Books I Read in February 2025

Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld is a collection of 12 short stories by the author of American Wife, Rodham and Romantic Comedy. White Women LOL is a stand-out satire about cancel culture, while Lost But Not Forgotten, the last story in the collection, sees the main character from Sittenfeld’s debut novel Prep, preparing to attend her 30 year boarding school reunion. The Richest Babysitter in the World is a memorable tale about a woman who works for a couple who later become tech billionaires. Sittenfeld tends to focus on the domestic preoccupations of middle-aged women from the Midwest, so while Show Don’t Tell isn’t particularly experimental or diverse in terms of subject matter or themes, Sittenfeld deploys her sharp wit and observation just as effectively in short form as she does in her novels, resulting in a satisfying and consistent collection of stories. Many thanks to Random House UK for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

I was halfway through reading Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood when it was announced that the Canadian author will be publishing her memoir Book of Lives in November. Lady Oracle is one of Atwood’s early novels first published in 1976 and tells the story of Joan Foster, a Gothic romance novelist with an eventful past which eventually catches up with her. As with Cat’s Eye, Atwood writes brilliantly about painful childhood experiences, while Joan’s adventures with the Polish count are very humorous, as is Atwood’s skewering of the literary world when Joan unexpectedly becomes an acclaimed feminist poet. Joan is adept at weaving multiple identities for herself which leads to a slightly over-the-top conclusion, but demonstrates Atwood’s sophistication as a novelist even in her early work. This excellent novel reminded me that it is well worth exploring more of Atwood’s extensive back catalogue beyond her most famous books.

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon seems to have been shortlisted for pretty much every literary prize going this year (except for the Booker Prize despite my prediction). It is set in the Sicilian city of Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War in 412BC when unemployed potters, Lampo and Gelon, decide to stage a production of Medea and cast captured Athenian prisoners. The Irish vernacular in the dialogue quickly blends in despite the classical setting. Although the pacing is a bit all over the place for a relatively short novel, Glorious Exploits is a highly original debut with a bold concept, and definitely recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction with a streak of absurdity.

Private Revolutions by Yuan Yang has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction this year. Elected as a Labour MP last July shortly after this book was published, Yang was born in China and moved to the UK at the age of 4, and used to be a journalist for the Financial Times based in Beijing. Her book is about the experiences of four women, Siyue, June, Leiya and Sam, who were all born in rural areas of China in the 1980s and 1990s. Yang reports on how their lives as young adults have been impacted by tensions between tradition and reform and the divide between rural and city life, particularly the challenges faced by migrant workers and the barriers to financial stability due to the hukou system which determines access to benefits such as education depending on where people live. The women’s backgrounds were mostly quite similar which made their individual stories less distinctive, but this book is very informative about more recent developments in contemporary China such as post-COVID life and the growth of the edutech sector in such a competitive system.