I didn’t get through many books this month but the ones I did read were pleasingly varied. And I wrote three whole book reviews! I know it isn’t quite the old blogging days of posting two or three times a week.

Now that the days are longer and the weather better, I’m trying to cycle more again. I’d like to do more long bike trips this year. In the hope it will inspire me, I have subscribed to Emily Chappell’s newsletter Unfinished Journeys. She’s a great writer, and once a month she recommends a book so my list of books to buy is ever-growing.

Next week is Easter, when we get a four-day weekend here in the UK. Every year, Tim spends those four days gaming with friends, while I spend them mostly reading. I’ll squeeze in some time with family and friends too but I am looking forward to my mini readathon.

Continue reading “March 2023 reading round-up”

I mostly hibernated in February. Usually with the dog snuggled up next to me or on my feet. Which is lovely but I also feel guilty that I left the house so little. It’s not unrelated that spring seems to be just barely getting started a month later than usual this year.

There is one new thing in my life – I’ve started playing D&D! About 18 years after Tim started playing D&D and telling me how great it is, I’m finally giving it a try. Two sessions in, I really enjoy it.

And now it’s March. Happy St David’s Day.

Continue reading “February 2023 reading round-up”

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”

It’s a few days late, but I have finally picked my favourite books from the last year. They include the second book I read in 2021 and the last one I read, so it’s a good thing I did wait until the year was well and truly over!

In total I read 67 books last year. Only 8 were in translation and, despite good intentions, only 4 were by African authors, so I will try to improve on those stats this year. That said, 17 were non-fiction, including several that I loved, so working towards that has been positive for me.

But the real question is: which were my favourites? I tried really hard to whittle it down to a top five, but just couldn’t so here are my top six reads of 2021, in no particular order.

Continue reading “Top reads of 2021”

A better reading month than October, but I still need to pick up the pace if I’m going to hit that arbitrary target I set myself on Goodreads of 65 books. It’s achievable but it might rely quite heavily on the week’s holiday I have for Christmas!

November alternated between miserably cold and wet, and gloriously sunny but still cold. Beckett and I have kept up our weekly run together and our extra long walks every Sunday morning, but we’re spending more of our evenings and weekends curled up on the sofa. Sometimes Tim joins us too and Beckett is in doggy heaven wedging herself between us.

My favourite book this month was Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith but everything I read was great, which is nice. My top films this month were Harriet and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. My favourite new discovery in TV land is Feel Good. From tomorrow my TV and film choices will be decidedly Christmassy, which may lead to a drop in quality. Or maybe not…

Continue reading “November 2021 reading round-up”

Oh dear, I only finished two books this month and neither was very big. I did have a really bad cold that meant I spent a week mostly watching The Mindy Project and failing to read anything at all. I am currently halfway through three books and gave up on another that I was struggling with. But I was still surprised when I checked Goodreads and saw my October stats.

I did watch the usual quota of films, my top picks being Moxie and Summer of Soul.

Anyway, I’m over the cold and currently away in Devon for a long weekend with Tim, Beckett and our good friend Tushna, so I think things are looking up. Hopefully.

Continue reading “October 2021 reading round-up”