Another year is over. It’s been a strange one. This month has been wet and grey, which at least had the side effect of giving me time to read nine books (admittedly four of them were trade paperbacks of comic series).

I also watched a lot of Christmas films – most of them terrible, cheesy fare that I would not recommend at any other time of year. The best by far was The Apartment, which is Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine so really how can any other film compete?

As usual, I got a lovely tall stack of new books for Christmas. Because my loved ones know me well. I did a clearout of my TBR and library before Christmas to create some space so for now I can still fit all my books on shelves. But it is my birthday next week so they may well be spilling over again soon. It’s my favourite problem to have.

I failed to finish any of the three books I’m in the middle of for a nice, neat end to the year. But that does give me a headstart on my 2024 book count! I’ll post next week with my 2023 round-up. In the meantime, happy New Year!

Books read

The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler
I love Chandler’s books, his use of language delights me enough that it doesn’t matter when I find the plots either predictable or so twisty that I lose what’s happening. This was one of the examples where I guessed near the start how it would end, but I still really enjoyed the ride. PI Philip Marlowe is hired by rich businessman Mr Kingsley to find his wife, who went missing after saying she was going to Mexico with her boyfriend for a quickie divorce. Marlowe follows the trail to a small mountain town where he finds the dead body of a different man’s missing wife. He tries to untangle the cases – but are they inherently tangled?

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
This is the second Dresden Files novel, starring wizard detective Harry Dresden. I thought it might be a good follow-up to the Chandler novel but to be honest that just showed up its flaws. This is an entertaining novel, with some interesting worldbuilding, but it’s also kinda sexist and misogynist. Still, if you fancy a tale of werewolves doing crime in modern-day America, you might enjoy this.

Africa’s Tarnished Name by Chinua Achebe
One of Penguin’s mini books, this one comprises three essays by Achebe musing on his home continent and, in particular, his home country of Nigeria. He discusses Africa’s history, diversity, complexity as well as its reputation – and whether said reputation is deserved.

Saga Volume 11 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples
I still think this is a great series but must admit I’m losing the plot threads a little. There are so many characters to track over its 11 volumes, many of them with changing allegiances and motivations. It also deals with some pretty tough themes.

The Etymologicon: a Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language by Mark Forsyth
This non-fiction book has sat in my bathroom for months, to be dipped into for half-page bursts of light-hearted etymological learning. And that is its ideal environment. I enjoyed it a lot, and learned many fun facts. But, Forsyth provides zero references for his information so it’s harder to look up his more surprising, even outlandish claims. And I did find his circuitous writing style at times confusing. Certainly, very few of the word origins in this book have stayed with me. Plus, his style of humour is a tad old-fashioned, leaning too often on stereotypes that veer dangerously close to offensive.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
This novel is beautiful, thoughtful, original, packed with ideas that generate discussion. And yet I found it a bit too slow and ponderous at times to truly love it. Miri’s wife Leah has “come back different” after a deep sea research mission that overran by months. Leah seems weakened and barely eats, sleeps or speaks. Miri spends her days worrying and trying to get hold of the research centre behind the mission to find out what happened. Chapters alternate between Miri’s present and Leah’s journal of the mission itself. This structure would lend itself to a big revelation but the novel doesn’t answer most of its own questions. It’s left open to the reader’s interpretation.

Silk Volume 2: The Negative by Robbie Thompson, Stacey Lee, Tana Ford and Ian Herring
I really like the character of Silk/Cindy Moon (one of the newer Spider-people created in the run-up to the Spider-verse event) but Marvel has made it quite tough to follow her adventures separately. The Silk comic numbering has reset twice and in recent years she has appeared mostly outside her own series. This had the effect, in this collected volume at least, of making me feel I was missing part of the story (because I was). Still, this does resolve another of the mysteries about Silk’s past set up in volume 1 and introduces an intriguing new character, Spectro. I’m trying to catch up with the comics ahead of the Silk: Spider Society TV series, which is currently in production.

Silk Volume 3: The Clone Conspiracy by Robbie Thompson, Irene Strychalski, Tana Ford and Ian Herring
This volume works much better as a complete, contained story. In fact, it might not be a bad story arc for the TV show to introduce her properly, along the lines of the first season of the Jessica Jones TV show using the Purple Man storyline from the comics. Cindy Moon is working as a journalist for J Jonah Jameson and he invites her to go on a work trip together. But it turns out he’s got tangled up with a strange project to bring people back from the dead and Cindy’s spidey-sense tells her she should be worried – very worried.

Bitch Planet Volume 1: Extraordinary Machine by Kelly Sue Deconnick and Valentine De Landro
I really wanted to love this comic. It’s feminist, fairly inclusive and full of interesting ideas about a dystopia that’s very easy to believe in, where “non-compliant” women are shipped off to a prison planet. But it’s also really violent and, so far at least, hasn’t so much riffed on women-in-prison exploitation stories so much as added another one to the roster. I haven’t really got to know any characters yet and the plot has barely started, so perhaps it will get better in the next volume. But will there still be as much violence and gratuitous nudity?