I usually quite like January. It includes my birthday, for one thing. The concept of a fresh start is a nice idea, even if I rarely make any real change. Lots of people take a month off socialising so there’s good reason to stay at home reading books, watching TV and playing games. And though it’s still winter, the days are getting longer, the first spring flowers are coming through, and really not much can beat a crisp dry sunny winter day.

However, this month has been mostly grey and wet. There’s been a resurgence of COVID to add to all the other winter bugs doing the rounds, so half the people I know have been unwell or still are. And we said a final goodbye to my grandad, who died at the end of December. So it’s not been the best January.

My reading was, perhaps appropriately, mixed. I started strong, with a book I knew I would love – Taste by Stanley Tucci. I ended the month with another real-life tale, a story far more extraordinary but not as well written: A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea by Melissa Fleming. The difference? It wasn’t told by its protagonist, and there was no good reason for that. It distanced me from what should have been an incredibly powerful experience. Ah well. Not every book can be a winner.

I also watched the usual large quantity of films and TV. The last two films I saw were the best: The Wonder – a period drama on Netflix starring the ever-excellent Florence Pugh – and Apocalypse Now: the Final Cut. The former is a fantastically strange, thoughtful film. While the latter is of course completely unhinged, that being the point it is making. War is insane, full of pointless suffering and death. And seriously, 14-year-old Laurence Fishburne is just as amazing as all the more experienced actors around him.

Books read

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
Tucci tells his life story through memories of meals, foods, cooking and eating. Despite his fame and years of worldwide travel, family and home seem to be hugely important to Tucci – and central to both, for him, is food. Reading this book is like a warm hug.

Serpentine by Philip Pullman
Another short story set in Lyra’s world. A few years after the His Dark Materials trilogy ends, Lyra and Pantalaimon head to the far north to visit an old friend. This fills in a little lore that’s interesting, but it wasn’t meaty or elegant enough to be especially impressive.

She’s In CTRL: How Women Can Take Back Tech by Anne-Marie Imafidon
Imafidon is a computer scientist who runs a charity to encourage girls and non-binary young people to get into STEM. She also speaks at events about getting more women and people of colour into tech. This book is her step-by-step guide to encourage women who are nervous of tech to give it a try. I’ve reviewed this for Physics World.

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
Combining fantasy and sci-fi, this is the story of a witch and an engineer who meet as teenagers, when they save each other from being friendless. They reconnect as adults, but this time their interactions quite literally hold the fate the world/humanity. This was a really lovely read, highly recommend.

Glittering City by Cyprian Ekwensi
A short story from the Penguin Modern series. In 1960s Lagos, we meet Fussy Joe – a charming lothario who breaks hearts and can’t be trusted. I quite enjoyed this glimpse of Nigeria in the sixties, and Fussy Joe is just the right balance of good and bad to enjoy his company for 60 pages.

Brown Baby: a Memoir of Race, Family and Home by Nikesh Shukla
Bristol writer Shukla’s memoir is addressed to his young daughters. He writes about growing up in a racist country that pretends not to be; how to be a feminist and LGBTQIA ally; parenting and family life; grief over the death of his mother; becoming a writer when his whole extended family was rooting for him to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. This is an excellent book, funny and touching.

A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: the Journey of Doaa Al Zamel by Melissa Fleming
I’m a little unsure how to feel about this book. Fleming is a UNHCR bigwig and she wanted to draw attention to the plight of refugees by highlighting one true story. The one she chose is a doozy. Doaa had certainly been through the wringer by the time Fleming met her. But I have two quibbles. Doaa should have been enabled to tell her own story, rather than it being relayed third person by someone who isn’t a professional writer. And the choice of Doaa is so very calculated to hit all the “right” notes to play on pity and concern.