“A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until–“My God,” says a second man, “I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn.” At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience… “Look, look!” recites the crowd. “A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.”
“The envelope, please: After a full year spent reading hundreds of books and meeting regularly to bicker — er, converse — about their merits and flaws, the editors of the Book Review have chosen the 10 Best Books of 2025.
In novels that transport us from the battlefields of World War I to contemporary Swedish dance clubs to the halls of a convent in rural Australia, and from Nazi movie studios to New York art galleries where immigrants look for a sense of connection, our fiction picks offer sweeping stories about timely and timeless topics with a sense of verve and style.
In nonfiction, we chose immersive journalistic accounts of the housing crisis and a historic Black church, along with a riveting biography of a misunderstood painter, a fraught mother-daughter memoir and an enthralling shipwreck story that is as much a meditation on marriage as it is a seafaring adventure.
“Travel was once a means of being elsewhere, or of being nowhere. Today it is the only way we have of feeling that we are somewhere. At home, surrounded by information, by screens, I am no longer anywhere, but rather everywhere in the world at once, in the midst of a universal banality – a banality that is the same in every country. To arrive in a new city, or in a new language, is suddenly to find oneself here and nowhere else. The body rediscovers how to look. Delivered from images, it rediscovers the imagination.”
Last month, Icelandair launched a social media campaign that takes a tongue- in- cheek look at whether Iceland is “real” as opposed to AI-generated. The “Expedition Iceland” campaign was developed by social-first agency Kubbco in partnership with Icelandic agency Hvíta húsið.
The two-minute film (below) follows a fictional online conspiracy theorist who doesn’t believe that Iceland is real, and confidently shares his views with his followers. Because how could its spectacular landscape with volcanoes, hot springs, lava fields, geysers, Northern lights, and puffins possibly be real.
His sister, who is confident in her knowledge that Iceland is indeed real, tries to prove it to him by taking him there. Informing her brother and a quirky third character that Iceland has an airline, her brother replies sarcastically: “Great, is it called ‘Icelandair’?”
As the group travels to Iceland, our hero remains sceptical, asking distrustful questions such as “If we really are in Iceland, where is all the ice?” and pointing out that they must be in the world’s largest warehouse watching a green screen because there are no trees and “trees don’t grow on green screens”.
Throughout the film, the trio explores the beautiful Icelandic landscape, and while our conspiracy theorist friend argues that the puffins are robots and the hot springs are really just hot tubs, his conviction appears to wear off towards the end, when his sister encourages him to tell his followers that Iceland is a real country.
However, still wearing his T-shirt with the slogan “Iceland is AI-generated”, he changes his mind, grabs the phone and runs off, repeating his stance that Iceland isn’t real.
The film ends with a narrator saying the tagline “Iceland. It’s real.”
The campaign launched on November 10th and will run across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and the Icelandair website for four to six weeks. Additional fun content is expected to be rolled out, with details still to be confirmed.
Gísli Brynjolfsson, Director of Marketing, Icelandair, said: “In these both strange and wonderful times, where AI is everywhere, we wanted a fun and culturally relevant way to show people that Iceland is as real and stunning as it gets. Kubbco instantly understood the mission and brought forward an idea that speaks the same language we all use online: playful, curious, and a little mischievous.”
I’ve always been a big fan of Dionne Warwick and a fan of Burt Bacharach & Hal David tunes. So what a treat to stumble upon this YouTube clip of Dionne singing her Bacharach hit “Walk On By” on the roof of the Paris headquarters of Radio France in 1964. Je l’aime tellement.
If the video refuses to launch in your browser, please click on this link.
One of the earliest works by the American parodist Guy Wetmore Carryl, this collection of fables are adapted from Jean de La Fontaine’s Aesop-style originals from more than 200 years earlier. Carryl’s light-hearted re-tellings are rendered in verse, each ending without fail with a moral and a (normally dubious) pun. This particular edition benefits also from a series of illustrations by the wonderful Peter Newell. As well as this take off of Fontaine, Carryl also leant his parodying pen to Grimm’s Fairy Tales, including “How Little Red Riding Hood Came To Be Eaten” and “How Fair Cinderella Disposed of Her Shoe”.
