Category: Book Musings (Page 12 of 31)

Here is my review of my intentions that I laid out last year in italics and how I did underneath them.

 

Blogging

I have always tended to think of myself as a reader who blogs rather than just a book blogger. This is partly why not every single book that I read gets a review written for it. And in the past year, there have been occasional moments when I have thought about stopping blogging. There have been various reasons for this, partly it sometimes feels like a job, where I think that reading should be a pleasure, secondly that I am not sure if I am having that much of an impact when I see others who have 10,000 plus followers on their various social media platforms. That said, I have been doing this for five years now (in April 2021 and I missed it) so I am going to keep going.

 

I am still blogging! And I am still going to keep going too. I posted 178 times over the year or almost every other day. So, I am happy with that.

 

Review Copies

I am grateful for every single review copy that lands on my doormat. Thank you to all publishers and publicists that keep filling my bookshelves. I am sorry that I can never read them as quickly as I would like, hence why I have quite a big backlog. I am going to try not to ask for too many this year, partly because of space issues, but also because it is not fair on them to send me a book and I take waaaay too long to get around to reading it.

 

I read 78 review books in the end over 2022 which I am really pleased about.  Of which 40 were published in that year. However, there were 35 review books published in 2022 that I got sent that I haven’t quite got to yet…

 

My Own Books

I have a lot of books at home and I mean a lot. Nine bookshelves in total as well as lots of Tsundoku around… I seriously need to make a list of the books that I want to read and pass on to family, friends and donate to the library and start reading them to relieve some of the pressure on my creaking bookshelves. I really need to stop buying books too, but can’t see that happening any time soon… This is something that a fellow blogger, Lisa of Owl Be Sat Reading, (https://owlbesatreading.wordpress.com/) is doing this year, Follow the hashtag #BeatTheBacklog on Twitter to

 

I didn’t end up taking part in Beat the Backlog in the end. I did read 30 of my own books last year but ended up keeping most of them!!

 

Library Books

I do have far too many library books out, and I am finding that having a full card means that you don’t get that chance to pick things up at random as there is no room. I would like to get from 100% to around 75% or ideally 50% full on my two library cards

 

My total number of library books read was 82 in the end. I still have 46 out…

 

Female and BAME Authors

I have been hovering around the 35% mark of female authors read each year and I am hoping to get to 40% this year. I am aiming to read more by BAME authors too. I have a number at home lined up, but I kept a list from the Observer that I will be picking others from.

 

My total number of female authors I read was 73 which equates to 39%. I am happy with that. I read 12 BAME authors too which was the target that I set

 

Poetry

I didn’t manage to read twenty-four poetry books in 2021 so I am aiming to read eighteen poetry books in 2022. If I read more that will be great. I found a copy of A Poem For Every Night Of The Year in a charity shop and I am aiming to read a poem from that every day too.

 

I did finish the Poem for every night of the year, but didn’t read every day for a variety of reasons. This bought my total of poetry books to 17. One short of my target!

 

Literary Awards

Last year I was a bit rubbish at reading some of the shortlisted books from my favourite prizes (again). I get too distracted by other books! Would like to have read all the books from the past three or four years on both the Stanford and the Wainwright prizes by the end of 2022.

Wainwright

Stanford

Royal Society

Baillie Gifford

Arthur C Clarke

I would like to read some of the winners from other prizes too, including:

Republic Of Consciousness Prize

Rathbones Folio Prize

Women’s Prize for Fiction

Jhalak Prize

The Portico Prize

 

Not totally sure how many I read from various prizes this year as I haven’t totted it up (that is another for the spreadsheet next year) but I think it was around twenty books.

 

 

Challenges

I quite like book challenges. It is a way of finding new books that you might not have come across before to fit a particular brief. It kind of follows my philosophy of reading widely and reading deeply.

 

The World From My Armchair Challenge

My ongoing challenge is to read a travel book set in or that passes through every country, sea and ocean in the world. I and about a third of the way through and even though I thought I could complete it in four years, I didn’t. It is not a problem, I am going to keep going with it and if possible I’d like to read another 20 books towards it.

