Keira's Bookmark

November Wrap Up

Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

6 comments on November Wrap Up

November is over and it’s already the final month of 2025! Crazy stuff – although this also means my favourite time of year will soon be upon us… November was extremely successful in some ways (I read a lot of books) and not so successful in other ways (a large number of those books were not the books I had intended to read). Without further ado, let’s take a look!

  1. TBR Check In
  2. Overview from the Storygraph
  3. Books Read
  4. Books Progressed or DNF’d
  5. Books Acquired
  6. On the Blog
  7. Around the Blogosphere
  8. Songs of the Month

Disclaimer: Clicking on any of the book covers will take you to their Storygraph page, whilst clicking on the titles will take you to their Bookshop.org UK page (if the book is available there – these are affiliate links and I earn a small commission if you make a purchase). If you can’t purchase through Bookshop.org UK please consider supporting independent bookshops where you live!

Links labelled “review” take you to full reviews on my blog; those labelled “thoughts” link to my review on Storygraph – these are short 1-2 line summaries of my thoughts.

TBR Check In

I didn’t do an awful job of my TBR this month, although I definitely could have done better. I also read quite a few books that weren’t on my TBR – but that’s okay.

  • Women and Buddhist Philosophy by Jin Y Park
  • Women in Ming China by Bret Hinsch
  • Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction by Sabina Knight
  • A History of Korea by Kyung Moon Hwang
  • An Apology for Idlers by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Save the Cat! Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody
  • Die schönen Dinge siehst du nur, wenn du langsam gehst by Hameln Sunim
  • We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • All Systems Red by Martha Wells
  • Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky
  • The Inheritance by Ilona Andrews
  • The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo
  • 이상한 나라의 스물셋 [The Strange World of 23] – 2 stories
  • 魔幻時刻 [Magical Moments] by Jedit – 60 poems
  • 불편한 편의점 2 [The Second Chance Convenience Store 2] by Kim Hoyeon – as much as possible

I will try and stick more to my TBR in December though as there are some books I really want to get finished before the year that require quite a significant time investment – see my upcoming December TBR for more details on that!

Italics = I read some of this book this month but didn’t finish it.

Overview from the Storygraph

I really improved my consistency this month – only 3 days with nor eating!

Books Read

Usually I organise these in order of when I read the books, but I decided to group thematically this month instead – let me know what you think works better!

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

The first lot of books are all sci-fi books that I read because this month was Sci-Fi month… even if I ended up not really participating in the blogging side of it. Next year I will be more prepared and maybe I can do both Nonfiction November and Sci-Fi month justice. These books were all excellent – keep an eye out for my post tomorrow about my sci-fi recommendations!

Next up is nonfiction and classics! Unlike sci-fi month where I read a lot but posted nothing, the opposite kind of happened for Nonfiction November. That being said, I did listen to two audiobooks and also finish the collection of essays I was reading – be sure to check out my review.

I also finished the classic mystery book I had started last month…. let’s just say I won’t be continuing the series (I was so bored).

I also ended up reading a lot of fantasy this month – largely urban fantasy or fantasy romance or a combination of the two. I read the sequel/companion trilogy to the first Hidden Legacy trilogy (which I like slightly less than the original but still enjoyed) and I also reread the first two books in the Kingmaker Chronicles, which I thankfully still enjoy. I also tried a new author – Patricia Briggs – but I think it’s a little problematic so I might not be continuing.

Finally, I did also read some short stories for uni this month – although surprisingly, only one for Chinese lit and two for my Korean history class?! Two were fairly interesting, buy I found Identical Apartments disturbing in a bad way.

  • Winter Nights – Bai Xianyong | ⭐⭐⭐.5
  • Before and After Liberation: A Writer’s Notes – Yi Taejun | ⭐⭐⭐
  • Identical Apartments – Park Wan-seo | ⭐⭐ ｜Thoughts

Books Progressed or DNF’d

I progressed one book + a couple of chapters each in four or five nonfiction books related to my degree. They are all books I want to finish at some point, although not necessarily immediately. The book I am hoping to finish in December is 불편한 편의점 2 (a Korean book that I’m listening to on audiobook – book 1 has been translated into English). I’m already at 87% so I don’t think that should be an issue to finish it before the end of the year.

I technically made some progress through the short stories and poetry I was reading but honestly so little that it doesn’t even merit mentioning. Let’s just say I’ll have my work cut out for me in December to finish them both before the end of 2025.

Books Acquired

I ended up buying quite a lot of books this month – admittedly though mostly either books I also read this month or books I bought for degree-related purposes.

