Recommended Reads - top 4 books for August 2025

Welcome to my reading list roundup. A safe place where I whittle away at my "to be read" pile. I'm currently on a roll. A book a week! Well, almost...

All of these #readingrecs and #quickiereviews have been shared to my Facebook/Instagram feeds over the last few weeks.

Recommended reads for August 2025 (in reading order)

Where the Birds Call her Name by Claire van Ryn

1. Where the Birds Call her Name by Claire van Ryn

I’ve read a lot of stories where there is a child coping with a dead parent (most often the mother). The child maybe grown up when the parent passes away or is adult in the story coping with a loss that occurred when they were young. At whatever age, such loss can be like a stab to the heart, a million stabs to the heart.

Where the Birds Call her Name by Claire Van Ryn has this loss at its core. Carefully woven through a tapestry of losses, Van Ryn also explores hidden pasts, family violence, environment issues, and some soul searching. Saskia (main character) travels with her young daughter, from Perth to Stanley in Tasmania to unravel Greta Winter’s (her mother) hidden life. She has Greta’s journal and the caravan she left to her in her will.

It also has lots of birds. It’s a great yarn that I think you’ll enjoy.

👉 Visit Penguin Books to read the official blurb.

The Sitter by Angela O'Keeffe

2. The Sitter by Angela O’Keeffe

A writer is struggling to write her latest work, a novel based on the life of Hortense Fiquet Cezanne, “wife and sometime muse of the famous painter” Paul Cezanne.

Hortense (born in 1850, died 1922) is best known for the 27 portraits her husband painted of her. Angela O’Keeffe was inspired to write about this enigmatic woman after a visit to the Musee d’Orsay’s Cezanne exhibition (2017). The couple did not have a happy marriage yet… 27 portraits.

What I enjoyed about this novel was the point of view of the narrator, the long dead Hortense who is linked to the unnamed writer struggling with creative blocks, family dysfunction, and the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through Hortense, we’re given insight to the author’s mindset as well as her own life before, during and after her marriage to Cezanne.

A slim book at 165 pages it nevertheless enables us to share in two stories: Hortense and the writer. The story is reflective, symbolic of deep hurts, and revealing (for both women). This is a story about stories and truths. Those we are told. Those we create. Those we choose to believe.

Learn more about The Inner Life of Madame Cezanne in this interview with Angela O’Keeffe  

View the portrait of Madame Cezanne at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Cézanne to Giacometti: highlights from Museum Berggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie is on display from 31 May to 21 September 2025.

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

3. The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

I don’t mind a good read about someone going on a pilgrimage for the soul. Long distance walking in nature offers a balm for a troubled mind, time to think, and a place to put things in perspective. Coastlines, forests, jungles, mountains and deserts encompass so much more than our relatively smallness can achieve. The grand scheme of things…

Raynor Winn and her husband, Moth, are a couple suddenly made homeless and almost penniless who decide to trek the South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. That’s 630 miles (1013 km) walking and free camping in a little tent in wind, rain, and heat. Along the way they come to terms with their change of circumstance, Moths illness (and the benefits of fresh air and exercise), and their resilient natures.

At times, I thought the story came across as more of a travelogue (a bit dry in places) but as I got into it, and the importance of the travel book they were following became more apparent, I let the story unfold naturally and without expectation. This isn’t fiction after all but a memoir of a short period of a woman’s life where she decided to give herself some space and go for a walk.

The book has had a lot of hype lately with the release of the film (which I’ve also seen and quite enjoyed) and the controversy about the truthfulness (and selective memory) of the author. The authors addresses the issue on her website.

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

4. There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

I really loved this one. So much so that after returning it to the library, I dropped by my local bookshop and bought my own copy. I need to read it again with a pen and a notebook at hand. This is what I most love about historical fiction, learning and then being drawn in by good writing, to learn even more.

We have four timelines in this epic set along the banks of the Rivers Tigris and Thames. Victorian and contemporary London and the ancient city of Nineveh in the Mesopotamian valley (in its past glory and more recently, all but forgotten). Each of the timelines explore the themes of power over history, knowledge and memory, culture and people. They are connected by the Epic Of Gilgamesh, memory, identity, and water. In particular the lifecycle and endurance of a single drop of water and the deep importance of rivers to the planet, to the people that live along their banks. The fresh water crisis we are experiencing on a global scale is alluded to throughout the story, from mighty rivers being polluted, to others being dammed or buried, and vanishing through extensive long term drought.

Elif Shafak explores her themes deeply and passionately. Her research is excellent and her ability to give her characters a driving purpose as they navigate poverty, grief, dispossession, the joy of discovery, and healing carries the reader through the ebb and flow of lifetimes touched by a drop of water.

I could go on, but encourage you to read it for yourself.

Visit Penguin Books to read the official blurb.

Extra note: And here's the list again in order of my favourite reads for the month:

1: There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

2. Where the Birds Call her Name by Claire van Ryn

3. The Sitter by Angela O’Keeffe

4. The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Recommended Reads August 2025