One of the things I like about having my birthday right at the beginning of the year is that I always get to start the year with new books. Whether that means I’m given books (I generally am) or I buy them for myself because I’m allowed to treat myself on my birthday (I often do), new year equals new books. Which is awesome. Here’s this year’s haul.

So that’s:

Hermione by Hilda Doolittle
Ghost Children by Sue Townsend
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith
The Optician of Lampedusa by Emma Jane Kirby
The Colossus by Sylvia Plath
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Five on Brexit Island
The Ladybird Book of the Meeting
Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky
The GCHQ Puzzle Book
Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard

Yes – a couple of those are joke presents. I’m not sure I’m ready yet to find Brexit funny, but we’ll see how it goes. I am looking forward to reading most of these and I’ve already started the puzzle book. It’s really challenging.

In addition, Tim bought me this super-geeky book-related present. That’s a set of notebooks designed to look like the 10 novels featured in the computer game Firewatch. It’s a really beautiful, emotionally affecting game that Tim and I played together last year and I highly recommend it. The books aren’t all that relevant to the plotline, they’re just fun things to find and read the ridiculous back-cover blurbs on. It’s also ridiculous that someone out there turned this into a boxset of notebooks but I kinda love that they did.

Finally, one of my birthday treats was a trip to our local comic shop where we bought a ridiculous number of comics. I’ll be reading and reviewing some of them soon.

How’s your new year going so far?