What we've been reading: September 2025

Welcome to our monthly reading-round-up for September 2025!

This is the place where we gather highlights from what the Lighthouse team have been reading each month. You can check out round-ups from previous months and years amongst our book lists.

September is an interesting month in our bookselling year - it usually starts with a little bit of quiet as the Fringe buzz fades away, but that quiet is swiftly replaced by the excitement of students and teachers returning to campus. With our location right in the heart of Edinburgh, the ebb and flow of footfall is noticeable. There are also a lot of exciting books coming out in September, and we also found time for several fascinating events. Our team have been busy reading books that are coming out in the new year, reading timely non-fiction, and getting into doorstopper-sized classics. Read on...

Noor

Mother Mary Comes to Me - a whirlwind of a memoir which is beautiful, heart-breaking and inspiring in equal measure. Roy recounts her life from being a child who learnt wisdom by the river to a woman who walks alongside guerrilla freedom fighters in the forest, all the while reflecting on her difficult relationship with her mother and their love for one another. I found myself laughing out loud from the wry wit and my jaw dropped at some of the storms she has weathered.

Count of Monte Cristo - My brothers have been telling me to read the Count of Monte Cristo since I was 12. As a matter of upstanding moral principle I told them no every year since. This year I watched the 2024 movie with friends and immediately ordered the book to read. Do you want a wronged hero? Vengeance? Witty dialogue? Some sort of proto-Sherlock Holmes genius? A prison escape? Long held love for a fair maiden who has a pretty good head on her shoulders? Truly elaborate plots and disguises in order to get the bad guys back for what they did? A mystery island and loads of lost riches? Well folks, this is the chonk for you. But no one tell my brothers I read it.

Mohamed

How We Named the Stars by Andrés N Ordorica: Grab some tissues and get ready for a lyrical queer coming-of-age story that will bring you to tears. Daniel’s story — set between a university campus in the US and Mexico — is punctuated by the seasons, with each chapter introduced through a diary entry from his departed namesake, Tió Daniel. The heart of this story is the love and losses Daniel experiences in his relationship with his flatmate, Sam. This is a layered narrative. Daniel doesn’t shy away from what hurts, and finds so much joy in the connections he forges, with Sam, his university community, Tio Daniel, his family and himself. “Those pages, and these pages you're reading now—all of them hold such beautiful memories, and all of them I will look back on one day to truly understand all that was ours to experience together.”

How to Mend: Motherhood and Its Ghosts by Iman Mersal (sadly just saw that this is out of print!)

COOP by Nida Sajid: COOP is unlike anything else I’ve read recently. Addictive and cathartic to read with an immediacy that propels you through the novelette, Nida’s incisive prose captures Lena’s fleeting thoughts and feelings as she tries to survive working at a bookshop that touts progressive credentials, yet is propped up by underpaid and undervalued staff in London, where the ongoing genocide of Palestinians is evidenced everywhere while being ignored by most. The use of the short, impeccably paced form does wonders here; the reader gets the briefest glimpses of an interiority that’s clinging to work, messages, poetry, writing and the news in an effort to resist disappearance. This book left me aching and feeling more human

Nic

Jodie Hare - Autism Is Not A Disease

Hare challenges the harmful portrayals and characterisations of neurodivergence in the media, highlighting it as a political issue that affects everyone - regardless of one's neurotype. In its modest length, this book outlines the history of neurodivergence, arguing that it is inherently anti-capitalist and therefore political. A must-read for anyone seeking to help fight the recent on-slaughter of misinformation, wanting to better understand how the society we live in affects different neurotypes, and help to bring about systemic change not only to better accommodate neurodivergent people, but to become more inclusive overall.

Lara Pawson - Spent Light

While we might be included to imbue everyday objects with a certain neutrality, Spent Light reveals that their inertness can be misleading. From toasters to moth-traps, from a cooking-timer to the cobalt battery of a cellphone, we are offered an associative series of fragmentary examinations of quotidian household items. More often than not, these objects are silent actors in the service of violent ends.Pawson's experience as a war reporter of Angola's civil war naturally surface in her analyses alongside her interest in the history of 20th century Fascism; and yet, her gimlet eye for what is beautiful - in fine-art, nature, or the body - emerges just as vividly in unexpected ways. The result is both intimate and expansive: a book that gestures towards everything, whilst remaining rooted in the immediate and the personal.

Ruby Rare - The Non-Monogamy Playbook

Despite its title, this reads less like a traditional playbook and more like a warm guide to the many forms relationships can take. Rare humanises the non-monogamy experience, offering an inviting introduction to connections that are often marginalised or misunderstood. There is a fair share of critical examination without being overly evangelising or cynical in any one direction. Rare carefully interrogates the history and assumption of monogamy and non-monogamy alike, reminding us that intimacy and care can take countless forms. Existential undertones run throughout, reminding us that we are free to choose how to invite greater connection and vulnerability into our lives - whether platonic, sexual, or romantic. At its core, she emphasises communication, compassion, and curiosity, challenging the compulsory nature of monogamy, with it's high expectations and rigid norms. Light, charming yet also highly educational, this is a much-needed guide that makes the complexities of modern connection tangible, nuanced, and above all, human.

Pao

Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray (out in January 2026) - It seems like all I read lately is advance reader copies, but I promise that's not always the case; I was just so pleased to see Madeleine Gray had a new book out that I *had* to devour it immediately. I'm a sucker for her writing style, her sparse and sharp prose and the way every other page makes you laugh out loud or want to cry. Chosen Family follows up her debut, Green Dot (very good, also one of my favourites) with a tale of two best friends, following them from childhood to adulthood. I loved the focus on alternatives to heteronormative parenting and the description of queer family making, even if I was frustrated with the way one character suddenly dropped off the map.

Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (out in March 2026) - I have nothing more to add to Mairi's review of this here. I'm not quite finished this yet but it is excellent!

Christina

I revisited some old favourites this month, like Hera Lindsay Bird's pamphlet Pamper Me To Hell & Back (containing favourite poems like "Pyramid Scheme" and "I have come back from the dead to tell you that I love you") and the children's book Frederick (which is about the necessity of storytelling and also about paying close attention)

I'm about a third of the way into Language City by Ross Perlin, which I picked up because it was mentioned in one of my favourite podcasts, Lingthusiasm (for being enthusiastic about linguistics!). Perlin's book studies six people in New York City who speak minority languages, and in doing so it illluminates the many ways we can keep endangered languages alive. It's very interesting and I'm really enjoying it!

I have also just started Middlemarch by George Eliot because my friend Celeste is running a Middlemarch book club. Middlemarch is set from September to March, and the book club will read it in bits as the months roll on! I loved this idea immediately and am enjoying the company for delving into this doorstopper.

And finally!!! I read and adored In Love With Love by Ella Risbridger, a book that explores the ways romance fiction trends intersect with socioeconomics. It is brilliant and I was always going to like it because I love Ella's writing and I love romance fiction, but even beyond that I was hugely impressed by the depth of the book's research, the palpable joy and seriousness Risbridger brings to the subject, and I left with a long reading list of new romance fiction to explore. I really think readers who love romance will like this book, AND readers who have never read romance before but who are interested in literary criticism will also really like it. You can pre-order it now, it is published at the start of November!