The first five books above are all books I bought for my degree – although I have ended up not actually reading the two Eileen Chang books for the essay that I thought I needed them for, so I guess have to change them into ‘regular’ TBR books… we’ll see.

The four Ilona Andrews books I also finished this month – and all but The Inheritance were ebooks. That leaves us with A City on Mars and Wanderers, as well as my priority release for 2025 Q4 – The Everlasting. I hope to get to The Everlasting at least some point in December.

On the Blog

I posted quite a bit this month, largely due to my semi-successful attempts to participate in Nonfiction November. Check out the posts below and see if there are any you missed!

Other posts this month…

Around the Blogosphere

Some of my favourite blog posts from the month! I realised I ended up reading quite a lot of book review this month, perhaps because of Nonfiction November.

Songs of the Month

A quick little bonus to share some of the music I’ve been liking this month!

What was your favourite book of the month?

If you did a wrap up post of your feel free to link it in the comments and I’ll check it out!

Keira x

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Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

Hello! My name is Keira and I’m a Korean-English translator and master’s student from the U.K. I have a passion for reading and language learning!

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6 responses to “November Wrap Up”

  1. lesscher avatar
    lesscher

    You had a great month of reading! I must have spotted “The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down” on an earlier post of yours, since I wound up buying a copy. It’s a lovely book and I think I’ll give it to my stepdaughter for Christmas. It’s just her sort of book! (I might read it first before I pass it along… )

    My favorite book read in November is actually three books. I loved Maggie O’Farrell’s I Am I Am I Am. I also enjoyed Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks and The Next Day by Melinda French Gates. I read 7 memoirs! Sadly, I gave up on one (Grief is For People by Sloane Crosley). Just couldn’t get interested. (Link to my reviews)

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    1. Keira @Keira’s Bookmark avatar
      Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

      I hope your stepdaughter enjoys it! (It’s a pretty quick read so you probably have time…) I haven’t heard of any of those books so I’ll definitely have to check out your posts about them!

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  2. Emma avatar
    Emma

    What a fab reading month! You’ve reminded me that I really want to get back to reading Ilona Andrews, I am partway through Kate Daniels and I have been really enjoying it.

    Thank you for including one of my posts here! I’m thrilled we crossed blogging paths in November!

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    1. Keira @Keira’s Bookmark avatar
      Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

      Ooh!! If you are enjoying Kate Daniels you should definitely try The Innkeeper Chronicles and the new book The Inheritance as well – The Inheritance also some interesting plants and stuff going on 😉

      Thank you for the great post! Here’s to crossing paths many more times in December 🥂

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  3. WordsAndPeace avatar
    WordsAndPeace

    sounds like a great month!
    sorry The Honjin Murders didn’t work for you.
    I so need to try Tchaikovsky, and this book on Chinese lit seems to be callling me.
    Thanks for this album, beautiful, added it to my spotify.
    I have 2 favorites this month: https://wordsandpeace.com/2025/12/01/2025-november-wrap-up/

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    1. Keira @Keira’s Bookmark avatar
      Keira @Keira’s Bookmark

      It definitely wasn’t too shabby!

      I think it’s partially a me problem – I really like crime/detective type stories but they tend to work better for me in TV than in novel form (and more as part of a bigger plot/social issue rather than episodic cases or especially a closed room case). That being said, I did fairly enjoy the first Sherlock Holmes book earlier this year, so whilst it was unlikely to ever be a 4/5 star book for me, I was hoping it might be a sort of 3/3.5 star read… But it’s not like it’s poorly written or anything so I feel like people who like that genre more generally might quite enjoy the story! Things did go uphill once the actual detective the series is named for appears though…

      This was my first Tchaikovsky series and I finished the whole thing this year – in fact books 2 and 3 I finished over the course of about 3 days?!?! Could not put them down, definitely gave up a night’s sleep. I’m really looking forward to trying some of his other work in 2026.

      As for the book on Chinese literature I’m not very far into it so far (actually I’ve read the last chapter and a bit of the first but none of the in-between yet) so I can’t give you my full thoughts yet – hopefully by the end of December. That being said, it’s a really nice and short book and I really like the way Knight structured the final chapter, I thought it was done in a really interesting way – she starts each section with reference to a specific play, the story of which is told over the course of the chapter as each element highlights a point she is making about Chinese literature more generally. It was really engaging, so I have no doubt the rest of the book will be good as well.

      A very classic favourites list this month!

      Thanks for stopping by 🙂

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