Books read 2025
Sunday, 4 January 2026 16:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_complexI know I don't post much here any more, but here at least is a list of all the books I read in 2025:
1. David Bramwell (2023), The Sing-Along-a-Wicker-Man Scrapbook
2. Peter Haining, ed. (1974) Christopher Lee's New Chamber of Horrors, hard-back edition
3. P. N. Elrod, ed. (2001) Dracula in London
4. Stephenie Meyer (2005), Twilight
5. Anne Rice (1976), Interview with the Vampire
6. Jane Austen (1817), Northanger Abbey
7. Essie Fox (2025), Dangerous
8. Oscar de Muriel (2017), A Mask of Shadows
9. Robert Simpson (2021), The Willing Fool: the spectacle of The Wicker Man
10. Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer (1978), The Wicker Man (novelisation of the film)
11. Alden McWilliams, Otto Binder and Craig Tennis (1975), The Illustrated Dracula
12. Francis K. Young (2023) Shades of Rome: Ghostly Tales of Roman Britain
13. Anthony Williams and Bram Stoker (2023), Dracula (pop-up book)
14. Ann Radcliffe (1794), The Mysteries of Udolpho
Pictures of and fuller comments on each are as follows:
1. David Bramwell (2023), The Sing-Along-a-Wicker-Man Scrapbook - I thought this would just be photos from and a history of the show, but it's rather more than that. In particular, there's quite a thoughtful thread of narrative about how singing along with the film's songs inevitably makes the audience sympathise with the pagan villagers and thus positions them as complicit with Howie's murder. Rather bizarrely, it contains two of my own photos which I shared in their FB group, without the author having asked my permission to use them. But they did give me and Joel a prize for our costumes last time I went, so I'll let it pass.
2. Peter Haining, ed. (1974) Christopher Lee's New Chamber of Horrors, hard-back edition - differs from the paperback edition which I already had in containing seven more stories, each with a 1-2 page introduction by Lee himself, and a set of illustrations relating to his interests and career in the genre. The stories are personally selected by Lee, often because he himself enjoys the authors or has acted in adaptations of their work, with the extra ones in this edition tending to be mid-twentieth century writers like Dennis Wheatley and Richard Matheson. Between his introductions and the photo captions, Lee comes across as a big name-dropping luvvie - as indeed he was!
3. P. N. Elrod, ed. (2001) Dracula in London - a collection of short stories about what Dracula gets up to in London off the pages of Stoker's novel. Rather varied in quality, as these things are bound to be, but the core concept is a good one and several of the stories were great.
4. Stephenie Meyer (2005), Twilight - I wanted to like this to scotch all the haters, but it wasn't up to much. There's nothing very original in its treatment of either vampirism or teenage romance, except perhaps for the fact that combining the two seems to open the door to a totally toxic relationship dynamic. Edward has anger issues which put Bella in a place where she's constantly afraid of setting him off, he repeatedly uses his strength to do things 'for her own good' without her consent, and the only reason we're ever given for why she likes him so much nonetheless is his physical appearance. The book ends with him taking her to prom literally against her will, and telling a rival who'd been hoping to take her that she wasn't available that night, "or any other night" as far as anyone other than him was concerned. So a total statement of ownership. How romantic!
5. Anne Rice (1976), Interview with the Vampire - a teenage favourite which I re-read for the same reason as Twilight, viz so that I could talk about how statue metaphors are used to convey the uncanny, immortal, desirable, deathlike qualities of vampires at a Dracula conference in Derby in May. I felt it had stood up very well, and it certainly gave me plenty of great fodder for my paper.
6. Jane Austen (1817), Northanger Abbey - a well-observed pastiche of the gothic romance and its fans, set partly in Bath and partly in the titular Abbey (actually a stately home attached to abbey ruins, like Byron's Newstead Abbey), with a nicely modern feel to it and a lot of very funny content. One of the highlights of my reading year; I would highly recommend it.
