Reviews and other ramblings
We started the month on holiday in Paris, then spent the rest of it hiding from the miserable rain and wind back home in Bristol. On the plus side I’ve read some excellent books and watched most of a fun new K-drama series called Marry My Husband.
Happy St David’s Day and here’s to spring coming soon.
Continue reading “February 2024 reading round-up”
This was a great month for reading, a mixed month in other respects. I mean, it started with my birthday and is ending with a holiday in Paris so it’s certainly not a bad month.
I’ve also watched some excellent films this month, including Poor Things at the cinema. It is honestly so dark and strange, I would only recommend it if you have a high tolerance for weird. But if that’s you, I hope you love it like I did.
We’ve come to Paris for the massive Rothko retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, which is impressive. But Rothko is really Tim’s thing so in return I made him go to the Catacombs, which I enjoyed a lot. We have eaten a lot of excellent food and the sunsets from our hotel room balcony have been beautiful. Plus the roof terrace is a great spot for reading.
Happy February!
Continue reading “January 2024 reading round-up”
As I mentioned in my December reading round-up last week, 2023 was an odd year for me. I feel more in need of the arbitrary fresh start of a new year than I can remember for a very long time.
However, “odd” doesn’t mean all bad, and among my highlights were some truly great books. According to Storygraph I read 81 books and gave 5 of them the maximum rating of 5 (though the ratings are a gut reaction when I finish the book and don’t always match which books I’m still enthusing about months later). My most-read genres were literary, contemporary, LGBTQIA+ and classics – so no surprises there. My average book size was 240 pages and the mood of the books got darker over the course of the year (the mood is based on aggregate “light” or “dark” ratings from readers so isn’t necessarily an accurate reflection of what I thought of a book’s mood).
But I know what you’re here for is my favourite reads of 2023. So with the usual caveat that these are chosen from books I read in 2023, not necessarily published last year, here goes…
Continue reading “My top books of 2023 and reading goals”
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!
Continue reading “December 2023 reading round-up”
We spent most of October in a slightly chaotic state having some building work done on our house. I did not appreciate getting up extra early and doing extra cleaning for three and a half weeks but it is satisfying to have finally fixed some big problems. We still have a long list of redecorating tasks and Christmas is scarily close so there’s that to plan too. Adulting is hard.
Roll on November.
Continue reading “October 2023 reading round-up”
September has been full, and exhausting. I finally got the tattoo I had planned for my 40th birthday present to myself. Emily Ingman at 555 Studios in Bradford-on-Avon did a beautiful job, I am so happy with it.
Work got busy, plus we started a big building project on our house, but somehow I managed to get through eight books this month. They were a varied bunch too, and not a dud among them.
On TV we devoured Poker Face (soooooo good). We’re now partway through The Power, based on the Naomi Alderman book, which was one of my top reads of 2021 so I think it’s a good start that I’m not constantly comparing the TV show with the book, I’m just sitting back and enjoying it.
Continue reading “September 2023 reading round-up”
August was another mixed month. We had a lovely holiday and two weekends away. Tim and I celebrated 21 years together. I went to the cinema twice, three and a half years after my last trip to the big screen (Spider-Man Across the Multiverse and Oppenheimer – I would have liked to add Barbie to the list but haven’t managed to find the time). We also squeezed in a few long bike rides – both on holiday and back home in Bristol.
On the book front, there were no real standouts this month and I definitely bought more books than I read. Oops.
Continue reading “August 2023 reading round-up”
July has been a strange month. There was a lot of rain. Some very good things happened in our lives and some really bad stuff too.
Bristol Pride was incredible, I am so happy to have marched in the parade with Tim and a lot of our friends. The bi flag painted on my eyelids might have been a bit subtle for most people to catch but the two metre inclusive Pride flag I wore as a cape was not. Apparently 25,000 people joined the march, plus a few dogs – including Beckett. Who did very well considering she’s not a big fan of crowds or noise. But she’s also not a fan of being left home alone for four hours. I think we made the right choice.
I read quite a lot this month (though three of the books were tiny). Without question my favourite read was Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, which is awesome and I shall now recommend to absolutely everyone.
Continue reading “July 2023 reading round-up”
The weather is glorious, every weekend is packed with activity, but somehow I still managed to read 8 books in June. Possibly because the long, light evenings are perfect for sitting in the garden with a book and my dog. I like summer.
This month we went to our first gig in three and a half years (Arrested Development! They were great!). We went to Cornwall with a bunch of friends. I started doing longer bike rides again. And I finally went to the fancy thermae spa in Bath, after only 16 years of living a 12-minute train ride away. It was fancy. And so relaxing.
June is Pride month so I tried to make at least some of my reading Pride-related. I discovered I had a surprisingly small number of LGBTQIA books in my TBR so I bought quite a lot of new books this month too – some from my own wishlist and some bookseller recommendations at indie bookshops. We have a wealth of them now locally. One of my projects for this year is to visit all the new bookshops in Bristol.
Continue reading “June 2023 reading round-up”
Suddenly, it’s summer and we’re trying to do all the things all the time. It’s fun and exhausting. We had our first barbecue of the year. I started reading in the garden at lunchtimes and after work.
Yay for sunshine and friends. Happy summertime.
Continue reading “May 2023 reading round-up”