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| More unread books on here! |
Well, another year has passed, almost to the day of my last post about my reading achievements: 55 books in 2024, which was a lifetime record, now topped by 2025's total of 66! I promise that none of them were pamphlets, though one was a novella. And no, I am not aiming for 77 this year in case you were wondering, even though that would seem to be the natural progression - well, according to 11-Plus question logic, anyway, for those who remember it. No, I am expecting the total to fall in 2026 as I brace myself to include some worthier and more highbrow titles, which tend to be slower reads, as well as another thumping biography. In 2024 I did manage one on Ted Hughes; this year I am hoping to tackle the life of Tom Stoppard, but the book is dauntingly fat, unlike the playwright himself. I expect it might take a whole clutch of '180 pagers' (Agatha Christies are a reliable go-to in these circs) to offset that one doorstop alone.
The sitting room is still populated by tottering tsundokus, and though there are fewer books stashed under one of the sofas, that is only because I took a load from under there and stashed them in the loft instead. ;) One sofa still has a huge selection under it, and there are also a number of large cloth baskets under chairs, plus a full to bursting bag for life devoted solely to thrillers.
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| I have actually read Eleven Hours, but fancy it again! |
2025 was the year I discovered Linwood Barclay, John Grisham, and Sidney Sheldon, whose tales of jetsetting skullduggery are fabulously escapist and preposterously twisty turny. I particularly recommend Linwood Barclay though for his propulsive plots and cliff hanging chapter ends that just make you want to read on. The first title of his I tried (No Time for Goodbye) I mostly read on four consecutive train journeys on my way home from France, and ended up finishing it on a park bench outside Euston before my train to Stafford, as I simply couldn't put it down.
I still don't often read as a standalone thing during the day, but rather in bed, in the bath, or with meals - though I do allow myself a few chapters sometimes as a digestive aid after eating. That Puritanical guilt about engaging in indulgent activities like reading when I could be hoovering, removing black mould from the inside of window frames, or whipping up a nourishing casserole dies hard.
I am still prone to charity shop spending splurges on used books, also on Amazon, if a friend recommends something or a fulsome review catches my eye. Occasionally I will even spring for a title that has only just come out, and pay full price! I bought Departure(s) by Julian Barnes yesterday, which is supposedly his last ever book. He is 80 after all (today is his birthday), and has already published 14 novels, so it seems entirely reasonable that he might not have any more ideas left, as he says - or the energy to bring them to the page if he did.
My ongoing strategy for reducing my tally of books in the house is to give them away straight after reading to charity or a suitable recipient, or to keep them if a) I might read them again, b) I might lend them to somebody one day, or c) their covers are so attractive I can't let them go!
With the list below, as I did before, I will embolden the titles of 15 titles that I remember especially enjoying for one reason or another. Note that I can't actually remember what some of the others were about, haha, which says as much about them as my fading cognitive faculties.
At least three books proved irritating: the first was the Miranda Hart self-help book about her struggles with ME which kicked the year off. She persisted in addressing her remarks to "My Dear Reader Chum", and generally adopted a cloyingly patronising tone. Then The List of Suspicious Things had way too many references to people being "stood up" or "sat down" or even "laying down" - several per page indeed, and it was a long read. ;( It wound me up so much that I was moved to write an email to Jennie Godfrey's publisher, but never heard back. Then there was Milkman, whose characters had no names and which was written in a meandering stream of consciousness style I lost the will to follow, despite having lived in Belfast myself at the very time the action is set there. This was compounded by the presence of only a handful of chapters in the entire book and hardly any page breaks. I can see why Milkman was lauded for the freshness and startling originality of its imagery, but it was simply too dense and impenetrable for me. Same script with Gilead by Marilynne Robinson: the characters had names at least, but they were often referred to as "Father", and given that four generations of men were featured in the narrative, I was frequently confused as to which father we were talking about. ;)
2025
Miranda Hart - I Haven't Been Entirely Honest With You
Abbi Waxman - The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
Chris Bruce - Falling (the welcome novella that kept my tally up, plus he was my first boss in the '80s!)
