My Top Five Books of 2025

As I don't think I'm going to get any more reading time in before 11:59 pm on 31 December, I thought it was a good time to put together my annual recap of all the books I read in 2025 — and pick out my five favourites. I thought I'd beat last year's total of 123, but tapered off towards the end, reaching a total of 103 books.

My Top 5 Books of 2024

As the new year begins, it's time for my annual round-up of my five favourite books from the 123 I read in 2024. It's my highest total since the pre-pandemic times when I was still commuting regularly. Thrillers, mysteries and crime were my most-read genres, as usual. And I read almost of these on my Kindle, finally upgrading to the newest Paperwhite model after years of service from its predecessor.

My Top 5 Books of 2023

In the second of my end-of-year round-ups, I'm highlighting my five favourite books from among all of those I read in 2023. It was a relatively slow year for reading (for me): I read 77 books, including a couple of re-reads, and I wasn't feeling inspired for much of the year. This meant I defaulted to my usual reading favourites: crime and psychological thrillers and books set in New York City (where the photo below was taken). Sometimes both!

"Take Me to My Beach": Thailand, Wanderlust and the Spirit of Adventure

For the first part of my big birthday celebration, I drew inspiration from the delightful déja vu of New York. And for the second, I looked instead to the jamais vu of Thailand.

New York: A (28-Year) Love Story

Today, I’m New York bound on a long-awaited family trip to mark a milestone birthday for me. It will be my 33rd visit to the Big Apple since my first in 1995. Feeling nostalgic, I dove into my NYC archives, trawling through my old diaries (until 2006), blog posts (from 2007) and photo albums (digital and predigital — a big thank you to my parents for their help with the earlier years).

Book Review: Kingsrise by Anne Mattias

DI Niamh Khalid, the protagonist at the heart of Anne Mattias's debut novel, Kingsrise, has had better Halloween nights: first, her beloved teenage brother Lance and his friends find themselves in trouble with the law and then a body shows up on the beach.

My Top 5 Books of 2022

Today, I'm sharing my five favourite books from among those I read during 2022. I ended up reading fewer than 100 books in both 2020 and 2021 and to hold myself accountable, at the start of 2022 I started blogging every other month about my favourite books. I tailed off towards the end of the year due to a hectic travel schedule and getting stuck on a few books I wasn't enjoying, but I still achieved my target and read 102 books in 2022. Read on to find out which ones made my shortlist, as well as my full reading list for the year.

My Five Favourite Books of July and August 2022

Another two months have passed (how?!), which means it's time for my bimonthly book recommendations. I read 19 books in July and August, taking my total for the year to date up to 78. I enjoyed so many of the books I read over the past two months and it was really hard to select just five favourites...but here they are.

My Five Favourite Books of May and June 2022

It's time for the latest installment of my bimonthly series where I pick my favourite five books from among those I've read over the past two months. My tally for May and June was slightly down (mainly because there were a couple in there that — were I less of a completionist — may well have been DNFs), but I still read 17 books. I'm up to 59 at this mid-year point, which means I'm comfortably on track to meeting my goal of reading 100 books by the end of the year.

My Five Favourite Books of March and April 2022

This year, I've been trying to get my for-fun reading back up to pre-pandemic levels and I've also been picking out and writing about my favourite five books every two months as a way to hold myself accountable. I read 20 books in March and April, taking my year-to-date tally to 42. Here are my five favourites from among the books I've read in the past two months.

My Five Favourite Books of January and February 2022

Just like in 2020, the number of books I read last year dipped below the 100 mark. For most people, reading 74 books in a year is still a lot, but in 2022, I wanted to try to prioritise reading for fun again. And to hold myself accountable, I'm going to write a post every two months picking out my five favourite books from among those I've read. So far, this is working quite well, as it's the end of February and I've already read 22 books. Here are the five that I most enjoyed reading.

My Top 5 Books of 2021

What with one thing and another, my 2021 end-of-year round-ups have been slightly delayed, such that it is now already 2022. In this post, I'm highlighting my five favourite novels that I read in 2021, as well as five more that almost made the shortlist. 

Lockdown Lit: Five Books for Your 2021 Summer Reading List

 1. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris*

I was looking forward to reading Zakiya Dalila Harris's debut novel for many weeks, and I raced through it in a couple of evenings. In the novel, Nella is a 26-year-old editorial assistant working at a New York publishing house. She works hard, gets on well with her editor and hopes she is on track for a promotion in the not-too-distant future. 

My Top 5 Books of 2020

This is the last of my 2020 round-up posts, and highlights my favourite five books that I've read this year. My reading habits changed as much as my travel habits this year, and I've read far fewer books than last year: 94, in total. 

