What's with today, today?

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...

A very late write up of a year that I can see contained a lot of graphic novels/comics, some fantasy and only two non-fiction books ( A Burglar's Guide to the City and The Book that Made Me ). From a year or so on, the ones that I think were my favourites are The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss and A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I loved Sarah Moss' Night Waking a few years ago and The Tidal Zone has many of the elements that I enjoyed- a somewhat wry narrative voice, an interest in the way we relate to the past from the present and the inclusion of history, as well as some interesting family dynamics.  The Tidal Zone  deals with the way people reconstruct life after a catastrophe, in the reconstruction of Coventry Cathedral and the recovery of the protagonist's daughter from a sudden collapse. A Gentleman in Moscow is a fairly gentle and charming book about a member of the Russian aristocracy who gets stuck living in a fancy hotel at the advent of the revolution. ...

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...

The Bookshop Book- Jen Campbell Lila-  Marilynne Robinson The Wise Man's Fear- Patrick Rothfuss The Sleeper and the Spindle- Neil Gaiman The Strange Library- Haruki Murakami Atlas Shrugged- Ayn Rand The Hare with the Amber Eyes- Edmund de Waal The Age of Magic- Ben Okri Unmade- Sarah Rees Brennan Station Eleven- Emily St John Mandel The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her own Making- Catherynne M. Valente Still Alice- Lisa Genova Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo- Ntozake Shange The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam- Ann Marie Fleming A Month in the Country- J.L. Carr Lagoon- Nnedi Okorafor Connecting with Law- Michelle Sanson On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays- AS Byatt The Girl Who Was Saturday Night- Heather O'Neill The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There- Catherynne M. Valente Lucky Us- Amy Bloom At Home: A Short History of Private Life- Bill Bryson The Ape Who Guards the Balance- Elizabeth Peters Some Kind of Fair...

Just because my blog has been pretty quiet this year doesn't mean you won't get my annual list of books finished for the first time this year! All 78 of them. This year I think I read more non-fiction than usual (and later I might check the stats to see if that's true). There was an interesting selection, with everything from deciphering Linear B, the history of the crossword, pop music in the 20th century, memoirs of people who fled Nazi Germany and books about Sydney (personal and historical). The other theme is really recent books- so many books I read this year seem to have been written in 2013 or 2014. I think I might try to balance that with some older books next year. Other than that, my top picks of the year: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which I reviewed in detail earlier, but suffice to say it was one of the first books I read this year and still a favourite. In short: it's a great book about the way the world is today, and race and gender and glo...

No blog post at all for August is a pretty poor effort (and now September as well! eek!) but I have a good excuse, honest! I was away on holidays for a couple of weeks, and between planning and packing and traveling and unpacking I've been kept pretty busy. So what did I do on my holidays you ask? View from the Empire State Building Well, I travelled to North America for the first time, and I got to see New York, Vancouver and Whistler (as well as a friend who I rarely get to see- which was a treat). I stayed in New York with a couple of friends from uni, and met up with my school friend in Canada (where she now lives). On a mountain in Whistler It's a bit hard to sum up travel quickly, as I've discovered anew after getting back and trying to answer the inevitable question: "how was your trip?" It was great, New York was very big, Canada had lots of mountains, you know the deal. And in any case I feel like I've shared so many photos on social medi...

I've been on a bit of a kick lately of reading about pop music and number one singles. I've been finding it fascinating, so I'm sharing some links here here on the off-chance that you do, too. Down the internet rabbit-hole we go... It all started a few years ago when I stumbled across a music column in The Vine by Tim Byron, reviewing the latest Australian number one single. Usually, the column looks at what makes a song so popular- what are it's hooks? Themes? Cultural context? And what makes the song- it's influences and so on. Tim Byron is a music writer but also apparently a psychology lecturer, and he often seems to have interesting things to say about the singles, and treats them with a certain respect. Which is one of the reasons why I was so interested when he mentioned his new podcast... 90 percent hits  is a podcast (and blog- their tumblr is well worth checking out) about all the number one singles in Australia in the 1990s (the period that my gene...

Simon posted a fun meme over at Stuck-in-a-book the other day- he assigns a random letter and you have to pick some of your favourites that start with that letter. And my letter is N! Let's do this. Favourite book... number9dream - David Mitchell Image from Google Books This book made me really fall in love with the writing of David Mitchell- and still my favourite. Although Cloud Atlas is also amazing! And I can't believe it but it took me a while to think of it...   Favourite author... E. Nesbit Image from Wikipedia I grew up with Five Children and It , The Phoenix and the Carpet and so on, but most of all with The Railway Children. My siblings and I read the book, and watched the movie, multiple times. E. Nesbit will always have a special place in my heart! Favourite song...   No Light, No Light - Florence and the Machine Because I love Florence and the Machine! Though I have to say it was a toss up between this and No Aphrodi...

  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...

I'm more of a library borrower than a book buyer generally, so you don't see many of these posts, but on the weekend I finally got around to using a (very old) book voucher at Gleebooks , and I thought I'd share the results! Bad quality photo- but beautiful books The Man Within - Graham Greene Honestly the only reason I picked this was 1) it cost the right amount to use up the last few dollars of my book voucher, 2) I really loved my Graham Greene reading last year and 3) I was in a bit of a hurry by this point. I actually know nothing about this book, so that could be interesting. The back cover suggests its a courtroom drama about smuggling? Intriguing... Broken Homes - Ben Aaronovitch The latest in the Peter Grant series- urban fantasy/crime books set in London. The main character is a policeman and apprentice wizard. I've mentioned these before, here and briefly here (I thought I'd written something longer somewhere, but my search doesn't seem t...

Now I'm back from my beach holiday, back at work, and 2014 is officially underway, it's finally time to write about some of my favourite books and authors from last year. And I'll try to keep it brief! Authors Graham Greene I read Greene's The End of the Affair in 2012, and I liked it but wasn't sure whether I loved it or not.  But I read Our Man in Havana this year pretty much fell in love with it (thanks for the recommendation litlove! ). This inspired me to read more Greene, so I read The Quiet American next. Despite this being a more serious book, they both have certain similarities- not least that they both touch on espionage, politics, love and Catholicism. Really enjoyed both of them, will look out for more in future! Robin McKinley Having heard recommendations for Robin McKinley (particularly Sunshine and Beauty ) for years, but only got around to reading them last year, after another recommendation for Sunshine. And it was worth it! I really enj...