J P Delaney - Playing Nice (better than the TV series)
Jennie Godfrey - The List of Suspicious Things (notably the suspicious past participles)
Francis Iles - Malice Aforethought (my brother and SIL got me into vintage crime this year)
Katherine Heiny - Standard Deviation
Dorothy Rowe - The Successful Self
Molly Roden Winter - MORE: A Memoir of Open Marriage (I think my curiosity was piqued when this was reviewed on Jane and Fi's book slot on Times Radio! )
James Ellson - The Trial (former copper turned crime writer - I attended a talk he gave the u3a)
Robert McCrum - My Year Off Rediscovering Life After a Stroke (recommended by a friend who had had one herself)
Joan Bakewell - The View from Here (I am increasingly drawn to authors who write about old age, being nearly there myself...)
Katherine Heiny - Single Carefree Mellow
Laurie Colwin - Another Marvelous Thing
David Sedaris - Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (always on point with his observational humour)
Linwood Barclay - No Time for Goodbye (see above)
Lionel Shriver - Mania (amusing theme, but rather laboured in the execution, though I love her books as a rule)
Miranda July - All Fours (outrageous, provocative, bizarre, and arrestingly funny)
Bid - Strange Young Alien (part memoir, part essay on creativity and how it was influenced by his brain aneurysm, by the band leader of The Monochrome Set)
Cyril Hare - An English Murder (more vintage crime)
Michelle Richmond - The Marriage Pact
Jane Lapotaire - Time Out of Mind (aneurysm and stroke memoirs are becoming a bit of a theme!)
Sandra Newman - Julia (a reimagining of 1984 from Winston Smith's GF's perspective: a bit too grisly for me, sadly)
Agatha Christie - Crooked House (bring on those 180 pagers!)
Jo Thomas - Escape to the French Farmhouse
Rosemary Friedman - Paris Summer
Rosemary Friedman - A Loving Mistress
Rosemary Friedman - Final Draft (went on a bit of a Rosemary Friedman bender, as you can see)
Susan Hill - The Woman in Black (fog-wreathed ghost story)
Michele Kirsch - CLEAN (how the author beat a vodka and valium addiction by cleaning other people's houses. I was lucky enough to meet Michele a couple of times, as she is a TMS fan too!)
Nora Ephron - I Feel Bad about my Neck
Dorothy Max Prior - Sex is no Emergency
Yael van der Wouden - The Safekeep
Alan Platt - Foreign Fool (humorous, but with way too much misogynistic and scatalogical humour - a hard DO NOT recommend)
Sue Gee - The Last Guest of the Season
Elizabeth Strout - My Name is Lucy Barton (tbf, this was chosen for its brevity)
Andrew Meehan - Best Friends
Linwood Barclay - Never Look Away
Anne Tyler - Redhead by the Side of the Road
Sue Miller - Lost in the Forest
Linwood Barclay - Find You First
Sarah Long - A New Life in the Chateau (chateau living is also emerging as a leitmotif, but these novels were a bit fluffy and the expat equivalent of chick lit)
Dennis Potter - Hide and Seek
Sarah Rayne - The Face Stealer
Ben Hatch - Road to Rouen (blisteringly funny Bill Brysonesque travelogue with added dysfunctional family dynamics)
Kate Atkinson - One Good Turn
Fiona Phillips - Remember When: My Life with Alzheimer's (poignant, and very simply written - the husband's experience of her illness was hard to read, but gave an important added perspective)
Sidney Sheldon - Morning, Noon and Night
Francis Iles - Before the Fact
Linwood Barclay - Never Saw It Coming
Sidney Sheldon - If Tomorrow Comes (a rollicking rollercoaster of a read)
Marilynne Robinson - Gilead (see above)
John Grisham - The Whistler
Eckhard Tolle - The Power of Now (tediously repetitious, so you end up living in the moment over and over!)
J P Delaney - My Darling Daughter
Virginia Roberts Giuffre - Nobody's Girl (harrowing but necessary)
Gabriel Byrne - Walking with Ghosts
Muriel Spark - A Far Cry from Kensington
Lucy Foley - The Hunting Party
Anna Burns - Milkman (see above)
Jon Ronson - So You've Been Publicly Shamed
Frances Brody - A Mansion for Murder
Sue Grafton - A is for Alibi
Sebastian Faulks - Jeeves and the Wedding Bells
Agatha Christie - Appointment with Death
Andrea Mara - All Her Fault
NB I still haven't read any Virginia Woolf...
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| Bit late now for A Christmas Carol... |
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