I know it’s more than a month since I posted a book review, and I will get caught up on that soon. But I have been spending my free evenings going through the thousands of photos I took in Japan, so that I can give holiday slide shows to friends and family who visit. They may or may not want a holiday slide show, but they’re getting one!

Anyway, as usual, between Christmas and my birthday I have gained a huge stack of new books. Yay, new books! First up, my sister bought me the excellent selection above:

The New Life by Orhan Pamuk
After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
The Group by Mary McCarthy

Today, my Dad and his girlfriend visited and brought a whole stack of presents for Christmas and my birthday, including the giant pile of books above. (I particularly love that my Dad always buys the books from the start and end of my wishlist, so these are a combination of my most recent wants and books I wanted several years ago and remember nothing about.)

Historic Public Parks of Bristol by David Lambert
Are Women Human? by Dorothy L Sayers
The End of the Story by Lydia Davis
Jigsaw by Sybille Bedford
The Last Family in England by Matt Haig
The Power by Naomi Alderman
I’d Die for You and Other Stories by F Scott Fitzgerald
Siracusa by Delia Ephron
The Aristos by John Fowles
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

As if the above weren’t enough new books, yesterday we went to Bath and happened to find ourselves round the corner from Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, which is my favourite bookshop. I couldn’t not go in. And once I was in, I couldn’t not buy any books. After an hour of browsing, of course.

The Book of Tbilisi edited by Gvantska Jobava and Becca Parkinson
Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami
Litmus: Short Stories from Modern Science edited by Ra Page

My TBR is groaning at the gills, it’s so swollen right now. I think I should try to steer clear of bookshops for a few months. And maybe starting my year’s reading with the substantially sized Anna Karenina wasn’t the smartest way to reduce the pile, but I am surprised by how easy it is to read. And next after that, I have 133 choices!