7. Essie Fox (2025), Dangerous - yeah, should have known this would be a dud from how heavily it was promoted by its publisher on release. It sounded great on paper - Byron! In Venice! Under suspicion of being a vampire! But he turned out disappointingly not to be a vampire (you'll need Tom Holland for that), and instead to be something more like a Sherlock Holmes figure, trying to get to the bottom of who is actually murdering women in a way that looks like vampirism. The historical research is pretty good, but the story and characterisation is dull and prosaic, so that for much of the book it just feels like Byron is aimlessly drifting from palazzo to palazzo, and even when supposedly dramatic events unfold, it somehow never really lands. Not recommended at all.
8. Oscar de Muriel (2017), A Mask of Shadows - on paper it should be great - Bram Stoker, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in Edinburgh for a production of Macbeth, while murders unfold which a fresh-eyed rationalist police inspector from London and his grizzled superstitious veteran Scottish partner must investigate. Although I deliberately read a lot of it on the train to and from Edinburgh in July, and it's certainly better than Dangerous, again it didn't really deliver on its promise, and for similar reasons. Read Shadowplay by Joseph O'Connor instead.
9. Robert Simpson (2021), The Willing Fool: the spectacle of The Wicker Man - a revised and self-published version of the MA thesis, concerned mostly with how viewing, seeing and looking are used as themes and devices within the film of The Wicker Man. I read it shortly before our holiday to the film's locations in August, and found it a great way to reconnect with the film which delivered plenty of new insights. It's a self-consciously academic work, so not a light read, but Robert has done a good job in making it accessible to people without any specialist background as part of the revision process.
10. Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer (1978), The Wicker Man (novelisation of the film) - also re-read as preparation for our holiday, and my god it was painful! I read it once about twenty years ago, and at that time was mainly focused on what it added to the film in terms of plot details. This time, though, I already knew about all that, so was mainly struck instead by how either a) pedestrian or b) grossly sexualised most of those extra details are. I do not need to read about Howie's weird repressed sexual fantasies, or hear Willow's breasts referred to as 'dugs'! The magic of the film is best preserved by NOT reading this book.
11. Alden McWilliams, Otto Binder and Craig Tennis (1975), The Illustrated Dracula - an amazing birthday surprise from Joel, this is a black-and-white line-drawn comic-book adaptation of Stoker's novel with an introduction by Christopher Lee. I had had no idea it even existed, so this was quite the coup as a present! It follows the plot of the novel pretty closely, but with plenty of interesting details for the connoisseur to enjoy. A very welcome addition to my collection of takes on the novel!
12. Francis K. Young (2023) Shades of Rome: Ghostly Tales of Roman Britain - a collection of Jamesian-style short stories, all by the same author (whom I've followed on Twitter / Bluesky for many years), about ghostly horrors from Roman-era Britain affecting people in the present day. As such, it brings together two of my favourite things, and the promise of tackling modern Britain's uncomfortable relationship with its Romano-British past head-on is enticing. Plenty of very striking imagery and certainly grounded in a great knowledge of both James' style and Romano-British history. In the end, the author didn't quite have James' style, though, and nor did he really delve into the decolonial potential of the material. I also found myself rolling my eyes rather at how often the solutions to the stories basically boiled down to ancient paganism being defeated by Christianity. I think there's more to be done with this concept.
13. Anthony Williams and Bram Stoker (2023), Dracula (pop-up book) - yeah, I know, it was 'only' a pop-up book, but it did contain a surprising amount of text, including plenty from Stoker's novel. Very cleverly done with lovely illustrations and plenty of intriguing flaps to lift up and peer underneath of.
14. Ann Radcliffe (1794), The Mysteries of Udolpho - I've been meaning to read an Ann Radcliffe novel for years, and as a) I had already read Northanger Abbey (which is in part a pastiche of this) earlier this year and b) Joel had bought and read The Mysteries of Udolpho around the same time, it seemed a natural step to borrow it from him and get stuck in! Originally published as not merely a three but a FOUR-volume novel, the Oxford Classics version now clocks in at a mighty 672 pages in very dense print. It really delivers the Gothic goods though. The storms! The passions! The secret passages! The personal trials! The concealed identities! The terrifying noises in the night! In the end there is nothing 'really' supernatural in it, but plenty of people fearing that there is, and a great deal of other traumatic experiences and heightened emotions besides. Some of the descriptions of the spectacular natural scenery perhaps go on a little too long, and the most sympathetic modern reader will sometimes lose patience with the timidity or poor planning of the characters. But overall it's a hell of a ride, and a renowned genre classic for a reason.
