review of everything else I read this month.

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The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue

Adult / Fiction / Gothic-Mystery-Thriller / 2021 / 4.5 Stars

I listened to The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue at work and found myself fully wrapped up in it from chapter one. This is a somewhat gothic, dark academia adjacent mystery/thriller novel with a split timeline set in 1990, and 2015.

In 1990s, new student Louisa arrives at her new prestigious Catholic boarding school in Ireland and quickly becomes enamoured of provocative fellow student Victoria and their young and charming art teacher Mr Lavelle. Within months, Louisa and her teacher will disappear without a trace. Meanwhile, in 2015 as the 25th anniversary of the disappearance looms, a journalist sets out to try and find out what happened to the pair once and for all.

While this one didn’t have the most original and shocking conclusion, it read like a dream and fully immersed me in the lives of these teenage girls and their dangerous infatuation with a charming and attractive young teacher. It captured that wild and intimate obsession that can only form between girls discovering themselves in a closed off environment, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to every minute. Finally, if you’re like me and could listen to anyone with an Irish accent read the phone book, then give yourself a treat and listen to this one on audio.

Many thanks to Hachette Audio and Libro.fm for the review copy.

We Are Not Alone by Marc Hartzman

Adult / Non-Fiction / Aliens-History-Politics / 2023 / 4.5 Stars

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had an interest in UFOs and aliens. I think a lot of it had to do with growing up in the 90s, the height of The X-Files, alien invasion movies, the first exoplanet discoveries, and news stories about people taking out insurance policies against being abducted. Over the last few years, talk of UFOs, or as they’re now more commonly called UAPs (unexplained aerial phenomena), has begun to move away from fringe conspiracy forums and into serious public discourse, largely following the US Senate hearings that gathered evidence from expert witnesses in the military and framed the sightings as a significant potential threat to national security worldwide.

We Are Not Alone by Marc Hartzman is an easy to read yet incredibly thorough look at the history of UFO sightings and supposed alien encounters. It takes the subject matter seriously, yet refuses to fall into the trap of automatically believing every story: clearly there is a difference in the plausibility of a trained pilot seeing something unexplained who is backed up by RADAR and other educated witnesses, vs a lone individual claiming to have been taken on a ride around the solar system by sexy Venusian women, and the author handles those differences firmly but without cruelty. I also appreciated the amount of first-hand sources included: photographs, copies of original letters, reports, and memoranda, that help cement the credibility of so much that has long been dismissed.

While I completely believe in the existence of life on other planets, I’m still torn on whether or not I believe any of that life has been buzzing around the planet in flying saucers for decades, if not longer. However, *something* has been flying around and confounding the kind of people who don’t get confused by Venus and other commonplace lights in the sky, and We Are Not Alone is a fantastic look at what’s been going on and what we need to be doing now.

Thanks to Quirk Books and NetGalley for the review copy.

Welcome to the United States of Anxiety by Jen Lancaster

Adult / Non-Fiction / Humour-Memoir-Mental Health / 2020 / 3.5 Stars

I don’t think it’s a controversial statement to say that overall, Western society - especially in the USA - is becoming increasingly anxious. In many ways, that’s understandable, as our collective weight balloons and headlines about school shootings and terrorist attacks fill our 24/7 news channels. However, the amount of anxiety we’re feeling as a society is increasing exponentially faster than the reality of the threats we perceive.

Welcome to the United States of Anxiety by Jen Lancaster is an exploration of that anxiety through personal stories and anecdotes. It looks at the way we used to live and compares it to our lives today, ruled by fears and what ifs. Not everything is negative. Of course, it makes more sense for us to wear seatbelts in our cars, have reasonable health and safety rules in dangerous workplaces, and avoid smoking - all things that were very different 50 years ago. Yet it also looks at the way our lives are now ruled by anxiety, even when we don’t realise it, often making those lives smaller and less fulfilling as a result.

This was an interesting and eye-opening book that made me look back on my own 90s childhood with some nostalgia and vow to live life in a more balanced, less risk-averse way.

Everything Else I Read

• Star Wars: Starlight Stories by Various
  An OK collection of Star Wars: The High Republic short stories set aboard Starlight Beacon during phase one.

• One Giant Leap by Ben Gartner
  A brilliant middle-grade, surprisingly realistic space adventure that I covered in detail here a few weeks ago.

• Space Rover by Stewart Lawrence Sinclair
  A cute and informative little book I picked up at the Science Museum in London all about space rovers, from the lunar rover “car” to the Mars robots.

• Fat Loss Habits by Ben Carpenter
  A thoroughly useful and non-toxic book about losing weight healthily, written by one of my favourite TikTok creators.

• Raven Rock by Garrett M Graff
  A detailed look at decades worth of continuity of government (COG) planning within the US government that I covered in depth here.

• Path of Deceit by Justina Ireland
  A YA novel in my Star Wars High Republic read through that kicks off phase two and introduces the dangerous Path of the Open Hand sect.

• The Whisperwicks: The Labyrinth of Lost & Found by Jordan Lees
  Book one of a popular middle-grade series that I picked up only because I found a stunning sprayed edge exclusive edition going cheap, but I ended up loving it.

• The Ladybird Book of Mindfulness
  I bought this for my sister’s birthday and quickly read it before wrapping it, nostalgic Ladybird art with hilarious new text that had me laughing out loud.

• Quest For the Hidden City by George Mann
  A High Republic middle-grade novel with a climate change focus as the Jedi and Republic help a planet poised to bring about their own destruction.

• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  Such a well-known classic that you already know the plot even if you haven’t read it! Surprisingly short but an entertaining read.

• The Way of Wonder by Patti Pagliei and John Simpson
  A charming collection of poems, essays, and invitations to let more wonder into your everyday life.