Antarctica by Claire Keegan

December Book Club

It’s the last book club post of 2025. Haven’t we read some marvellous books? Book Club posts are for paid subscribers. A monthly subscription costs less than the small block of Taleggio cheese I just bought. I don’t have a joke about why my newsletter is like cheese - I think both are good for different things. Thanks to all the subs who have read along with the choices this year, I hope to see you again in the comments in 2026!

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Antarctica is a collection of short stories by the Irish writer Claire Keegan. She of the Small Things Like These phenomenon - the shortest book to ever be nominated for The Booker Prize, which was then made into a film with Cillian Murphy that I can’t bring myself to watch. I actually think about her other novella So Late in the Day more than I think about Small Things Like These - perhaps it’s because I heard it narrated by Keegan herself. She’s surely a writer I’d read anything by, though I haven’t read Foster yet. I bought Antarctica a while ago, which is why I own the strange cat paperback, instead of the much prettier hardback that was recently re-issued, but I hadn’t gotten around to reading it until now. I advised you last month to try and leave gaps between reading the stories - to treat them as entire meals rather than snacks, or like days on an advent calendar. I hope you didn’t binge them all in one go…