1. David Bramwell (2023), The Sing-Along-a-Wicker-Man Scrapbook
2. Peter Haining, ed. (1974) Christopher Lee's New Chamber of Horrors, hard-back edition
3. P. N. Elrod, ed. (2001) Dracula in London
4. Stephenie Meyer (2005), Twilight
5. Anne Rice (1976), Interview with the Vampire
6. Jane Austen (1817), Northanger Abbey
7. Essie Fox (2025), Dangerous
8. Oscar de Muriel (2017), A Mask of Shadows
9. Robert Simpson (2021), The Willing Fool: the spectacle of The Wicker Man
10. Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer (1978), The Wicker Man (novelisation of the film)
11. Alden McWilliams, Otto Binder and Craig Tennis (1975), The Illustrated Dracula
12. Francis K. Young (2023) Shades of Rome: Ghostly Tales of Roman Britain
13. Anthony Williams and Bram Stoker (2023), Dracula (pop-up book)
14. Ann Radcliffe (1794), The Mysteries of Udolpho
Pictures of and fuller comments on each are as follows:
1. David Bramwell (2023), The Sing-Along-a-Wicker-Man Scrapbook - I thought this would just be photos from and a history of the show, but it's rather more than that. In particular, there's quite a thoughtful thread of narrative about how singing along with the film's songs inevitably makes the audience sympathise with the pagan villagers and thus positions them as complicit with Howie's murder. Rather bizarrely, it contains two of my own photos which I shared in their FB group, without the author having asked my permission to use them. But they did give me and Joel a prize for our costumes last time I went, so I'll let it pass.
2. Peter Haining, ed. (1974) Christopher Lee's New Chamber of Horrors, hard-back edition - differs from the paperback edition which I already had in containing seven more stories, each with a 1-2 page introduction by Lee himself, and a set of illustrations relating to his interests and career in the genre. The stories are personally selected by Lee, often because he himself enjoys the authors or has acted in adaptations of their work, with the extra ones in this edition tending to be mid-twentieth century writers like Dennis Wheatley and Richard Matheson. Between his introductions and the photo captions, Lee comes across as a big name-dropping luvvie - as indeed he was!
3. P. N. Elrod, ed. (2001) Dracula in London - a collection of short stories about what Dracula gets up to in London off the pages of Stoker's novel. Rather varied in quality, as these things are bound to be, but the core concept is a good one and several of the stories were great.
4. Stephenie Meyer (2005), Twilight - I wanted to like this to scotch all the haters, but it wasn't up to much. There's nothing very original in its treatment of either vampirism or teenage romance, except perhaps for the fact that combining the two seems to open the door to a totally toxic relationship dynamic. Edward has anger issues which put Bella in a place where she's constantly afraid of setting him off, he repeatedly uses his strength to do things 'for her own good' without her consent, and the only reason we're ever given for why she likes him so much nonetheless is his physical appearance. The book ends with him taking her to prom literally against her will, and telling a rival who'd been hoping to take her that she wasn't available that night, "or any other night" as far as anyone other than him was concerned. So a total statement of ownership. How romantic!
5. Anne Rice (1976), Interview with the Vampire - a teenage favourite which I re-read for the same reason as Twilight, viz so that I could talk about how statue metaphors are used to convey the uncanny, immortal, desirable, deathlike qualities of vampires at a Dracula conference in Derby in May. I felt it had stood up very well, and it certainly gave me plenty of great fodder for my paper.
6. Jane Austen (1817), Northanger Abbey - a well-observed pastiche of the gothic romance and its fans, set partly in Bath and partly in the titular Abbey (actually a stately home attached to abbey ruins, like Byron's Newstead Abbey), with a nicely modern feel to it and a lot of very funny content. One of the highlights of my reading year; I would highly recommend it.
7. Essie Fox (2025), Dangerous - yeah, should have known this would be a dud from how heavily it was promoted by its publisher on release. It sounded great on paper - Byron! In Venice! Under suspicion of being a vampire! But he turned out disappointingly not to be a vampire (you'll need Tom Holland for that), and instead to be something more like a Sherlock Holmes figure, trying to get to the bottom of who is actually murdering women in a way that looks like vampirism. The historical research is pretty good, but the story and characterisation is dull and prosaic, so that for much of the book it just feels like Byron is aimlessly drifting from palazzo to palazzo, and even when supposedly dramatic events unfold, it somehow never really lands. Not recommended at all.
