Books & Reading Adventures | October 2025
Rivers & nature's ghosts (no, not the kind from the spooky season) | Hare & a library cat | Crime novels & urban fantasy
Hello, I’m Claudia, and Happy Quiet Life is where I share my view on the world as a Highly Sensitive Person. You’ll find reflections and stories about slowing down & living simpler, reconnecting with nature, mental health & self-care, books & reading adventures. Welcome!
Great expectations, even more surprises. Thought-provoking ideas, science, humour and entertainment, crime, mystery and fantasy. October had it all for me.
It were the nature books again that won my heart this month, I hardly know where to begin, there were so many so very good ones.
There’s Raising Hare (fresh from winning the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2025), a beautiful nature memoir. Then a stunning and thought-provoking nature conservation book called Nature’s Ghosts. Also Elegy for a River about water voles that was scientific and highly entertaining at the same time. (Yes, that’s possible.)
In our Free Little Library, I came across an irresistible combination of a small-town library and a cat. Not exactly a nature book, but one that centres around a very special animal. Meet Dewey!
To my surprise, fiction sneaked in on me again. Mainly because there were new books of two of my favourite series: The Thursday Murder Club and The Rivers of London. But then I started rereading another series called Cormoran Strike.
It’s the first time ever, I enjoyed listening to audiobooks. I wasn’t interested in them before at all. I prefer to read myself, at my own pace. (I’m a very fast reader, but I also like to linger and reread a sentence or paragraph if I enjoy the beautiful language, the choice of words, the imagery, the humour, or if I want to make a note to look closer into something.) But for this month, at the beginning of my hibernation, it was just right. Closing my eyes, letting go, relaxing and relaxing even more. That’s what I needed. Audiobooks helped a lot with that and I’m certain I’ll listen to them more often now.
Non-fiction
Raising Hare (Chloe Dalton)
When lockdown made busy high-profile professional Chloe leave London and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself caring for a newly born hare. Nor felt she qualified to do so at all. But when she finds the leveret, alone, endangered and no bigger than her palm, she feels the responsibility to give it a chance at survival.
Her book chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the creature and preparing for its return to the wild.
It’s a wonderful, captivating and heartwarming story. What I especially loved about it, however, was the author’s observations, her eye for detail and the beautiful language that showed and taught me so much about hares. I also liked the respect the author showed for the wild creature and the restrictions she therefore put on their relationship. She didn’t name the animal, didn’t touch it (only if absolutely necessary), and didn’t, except briefly, confine it (she installed a specially constructed flap so the hare could leave the house any time). Nevertheless, Chloe and the hare develop a relationship and a bond, there’s enormous trust, probably gained by meeting the animal on its own terms. Their time together not only saves the hare’s life, but also changes Chloe’s …
Highly recommended!
Nature’s Ghosts: The world we lost and how to bring it back (Sophie Yeo)
Nature’s Ghosts is a book on environmental history and conservation, and the most interesting and well-written one on the topic I’ve ever read! It’s thoughtful, impressively researched and offers so many insights that I’ll definitely read it again.
Nature’s Ghost traces the complex histories of humanity’s changing relations with land and wildness. For thousands of years, humans and their activities have permanently altered the environment. Sophie Yeo examines how the planet might have looked before humans scrubbed away its diversity: from landscapes carved out by megafauna to the primeval forests that emerged following the last Ice Age, and from the eagle-haunted skies of the Dark Ages to the flower-decked farms of more recent centuries. She encounters the environmental detectives – archaeological, cultural and ecological – reconstructing the landscapes we have lost, and suggests that we may learn from the ghosts of the past how to build a more wild future again.
There were so many interesting aspects on this book, but what particularly fascinated me was the great combination of history, archaeology, botany, ecology, palaeontology, palaeobotany and more fields of science that Sophie brought together here.
She examines many interesting questions, for example of the definition of wilderness, if humans are a keystone species and what the original ecosystem of Europe “really” (and if there’s such a thing). Above all, how can landscapes (and all creatures) have a wilder future. Apart from England, she visits Transsylvania in Romania, North Karelia in Finland, the Gower Peninsula in Wales, Poland and tells of many more places.
And if you need some hope amid the gloom, read about the resurrection of ghost ponds …
Highly recommended!
Elegy for a River: Whiskers, Claws and Conservation’s Last, Wild Hope (Tom Moorhouse)
To be honest, I had never heard of water voles before and needed to look them up in an English-German dictionary first and then on Wikipedia because “Ostschermaus” (the German term) didn’t mean anything to me either. Not off to a great start, right?
But as I’m very interested in river habitats and always curious about things (and species) I don’t know, I gave it a try and was richly rewarded right from the start, especially because I listened to the audiobook, which was read by the author himself. It was excellent and contributed immensely to my enjoyment. His humour and passion came across really well. It was as if he was telling stories at a campfire.
Tom Moorhouse’s book reflects the years he’s spent beside rivers, fens, canals, lakes and streams researching British wildlife. The biggest part of the book follows the author during his fieldwork and his efforts to reintroduce water voles, about which we learn many interesting facts, but we also hear about crayfish and other creatures of the rivers and riverbanks (plus invasive species like minks and signal crayfish).
