What's with today, today?

 It's taken me almost to the end of January to start on this, but it's time for the annual book list for 2025! As always, this is the list of new (to me) books I finished in the year. Last year it was 63- but I feel that a significant proportion of those were books read to kids and graphic novels I read after my 10 year old brought them home from the library. In other words, not a particularly impressive personal reading list. I also reread around 5 books, I think these were all books I read to the kids- including a bunch of Chrestomanci books which is always a pleasure. So, to the summary! Shortest book was Cairn by Kathleen Jamie. She writes such beautiful essay collections, about life and nature and the world. This is a blend of essays and poetry- and this is I think one of the sadder collections of hers, with the sense of seeing the effects of climate change really starting to hit home, and a sort of grief over that, and about getting older. Longest book was Swallowdale b...

 Happy new year! As is tradition, my round up of reading for the year that was. In total, the number of (new to me) books that I read in 2024 was 83, up again on last year. When I was doing my 20 year book stats I got curious about re-reads- what would be my most re-read book? So for this year I can tell you I also reread 9 books, these were mainly childhood favourites that I read to the kids, as well as the complete Scott Pilgrim and Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers , which I just read last year but saw in the library and thought "why not read it in physical copy, since I read it in eBook form last time?" But as usual my list will not include rereads. And I got to read my kids The Railway Children , which was a joy for all of us and also made me cry. Anyway, let's get into it! Shortest book was The Great British Bump-Off by John Allison at 112 pages- I have been reading his comics since I discovered Scary-Go-Round in my uni days and they are always a t...

Onto the final post in this short series! Where we find out: who are the writers of these books? Well, for starters, they are mostly women. Overall, 60% of the books I read were written by women (and that doesn't count those that were written by both men and women). But I had a hypothesis that this had changed over time- that I started off reading more books by men but now a large majority of the books I read are written by women. Time to test it out with a graph! And the graph shows that is broadly true (for reference, the 'other' category includes books written by a combination of genders, books were the authors gender is unknown, and non-binary authors). In 2003 61% of the books I read were written by men- and for the next 5 years it hovered around 50/50. In 2010 the proportion written by women started to climb, and many years after that it's hovered around 60% women (though there were a few 50/50 years in 2012, 2016 and 2017). The most gender-unbalanced year was 201...

Now for the interesting bits- what were the actual books that I read? What were they like? It's hard to summarise of course, but I'll do my best. Genre Probably surprising no-one, 90% of the books I read were fiction. Or 89% if you exclude poetry. I wasn't sure which genre would end up top though- I was a big fantasy reader, read an increasing number of murder mysteries (though still love fantasy!) as well as literary fiction, and generally like to read a bunch of different things. I classified the books by genre- but some things fit in more than one category, so they're not mutually exclusive. And some things are hard to define! Genre boundaries are slippery. But this is what I came up with. Feel free to disagree with these categories. Literary fiction, Crime and Fantasy are practically tied at the top there, with literary fiction just ahead. Literary fiction is perhaps the hardest genre to define (it can get contentious!) but I'm interested that it came out on top...

 I realised last year that I started keeping a record of the books I read way back in 2003- which means that 2023 marked 20 years of tracking my books! Also equalling my whole adult life. I started writing them down in the back of my year planner, then added them to my blog as well, and then moved from pen and paper to Librarything and then Goodreads. Sadly in the pen and paper era I managed to completely lose 2009, so now at the end of 2023 (technically now we are in the start of 2024 I know) I have 20 years worth of lists. I thought that I should mark the occasion somehow, and what better way than to put all those books into a spreadsheet and run some numbers? Maybe make a few graphs? Can't think of anything better! The numbers So this is the big question, I guess, how many books did I manage to read in 20 years? I think this needs a little introduction... So way back in 2003 I really wanted to keep track of which books I had read and hadn't read. But it seemed vain to me to ...