 

In the end I read six. (pathetic I know) Not as many as I had hoped because the nature challenge (below) was huge.

 

Nature Challenge

I recently joined a nature book group on Facebook and they are setting a challenge for 2022 to read 45 books that meet particular categories or themes! I have a spreadsheet. The scary thing was that I already have 37 books that meet the challenge

 

I ended up reading 44 out of 45 books for the challenge. The one I didn’t get to was The Overstory, which is huge!

 

Read the Decades Challenge

This is for a group that I kind of still run on Good Reads. At the moment, I haven’t got the mental time and energy to keep it going and the other moderators have to a certain extent dropped by the wayside too. But I do set up a challenge each year for the few members that still participate. All this is, is to read a book from each decade from the 2020s going back as far as you like.

 

Never did this in the end because of family, life and work etc, etc, etc.

 

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Aiming again to average at least one a month for this. Science fiction is good for expanding the mind and as Terry Pratchett says: Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.

 

I ended up reading 8 last year. Not as many as I hoped, but more than I expected to. I have a big pile lined up for 2023 though!

 

Photobooks

I have bought an awful lot of art & photobooks in the past year (some of which are shockingly valuable) and I want to read some of these books next year. Aiming to read at least six.

 

Ended up reading nine in the end. Still have lots more that I want to read (and have bought)…

 

Other Bookish Stuff

As I mentioned above, I have a lot of books around the house. Even though I know a lot of what I have read in the past, when I am perusing charity shops and second-hand books shops, I have been known to buy the odd duplicate. Sometimes this is deliberate, it is in better condition or signed etc, etc. Sometimes I do not realise that I already have a copy and then find the earlier purchased copy… So, what I want to do this year is to actually catalogue my books, partly so I know what I have at home, but also, I have an idle curiosity to know just how many books are sharing the house with me. Does anyone use a book cataloguing app that they can recommend?

 

Did I catalogue all my books so I can tell you exactly how many I have scattered all around the house? No.

 

The main way that I manage my reading is through Good Reads, but as a backup I use spreadsheets. This is mostly for security, so I don’t lose records of all that I have read and want to read. The way I have configured them means I can extract a lot more data than I get from Good Reads. At present I must have around 30 different spreadsheets that all do different things and what I want to do is start to combine them to get down to about five or so. I have always tried to keep the layouts very similar so I can cut and paste between them easily and that is another thing that needs a little bit of tinkering…

 

I did make some major amendments to the way I do spreadsheets for managing the process for my reading and that has worked well.  I will do a blog post on this in the new year.

Another month passes and this one is always the strangest of them. I had a slower reading month for one reason and another. but did reach my Good reads Target of 190 right on the last day of the year. I knew this would be the case as I was reading two books that had a daily reading. Have got some underway to leap ahead in the new year.

A thank you too, to the few of you that come and read my mutterings and reviews. I know that there are not many of you, but thank you for all your comments and conversations. Anyway, to the books:

 

Books Read

Remainders Of The Day: More Diaries From The Bookshop, Wigtown – Shaun Bythell – 4 Stars

Once Upon A Tome: The Misadventures Of A Rare Bookseller – Oliver Darkshire – 3.5 Stars

West Cumbria Mining: The Silence Between The Shadows – David Banning – 3.5 Stars

Word Perfect: Etymological Entertainment For Every Day of the Year – Susie Dent – 4 Stars

Swifts and Us: The Life of the Bird that Sleeps in the Sky – Sarah Gibson – 4 Stars

I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain – Anita Sethi – 3.5 Stars

The Wheel of the Year: A Nurturing Guide to Rediscovering Nature’s Seasons and Cycles – Rebecca Beattie – 4 Stars

Ephemeron – Fiona Benson – 3 Stars

A Poem for Every Night of the Year – Allie Esiri – 3 Stars

On Travel and the Journey Through Life – Ed. Barnaby Rogerson – 4 Stars

True North – Gavin Francis – 4 Stars

 

Book(s) Of The Month

I had two five star books this month. Both are very different and excellent in their own way and I cannot recommend them enough:

