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...

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...

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...

It turns out that having a baby had a very large impact on my reading (and I didn't even manage to write up my annual booklist for 2015 until now!). Apparently I read 63 books in 2015, and 21 in 2016. As someone who thinks of herself as a reader, it was a disorienting year, and one in which I went for large periods of time without even a book on the go. I think not commuting was maybe as big a factor as the actual baby. Whatever the case, 2016 was a lean year for books, and one in which murder mysteries and graphic novels are strongly represented. It wasn't even a strong year in terms of the books themselves, but there were good ones as always. Snow by Orhan Pamuk was probably my favourite, it was refreshing to get stuck into it and be reminded of the power of books. It was also transporting and an interesting insight into Turkey and its religious tensions. Although I have to say that maybe three quarters of the way in it started to drag a bit, and lose some direction to my m...

  Just stopped in to return some books to the library the other day, and ended up taking an armful home with me- I couldn't resist posting about them. I've added to the haul with a book from the library where I work (is it excessive being a member of 2 libraries? I don't even care). So here's what I've got lined up: The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith Well, if I'm honest I've read this one already. I didn't blog straight away and it was just too good not too finish. Though I had no real desire to read J.K. Rowling's first book after Harry Potter, The Casual Vacancy, I'd heard good things about her pseudonymous foray into fiction. I really loved the set-up to this book- I feel like there aren't enough private detectives in modern mysteries and Cormoran Strike is a good one, complete with personal demons and dingy office. I also loved his secretary, Robin, and I think these characters really made the book. Though for some reas...

So this blog has been a bit neglected lately, much as I try to at least update it monthly, BUT this time I've written something elsewhere on the Internet. It's for Kate's blog Women on the Shelf , which is a blog about books written by women. There are a whole lot of different things by different contributors, and I've written a review of Luminaries by Eleanor Catton . Spoiler: I loved it.

I've been meaning to write about this a while, but have been wondering how I can do it justice. The first thing I read by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was this short story online- ' Jumping Monkey Hill ' (which I found on A Striped Armchair), and I think it was a good introduction. There are a lot of the same themes that crop up in her novels (at least the two I've read) and especially in Americanah - she takes on race and colonialism and identity, as well as the idea of authenticity. The real greatness in her writing, I think, is that it tackles these themes in a thought-provoking, confronting and not at all tired way. I read Purple Hibiscus last year and enjoyed it, would highly recommend it, but for me Americanah is a stand-out book. Americanah is the story of two Nigerian high-school sweethearts- Ifemelu and Obinze- who are separated when Ifemelu moves to America for college and Obinze is unable to get a visa to follow her. Instead, he ends up spending some time in t...