Now in it’s 7th year, my annual book post with bonus pointless charts and lists.
One might expect that given that EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD WAS CLOSED, I would have read more books this year than last year. But I managed 59 this year against 2019’s high water of 93. Partly this was the impact of not commuting – a 6 hour round trip to Milton Keynes weekly certainly chunks through a number of audiobooks. But also habits changed and I didn’t devote as much time to books as previously. But more than one a week is acceptable.
In terms of genre, I pretty much completed my transition to being leisure reader, with crime dominating:
As I mentioned in the film post, this may be a function of the 2020 emotional hangover, but also a function of getting older and just not worrying so much anymore.
By author gender, women were in the majority:
And audiobooks were my main format. I’ve defended this before, so don’t @ me:
Here are 5 newish fiction books I enjoyed this year:
- Sweetpea – CJ Skuse
- Stay with me – Ayobami Adebayo
- Remarkable Creatures – Tracy Chevalier
- The Fishermen – Chigozie Obioma
- Savage Season – Joe Lansdale
And here’s 7 non-fiction ones which I will drop into conversation as if I’m now an expert on the subject:
- Emperors of the Deep – William McKeever
- indian Summer – Alex von Tunzelmann
- Misbehaving – Richard Thaler
- Other Minds: The Octopus and The Evolution of Intelligent Life – Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Mudlarking – Lara Maiklem
- Why We Sleep – Matthew Walker
- Underland – Robert Macfarlane
Here is the full list if you want to judge me:
- Sweetpea – CJ Skuse
- Original sin – PD James
- Murder at the vicarage – Agatha Christie
- Wilding – Isaballe Tree
- Well of the Winds – Denzil Meyrick
- With Our Blessing – Jo spain
- Rome: A History in 7 sackings Matthew Kneale
- Grimm Tales – Philip Pullman
- Underland – Robert Macfarlane
- Little bones – Sam Blake
- Dirty little secrets – Jo Spain
- Shroud for a nightingale – PD James
- indian summer – Alex von Tunzelmann
- The outcast dead – Elly Griffiths
- The lighthouse – PD J ames
- a mind to murder – PD Jjames
- The dutch house – Ann Patchett
- From doon with death – Ruth Rendell
- At the edge of the orchard – Tracy Chevalier
- The dark angel – Elly Griffiths
- Misbehaving – Richard Thaler
- Greetings from bury park – Sarfraz Manzoor
- The turn of the screw – Henry James
- Ttay with me – Ayobami Adebayo
- Death at la fenice – Donna Leon
- Remarkable creatures – Tracy Chevalier
- The order of time – Carlo Rovelli
- The outcasts of time – Ian Mortimer
- Beneath the surface – Jo Spain
- Mudlarking – lara Maiklem
- My Life In Horror Volume One: Paperback edition – Kit Power
- Savage season – Joe Lansdale
- Mucho mojo – Joe Lansdale
- The two bear mambo – Joe Lansdale
- Antidote to venom – Freeman Wills Croft
- The stone circle – Elly Griffiths
- Emperors of the deep – William McKeever
- Leviathan wakes – James Corey
- Into the blue – Robert Goddard
- The Zombies are Coming – Kelly Baker
- The Tales of Max Carrados – Ernest Bramah
- Other Minds: The Octopus and The Evolution of Intelligent Life – Peter Godfrey-Smith
- The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World – Peter Wohlleben
- The Glorious Life of the Oak – John Lewis-Stempel,
- The Hog’s Back Mystery – Freeman Wills Croft
- The Fishermen – Chigozie Obioma
- The Boy Who Fell – Jo Spain
- Big Sky Kate Atkinson
- The Lost World – Arthur Conan Doyle
- Why we sleep – Matthew Walker
- Garden of the evening mists – Tan Twan Eng
- The Sisters – Dervla McTiernan
- The Black Tower – PD James
- No Mans Nightingale – Ruth Rendell
- Frogkisser! – Garth Nix
- The Franchise Affair – Josephine Tey
- A Room full of Bones – Elly griffiths
- Wanderlust – Rebecca Solnit
- The Skull Beneath the Skin – PD James