In a surprise move, the U.S. State Department has issued a safety warning for parts of Japan, a country that has long been considered one of the safest in the world to visit, because of an increase in bear attacks in the north of the country.
More than thirteen people have been killed by bears, and over 100 hundred seriously injured, so far in Japan this year. Recently, bear sighting in Maruyama Park in the northern city of Sapporo has led authorities there to close the park for two weeks. The U.S. Consulate in Sapporo, which is near Maruyama Park, issued the warning, noting that in addition to the park, bears have also been spotted in residential areas in Hokkaido and Akita prefectures.
The consulate advises U.S. citizens in the area to avoid the park during the closure (although the consulate remains open), be aware of their surroundings, and report any further sightings of bears to local authorities.
The bear warnings have not affected the travel advisory level for the country of Japan, which remains at Level 1 – Exercise Normal Precautions. This is the lowest level in the four-tier advisory system operated by the State Department, meaning that U.S. citizens visiting the country don’t need to take any additional steps outside of what they would normally do to ensure their safety and security abroad.
Like many countries, Japan uses a 12-month calendar. The names are very simple. January is literally “Month one” 一月, February is “Month two” 二月, etc.
However, before the Meiji Restoration (mid-1800s) it was common to use an older 12-month system. These months’ names referenced the weather and the seasons.
December is 師走.
The kanji:
師 = teacher or religious mentor. In this case it means “monk”.
走 = running
December is known as “師走 – Shiwasu” in Japanese. The word “師” refers to teachers, mentors, or those who serve as role models—leaders in Buddhism and Christianity, for instance. The word “走” means “to run.”
Why is December called Shiwasu? It is commonly said that even those who are usually calm and composed, like monks, are so busy in December that they seem to be running around.
One reason monks are particularly busy at the year’s end is the annual Buddhist ritual called Butsumyō-e, held in late December. This ceremony involves chanting the names of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, repenting for the sins committed during the year and praying for spiritual and physical purification.
While ordinary individuals can also participate in this ritual, for those who cannot, monks travel to various temples to perform it on their behalf.
In addition to such ceremonies, many families honor their ancestors during the New Year period, which adds to the concentrated activity. This custom seems to have become the more prominent reason for the busyness of the year-end season in modern times.
炬燵（こたつ Kotatsu) :
Even today in Japan, many households bring out their kotatsu to keep warm. A kotatsu is a heating device consisting of a frame (known as kotatsu-yagura or kotatsu-desk) placed on the floor or tatami mats, with a heat source inside and covered with a blanket to create a cozy, localised warm space.
The history of the kotatsu dates back approximately 600 years to the Muromachi period. At that time, Japanese people used built-in hearths called irori to stay warm. It is said that the kotatsu originated when people placed clothing over these hearths to warm their feet.
Metroteka is a concept that is both simple and exciting for readers and book lovers. Warsaw Poland’s Metro now houses more than 16,000 books in an accessible free lending library exclusively for transit passengers. Separated into reading zones for adults and children, a “borrow a laptop” desk for those who’d rather work than binge, and a chill-out café-style space with hot beverages.
A special feature in the library is a hydroponic garden wall of fresh herbs and flowers (basil, oregano, nasturtiums, and pansies) right inside the station. It’s not just aesthetic flair, but food for thought (literally and metaphorically), as the library team plans to use it as a conversation piece about sustainability.
In an era when so many commutes are synonymous with screen time, be that on phones, tablets, or even laptops, the Metroteka takes a gentle “what if we did things differently?” approach. The local library team says the dream is for the space to become “an educational and cultural center, and not just a place where you borrow your books from.”
Travel Between The Pages 