December was a slower month for reading, which works as I had a lot of other things on. I ended up finishing eight books and then made a start on some chunky books to finish in January. I finished the daily read books too, I don’t mind reading these, and I am not intending to read any books like these for 2026. I have got into the habit of reading a week’s worth of entries on a Sunday, and that works fine for me.
Ended up getting a small pile of review books too ( thanks, Helen) that I will slot into the reading plan over the next couple of months. Anyway, here they all are:
Books Read
We Are All Adrift – David Banning & Iain Sharpe – 4 – Stars
The Accidental Garden: Gardens, Wilderness And The Space In Between – Richard Mabey – 4 – Stars
Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt – 4 – Stars
A Tree A Day – Amy-Jane Beer – 4 – Stars
An Insect a Day: Bees, Bugs, And Pollinators For Every Day Of The Year – Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton – 4 – Stars
Poetry on the Buses – Valerie Belsey & Candy Neubert (Ed) – 3 – Stars
Cage of Souls – Adrian Tchaikovsky – 4.5 – Stars
Book(s) Of The Month
Nature Needs You: The Fight To Save Our Swifts – Hannah Bourne- Taylor – 5 – Stars
Top Genres
Travel – 19
Fiction – 13
Natural History – 13
Science Fiction – 12
Poetry – 12
Top Publishers
Faber & Faber – 7
Bloomsbury – 6
Penguin – 6
Simon & Schuster – 6
Picador – 4
Review Copies Received
Tea and Grit: A Bicycle Journey along the Silk Road – Helen Watson
Bird of Ill Omen: The Gothic Tales of Catherine Crowe – Catherine Crowe & Ruth Heholt (Ed)
Possessed: A Lost Novel of the Occult – Rosalie Synton & Edward Synton
Trees Ancient and Modern: Woodland Cultures and Conservation – Charles Watkins
The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds across Landscapes and Imagination – Michaela Vieser And Isaac Yuen
The Medieval Scriptorium: Making Books in the Middle Ages – Sara J. Charles
Readers for Life: How Reading and Listening in Childhood Shapes Us – Sander L. Gilman and Heta Pyrhönen (Ed)
Library Books Checked Out
Three Rivers: The Extraordinary Waterways That Made Europe – Robert Winder
Make Time: How To Focus On What Matters Every Day – Jake Knapp, & John Zeratsky
The Starling: A Biography – Stephen Moss
Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History – Tharik Hussain
Books Bought (Or Sent by Friends)
As I have said elsewhere, I am trying to buy fewer books. So I will give totals of l the number of books that enter my house and those that leave permanently. These are the figures for this month:
Books in: 25 I kept these below:
Heart of the Country – James Ravilious & Robin Ravilious
False Calm – Maria Sonia Cristoff
Wild Air: In Search Of Birdsong – James Macdonald Lockhart
Where Are the Fellows Who Cut the Hay?: How Traditions From the Past Can Shape Our Future – Robert Ashton
Ley Lines of Wessex – Roger Crisp
Tea and Grit: A Bicycle Journey along the Silk Road – Helen Watson
Bird of Ill Omen: The Gothic Tales of Catherine Crowe – Catherine Crowe & Ruth Heholt (Ed)
Possessed: A Lost Novel of the Occult – Rosalie Synton & Edward Synton
Voices Of The Old Sea – Norman Lewis
Shaking Hands With Death – Terry Pratchett
Books out: 24 (The books leaving the house were sold, returned to the library or passed on to friends or charity. I am aiming for this number to be higher than the one above!!!).
So are there any from that list that you have read, or now seeing them, now want to read? Let me know in the comments below.
Lots of good stuff here but I’m trying to be strong when it comes to adding to the mountain!
Particularly love the look of The Sound Atlas and False Calm.
You know you want to…
I really want to read The Accidental Garden, of course, and I’ve added Muslim Europe to my wishlist. I’m fairly convinced I have ancestors from the Muslim time in Spain, as my Spanish ancestors are from Seville, so this would be very interesting. Happy January reading!
I really liked The Accidental Garden. Have you read Hussain’s first book yet?
The Minarets one? Not yet!
It is well worth it, when you do get to read it