December Reading

What I've been reading, doing, loving in December

Jan 07, 2026

This is my monthly wrap up where I talk about some of my favourite things from the last month. What I’m reading, enjoying, looking forward to—sort of anything floating my boat.

I’m a little late on this wrap up, but I still hope you enjoy!

I moved to London at the very end of December (I promise this isn’t going to be my entire personality, it’s just important context). I’ve only ever lived in Montreal, and over half of that time was spent thinking I’d eventually leave. It never felt like mine, it was just the place that was chosen for me.

In the year leading up to the move, none of the logistical mess was all that scary. Getting a visa was easy, selling everything felt freeing—trekking all of my books to a storage unit really was the hardest part. But around the end of November, the gap between a life in Montreal and a future in London started to tug at my insides.
My mother made a similar move, though going the opposite direction, when she came to Canada. You might think this would make it easier for me, but her words of wisdom were: “It was much simpler in the 80s. I came here with a backpack and just stayed.”

As I was uprooting, I felt a pull to the city stronger than ever before. I watched hockey with some interest, I macro-dosed Quebec content (I’m back to my days of Xavier Dolan standom), and I even bought merch from the Montreal Canadiens. Everyone told me I’d miss it, but it was only when faced with a one way ticket on a Boeing 787 that I believed them…

Days later, I’m finishing this thought from my new London flat. Sitting at my vintage writing desk and watching a Laburnum tree in full bloom flop around in the wind, the feeling I had above is gone. Maybe it’ll be back, or maybe it will be replaced with something else. For now, this seems right.

What I Read

Below is a rundown of every book I read last month. I’ll be adding a star next to my standouts, like a starred review where a star isn’t a 1 to 5 scale, it just means good!

Before the written ramblings, here is a video version of my monthly wrap up if you’re more of a visual person:

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer (tr. by Shaun Whiteside)

I had this on my TBR for the longest time and my library hold happened to come in at the perfect time because Martha announced this as her first Martha’s Monthly book club pick! Needless to say, I read it immediately.

A woman wakes up alone in a cabin in the remote Austrian mountains. When she goes outside, she realizes there is an invisible wall separating her from the rest of humanity. Her friends, her children, her family, no matter which direction she walks in, the wall keeps her isolated from them. What unfolds here is a report of her everyday life in this new reality.

The Wall is a exploration of loneliness, of humanity, of what it feels like to exist when all meaning is striped away. To me this novel is very much in conversation with On the Calculation of Volume and I Who Have Never Known Men. They are all strange in their approach, but impeccable in their execution and dissection of humanity.

I was really impressed by Haushofer’s momentum in this despite it being quite plain. The narrator’s days are not all that exciting and yet, I was completely engrossed. Really excited to take part in the book club discussion on this and see how everyone else felt about it!

Separate Rooms by Pier Vittorio Tondelli (tr. by Simon Pleasance)

This book has a looming Luca Guadagnino adaptation so, naturally, I was intrigued. The stories he works on are always interesting to me and this was no different.

It’s set in 1980s and is the story of a famous Italian writer who is grieving his partner who’s dying of AIDS. The grief in this book is active—the writer travels around Europe to paint the portrait of his relationship with his dying lover. Time stacks onto itself here with glimpses of past in the present and vice versa.

This is sad and gay. Some people have been put off by sad gay stories of late, but I’m not fully in that camp. I found this to be doing something quite interesting with its depiction of nonlinear grief. It zigs and zags, the plot falls away and the heart is laid bare.

This didn’t change my life, but I did enjoy spending time with it.

A Bright Ray of Darkness by Ethan Hawke ★

This has been on my list for the longest time. I cannot find it for the life of me, but there’s a film or tv show where Ethan Hawke plays a version of himself as a depraved, drunk writer/actor and I looked up his bibliography from there. This book stood out to me as the one to read.

It is the story of a movie star who’s about to make his Broadway debut in a Shakespeare play. Simultaneously, his rock star wife is leaving him, he’s battling his substance abuse demons, trying to parent his children, and also survive it all.

The novel feels like a peek behind the curtain. Not necessarily for Hawke himself, but for this very real-feeling character he’s built. A man hanging on by a thread, completely wrung out by life, and still he goes on because the call to perform is impossible for him to ignore. Masculinity, ego, power, desire, it’s all wrapped up into this character’s life.

What struck me most about this book is the way it talks about this artist what it’s like to create art communally. He describes the craft of acting in such visceral detail, I had to reread several passages over and over because of how floored I was by it. Talking about how it feels to act sounds like it wouldn’t be riveting, but this will change your mind.

This book just narrowly missed my top 15 reads from 2025. I wanted to put it there, but I felt like recency bias was at play so I didn’t. Just know, it could’ve been there!

Un simple dîner by Cécile Tlili

I’ve been thinking about trying to read in French, and my library was a huge help with this. This little gem is that last thing I’ll be reading from le service des bibliothèques de Montréal for a long time and it was a great way to close it out.

The premise is simple: two couples meet for dinner during a heatwave in Paris. It starts slowly, introducing us to these characters, their dynamics and relationships to each other. And once the onions that are these people start to get their layers peeled back, it unravels into a beautiful controlled chaos.

Each person at this dinner has a rich inner world and so much on their mind. We shift from person to person and tension builds until everything snaps. There’s also an exploration of gender and power and partnership and desire and identity for all of the people at the table. It’s so well executed and captivating, I could not put this down.

I will be reading more from Cécile Tlili because I especially loved how real this all felt. It wasn’t dramatic, it was just a convergence of all this ongoing turmoil.

The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis

This is a book about five strange sisters in a remote English village in the eighteenth century. We get to know these odd girls entirely through the perspectives of the townspeople who see them on a daily basis.

All five of them have distinct personalities, but the thing that unites them is a rumour around town that they are all turning into dogs. We dive into judgement and prejudice from all these people as the girls are almost in the reader’s periphery, just out of reach. I found this to be a really interesting way to tell the story and really effective until I wanted more.

I liked this, but I think I could’ve loved it had it been meatier and dug a little deeper. We skim the surface of these girls, and I think that did it a disservice. That being said, this does what it sets out to do—it’s a kooky tale with great vibes and great writing. Even the premise is delivered on, I just wanted more.

On My Bedside Table

A dispatch from my bedside table and the books that litter it, hoping to be read soon.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, two men, their friendship, and the acts of violence that crushes their shared dream
Kitten by Stacey Yu, a young woman becomes increasingly obsessed with her wealthy boyfriend’s cat
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (tr. by Magda Bogin), a personal and political deep dive into three generations of a family in Chile
Seven Empty Houses by Samantha Schweblin (tr. by Megan McDowell) a collection of unsettling and tense stories to get under your skin
Ghosts by Dolly Alderton, a late coming-of-age that tackles the tribulations of modern dating, aging parents and growing apart from people in your 30s