#8 – Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan – 2025 Best Reads

At 128 small pages, you can get through Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These in a sitting. It takes place in Ireland in the 1980s but the Dickensian setting and Christmas Carol mood will trick you into thinking it’s much older. It’s an elemental story about a decent man taking small steps to help a young girl and confront an institutional injustice. But it’s more than an ‘issue’ book. It’s ancient and spiritual and small in the best sense of those words. And it’s #8 on this year’s Best Reads list.

Previously in this series:

#9 – By the Word Worked by Fleming Rutledge

#10 – Longitude by Dava Sobel