January 2025 Review

Doesn’t January drag? I mean really drag. But I got through it and managed to read a grand total of 15 books including two, yes two five-star reads this month.

So here they are:

Books Read

Art Deco Britain: Buildings Of The Interwar Years – Elain Harwood – Architecture – 3.5

Mountain Modern: Contemporary Homes in High Places – Dominic Bradbury – Architecture – 4

How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything – Mike Berners-Lee – Environmental – 4

The Twelve Days of Murder – Andreina Cordani – Fiction – 2.5

Polar Horrors: Strange Tales from the World’s Ends – Ed. John Miller – Fiction – 3.5

Growing Old Disgracefully – Silvey-Jex – Humour – 2

The Stirrings: A Memoir In Northern Time – Catherine Taylor – Memoir – 4

While the Earth Holds its Breath: Embracing The Winter Season – Helen Moat – Natural History – 4

The Flitting – Ben Masters – Natural History – 4.5

The Valleys – Anthony Stokes – Photography – 3.5

milk and honey – Rupi Kaur – Poetry – 3

To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope – Jeanne Marie Laskas – Politics – 4

Slow Trains To Istanbul – Tom Chesshyre – Travel – 4.5

 

Book(s) Of The Month

Iconicon: A Journey Around The Landmark Buildings Of Contemporary Britain – John Grindrod – Architecture – 5

A Quiet Evening – Norman Lewis – Travel – 5

 

 

Top Genres

Architecture – 3

Travel – 2

Fiction – 2

Natural History – 2

Environmental – 1

 

Top Publishers

I read 15 books from 15 separate publishers in January, so I thought I’d put them all in:

Andrew McMeel Publishing – 1

Batsford – 1

Bloomsbury – 1

Bonnier Books – 1

Books by Boxer – 1

British Library Publishing – 1

Eland – 1

Faber & Faber – 1

Granta – 1

Profile Books – 1

Saraband – 1

Seren Press – 1

Summersdale – 1

Thames & Hudson – 1

W&N – 1

 

Review Copies Received

Seascapes: Notes From A Changing Coastline – Matthew Yeomans

Your Journey Your Way: The Recovery Guide to Mental Health – Horatio Clare

Weird Sisters: Tales from the Queens of the Pulp Era – Mike Ashley (Ed)

To Have And To Hold – Sophie Pavelle

 

Library Books Checked Out

None this month! Though I have two waiting to collect

 

Books Bought

As I have said elsewhere, I am trying to buy fewer books. So I will total the number of books that enter my house and those that leave permanently. These are the figures for January:

January Books in: 20

January Books out: 27 (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!!!)

In total, I have bought 20. Some of these were for selling on. I kept these eight below.

Jackdaw Cake – Norman Lewis

The Coast of Incense – Freya Stark

Gifts of Gravity and Light: A Nature Almanac for the Twenty-first Century – Anita Roy & Pippa Marland (Ed)

The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride Through Europe And The Middle East – Rebecca Lowe

The Conspiracy Tourist: Travels Through a Strange World – Dom Joly

The Silmarillion – J.R.R. Tolkien

Island Of The Colour Blind And Cycad Island – Oliver Sacks

A Glimpse of Eternal Snows: A Journey of Love and Loss in the Himalayas – Jane Wilson-Howarth

 

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.

 

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2 Comments

  1. sophyjhollandyahoocom

    Hey Paul, great reading month for you. There’s a couple of books I’ve just added to my TBR list, the Helen Moat and Matthew Yeomans titles and Weird Sisters. I read Iconicon last year, that’s a good one. Good to see you’re having a paring down of your books. I try to have book purges from my overly heavy shelves too. It feels good letting them go sometimes.
    Sophy H

    • Paul

      Hi Sophy. Helen’s book was really good. I still have a review to type up for it. I though Iconicon was the best of the books he has written so far. He is a really nice guy, I had the pleasure of meeting him in 2018

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