September 2024 Review

Where on earth did September go? Answers on a postcard, please! Even though it whizzed by, it was a good reading month with another five-star read right at the end. I didn’t by as many as I have done on previous months either so that is a small victory that I will take!

 

Books Read

Children of the Volcano – Ros Belford – 4 Stars

The Gun Seller – Hugh Lawrie – 2.5 Stars

Selling Manhattan – Carol Ann Duffy – 3 Stars

The Volunteers: A Memoir of Conservation, Companionship and Community – Carol Donaldson – 4 Stars

Discovering Timber-framed Buildings – Richard Harris – 3 Stars

Salacious Sussex – Viv Croot – 3 Stars

The Haunted Places of Hampshire – Ian Fox – 3 Stars

The Elephant Vanishes – Haruki Murakami – 3

Vagabond: A Hiker’s Homage to Rural Spain – Mark Eveleigh – 4 Stars

Heart Of Darkness – Joseph Conrad – 2 Stars

Late Light: Finding Home In The West Country – Michael Malay – 4.5 Stars

Uprooting: From The Caribbean To The Countryside: Finding Home In An English Country Garden – Marchelle Farrell – 4 Stars

Dispersals: On Plants, Borders And Belonging – Jessica J Lee – 4 Stars

 

Book(s) Of The Month

Tender Maps: Travels in Search of the Emotions of Place – Alice Maddicott – 5 Stars

 

Top Genres

Fiction – 30

Travel – 26

Natural History – 13

Poetry – 9

Memoir – 7

Science Fiction – 6

Miscellaneous – 4

Food & Drink – 3

Humour – 3

History – 3

 

Top Publishers

Bloomsbury – 7

Vintage – 5

Canongate – 4

Picador – 4

Summersdale – 4

Eland – 3

Faber & Faber – 3

Saraband – 3

Penguin Classics – 3

September Books – 2

 

Review Copies Received

In Search of the Perfect Peach: Why Flavour Holds the Answer to Fixing Our Food System – Franco Fubini

Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind: In Pursuit of Remarkable Mushrooms – Richard Fortey

Prisoners of Geography: The Quiz Book: How Much Do You Really Know About the World? – Tim Marshall

 

Library Books Checked Out

Tender Maps: Travels in Search of the Emotions of Place – Alice Maddicott

Dispersals: On Plants, Borders And Belonging – Jessica J Lee

Uprooting: From The Caribbean To The Tountryside: Finding Home In An English Country Garden – Marchelle Farrell

Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain – Corrine Fowler

 

Books Bought

La Vie: A Year In Rural France – John Lewis-Stempel

Cacophony Of Bone – Kerri Ní Dochartaigh

The Ongoing Moment – Geoff Dyer

Provence – John Flower & Charlie Waite

The Virago Book of Women Gardeners – Deborah Kellaway (Ed)

Return to Paris: A Memoir With Recipes – Colette Rossant

A Tourist in the Arab Spring – Tom Chesshyre

Abroad in Japan: Ten Years In The Land Of The Rising Sun – Chris Broad

Land of the Turquoise Mountains: Journeys Across Iran – Cyrus Massoudi

Sport – Dennis Brailsford

Blackmoor Vale Childhood – Hilary Townsend (Signed)

The New Granta Book of Travel – Liz Jobey (Ed)

The Common Reader – Alan Bennett (Signed)

All At Sea: One man. One bathtub. One very bad idea. – Tim FitzHigham

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall – Anna Funder (Signed)

A Siberian Winter’s Tale: Cycling to the Edge of Insanity and the End of the World – Helen Lloyd

Too Late To Turn Back: Barbara And Graham Greene In Liberia – Barbara Greene

A Tourist in the Arab Spring – Tom Chesshyre

Megalithic Tombs and Long Barrows in Britain – Frances Lynch

The Downhill Hiking Club: A Short Walk Across The Lebanon – Dom Joly

Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey – Felicity Cloake (Signed)

 

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. Liz Dexter

    I’m glad you seemed to enjoy the Malay, which I loved – I don’t think you’ve reviewed it yet? I want to read Uprooted so I’ll be interested in your thoughts on that, too.

    • Paul

      They were both really good, though Late Light had the edge for me. I probably won’t because of time and mental load at the moment.

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