Happy new year to all! As is tradition, here's a round up of last year's reading. It's a pretty long list (for me) this year, 75 books, but the numbers feel a little arbitrary- this includes a couple of books I read to my kids, but not the super short ones, where is the cut off line anyway? And as always it doesn't include re-reads. I don't think I had many re-reads, apart from getting to read The Secret Garden, Ballet Shoes and The Borrowers to the kids. Excited for even more to come! Shortest book Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada, a novel made up of a series of short and very strange vignettes about a man and his best friends, also their relationships and the main character's struggle to have a baby. But also aquariums, weasels, snow storms and soup. It's an unsettling book but also in a way mundane. Longest book   Stories from the Little Beach Street Bakery: An Omnibus Edition by Jenny Colgan. A cozy romance comfort read that I enjoyed very much-...

In summary, I read 72 books in 2022- the highest number since 2014. I have officially reached pre-child reading levels. I feel that must mean I've been neglecting other aspects of my life. But oh well, because what a lot of good books I've gotten to read!  Longest book All Clear by Connie Willis. I love her time travel books and read her duology set in WWII in England, Blackout and All Clear , this year. She does write pretty chunky books! Great if you love immersive and detailed historical settings, but can mess with the pacing. She maintains the tension throughout the whole 800 pages of All Clear  (and Blackout as well), though. Shortest book Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire is a brief novella based on a school for children who have been to fairytale worlds and then returned, and have to cope with the real world. A fascinating concept, and I've been wanting to read it for a while, though in the end I had mixed feelings about it. It's a strange book that doe...

 Well, once again that was a year. But the worse the years get, the more books I read, so here's what I read in 2021. 56 new books all up, almost back to pre-kid reading levels!  Longest book Caliban's War by James A. Corey part of an epic sci-fi series ('The Expanse' series). My friend recommended these and ended up buying me the first one so that I would read it- they are a lot of fun! And occasionally irritating. But mostly very fun. Shortest book And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou. Ironically I think this took me longer to read- I'm pretty sure I started it in 2020. But it's a poetry collection so I dipped in and out. I'm glad to have read it. Iconic. Oldest Book this is also And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou (1978). I read mostly pretty recent books this year. Newest book I think this goes to The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik, September 2021. The cliffhangers in this series are intense, it's a must read as soon as it comes out! Reading themes I we...

Well it's good to be finished with 2020 isn't it? I read a lot more again in 2020 (42 books)- it was a good year to get lost in a good book. On top of these new books, I also reread the Harriet Vane and Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy Sayers, for comfort reading. Shortest book Little Witch Academia (176 pages) vs Longest Book The Mirror and the Light (883 pages). Oldest book if I counted rereads it would be Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers (1930), other The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip (1976), while the newest book is close to a tie between A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik and Piranesi by Susanna Clark, both published in September 2020. Reading themes  In the middle of the year I read a couple of non-fiction books which I roughly categorised as about 'the North'- Names for the Sea by Sarah Moss (a British writer writing about Iceland) and Findings by Kathleen Jamie (a Scottish writer writing largely about Scotland). Other than that I found myself readi...

Happy new year one and all! Time to look back over the reading year that was 2019. This was the highest number of new books read of any year since I had my first baby, so that seems like a positive thing! 36 books- not huge but I did feel like I had some time to read this year. So what was 2019 like? Let's break it down: Longest book - Lethal White by Robert Galbraith vs shortest book - Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise by Katherine Rundell. Shortest book wins here- it was a charming and pithy essay extolling the virtues of children's literature. Lethal White was the latest installment in a detective series that seems to be losing its way, or rather the author has different opinions on where it should go than I do. Reading themes I feel like a large part of the year was dominated by Dodie Smith. It started when I read 'Guard Your Daughters' by Diana Tutton, a book which I'd seen compared to 'I Capture the Cast...

Here it is- the full list of books finished for the first time in 2018, with favourites starred: Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh *Mirror Sydney: An Atlas of Reflections by Vanessa Berry Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee Hollow City by Ransom Riggs *Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O'Porter Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan Awkward by Svetlana Chmakova Goose by Dawn O'Porter Autumn by Ali Smith Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York by Luc Sante A Rare Book of Cunning Device by Ben Aaronovitch The Shepherd's Hut by Tim Winton *Nevermoor: The Tales of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend *My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout Snotgirl Vol. 1: Green Hair, Don't Care by Bryan Lee O'Malley *To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis *Doomsday Book by Connie Willis *Eleanor Oliphant is Completely F...