The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us – Nick Hayes – 5 Stars

Smelling the Breezes: A Journey through the High Lebanon in 1957 – Ralph Izzard & Molly Izzard – 5 Stars

 

Top Genres

Natural History – 38

Travel – 26

Poetry – 17

Memoir – 14

History – 14

Science – 9

Fiction – 9

Environmental – 7

Science Fiction – 6

Photography – 5

 

 

Top Publishers

William Collins – 9

Faber & Faber – 8

Bloomsbury – 8

Gollancz – 6

Eland – 6

Unbound – 5

Elliott & Thompson – 5

Little Toller – 5

Jonathan Cape – 4

Profile Books – 4

 

Review Copies Received

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar – Nick Garbutt

We Saw It All Happen – Julian Bishop

 

Library Books Checked Out

Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine – Anna Reid

Circles and Tangents: Art In The Shadow Of Cranborne Chase – Vivienne Mary Light

Elegy For A River: Whiskers, Claws And Conservation’s Last, Wild Hope – Tom Moorhouse

We, Robots: Staying Human In The Age Of Big Data – Curtis White

The Golden Mole: And Other Living Treasure – Katherine Rundell

In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage – Silvia Vasquez-Lavado

The Women Who Saved the English Countryside – Matthew Kelly

 

Books Bought

The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors – David George Haskell

The Twelve Birds of Christmas – Stephen Moss

Favourite Middle Eastern Recipes – Pat Chapman

Terminal Zones – Gareth Rees

In the Catacombs: A Summer Among the Dead Poets of West Norwood Cemetery – Chris McCabe

The Old Weird Albion – Justin Hopper

Feral Borough – Meryl Pugh

The Girl Who Forgets How To Walk – Kate Davis

Out For Air – Olly Todd

Nemesis, My Friend: Journeys Through the Turning Times – Jay Griffiths

The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin

Weymouth And Portland At War: Countdown to D-Day – Maureen Attwooll & Denise Harrison

Weymouth: An Illustrated History – Maureen Attwooll & Jack West

Given Ground – Roger Garfitt

Nature’s Child – John Lister-Kaye

Telling the Seasons: Stories, Celebrations and Folklore around the Year – Martin Maudsley

The Valleys – Anthony Stokes

Taste:My Life Through Food – Stanely Tucci

A House by the Shore – Alison Johnson

Turning the Tide on Plastic: How Humanity (And You) Can Make Our Globe Clean Again – Lucy Siegle

Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now—As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It – Craig Taylor

River Diary – Ronald Blythe

How Not to Travel the World: Adventures of a Disaster-Prone Backpacker – Lauren Juliff

The Epic City – Kushanava Choudhury

A Small Place In Italy – Eric Newby

My Early Life – Winston S. Churchill

The Song of Stone – Iain Banks

The Cloudspotters Guide – Gavin Prettor-Pinney

Botanical Folk Tales Of Britain And Ireland – Lisa Schneidau

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole – Susan Cain

Ancient Monuments and Stone Circles: Photographic Memories – Les Moores

Circles And Standing Stones – Evan Hadingham

Into Iraq – Michael Palin

Wild Light – Angela Harding

Malarkoi – Alex Pheby

 

Any that you have read>? O take you fancy? Let me know below

Another year dawns and I am starting with a more restrained  TBR for January.

 

Still Reading

The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre – Tim Hannigan

Haunters at the Hearth: Eerie Tales For Christmas Nights – Ed. Tanya Kirk

Gnomon – Nick Harkaway

 

Review Books

The House of Islam – Ed Husain

The Wonderful Mr Willughby: The First True Ornithologist – Tim Birkhead

Asian Waters: The Struggle Over the South China Sea and the Strategy of Chinese Expansion – Humphrey Hawksley

What Remains?: Life, Death and the Human Art of Undertaking- Rupert Callender

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar – Nick Garbutt

We Saw It All Happen – Julian Bishop

Millstone Grit – Glyn Huges

Swan: Portrait of a Majestic Bird, from Mythical Meanings to the Modern Day – Dan Keel

