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.
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
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