8 Books I Have to Read in 2025

 

For the past two years, I've published a post called 'Big Books I Want to Read' and although I did the odd little check-ins I never did a proper update on last year's list nor did I do very well with it haha. Today I'll give a summary of how 2024's BIG books went as well as a bit of a refresh on the idea for the following year.

10 BIG Books I Want to Read in 2023
8 BIG Books I Want to Read in 2024


Starting off with the books I wanted to get to last year...

2024 List

The Book of Dust Vol.2 by Philip Pullman (from last year's list) - 720 pages UNREAD
The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton (from last year's list) - 586 pages UNREAD
Dracul by Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker (from last year's list) - 563 pages READ
Murtagh by Christopher Paolini - 665 pages READ
Reynard the Fox by Anne Louise Avery - 424 pages UNREAD
Inkspell by Cornelia Funke - 675 pages READ
Mossflower by Brian Jacques - 427 pages UNREAD

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow Book by Natasha Pulley - 482 pages UNREAD

You'll see that although I did tick off 3 books (2 of which admittedly were audiobooks), over 60% went unread yet again! This system obviously isn't working and so I'm switching it up a little for this year. Rather than having a list of BIG scary books that I keep avoiding, I'm going to have a list of 8 books, of any size, that I'm looking forward to and want to make time for in 2025. I have so many books on my TBR bookcase that I'm excited to get to but there are so many books, and so little time! This way I hope that most months I can look at this list and try to fit one into my monthly reads. 

2025 List

The Book of Dust Vol.2 by Philip Pullman 
The Legend of Podkin One-Ear by Kieran Larwood

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell

Dreamstalkers: The Night Train by Sarah Driver

The Lion Above the Door by Onjali Q. Raúf

While the Storm Rages by Phil Earle

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Forget Me Not by Sophie Pavelle

Unintentionally, it still works out that many of these are on the longer side but let's not think about that! This is the first time I've also included some Non-Fiction picks. I have found such a love of non-fiction in the past couple of years, especially nature and wildlife-related books and I always want to read more. 
I'm feeling optimistic and hope that I can make a huge dent in this stack throughout this year. If I read what I read last year (80 books) then this is really only 10% of that...easy! ....?

 

World Wetlands Day 2025

 

'World Wetlands Day is a United Nations International Day of Importance that celebrates the value and benefits of wetlands.' 

On the 2nd of February 1971, the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was signed in Ramsar, Iran and so this year marked its 53rd anniversary.

Wetlands, areas either always covered by water or for part of the year including flooded or waterlogged areas, are extremely diverse and valuable ecosystems that are sadly overlooked and undervalued.

They make up a mere 6% of our Earth's surface and have drastically declined since the 1970s at a rate three times faster than the loss of forests! 

Over the years our wetlands have been underappreciated and misunderstood, used and abused, drained and filled in to provide solid ground for humans to continue their 'development' takeover. 

Wetlands have many benefits but to me, the most important is that they are a home to many creatures big and small. That is surely enough to protect them?

World Wetlands Day is an important day of recognition with aims to raise awareness for the conservation and wise use of these magical places. World Wetlands Day is celebrated on the 2nd of February annually, however this year it fell on a Sunday and we don't go anywhere on weekends! Therefore we decided to celebrate a day late on Monday the 3rd. This year we visited RSPB Saltholme a former industrial land, transformed into a thriving nature reserve, focusing on restoring and conserving the local wildlife. It has many wetland areas and lots of birds! See the photos I took below.

Read more here about What are wetlands, and why are they so critical for life on Earth?
And visit the official World Wetlands Day websites here Official website of World Wetlands Day by Ramsar - 2 February - World Wetlands Day

Other posts of interest:
World Wetlands Day 2024
RSPB Saltholme

Saltholme is about a 1.5-hour round trip for us and we don't like to leave our old dog home alone too long so it was a bit of a shorter visit. It was still a lovely time, walking around a part of the reserve we didn't get to explore on our last visit and weather-wise it was a perfect Winters day! 

There was a huge Goose presence; Cananda Geese, Greylag Geese and the sound was pure joy!!
Other highlights of the day were a lovely little Robin who welcomed us as we arrived and a really cool encounter with a beautiful female Kestrel!

Hopefully, we get the opportunity to visit Saltholme again later this year.

Catch Up With the Pets // Part 9

 

It's time again for another collective post with photos of our little zoo! 
Obviously, my pets are my world, my children and my days are centred around them. Therefore it's inevitable that they feature in my daily photos often. If you don't know, I take a photo daily and am currently on year 13 of this so-called 'Project 365'.
To keep up with those photos in weekly posts you can check out my Project 365 blog Adventures of The Hallows.

These catch-up with my pets posts are an accumulation of all of the photos from Project 365 that feature my babies! So I can see them all in one place and look back on what they got up to and how they've changed, as well as so you can enjoy their cuteness obviously!

The photos below are from June 2024 - October 2024.

To continue enjoying photos of our wonderful pets, see below:
Catch Up with the Pets! // Part 1
Catch Up with the Pets! // Part 2
Catch Up with the Pets // Part 3
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 4
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 5
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 6
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 7
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 8

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Cat sissies are Aurora (tiny girl) and Eos (with more white).
Doggo is Baker.
The Leopard Geckos are Hela* (with more black) and Freya (yellow lady).
Our Guinea Pig is Mars (red-eyed blind boyo) and his long-haired brother Argo is heartbreakingly no longer with us.
Columbian Boa is Athena.*
Ball Python is Hades.*
Corn Snake is Anubis.*
Goldfish are Nyx (black eye, longer tail) and Calypso (all orange dorsal fin, rounder tummy).*

* Not featured in this post, see posts below for more photos.

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I would make an excuse as to why the photos tend to favour certain pets however I'm sure it's pretty obvious. Taking photos of the reptiles isn't as easy as they are behind glass and when they aren't we are holding them and giving them as much attention as possible. 

To continue enjoying photos of our wonderful pets, see below:
Catch Up with the Pets! // Part 1
Catch Up with the Pets! // Part 2
Catch Up with the Pets // Part 3
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 4
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 5
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 6
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 7
Catch Up With the Pets // Part 8