2025 holiday recommendations
It's consumption time, baby
Please enjoy this quick-fire round up of some of the content and art we enjoyed this year, that we think you might also enjoy during the extra down time this holiday period <3
Reading
Careless People - Sarah Wynn Williams
An engrossing (and strangely, hilarious) tell-all account from the young woman who became Facebook’s first director of public policy and spent close to a decade working under the group of careless elites as they chased power and influence at all costs. The kind of book that is so searing of elite figures you wonder how it even got published.
There Are Rivers In The Sky - Elif Shafak
Three perspectives across time and geography are brought together with magical realism to tell a story about the politics of water and its transformative impact from ancient Mesopotamia to modern day London. Incredible.
Cactus Pear for My Beloved - Samah Sabawi
In this heartfelt and powerful memoir Sabawi tells the story of her parents who lived through the Nakba and spent their formative years in Palestine before being forced to flee with their young family to start a new life in Redland Bay in Queensland.
A Language of Limbs - Dylin Hardcastle
A beautifully written story of queer love, friendship and community. The novel follows the parallel lives of two women, two ‘limbs’, who follow opposing paths after a fateful summer night in 1972 - one a life of queer joy and pain, the other confined to heteronormativity.
Films
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery - Available on Netflix
Hello, it is Hannah here to tell you that I spend any spare moment at home with my partner watching thrillers. I am insufferable, and have a singular goal in mind: to pick the murderer in the first 30 minutes of the film and ruin the entire thing for him. In the last fortnight I’ve picked the twists in Glass Onion and Primal Fear with ease (can’t believe I hadn’t seen them). But dear readers, Wake Up Dead Man was different. Unfortunately, it was my second guess that was correct. Consider me stumped and my ego bruised. Insecurities aside, I thoroughly enjoy the Knives Out films. They know what they are and the purpose they serve. They stay in their lane. This third Knives Out instalment was significantly better than the second - though it doesn’t top the original. A stellar cast, a lot of cheugy moments (gen-z word for cringe) and an interesting exploration of religion. Great holiday season watch.
