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| Two of the many tsundokus fighting for my future attention |
In 2009 I read five books all year; in 2024 I read 55! The difference being of course that back then I was working, and almost all my reading was confined to briefs on the next work project, and going over my interview write ups. It has taken me several years in fact to finally accept that I am "retired" - it's been a slow, subliminal descent into "economic inactivity" - to use the Government's thinly disguised pejorative - due to structural changes in my field of industrial market research, compounded by the pandemic, and my own ill health in 2022.
The upside of this is the newfound freedom to read whenever I want, and not just on holiday, say. Even now, I still feel a bit guilty sitting down with a book in the middle of the day, and feel more comfortable reading at mealtimes or in the bath, when it counts as multi-tasking. Or in bed at night, when it counts as a form of sleep hygiene.
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| They're big, but not clever. |
I thought I would share the list of what I read in 2024, as it would give me vicarious pleasure to think of someone else enjoying a book as much as I did. My favourite genre is the psychological thriller, and I deliberately despatched a lot of those so I could give them away afterwards and clear some much needed space. As you can see from these photos, the tsundokus are taking over the front room. The flaw in my grand plan is that for every thriller I gave away, I'd see four more I fancied in a charity shop, so it is very much a case of one step forwards and four back. One day I may get a grip, and resist the allure of the bargain book, but between charity shop browsing and online purchases of used copies, that day may not come anytime soon.
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| Tsundoku containers that slide neatly under a chair |
Here and there I have consciously interspersed my usual fictional fare with what I perceive as a more "highbrow" or worthy tome, the 600+ page literary biography of Ted Hughes being the most obvious example of that. I did enjoy it, but it was very densely written and required a great deal of focus and commitment. I fear social media has atomised my attention span to the point where I am finding it harder to concentrate on a more challenging read. This year I will try to stretch myself again with more of these "difficult" books, perhaps with the allegedly easiest novel by Virginia Woolf, "The Years", or Hilary Mantel's memoir. I have left them in a prominent position on the coffee table to motivate me into picking them up.
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| Same tsundoku from another angle |
I shan't give the books from last year (none of which feature in the photos) stars or ratings of any kind, not least because I can't remember what some of them were about. I don't know if this is an age thing, but due to creeping cognitive decline of some sort I forget the plot of books almost as soon as I have read the ending - it can even occur when I am only part way through, haha, if there are numerous strands to the action or it has been a while since I last picked the book up. So I have decided to mark in bold type the 15 books I distinctly remember enjoying very much and would highly recommend. There will surely have been others, but 15 is a good number to settle on.
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| Under sofa stash, not even in a container! |
And oh look - two books called "Trespass"!
2024
Robyn Harding - The Party
James Bowen - A Street Cat Named Bob
Jonathan Coe - The House of Sleep
Lucy Atkins - The Night Visitor
Penelope Lively - How it All Began
Jean Ray - La Cité de l'Indicible Peur
Lucy Atkins - Magpie Lane
Michael Mosley - 4 Weeks to Better Sleep
Lucy Atkins - The Other Child
Rosie Walsh - The Man Who Didn't Call
Anne Enright - The Forgotten Waltz
C L Taylor - Sleep
J P Delaney - The Girl Before
Sally Rooney - Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Terry Darlington - Narrow Dog to Indian River**
Arlene Hunt - While She Sleeps
Rose Tremain - Trespass
Tony Hawks - A Piano in the Pyrenees
Harry Bingham - Talking to the Dead
Catherine Cooper - The Château
Alex Michaelides - The Silent Patient
Nicci French - Saturday Requiem
Catherine Cooper - The Chalet
Jon Ronson - Lost at Sea
Lucy Atkins - Windmill Hill
Paul Magrs - Puss in Books
Shaun Bythell - The Diary of a Bookseller
Michael Mosley - Covid-19
Kate Atkinson - Big Sky
Monica Heisy - really good, actually
Penelope Fitzgerald - The Bookshop
Jonathan Bate - Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life
Sarah Rayne - The Murderer inside the Mirror
Sally Vickers - The Librarian
Stig Abell - Death under a Little Sky
Richard Osman - The Thursday Murder Club
Louise Kennedy - Trespass
Erin Kelly - The Skeleton Key
Terry Darlington - Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier**
Hannah Jane Parkinson - The Joy of Small Things
Minette Walters - The Echo
Barbara Pym - Some Tame Gazelle
Peter Mayle - A Year in Provence (a re-read)
Jane Shilling - The Stranger in the Mirror (a re-read)
Hillary Waugh - Last Seen Wearing
Ursula Parrott - Ex-Wife
Peter Mayle- My Twenty-Five Years in Provence
Lisa Jewell - None of This is True
Nick Pettigrew - Anti-Social
Lucy Foley - The Guest List
Celia Imrie - Not Quite Nice
Cathy Kelly - Other Women
Lizzy Barber - My Name is Anna
Elizabeth Taylor - Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
Linda Green - While my Eyes were Closed
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| Bag for life temporary accommodation |
I should say I enjoyed everything I read, and there were no "DNF"s. The last time I did that was with a biography of Coco Chanel, a fact of which I am not proud, but there was just too much detail about Russian ballet dancers.
I would have done a collage of all the books in my "Top 15", but I am not sure I could readily find them, and some I have since lent out, or left in France (where there is another bookcase, and more piles). There are three other bookcases in this house that aren't pictured here, which are largely full of unread titles . ;)
Have you any good books to recommend from your recent reading?
Not that I should be encouraged to acquire any more, obviously, but there's always the library...
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| Another bag for life full |
**The author, Terry Darlington, was my old boss at Research Associates, and the reason I relocated to The Midlands nearly 40 years ago. The Wigan Pier book is especially autobiographical, and there are even references to a couple of projects I worked on, and a vague reference to "female staff".