The Peckham Experiment – Guy Ware

Dandelions – Thea Lenarduzzi

Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It – Erica Thompson

 

Other Books

Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses To Rural England’s Colonial Connections – Corinne Fowler

Walking With Nomads – Alice Morrison

Restoring the Wild – Roy Dennis

 

Challenge Books

The Overstory – Richard Powers

Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide – Bill McGuire

Bloom: From Food to Fuel, the Epic Story of How Algae Can Save Our World – Ruth Kassinger

 

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Robot Overlords: Robots Never Lie – Mark Stay

The Crow Folk – Mark Stay

Babes In The Wood – Mark Stay

 

Fiction

The Metal Heart – Caroline Lea

 

Poetry

England’s Green Zaffar Kunial

 

Photobooks

England on Fire: A Visual Journey through Albion’s Psychic Landscape Stephen Ellcock& Mat Osman

 

So there we go, just a few this month. Any that you have read or now want to read? Let me know in the comments below.

These are my reading intentions for next year

 

Blogging

As I said last year, I have always tended to think of myself as a reader who blogs rather than just a book blogger. This still stands and with everything that has been happening recently in my family life, I want to rediscover the pleasure of reading. It feels like it takes me much longer to review a book than it does to read it, so I have concluded that I am still going to be reviewing books, but am going to scale back on the number that I write. Any book that has been sent to me for review, or that I have requested, I will write a longer review. Others may get a mini-review in the monthly round-up and fiction and poetry may or may not get reviewed at all.

I have a couple of things lined up on the blog for next year, the first is called A Bloggers Reading Journey, where One or two bloggers each month will tell us about some of the key moments in their reading life to date. The other is that I want to write a blog post each month on something that interests me, rather than just concentrate on reviews.

 

Books

Review Books

I am forever grateful for every single review copy that I receive. Thank you to all the publishers and publicists that make opening a small rectangular parcel a thrill. I am still happy to be sent books, but I am going to scale back the number of books that I request for some of the reasons mentioned above, I take way too long to get around to reading them and I have run out of space! (A perennial problem for book lovers). Aiming this year to work through some of my backlog too.

 

My Own Books

I have bought a lot of books in the past year and got a couple more bookshelves too. However, this has not reduced the number of Tsundoku… Am I going to stop buying books? Probably not, but I do need to catalogue, sort and reduce the books that I have so I end up with just the books I want to keep.

 

Library Books

I do have far too many library books checked out, and I am finding that having a full card means that I don’t get that chance to pick things up at random when I visit the library each week, as there is no room. I have got one card down to 75% but I still have lots of reservations! Improved from last year, but still a way to go.

 

Reading Plans

I am fairly happy with the mix of books that I am reading at the moment. I read a lot of natural history books in 2022 but felt that I didn’t read enough travel writing. So next year I want to read a roughly equal amount of travel books (I have bought a lot of them after all!!). I also want to read more science fiction and fiction, because, hey, why not? I also have some other intentions detailed below, that whilst not set in stone, I would like to achieve. I also want to have more themed reads, so reading three or four books with a common subject matter. For example, I have several books on London and a few now on Venice and Naples.

 

Female Authors

This year I have read 72 female authors, which equates to 37%. I am going to set my target to 76 female authors, which is 40%. Given the genres of the books that I read, most seem to be male, it is changing but not fast enough.

 

BAME Authors

I had my target set to 12 last year and I am going to set the same again for 2023. Slowly more BAME authors are being commissioned in the genres that I like reading, but it is sadly too few still.

 

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Aiming again to average at least one a month for this. Science fiction is good for expanding the mind and as Terry Pratchett says: Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can.

 

Fiction

I don’t read or buy a huge amount of fiction, but I do have a lot around that I have acquired or been sent. This year I am going to make an effort to read at least one fiction book a month. I probably won’t review them, but it depends on the book.

 

Poetry

I didn’t quite reach 18 poetry books in 2022, but I am going to set the same target again. I have decided that unless I am sent a poetry book to review, I will just be reading these for the pure pleasure of reading.

