***2026 reading thread*** 1. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens i promised i’d give Dickens another go this year so began with one i’d read at school & university, & i was pleasantly surprised by how much easier, funnier, & more enjoyable i found it. me & Charles may get on!

ahhhh i see my baby on there! thanks so much Cat 🥰

i was lucky enough to get a digital proof of this before christmas and it snuck in at the end of the year as one of my favourites of 2025! you should all be watching out for it this year 👀

happy new year friends in my phone! may you all be as content in 2026 as hercule purrot getting his belly rubbed this morning

It's the national year of reading in the uk in 2026. Instead of asking "why don't kids read any more", ask "how can I help them find the stories (and non fic) they will fall in love with". Less "get off my lawn whippersnappers" and more "come, sit on the lawn, here's a comic".

we’re closing in on the end of 2025, so here’s my year in books! 66 in total, and a list of my favourites for you to peruse 📚 notesfromanunrulybody.substack.com/p/2025-in-bo...

i started 2025 without a book or a husband i’m ending 2025 as both a published author and a wife, which quite frankly is insane not sure 2026 can top that!

Toad took his clothes out of the closet and put them on. Then he crossed out: Get Dressed.

made friends with a Not My Cat who was in my garden today. not pictured: his incredibly fluffy tail

I’VE BEEN SAYING

we’re closing in on the end of 2025, so here’s my year in books! 66 in total, and a list of my favourites for you to peruse 📚 notesfromanunrulybody.substack.com/p/2025-in-bo...

so the ataxia is 3 weeks late & against all odds i made it to my mum’s for Boxing Day and we’re driving home now me: i made the unanimous decision to get pissed to get it out of the way. i had a consultation with me & i agreed with me it would be the best course james: … 🤦‍♂️

my brother did very well for james’s present this year!

merry christmas hercule purrot fans! May you be as happy as he is playing in the wrapping paper 🎄

james: are you putting lord of the rings back on? me: yeah, just while i decide what to do with my life james: is that why we’ve been watching it for the last 10 years? 💀💀💀

i’m not saying there’s something wrong with the climate (i am) but i AM saying the daffodil bulbs i planted for spring are flourishing above the ground on the 22nd of december

next one nearly done. Dunsany iilos taking 2 days more than planned, each. Worth it. this is the dream.

December has come around fast! As promised, I'm going to try and post a daily advent thread of my top science fiction, fantasy, horror and spec fic books published in 2025 🤞 The bookshop gets a bit mad this month, but I'll try my best to keep up 🎄📚🪐 #SFF #Booksky

Happy Winter Solstice! Beer can, pinhole camera photos of the Summer to Winter Solstice (2024) and the Winter to Summer Solstice (2025). You never know quite what you're going to get with these photos, set the beer can pointing towards the sun at hopefully the correct angle and wait 6 months!

Not now, enormous 68-million-year-old egg in Antarctica

found my baby cover-out in Novel, my little local bookshop! very strange to be sitting on a shelf underneath this year’s Booker Prize winner 😳

got an ex-MP on Twitter QTing me defending Walliams and ‘witch hunts’. it’s clearly a mystery why these things stay in the whisper network for so long, huh 🙄

It’s the last #FridayReads before Christmas! Let’s share some books and boost all signals. Books are great gifts! Repost this and let us know what to repost for you. Here’s a piece of my soul that starts with a real event… www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0316... bookshop.org/p/books/hous...

hercule is very warm and fluffy this evening

me & J have rewatched all the Knives Out films recently and while i enjoy them all and i know that -technically- it probably isn’t the best one, i’ve reaffirmed Glass Onion as my favourite because it’s ultimately the silliest and makes me laugh far more than it probably should

we go live to David Walliams’ front door

I love my two blackout drunk Minnesota sons

Oh to be in the HarperCollins Slack right now

wait is the david walliams stuff finally coming out officially i’ve been hearing it over the whisper network for YEARS

i have sent replies to all of the messages/emails i’ve been anxiously ignoring for 2 weeks and it took me less than 30 minutes of focus. i think i deserve a mince pie.

We can do even more.

Tried to keep my Top 2025 reads to 25, but a few extra snuck in...! Here's a wee thread of all of my favourite genre books that I read this year - horror & gothic, sci fi, eco fiction, fantasy, and blends of them all! 🧵👇✨📚

And finally, genre-defying reads: dark dystopias, portals between worlds, time travel, weird mythologies, all of them with fantastic stories and worlds to get lost in! 📚Ft @tinywriterlaura.bsky.social, @renanbernardo.com, @oliverklangmead.bsky.social, @nnedi.bsky.social, & @starkholborn.bsky.social

Hi, I'm the CEO of Glorbo, the company who enjoys near unprecedented goodwill in our field, I'm here today to talk to you about our pivot to using the Magic 8-Ball powered by children's bones that everybody hates, I've given myself psychosis listening to the 8-ball aaaaeeeeeiiiiooouuuu

"Scattered across these pages is a new breed of artists who are sowing the seeds of a changed England...Where they're leading us, and where their psychic ancestors explored before us, is a new land - an enchanted, enchanting, maddening, quickening, furious, funny and fabulous England."

james thinks we won’t be getting a dog anytime soon but little does he know i’ve started following UK rescue centres on insta

Still looking for venues open to book review pitches. Would like to get at least two new places by January. Horror, crime, literary fiction, thrillers, science fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc. I’m all ears! Many thanks.

discovered Larian is using generative AI to ‘explore concept art and generate placeholder text’ in the new Divinity game and now i’m just really sad. I WAS ROOTING FOR YOU, LARIAN 💔 it doesn’t matter if none of it ends up in-game you’re still screwing creatives over after bg3’s success

Reactor is proud to continue our history of genre-focused literary criticism. Here's some of our favorite essays on reading, writing, and fiction from the year:

working Christmas Eve at Toys R Us, man came rushing in at gone 10pm & started screaming because we’d sold the PS3 he’d promised his son. after much calming i told him i’d check the back to see if the one he’d reserved was there, & he looked at me blankly & said: what? but i didn’t reserve one! 🤦‍♀️

My ambitious 2026 TBR has evolved into "A Jam's list to 2026 releases"; and it's time for the first part (I would say there are a few more). First part of my most awaited titles for 2026 and that I hope to cover in the blog: jamreads.com/articles/a-j... 💙📚

PSA that if you’re looking for a last minute christmas present for the gothic horror dystopia lover in your life, Awakened is here for you! 🐦‍⬛ #BookSky linktr.ee/lauracelliott

i think a great deal of my personality as an adult can be explained by the fact that every year at christmas mum made us watch the frankly terrifying 1984 version of A Christmas Carol by Clive Donner and even though it scared the crap out of me i was always excited to watch it

i need a bigger house for my books

Here is a bit of my resignation speech from last night

my lovely editor just informed me i’m an encyclopaedia entry 😳 sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/elliot...

finch has gone with james to get her vaccinations at the vet’s and hercule is wandering around the house wondering where the big cat he loves who doesn’t always like him has gone 💔

A mushroom-lined bunny trail through Sphagnum moss. Newfoundland, Canada. #mushroom #fungi #fungifriends #moss #bryophyte #bolete