On coming back to the things that matter.
It has been a while. A long while, actually — nearly five years if we’re counting, and I think we should be, because time has a way of slipping past us when we’re not paying attention. If you’ve been here before, welcome back. If you’re new, welcome — you’ve arrived at a curious moment: the moment this little blog wakes up from a very long sleep.
I didn’t mean to disappear. When I last posted here, I was deep in the rhythm of it — reviewing books, curating reading lists, losing myself in themes and challenges. Then life, as life tends to do, picked up pace. Work expanded in ways I hadn’t expected. I It has been exciting — genuinely, deeply exciting — but also consuming. The quiet hours I used to spend writing simply ceased to exist. And slowly, without a single dramatic decision, Between Pages went quiet.
So here I am. Back between the pages. And I have a lot to tell you.
The One Thing That Never Stopped
Here’s what I want you to know: I never stopped reading. Through every packed schedule — the books stayed. If anything, I held onto them more tightly precisely because everything else was moving so fast.
Reading, I’ve come to realise, is the one thing that genuinely unplugs me. Not in a passive, scrolling-through-nothing sort of way, but in the way that matters — where you step fully out of your own head and into someone else’s world entirely. When a book is good, the noise of deadlines and logistics and the relentless forward momentum of work simply disappears. I lose myself in alternate worlds, in characters whose problems are nothing like mine and somehow illuminate everything about mine. There is a particular kind of relief in that, and I didn’t fully understand how much I needed it until it became the only form of rest that actually worked.
Books kept me sane during these busy years. I owe them a proper accounting for it. Which is, partly, why I’m back.
A New Chapter: Enter the Audiobook
I’ll confess something: I was a snob about audiobooks for longer than I’d like to admit. There was a part of me that felt — irrationally — that listening wasn’t quite the same as reading. That it didn’t count in the same way. That something essential was lost without the physical page.
I was wrong. Magnificently, completely wrong.
The shift happened gradually. Long walks that needed something more than music. Commutes eating my time and giving nothing back. I started listening, tentatively at first, and then — I was hooked. What I discovered is that a great audiobook narrator doesn’t just read a book to you; they reveal it. Listening to a memoir narrated by its author is something else entirely — you hear the pauses, the breath, the places where the words still carry weight.
Audiobooks have become a genuine part of my reading life now, woven in alongside physical books rather than replacing them. And I am very much looking forward to writing about them here — both what I thought of the books themselves, and what the experience of listening added (or changed) for me. There’s a whole new dimension to explore, and I’m excited to do it.
What I’ve Been Reading
In the spirit of easing back in gently, here are some of the books that have found their way into my hands — and ears — recently. Each one deserves a proper review, and each one will get one. Consider this a small preview, a promise of what’s coming. And the eagle eyed amongst you might notice a recurring theme of water in the list below – it’s a nod to a new found love, which will soon get a post (or few) of it’s own 🙂
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell — O’Farrell does something extraordinary here: she makes you feel the walls closing in alongside her protagonist. Exquisite prose, relentless tension. A novel I couldn’t put down and couldn’t shake afterward.
There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak — A sweeping, luminous novel that moves across centuries and continents, connecting lives through the invisible thread of water. Shafak at her most ambitious.
Becoming by Michelle Obama Audiobook — Michelle Obama narrates her own memoir, and the experience is extraordinary. Warm, precise, and deeply moving — this is one where the audiobook format is simply the right way to receive it.
How to Winter by Kari Leibowitz Audiobook — A gentle, quietly radical book about reframing the cold and dark months not as something to endure, but something to inhabit. I needed this one.
Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui Audiobook — Part history, part meditation, part love letter to open water. Unexpectedly moving and full of ideas that linger long after the last chapter.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo — A Booker Prize winner that absolutely earns it. Twelve characters, twelve lives, all braided together with a precision and warmth that left me breathless.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir — I did not expect to love this as much as I did. Smart, funny, tender in the most unexpected places. A reminder that science fiction, at its best, is really just about connection.
That’s where I’m starting. Seven books, seven conversations waiting to happen — and I cannot tell you how much I’m looking forward to having them here, with you.
Between Pages is back. It might look a little different, move a little slower, and come with the occasional audiobook thrown in — but the spirit of it is exactly as I left it. An honest record of what I’m reading, what it made me feel, and why any of it matters.
Thank you for being here. Whether you’ve been waiting, or you’ve only just arrived — I’m glad you’re reading this.
With warmth and a very tall reading list,
Between Pages ✦
Between Pages 