January Favourites
My favourite things, including events, books and music, from the first month of 2025.
My monthly favourites posts will be familiar to Love Hope Peace readers. They are where I share all my favourite things from the month that was - events, books, music and more.
Events
My boyfriend was away for more than half of January, so I deliberately scheduled/said yes to catch ups with friends, perhaps more than I usually would, to avoid feeling lonely and missing him too much.
Street Eats @ Franko and Taste of Summer trip – a few of us from book club caught up one Friday night in early January for dinner at Franko and then dessert at the Taste once entry was free. It was a lovely night in excellent company.
Hike up Mount Direction with a friend – a friend invited me to join her on a hike up Mount Direction, which is a hard slog of a hike but had the reward this time around of freshly baked banana bread and tea which my friend had packed. I felt very spoilt. It definitely beat my usual hiking sustenance of nuts and sultanas and water.
Flower picking outing with friend – a friend invited me to come flower picking with her at Earthenry, a gorgeous flower farm south of nipaluna/Hobart. We had a delightful few hours on the farm, picking blooms and picnicking on the lawns. It’s hard not to feel happy surrounded by colourful flowers with a good friend for company!
My boyfriend’s return from overseas – after a few weeks apart, it was sooooo special to be reunited with my boyfriend when he got back from overseas. While we talked pretty much every day while he was away, our prolific technology-facilitated interactions had nothing on actually being together again.
Lunar New Year dinner – January is always time for the annual tradition of celebrating Lunar New Year with my brother and sister-in-law. In 2025, my boyfriend joined us as well. It was a lovely night of yummy food (including the traditional loh sang salad) and good company.
Book club – book club is always a favourite. More good company and yummy food, as well as a great book discussion. We were particularly spoilt by our host who made a delicious bean salad with homegrown beans and a lemon curd and berry tart with homegrown lemons and eggs and freshly picked berries from a local farm (tart pictured below).
Self-care action
I've probably shared this before in January, but I really do find it to be a useful self-care action to spend some of January reflecting on the previous year and planning for the year ahead. Often, I have the realisation of how much I've done in the year that's just gone and how many good things have happened, even in years like last year which were quite challenging in many ways.
Fiction books
Dusk by Robbie Arnott
This was the book club book for January, which I actually finished this at the very end of December 2024, but saved for this post. It seemed like quite a bizarre set up for the novel: outcast twins go hunting a dangerous puma in a land that is kind of lutruwita/Tasmania in what seems to be the 1800s. But Arnott’s writing is so good that from page one I was on board for the ride.
There is beautiful nature writing, which is something Arnott is known for, but this one also features interesting characters and a fairly gripping narrative as the twins try to track down this puma. It’s not heavy-handed, but the novel does explore relations between white invaders and First Nations people and the relationships we have with animals and the environment.
The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
I’d been aware of this novel for years, but it hadn’t appealed until now. Being in a relationship myself, understanding how they work and what makes them last is suddenly pretty important. The Course of Love explores what happens, for one fictional couple, after the point where most romance novels stop. In most romance novels, a couple meets, they fall in love, they have their first my tension point, they find a way through and then it ends. But then what? That’s what this novel is all about. Kirsten and Rabih meet, fall in love, marry and have kids and we’re along for the ride as they navigate the course of love.
Interwoven with the narrative are italicised sections drawing on philosophy, psychology and other wisdom to illuminate what’s going on between Kirsten and Rabih – the common traps they’re falling into, the ways they are failing to communicate, the frustrations they are feeling. It’s nowhere near as glamorous as a traditional romance novel, but it’s probably much more real. I think there are lessons in this novel for us all, even though everyone’s relationship looks different and therefore won’t follow exactly the course that Kirsten and Rabih’s does.
Us by David Nicholls
In a similar vein to The Course of Love, this is a novel that deals with what happens in a relationship after the initial flush of love and, in this instance, many years together. Douglas and Connie, a scientist and artist, have been married for more than twenty years and have a nearly grown up son Albie. It starts with a bang in chapter one when we learn that Connie thinks their marriage has run its course. But they’ve got a trip around Europe as a trio planned which they decide to plough ahead with.
It doesn’t sound like it from the set-up, but this book is incredibly funny, in a dark sort of way. I laughed a lot. There are hotel booking mishaps, miscommunications, Douglas’s science-based jokes, darkly funny commentary on the state of the world… I had, as it turned out, watched the TV adaptation of this a while back, but somehow didn’t have this realisation until midway through the novel.
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
While I don’t have a reading goal associated with Palestinian authors this year, I continued my reading in this space with Enter Ghost, a recommendation from a book club friend. Set in the present day (which distinguished it from nearly all the other works by Palestinian authors I worked my way through in 2024), the protagonist is Sonia, who returns to Haifa from the UK for the first time in years to visit her sister. Somehow, the actress gets roped into playing Gertrude in a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the West Bank, performed in classical Arabic.