8. Oscar de Muriel (2017), A Mask of Shadows - on paper it should be great - Bram Stoker, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in Edinburgh for a production of Macbeth, while murders unfold which a fresh-eyed rationalist police inspector from London and his grizzled superstitious veteran Scottish partner must investigate. Although I deliberately read a lot of it on the train to and from Edinburgh in July, and it's certainly better than Dangerous, again it didn't really deliver on its promise, and for similar reasons. Read Shadowplay by Joseph O'Connor instead.
9. Robert Simpson (2021), The Willing Fool: the spectacle of The Wicker Man - a revised and self-published version of the MA thesis, concerned mostly with how viewing, seeing and looking are used as themes and devices within the film of The Wicker Man. I read it shortly before our holiday to the film's locations in August, and found it a great way to reconnect with the film which delivered plenty of new insights. It's a self-consciously academic work, so not a light read, but Robert has done a good job in making it accessible to people without any specialist background as part of the revision process.
10. Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer (1978), The Wicker Man (novelisation of the film) - also re-read as preparation for our holiday, and my god it was painful! I read it once about twenty years ago, and at that time was mainly focused on what it added to the film in terms of plot details. This time, though, I already knew about all that, so was mainly struck instead by how either a) pedestrian or b) grossly sexualised most of those extra details are. I do not need to read about Howie's weird repressed sexual fantasies, or hear Willow's breasts referred to as 'dugs'! The magic of the film is best preserved by NOT reading this book.
11. Alden McWilliams, Otto Binder and Craig Tennis (1975), The Illustrated Dracula - an amazing birthday surprise from Joel, this is a black-and-white line-drawn comic-book adaptation of Stoker's novel with an introduction by Christopher Lee. I had had no idea it even existed, so this was quite the coup as a present! It follows the plot of the novel pretty closely, but with plenty of interesting details for the connoisseur to enjoy. A very welcome addition to my collection of takes on the novel!
12. Francis K. Young (2023) Shades of Rome: Ghostly Tales of Roman Britain - a collection of Jamesian-style short stories, all by the same author (whom I've followed on Twitter / Bluesky for many years), about ghostly horrors from Roman-era Britain affecting people in the present day. As such, it brings together two of my favourite things, and the promise of tackling modern Britain's uncomfortable relationship with its Romano-British past head-on is enticing. Plenty of very striking imagery and certainly grounded in a great knowledge of both James' style and Romano-British history. In the end, the author didn't quite have James' style, though, and nor did he really delve into the decolonial potential of the material. I also found myself rolling my eyes rather at how often the solutions to the stories basically boiled down to ancient paganism being defeated by Christianity. I think there's more to be done with this concept.
13. Anthony Williams and Bram Stoker (2023), Dracula (pop-up book) - yeah, I know, it was 'only' a pop-up book, but it did contain a surprising amount of text, including plenty from Stoker's novel. Very cleverly done with lovely illustrations and plenty of intriguing flaps to lift up and peer underneath of.
14. Ann Radcliffe (1794), The Mysteries of Udolpho - I've been meaning to read an Ann Radcliffe novel for years, and as a) I had already read Northanger Abbey (which is in part a pastiche of this) earlier this year and b) Joel had bought and read The Mysteries of Udolpho around the same time, it seemed a natural step to borrow it from him and get stuck in! Originally published as not merely a three but a FOUR-volume novel, the Oxford Classics version now clocks in at a mighty 672 pages in very dense print. It really delivers the Gothic goods though. The storms! The passions! The secret passages! The personal trials! The concealed identities! The terrifying noises in the night! In the end there is nothing 'really' supernatural in it, but plenty of people fearing that there is, and a great deal of other traumatic experiences and heightened emotions besides. Some of the descriptions of the spectacular natural scenery perhaps go on a little too long, and the most sympathetic modern reader will sometimes lose patience with the timidity or poor planning of the characters. But overall it's a hell of a ride, and a renowned genre classic for a reason.
