This week, a Summer Reading List for 2025 was published in multiple US publications including the Chicago Sun-Times. It contained books by famed authors such as Percival Everett and Maggie O’Farrell. Some of my own favourite reads were on there, such as Bonjour Tristesse by Francois Sagan.
However, those who picked up Marco Buscaglia’s recommendations would have been hard pressed to find some of its highlighted titles. For example, it featured The Rainmakers by Percival Everett, which does not exist. Neither does Tidewater Dreams by Isabel Allende. Fifteen of the books on the list are, ironically, fictional.
Buscaglia has admitted to using ChatGPT to generate the piece, and explained it was “100 percent on [him]”, not the publications. Perhaps Buscaglia just took his summer break early.
This is a potentially quite funny botch-up by a few American editors and a now presumably unpopular journalist. But it’s also a timely reminder of the menacing reality of AI-generated content.
Books are intellectual currency. In a world of doom scrolling and zoom calls, they might be the last thing asking us to use a shred of imagination. So, when a writer who is paid to write about books uses AI to do so, dystopia feels a little closer than even author Ray Bradbury could have imagined (Dandelion Wine by Bradbury is real and is on the list).
For those still holding faith in their journalism, this is a Winter Reading List for southern hemisphere-dwelling bookworms wanting to distance themselves from anything to do with this colossal mistake and the season it was conceived in.
1. One from the Queen of Cold
No one writes cold like Hannah Kent. Fans of her famous debut, Burial Rites, will remember chills as they traversed the life of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last woman executed in Iceland. This new memoir, Always Home, Always Homesick, has all the beauty and detail you can expect from Kent’s writing. Dealing with motherhood, homesickness, and the writing process, she recounts dreams and memories in such a captivating way it’s like the words are climbing up the goosebumps they elicit. Her relationship to Iceland is the perfect deep dive for this winter and will make you grateful that our sun, at the very least, rises.
2. First Nations Storytelling
The serpent in Australian Aboriginal stories is both a creator and destroyer, much like severe winter weather around the globe. Megan Kelleher’s third book, Snake Talk entwines First Nations stories and research with other representations of serpents to show us the depth of lore across communities. The expert hand of Tyson Yunkaporta helps to tell this story. While remaining rooted in Indigenous study, it’s an exploration of how other ancient cultures contain serpent creatures in their storytelling. Travel the world without a puffer jacket.
3. Something Gritty
It is not a winter list without Claire Keegan’s backlist. She even has a book called Antarctica. If you’re yet to dabble, start with Small Things Like These. It’s the most talked about and most likely to make you appear cultured and engaged at winter catchups. More than that, it’s a sharp and lyrical piece of historical fiction, recently brought to life by Cillian Murphy.
Her other novellas such as Foster and So Late in The Day are also perfect for a one-sit read. There is also an excellent discussion of the latter with George Saunders, thanks to The New Yorker if you’re of the audio persuasion.
4. One to Brag About
While Percival Everett’s name did make it to the Chicago-Sun Times’ reading list, it wasn’t for anything you can actually buy. Luckily, there are joys to be found in Everett’s real backlist, and if you’re looking for an achievable goal which doesn’t ask you to leave the house, why not read a prize winner.
Everett’s James has just proved itself again, adding a Pulitzer Prize to his previous Booker Prize nomination. A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective, Everett is as ever, unflinchingly honest. His writing is whip-smart, exploring incredibly dark themes in such a thoroughly entertaining way. His previous novel, The Trees, is often recommended with the caveat, “it sounds horrible, but I promise it’s really funny,” and this nuance shows again in James.
5. Cold Out, Cosy In
Apparently, some people do enjoy a brisk walk in this weather. These are the same people who would never touch Chat GPT and cook from hearty meals from actual recipe books. One of these such people features in David Nicholls delightful newest work, You Are Here. Michael is on a coast-to-coast mission. Marnie is tangled in her sports bra but determined to follow. It’s been out for a little while but really is best served in a warm pub while outside it blows a gale. The unpleasant descriptions of wet socks and hanging them on heaters are sure to ring true for a few Melburnians these coming months.
6. Winter, but in a British way
Yet written by an Australian, Consider Yourself Kissed is a new work of literary romance from Jessica Stanley. If you’re the kind of reader who reaches for Helen Garner or Michelle de Krester in summer, may I offer Stanley for the colder months? Her insights into motherhood, the real grit of it, mostly occur in the UK, where mittens and frozen fountains abound. The charm of this book lies in its family dynamics and the ensemble of personalities we get to see grow across 10 years upon a landscape of tumultuous British politics.
7. European Escapism
If cold isn’t your style or you’re the envy of your whole workplace and reading this from the departure lounge of an international airport, there’s plenty of hot European summer escapism to choose from. From young gun Australian author Diana Reid, Signs of Damage is a twisted, suspenseful tale of an Australian family and memories of their trip to Southern France a decade before, leaving more questions than tan lines. Power dynamics, trauma responses, and jumped conclusions are all at play in this witty and modern novel.
With a similar medical mystery at heart, Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk is another favourite. A young woman and her paralysed mother are in Spain, where the water is full of Medusas and the town full of dubious locals. This is a powerfully reflective novel which has Levy’s famously beautiful prose pushing along mysterious plot.
8. A Classic
I will die on the hill that The Secret History is a classic. Penguin have even published it as a Popular Penguin!
Over 40 years since publication and The Secret History is still the most miserably cold I’ve felt while reading a book. The praise for Donna Tartt’s 640-page campus novel is paramount, I’ll merely encourage you to have a reread, or locate it your nearest bookshop, where it continues to circulate like it was published yesterday.
9. A quirky one, to keep the spirits up
Eurotrash, one the 2024 International Booker Prize nominees, with its aesthetic ski-holiday cover and delightful title, falls into the fuzzy genre of auto-fiction. A black comedy which involves a middle-aged man and his elderly mother, Eurotrash is the story of a road trip through Switzerland (where we’d all rather be this winter), yet also a reckoning with one’s past, with Nazism, and mental illness. And, dubbed a tragicomedy, it’s also very funny.