Staging theatre in Palestine is no mean feat and the troupe encounters many obstacles as they work towards opening night. There is everything from questions of artistic interpretation and romantic entanglement through to Israeli checkpoints, information leaks and interrogations. The progress towards opening night gives the novel a real narrative drive. Meanwhile, we’re also learning about Sonia’s family and observing the evolution of her relationship with her sister Haneen.
Non-fiction books
We’ve Got This: Stories by Disabled Parents by various, edited by Eliza Hull
For my entire adult life, I’ve had having children/being a parent in the ‘too hard, not for me with my disability/illness’ basket. I’m trying to challenge and explore my thinking around the question of having children/being a parent this year, and this collection of stories seemed like an excellent place to start. In it, twenty-five parents with disabilities of all types (physical, sensory, intellectual, invisible) recount their journeys to and through parenthood.
I found this to be a deeply thought-provoking, affirming, love-filled book which I gradually worked my way through. One of my favourite contributions by Lefa Singleton-Norton was right near the end. She has chronic fatigue syndrome so her disability is pretty similar to mine. Clearly, she’s also incredibly smart, because her contribution is full of incredible insights and wisdom. She draws some fascinating comparisons between the way she was treated as a disabled person in the world and the way she was treated once she had a child, as well as highlighting the ways in which living with a disability prior to having children actually equipped her well to manage the unpredictability of life with a little person.
Music
Waxahatchee
A couple of colleagues went to see Waxahatchee live late last year and I subsequently took a listen to a couple of her albums. I wound up having her most recent album, Tigers Blood, on regular rotation in January. A bit folky, a bit country, it's good cruisy stuff for the Summer.
Podcasts
New to me podcasts
The Neurodivergent Woman Podcast
Co-hosted by a neurodiversity affirmative clinical neuropsychologist and a neurodivergent clinical psychologist, this podcast dives into ADHD, autism and everything in between. There are interviews, practical tips and updates on the latest research in this space.
Episodes of existing favourites
Life Matters – What we’re learning about the power of romantic love - a fascinating interview with a romantic love and human mating researcher about love.
The Party Room – Antony Green’s guide to the federal election - if you’re an Aussie with an interest in politics, then Antony’s name will no doubt be familiar to you. This chat about our upcoming federal election was super useful.
7am – there were a lot of good episodes of 7am in January. Most were pretty depressing, since the state of the world's politics is not exactly cheery right now, but it's still important to me to remain informed and 7am helps me do this. A couple of examples of depressing but informative episodes include: How Elon Musk shapes politics and The people importing Trump’s anti-trans tactics to Australia.
The Imperfects
Imperfect Birth Stories with Sophie Walker - a great interview with the founder of the Australian Birth Stories pod which, given The Imperfects is hosted by three dudes, had some really interesting insights and reflections on the non-birthing partner’s experience of birth.
James van Cuylenburg – What’s Your Relationship Status? - another great interview with clinical psychologist James van Cuylenburg about the massive topic of relationships.
10% Happier with Dan Harris – Rewire Your Relationship With Money | Wendy De La Rosa - a great episode featuring practical tips on increasing your financial security and eradicating the taboo around financial conversations from a Wharton professor of behavioural science.
Willow moment
For the uninitiated, Willow is my gorgeous rescue greyhound. My favourite Willow moment in January was her somewhat ridiculous reaction to meeting one of my friends for the first time. She was the most excited I've seen her in a very long time, wanting to jump up on my friend and very rudely stick her snoot up my friend’s dress. We wonder whether maybe Willow could smell my friend's s dog or perhaps Willow just has excellent taste in people and could tell my friend was a very good egg. We'll never know but it was a joy to watch.
Food
I made a lot of pretty low effort, high reward meal components and therefore meals in January, due to frequently feeling quite unwell. The following were some of my favourites:
Mung bean and jalapeno ‘pesto’ - this was a random creation that I really enjoyed and proceeded to recreate a couple of times in January. It's pretty simple: cooked mung beans, some jalapenos and some of their brine, spring onion greens or chives and toasted pepitas all blitzed up into a chunky paste. I really enjoyed it dolloped into a bowl with brown rice, some whole cooked mung beans and roasted carrots or pan charred zucchini, topped with a chopped boiled egg or some crumbled feta and some more toasted pepitas.
Pan charred zucchini - I became a big fan in January of slicing beautiful in season zucchinis into long flat pieces and charring them in a hot pan with a bit of oil. They get meltingly tender and incredibly tasty and are great in many applications, including with the mung bean and jalapeno pesto.
Oven roasted eggplant - another thing I became a big fan of in January was slicing beautiful in season eggplants in half lengthways and roasting them in a pan with a bit of oil until they were meltingly tender. My favourite way to then use these half eggplants was to dollop on Greek yoghurt and some lentil salad (made simply from lentils, chives and olives), then sprinkle with za'atar and serve with flatbread or toast coated in tahini. It was a low effort, but bangingly delicious meal.
That's it from me for January.
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Thanks for being here!
Let's make the best of it,
Emma