Spotted in Rye, Sussex

Lockdown Lit: My 5 Favourite Books of August 2020

The Vanishing Half — Brit Bennett
Blame Francine Pascal, whose Sweet Valley High novels I devoured during my tween years, but I've always had a fascination with novels featuring twins. Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half, which tells the story of light-skinned Black twin sisters, Desiree and Stella. Although parts of it are set in California and Stella's daughter might not be too out of place in Sweet Valley, it's otherwise worlds apart.

Lockdown Lit: My Five Favourite Books in June 2020

1. Silver Sparrow — Tayari Jones

Like many people, I enjoyed Tayari Jones's acclaimed 2018 novel An American Marriage, and a friend recently recommended I check out Silver Sparrow, which was published in 2011. Silver Sparrow tells the story of two sisters, Dana and Chaurisse, growing up in Atlanta in the 1980s. They are the same age and have a lot in common, but there's a catch: their bigamist father James Witherspoon married Dana's mother Gwen out of state having already married Chaurisse's mother Laverne years earlier. 

Lockdown Lit: Five Fab Crime Novel Series

Like many people, my prime time for reading was on my commute, which gave me a total of 90 minutes to two hours per day with a book or my Kindle. I read 135 books in 2019, most of them on the bus, but when lockdown was introduced, I found it hard to motivate myself to read. I had so much more time to myself but I couldn't tear myself away from the Sisyphean search for scintillating shows on streaming services, or random rabbit holes on the internet.

My Top 5 Books of 2019

Of the 135 books I read this year, there were many candidates for the top five and it was hard to narrow down my choices. As usual, I read a lot of thrillers, mysteries, crime and suspense, but my top five, and the further five on my longlist, are a little more diverse. And although I didn't pay attention to the gender of the authors when I was making my choices, all five of this year's top five, and four of my longlist, are written by women.

My Top 5 Books of 2018

One of the problems with being a serial reader is that none of your friends and family understand when you lament that you 'only' read 111 books in a year. But compared to the 148 I read in 2017 and the 200 I read in 2016, it does sound like a lot less. I blame my incredibly busy year at work, and my hectic itinerary in Peru didn't give me much chance to catch up on my reading.

Book Review: Lonely Planet's Global Coffee Tour

I couldn't have imagined a better book launch than the one I attended last week for a book about coffee and travel from my favourite travel guidebook publisher at one of my favourite coffee shops in London. The event was for Lonely Planet's Global Coffee Tour and took place at the original branch of The Gentlemen Baristas on Union Street, which I've been visiting for almost four years.

After enjoying a natural Ethiopian pourover coffee courtesy of The Gents and watching a latte art demo with one of the baristas, I talked with some of the friendly Lonely Planet team, including editor Karyn Noble, an Australian in London who was as delighted as I was to discover The GBs, which features in Global Coffee Tour, of course. 

I also got the chance to browse through the book, which is organised by continent and country and includes numerous coffee-shop recommendations, ordering tips (if I ever make it to Ethiopia — and I hope I will — I know now to say: "Nē buna ibakiwo ifeligalehu") and insights into coffee production, café culture and home-brewing.

It was a good sign when I opened the book at random on the Hungary section and came up with several coffee-shop suggestions to add to my list of cafés to visit when I go to Budapest next month. And I've already visited 23 of the listed countries on four continents, which meant I could compare their suggestions against some of my own lists. 

I concluded that the recommendations are very well curated, with some really great specialty coffee spots in cities from Paris and Mexico City, to Melbourne and Saigon. 

One thing I particularly like is that rather than just listing cafés throughout the world that will serve a high-quality but identikit flat white, the guide includes locations that will give you a real taste for the local coffee culture. There's a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, for example (not the farm I visited), while in Tokyo, the wonderful and historical Café de l'Ambra, features in the guide.

Lonely Planet's guides are usually my first port of call when I'm planning a trip (unless the region's guide happens to be very out of date), and I find the inclusion of cafés and coffee shops convenient for key sights in their 'pocket' city guide range very useful. Global Coffee Tour flips that around: several coffee shops are presented for each city, along with a few suggestions for other things to do nearby. 

This is perfect for people like me, who often plan their travels around the coffee (NB: I always do a lot of research when seeking out a city's best coffee spots), but feel like it would be a waste to visit a new city without seeing anything but the coffee scene. So if you're visiting Tim Wendelboe in Oslo (and you should), you'll know to visit the Munchmuseet and take dinner at Markveien Mat & Vinhus when you're all coffeed out.

The book has lots of photos and it's enjoyable both to browse for coffee-destination inspiration and to search for places for a specific trip. Colombia, Nicaragua and Ethiopia jumped even higher up my travel wish list. One small point for anyone hoping to visit Supercrown in NYC: alas, the wonderful Bushwick coffee shop and roastery has now closed. The only trouble now is that there are even more coffee destinations for me to visit. #coffeebloggerproblems

Disclaimer: Global Coffee Tour was published by Lonely Planet in May 2018. I received a free copy at the launch. The decision to write a review was mine and all opinions here are my own.