September whizzed by as usual and I only managed to read 14 books for some reason. Not quite sure what happened as I started off really well too. So here they are along with the stats and the vast quantity of books that I bought…
Books Read
Wasteland – Oliver Franklin-Wallis – 4 Stars
The Lost Whale – Hannah Gold – 3 Stars
An Almost Impossible Thing – Fiona Davidson – 3.5 Stars
Some Of Us Just Fall – Polly Atkin – 3.5 Stars
Follow This Thread – Henry Eliot – 3.5 Stars
The Military Orchid – Jocelyn Brooke – 3.5 Stars
The Haw Lantern – Seamus Heaney – 3 Stars
Serious Concerns – Wendy Cope – 3.5 Stars
Follow The Money – Paul Johnson – 3.5 Stars
Reboot – Elaine Kasket – 3.5 Stars
Coast of Teeth – Tom Sykes – 4 Stars
Waypoints – Robert Martineau – 4 Stars
Wind – Louise M Pryke – 3.5 Stars
Book(s) Of The Month
Ravenous – Henry Dimbleby – 4.5 Stars
Top Genres
Fiction – 27
Natural History – 18
Travel – 18
Poetry – 13
Memoir – 10
History – 6
Science Fiction – 6
Fantasy – 6
Art – 4
Environmental – 4
Top Publishers
Faber & Faber – 11
Penguin – 6
Little Toller – 6
Bloomsbury – 5
Simon & Schuster – 5
Jonathan Cape – 4
Elliott & Thompson – 3
Allen Lane – 3
William Collins – 3
Headline – 3
Review Copies Received
The Lure of Atlantis: Strange Tales from the Sunken Continent – Ed. Michael Wheatley
The Lost Flock: Rare Wool, Wild Isles and One Woman’s Journey to Save Scotland’s Original Sheep – Jane Cooper
The Christian Watt Papers: Memoirs of a Fraserburgh Fishwife – Christian Watt, Ed. David Fraser
The Narrow Smile: A Journey back to the Northwest Frontier – Peter Mayne
Nature Tales for Winter Nights – Ed. Nancy Campbell
Politics, But Better: An A – Z Guide to Creating a More Hopeful Future – Tatton Spiller
Human Being: 12 Vital Skills We’re Losing to Technology and How to Reclaim Them – Graham Lee
Yew – Fred Hageneder
Life At Full Tilt: The Selected Writings of Dervla Murphy – Dervla Murphy, Ed. Ethel Crowley
Library Books Checked Out
Rural: The Lives Of The Working Class Countryside – Rebecca Smith
High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest In Russia’s Haunted Hinterland – Tom Parfitt
The Bridleway: How Horses Shaped The British Landscape – Tiffany Francis-Baker
Prophet – Helen Macdonald
Walking The Bones Of Britain: A 3 Billion Year Journey From The Outer Hebrides To The Thames Estuary – Christopher Somerville
Be a Birder: The joy of birdwatching and how to get started – Hamza Yassin
Books Bought
A Legacy Of Spies – John Le Carré – Signed
Shitstorm – Fernando Sdrigotti
Red Smoking Mirror – Nick Hunt –
Still Life in Milford: Poems – Thomas Lynch – Signed
Penguin Modern Poets, Series II #12 – Helen Dunmore, Jo Shapcott & Matthew Sweeney – Signed
Poetry on the Buses – Ed. Valerie Belsey & Candy Neubert – – Signed
The Hero and the Girl Next Door – Sophie Hannah – Signed
Selling Manhattan – Carol Ann Duffy – Female – Signed
Foothold – Pam Zinnemann-Hope – Signed
Raw – Patience Agbabi – Signed
Penguin Modern Poets, Series II #9 – John Burnside, Robert Crawford & Kathleen Jamie
Drysalter – Michael Symmons Roberts
Selected Poems – Matthew Sweeney
A Smell Of Fish – Matthew Sweeney
The Rings Of Saturn: An English Pilgrimage
Chasing the Dram: Finding the Spirit of Whisky – Rachel McCormack –
Secret Places of West Dorset – Louise Hodgson
The Island Farmers – R. M Lockley
The Fossil Woman: A Life of Mary Anning – Tom Sharpe – Signed
Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan – Jamie Zeppa
Discover Dorset: Fossils – Richard Edmonds
Travels in a Strange State – Josie Dew
As the Women Lay Dreaming – Donald S. Murray
The Gran Tour: Travels with my Elders – Ben Aitken
Megaliths and Their Mysteries: A Guide to the Standing Stones of Europe – Alastair Service & Jean Bradbery
A Second Chance at Eden – Peter F. Hamilton
Empireland: How Imperialism has Shaped Modern Britain – Sathnam Sanghera – Male
Clea – Lawrence Durrell – Male
Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils – David Farrier
The Old Straight Track: Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones – Alfred Watkins
The Farmer’s Wife: My Life in Days – Helen Rebanks
The Seed Detective: Uncovering the Secret Histories of Remarkable Vegetables – Adam Alexander
Walking With Nomads – Alice Morrison
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Dorset Folk Tales – Tim Laycock – Male
Somerset Folk Tales – Sharon Jacksties
On the Slow Train Again: Twelve Great British Railway Journeys – Michael Williams
Round Ireland with a Fridge – Tony Hawks – Signed
Hothouse – Brian W. Aldiss
The Private Life of the Hare – John Lewis-Stempel
Tout Sweet: Hanging Up my High Heels for a New Life in France – Karen Wheeler
Pedalling to Hawaii: A Human-Powered Odyssey – Stevie Smith
Rowing After the White Whale: A Crossing of the Indian Ocean by Hand – James Adair
Bringing Down Goliath: How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful – Jolyon Maugham – Signed
The Megalithic European: The 21st Century Traveller in Prehistoric Europe – Julian Cope
Any that you have read from that list – or want to now? Let me know in the comments below
Ooh Empireland is excellent, I work with Sathnam a fair bit and it’s so well done. Did you catch the TV series he did to go with it? Also glad you got hold of Walking the Bones of Britain. I really want to read that soon myself.
It has been on my TBR for while and found it in a charity shop a week or so ago. I have his previous book to read too and am looking forward to them both
I second Empireland, which I read for last year’s 20 Books of Summer. I still haven’t read the final chapter, for some inexplicable reason. I can also recommend Nick Hunt’s Red Smoking Mirror. I read an ARC in August, but haven’t caught up enough to review it yet. It reminded me of Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book. I also read his earlier NF book, Outlandish: Walking Europe’s Unlikely Landscapes, visiting places with incongruous landscapes, reminiscent of elsewhere. I really enjoyed that. I suspect you may already have read that, though.
I haven’t read outlandish yet, but have read his first two. I met Nick at the travel writing awards a couple of years ago and he is a lovely guy