12 good things from 2025 🕯️

Hello friends,

As the baton is passed from one year to the next, I want to draw close the things that nourished and revived our society. Amid a whirling carousel of evermore wild news stories, art and culture saw a revolution of quiet slowness, of women-centred narratives, and of sincerity.

What I see is a growing recognition that clarity is not the same as control, and that wisdom often comes from recognising and staying with uncertainty rather than trying to solve it. Our tendency for fixing things now, and our cultural and technological shift towards immediate solution has shortened our attention spans, and made it harder for us to sit with discomfort and instead to seek the sedative tranquility of sameness. But nothing lasts forever, and it’s often only the press of loss that reveals to us exactly how wonderful the world is, and how precious our lives are. As Kafka wrote: the meaning of life is that it stops.

So let us move forward into this new beginning with an optimism for the long-term – to trust that from the mud of confusion or war or crisis, a lotus will bloom and our resolve will strengthen further, to live fully and openly, and not to place a restriction on what we let into our hearts.

Easy Sleeper by Hiejin Yoo (2025)

1. Romance is real

    For many years, the literary world has largely ignored romance as a genre. Dismissed as work by “silly lady novelists” as George Eliot once put it, romantic fiction has seen a surge in popularity this year. Is it the lipstick effect of feeling financial squeeze? Or could it be the BookTok trends that have sparked a novel-reading renaissance? Who cares: the good news is that finally, certain silly lady novelists will be recognised by the British Book Awards this coming year when it includes romance as a genre for the first time in its 36-year history.

    2. Art could be joy

      Glaswegian artist Nnena Kalu took home the Turner in 2025, for her ‘bold and compelling work’. Her sculptures, which are made from mixed materials like VHS tape, mesh and fabric scraps, as well as her swirling ‘vortex’ paintings, are bright and explosive expressions of joy. Kalu, who has limited verbal communication, has been a long-time member of ActionSpace, an organisation that supports artists with learning disabilities in London. 

      3. Narrative voice blooms

        2025 was the year of the narrative voice, which saw worlds unfold through unique characters. Novels like Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo, Flesh by David Szalay, and Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness were some of the popular options.

        4. Women in art

          Retrospectives of women artists took place in major galleries around the world in 2025, including Tracy Emin, Lee Miller, Grace Hartigan and Ruth Asawa. This, plus the release of Making Space: Interior Design by Women by Dr Jane Hall played a role in a general shift towards more representation for the influence of women in art and design. But while the change is welcome, a record-breaking $55 million sale of a Frida Kahlo self-portrait only showed the vast gap between the value of women’s and men’s artwork. A Klimt piece also sold recently for $236 million. Listen to a discussion about it by experts on Woman’s Hour here.

          Turner Prize winner Nnena Kalu (image: Channel 4)

          5. Poetry’s quiet comeback

            No longer a pursuit of the literary elite, poetry re-entered the cultural conversation in 2025. Poetry sales continued to rise, live readings sold out, and museums saw more poetry included in exhibitions and performances. Sales saw a renewed appetite for language that could hold grief, intimacy and uncertainty without irony. As the Frieze magazine observed, poetry has become a refuge from algorithmic culture, offering slowness and sincerity in an accelerated world. More Mary Oliver memes to the people!

            6. Patti Smith writes again

              Patti Smith’s memoir Bread of Angels focused on faith, art, loss and ageing with characteristic clarity and tenderness. Less a rock memoir than a spiritual document, the book was praised for its devotion to attention, to the sacred in the everyday, and for articulating a life lived in service to art.

              7. Museums slow down

                Several major museums experimented with ‘slow looking’ – quieter, slower exhibition formats in 2025. This meant fewer works on display, more space, longer wall texts, and more places to sit. The aim was not spectacle but attention. Visitors were invited to spend time rather than consume content.

                8. Care as culture

                  Care for bodies, communities, environments emerged as a recurring theme across various disciplines. From essays on mutual aid, to exhibitions about repair and maintenance, cultural production reflected a growing sense that care is not a sentimental, but of vital political relevance in society.

                  9. Translation as cultural bridge

                    International prizes highlighted translated literature, reminding readers that some of the most vital writing exists beyond English. Translation was discussed not as secondary labour but as creative collaboration. See for example the Booker Prize winner Heart Lamp, the first winner written in Kannada.

                    Slow looking at the Tate Modern (image: Tate)

                    10. Radical depth in memoir

                    Memoir became a genre to navigate profound loss and existential themes, often with lyrical restraint, such as in Yiyun Li’s Things in Nature Merely Grow, which touched on the limits of language in the face of unspeakable personal tragedy; or Miriam Toews’s A Truce That Is Not Peace, which looked at family death and repression. Meanwhile, Mina Holland’s Lifeblood explored life-altering caregiving with quiet lived truth. 

                    11. Books as physical objects matter

                      The bookshops have been blessed by the recent uptick in interest for physical books. Performative reading became an unlikely catchphrase for a fresh generation of holier-than-thou book snobs. Meanwhile, beautiful book design, paper, binding, and typography were featured in best gift lists as readers pushed back against purely digital consumption.

                      12. Plum Village comes to the UK

                        After many years in the works, a new Plum Village practice centre will open in southwest England in spring 2026, the Being Peace Centre. With retreats starting at £150, the centre means more people will find the transformational mindfulness practices founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

                        Until next time…

                        May you be happy, well, whole, and free.

                        ~~~~~~

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