From celebrity memoirs and absorbing non-fiction to modern classics and tales of Greek mythology, Team IMAGE share their current reads.
Helen Conway, Event Manager
I’ve been on a memoir buzz lately. I absolutely inhaled Famesick by Lena Dunham, living for the chaos, name-drops, internet culture references, and behind-the-scenes lore from the world of Girls.
Staying on the pop-culture track, I’ve now picked up Mark Ronson’s Night People – a fascinating lens into the world of New York club culture in the ‘90s – again, full of name-drops galore.
To escape the real world with a bit of fiction, I read Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. I completely understand the hype and can’t wait to see how it gets brought to life now that it’s been picked up for an adaptation.
Sarah Gill, Deputy Editor, IMAGE.ie
I’m currently reading The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe, and I could not recommend it more. It’s so originally written, and so uniquely Irish in the rhythm of the story. You’re laughing at the start of a paragraph and crying by the end. It brings you into the interior life of a young boy in small-town Ireland, you get to know his mischievous heart, the darkness of his environment and the swatches of beauty he zeroes in on to soften the edges of reality. Skies the colour of oranges, a lone snowdrop, sticking your head under the water to say hello to the fish. It’s beautiful and devastating and unsettling and it paints an ominous portrait of rural Ireland and a boy’s loss of innocence. Next up for me is The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, which I’ve only ever heard great things about, so I’m very excited to sink my teeth into it.
Lauren Heskin, Editor, IMAGE Magazine
I just finished Strangers: A Memoir on Marriage by Belle Burden. I haven’t read non-fiction in ages (because the world is already hard to look at) but this was strangely un-put-downable. It follows a woman whose husband of 20 years up and leaves her very suddenly in the first month of the pandemic. She navigates a divorce with numerous assets, single parenting almost-adult children, and rediscovering her sense of self outside of a long-term partnership. The foray into non-fiction was so successful, I’ve just started London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe.
Dominique McMullan, Editorial Director
Famesick by Lena Dunham is my latest read. I’ve always admired Lena’s honesty and this book does not disappoint. It’s a look at her journey into fame, alongside her deteriorating health and how those two things interacted over the course of her career. It’s heartbreaking and hilarious in equal parts.
Meghan Killalea, Senior Marketing Account Executive
I read Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller last summer and absolutely loved it, so I had to pick up her book Circe to see if it would be just as good – and spoiler alert, it is. With Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey coming out soon, it seemed fortuitous that I would pick it off my shelf and as someone who has a huge interest in Ancient Greek mythology, it ticks all of my boxes. A beautifully and thoughtfully done retelling of the goddess and witch as she grows both in confidence and power, and who would risk everything for Odysseus, you will not be able to put this book down.
Dearbhla Lovett, IMAGE First Activations Freelancer
I bought this book with great excitement almost six weeks ago, but I’m ashamedly only starting it this week after having no wifi on a flight to France. Once I get on a roll of starting a book, I cannot put it down and this is one of those books. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke is based around the perfect life of a US ‘tradwife’ who wakes up one day back in the 1800s. I’m only a quarter of the way in and so far, it’s weird and confronting but it’s also a thought-provoking insight into the curated, often fictional smoke and mirrors nature of these tradwife influencers and the appeal of more traditional lifestyles we’re seeing resurface in recent years. I also have no idea where this story is going which I love in a novel.
Sophie Power, Chief Operations Officer
I am currently reading Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. So far, it is a total page turner, which is no surprise as I know it’s circulating through everyone’s book clubs as one of the must-reads of 2026! For anyone else intrigued by Ballerina Farm and the tradwife influencers dominating our social feeds, this is the perfect escape into their world, especially the hidden parts that don’t make it to their highlights reel. Burke masterfully transports you from Natalie’s (our main character’s) seemingly picture-perfect life on her carefully curated modern-day farm into the horror she experiences when she wakes up in the 1800’s and must actually practice the tradwife life she has been preaching to others online. I’ve heard a serious plot twist lies ahead and with an A-list movie production on the way, I can’t wait to see this all unfold.
Shayna (Sappington) Healy, Branded Content Editor and Wedding Editor
I just finished Close to Home by Michael Magee and I thought it was brilliant! It follows Sean, a man in his 20s who returns to Belfast after university, only to be pulled back into his somewhat destructive network of family and friends. Touching on poverty, addiction, and trauma, interwoven with moments of beautiful friendships and self-discovery, it was moving, enlightening and I couldn’t put it down!
Lizzie Gore-Grimes, Editor-in-Chief
I recently devoured Sandwich by Catherine Newman. A brilliantly witty, poignant and heartfelt read – perfect for any midlifer with grown-up children. The book follows 54-year-old Jewish New Yorker, Rocky, as she spends a week on holiday on Cape Cod with her adult children and ageing parents. After about the tenth time, I had to stop myself from sending pictures of pages and paragraphs to my sister – so insightful were Newman’s descriptions of Rocky’s menopausal brain and chaotic navigation of her close-knit, neurotic family life. Hilarious and heart-wrenching in equal parts, if you like Nora Ephron, you will love this book. And to top it all off, there’s a second book, Wreck, that continues to follow Rocky’s tumultuous life and is possibly even better.
Megan Burns, Editor, IMAGE Interiors; Managing Editor, IMAGE
I just read The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, a beautiful, strange story about an island where things gradually disappear, one by one: birds, calendars, photographs. It’s a novel that makes you think about small, everyday things, and what makes up a life.
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