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.

Continue reading “January 2023 reading round-up”

We didn’t have the greatest December, or the most relaxing end to the year. I’m looking forward to a few days of doing very little before the new year starts in earnest. We did manage a few lovely walks in the woods; put up some Christmas decorations to make the house feel more cheerful on the long dark evenings; and treated ourselves to a lot of chocolatey and alcoholic tasty things. And the dog and I made the most of our one day of snow here in Bristol.

This month I finished a couple of books I spent all year reading in short segments, making it look like I read my usual amount, rather than a fair bit less than I’d hoped to. My favourite read of the month – and a contender for my top 10 of the year – was All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes.

Continue reading “December 2022 reading round-up”

November started out far too warm (when looked at from a climate crisis perspective rather than personal comfort) and ended super cold. In two weeks we flipped from no central heating and light sweaters, to all-day central heating, thick jumpers and blankets everywhere we sit.

Reading-wise it was an excellent month. Every book was great, with my favourite probably being How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee (though it was tough to choose a favourite). I did a book swap with a friend so I’m now alternating borrowed books with TBR titles. It was meant to stop me from buying new books for a while but I slipped up and bought two of the little Faber Stories series in the Barbican gift shop.

Speaking of which: I went to London! For the first time since very early 2020. And it felt like I’d never been away. Not that nothing had changed, but I expect London to be in constant flux. I even went on the shiny new Elizabeth Line on the Tube, which is indeed very shiny still. The main highlight was seeing my friend H for lots of chitchat, hugs, food and boozing. But we also squeezed in trips to the Vagina Museum and the Barbican Arts Centre, because we are very cultural. I highly recommend both. They’re opposite ends of the spectrum, inasmuch as the Vagina Museum is pretty small and I suspect most visitors spend less than an hour there. While the Barbican is enormous and could occupy you and your whole extended family for days.

Top films this month were probably See How They Run (period comedy mystery about a murder in the theatre staging Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap) and Thor: Love and Thunder. We’re also very much enjoying the TV show The Peripheral, which is based on a William Gibson book that Tim and I went to a launch event for but neither of us has yet read. That pesky TBR just keeps on growing.

Continue reading “November 2022 reading round-up”