Compulsive Reader Newsletter
January 2026
Happy new year dear readers! I’m not sure about you but for me 2025 was a pretty tough year for all sorts of reasons some personal and some collective. There were wonderful moments too of course - nothing is ever one thing only. I’m hoping if it was also tough for you, that 2026 brings some healing, lots of support, and more light than darkness. Art in general and books in particular continue to provide a kind of solace and support for me and if you’re here I suspect that’s the same for you. This month’s newsletter reflects that with the December news round-up which also includes a very brief selection of the many best of 2025 book lists. We have 15 new reviews and 2 interviews plus our monthly podcast interview with Michael Farrell, who reads from and talks about his book The Victoria Principle which you can go to directly here:
.There are also 2 new book giveaways: Behind These Four Walls by Yasmin Angoe and The Woman in the Ship by Sapphira Olson. Please don’t hesitate to enter those - we tend to get lots of entries from one or two countries only but these are global comps and I’d love to see these books go out to more places and people. There are lot of really great books and interviews already in the pipeline for 2026 along with some fantastic in-person festivals coming up for those of you in Australia, so stay tuned and thank you for being here with me - I really appreciate this community we’ve built together over the past 28 (!!) years. Internet years are like dog years so we’re positively old-timers here and I know some of you have been with me since I started as a little one woman website in the early days of the net. It’s still mostly one woman lol but I have a lot of terrific reviewers all over the world now which makes things a lot easier for me and keeps the variety. If you haven’t subscribed yet you can do so (always for free - here too - this will never be monetised) at: www.compulsivereader.com (upper right hand side). If you’d like to access the newsletter online, you can do so here: Compulsive Reader Archive