The book is scientific, highly entertaining and very, very funny! Passionate, moving, lightly written und full of fascinating insights into water voles and the conversation fieldwork (including mishaps and uncomfortable realities).
But behind all the humour, the book is above all a personal and deeply concerned love letter to the riverbank. It speaks of years of research, fieldwork, patience and pragmatism, of working on the frontline of conservation, of few victories and more losses, of not giving up hope, but the author’s pain is palpable.
Highly recommended!
Dewey. The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (Vicki Myron with Bret Witter)
Cats and libraries are some of my favourite “things” in the world. What better than a library cat then?
The book recounts the life of (the aptly named) Dewey Readmore Books, the cat in residence at the Spencer Public Library in Spencer, Iowa. Having been abandoned in the library’s drop box in a freezing cold January 1988, he was adopted by the library and gained local attention and even international fame. For 19 years, he touched and enriched the lives of many people, the library and the town.
Dewey himself seems simply delightful and truly special, the perfect library cat who made everyone feel good, encouraged people to return, stay longer, feel less lonely, and feel connected. I loved his unique traits. So charming!
Vicki Myron also tells her own story, that of her family, the town and the region, including its crises, especially in farming. She talks about her passion as a librarian, the importance libraries have in a community, and reports on her struggle for funding, with politicians, for concepts and modernisation. This sounded so familiar. As a former librarian, this was my reality in the last ten years as well, having gone through very much the same passion and struggles in a small-town library in Germany. Some things never seem to change.
As much as I loved the story, the writing style didn’t really appeal to me, very plain, rather old-fashioned, a bit too 1980s for my taste, even though it was published in 2008. Regardlesss, the book was definitely worth reading!
Fiction
Stone & Sky (Ben Aaronovitch)
It’s the latest book in the Rivers of London series, an urban fantasy series I’ve enjoyed reading for a long time. It follows young officer Peter Grant who is recruited into a small special branch of the Metropolitan Police that deals with magic and the supernatural, him becoming the first English apprentice wizard in over seventy years.
I had high hopes for this one and I did enjoy it - up to a certain extent. The fact that it was set in Aberdeen was a plus. (I do have a soft spot for Scotland, you might have noticed.)
It was nice, it was entertaining, new myths, new creatures, and with Aberdeen a new and interesting location, so I had a good time.
However, it wasn’t particularly exciting or special. I could have done without the detailed descriptions of Peter Grant’s family life, his two-year-old children, his parents and his father’s jazz band, which neither contributed to the plot nor were interesting for the development of the characters or relationships.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t diminish my love for the series in the slightest. Following Peter, Abigail and Thomas Nightingale around is always time well spent.
The Impossible Fortune (Richard Osman)
Another title I had high hopes for was the lastest book of the Thursday Murder Club Mysteries, featuring four friends in a retirement village who investigate unsolved crimes.
The characters were back to their old form after a slightly disappointing fourth book where everyone seemed to act out of character. Not this time and I enjoyed it at lot!
A big bonus was listening to the audiobook read brilliantly by Fiona Shaw. I had to pause it several times because I was laughing so hard. She also did a great job with all the different characters, giving each one a voice and a personality.
It was exciting, suspenseful and funny. Such a marvellous and entertaining adventure, although the ending left me a bit disappointed. Pity, but I really enjoyed the ride.
The Coockoo’s Calling (Robert Galbraith)
This is the first book of the Cormoran Strike crime fiction series that chronicles the cases of London-based private detective Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott. It’s not something you would call brand new, but after many years of just watching the films over and over again, I decided to give the books another go. Actually, it was just so I could give them away afterwards, because I assumed I wouldn’t read them again and preferred the tv adaptations which are just awesome.
But The Coockoo’s Calling showed me why the novels had captivated me so much back then. It’s just incredibly good. Exciting, rich in detail, with interesting characters that you enjoy following and grow fond of.
I’m very much looking forward to reading the latest book soon … There are always new and interesting milieus to discover (and I really want to know how Cormoran and Robin’s story develop).
Phew, this was actually a pretty long post. If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it and found some inspiration. 📚📚📚
I’m looking forward to new reading adventures in November! Let’s see what crosses my path …
More reading adventures:
Nature Books & Reading Adventures | August 2025
Thank you for these recommendations Claudia; I absolutely love reading and almost always have a novel and a non fiction book that I read alongside each other. I've never tried audio books and I can't say the thought of listening to a book appeals, but years ago I said I'd never want a kindle and I love mine now! I'll try an audio book and see how I get on. Have a great weekend and happy reading 📚 😀
I just read the first Thursday Murder Club book and enjoyed it.
I tend not to read a lot of books by listening (audiobooks). It's often harder for me to focus, but I've found some books work better than others — and some activities while reading work better too (audiobooks and weeding the garden are a good pairing, though we are coming out of season for that).
Last book I finished that I really enjoyed was Sisters in the Wind by Angelline Boulley. If you haven't read her others, I'd read those too. They have related characters, but don't need to be read in order