 

Photobooks

I have bought an awful lot of art & photobooks in the past year (some of which are shockingly valuable) and I want to read some of these books next year. Aiming to read at least one every month.

 

Literary Awards

Last year I was a bit better at reading some of the shortlisted books from my favourite prizes (as usual). I did manage to read some from the minor prizes too, but still have a long list of books that I haven’t quite got to read yet… The same list of prizes from last year:

Wainwright

Stanford

Royal Society

Baillie Gifford

Arthur C Clarke

I would like to read some of the winners from other prizes too, including:

Republic Of Consciousness Prize

Rathbones Folio Prize

Women’s Prize for Fiction

Jhalak Prize

The Portico Prize

 

Challenges

I quite like book challenges. It is a way of finding new books that you might not have come across before to fit a particular brief. It kind of follows my philosophy of reading widely and reading deeply.

 

The World From My Armchair Challenge

My ongoing challenge is to read a travel book set in or that passes through every country, sea and ocean in the world. I have now read 80 of around 220 of the countries and oceans and would like to get to halfway through next year. It has taken much longer than I thought, for a variety of reasons, but it was always going to be a long-term thing.

 

Nature Challenge

The group that I am in on Facebook is doing another challenge this year that I will probably take part in. I have just about finished this year, but at 45 books was a bit hard going in amongst everything else. Here is the grid:

 

20 Books of Summer

This is run by the blogger, Cathy of 746 books. I normally sign up to read 20 books and will do so again next summer. I normally end up reading half the 20 that I pledge to do though.

 

Other Bookish Stuff

Cataloguing Books

Meant to start doing this in 2022, but never quite got around to it. So inevitably I did end up buying a few duplicates by accident as I can’t always remember what I have bought in the past, so really must do this. I have downloaded a couple of apps now for my phone (Book Catalogue, My Library & LibraryThing) and will have a play around with them. I have been adding to a list on a spreadsheet which has helped.

 

Spreadsheets

I took the plunge and reconfigured the way I do my spreadsheets last February and have a much-improved format that I now use and I have used it for the past ten months. Generally, it works very well and gives me a consistent way of working and extracting meaningful data. Now, I need to tweak it a bit to make it slightly easier to use. I will do a blog post in 2023 showing what I do with them and how the various parts work.

 

Bookshelves

I need to sort mine out! I have ten full or partly full around the house and as you can probably guess there are books everywhere and whilst some stuff is sorted into the correct locations, there are other bookshelves that have a random collection of stuff. Again, I will try and do a blog post of the state of them and then hopefully another later in the year, and be able to show a bit of organisation on them!

What are your reading intentions or goals for 2023?

I have been through all of the spring 2023 publishers’ catalogues that could lay my hands on (24 so far). I have listed all the books that I really like the look of. The majority on this list are non-fiction, as you have probably come to expect by now, but there is a smattering of fiction, sci-fi and the odd poetry in there.

 

Abacus
Hidden Valley: Finding freedom in Spain’s deep country – Paul Richardson

Migrants: The Story of Us All – Sam Miller

Follow the Money: How much does Britain cost? – Paul Johnson

Glowing Still: A woman’s life on the road – Sara Wheeler

Edgeland – Sasha Swire

Spies: The epic intelligence war between East and West – Calder Walton

 

Allen Lane

The Crisis Of Democratic Capitalism – Martin Wolf

Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals And The Dream Of A World Without Democracy – Quinn Slobodian

Free And Equal: What Would A Fair Society Look Like? – Daniel Chandler

Twelve Words For Moss: Love, Loss And Moss – Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: A Story Of The Information Age, In Five Parts – Scott J. Shapiro

 

Bloomsbury

The Half Known Life – Pico Iyer

The Core Of An Onion – Mark Kurlansky

Operation Chiffon – Peter Taylor

The Book Of Wliding – Isabella Tree

The North Will Rise Again – Alex Niven

The Deadly Balance – Adam Hart

Into The Groove – Jonathan Scott

One Thousand Shades Of Green – Mike Dilger

The Bridleway – Tiffany Francis-Baker

Avocado Anxiety – Louise Grey

Gathering Places – Mary Cowell

Cuddy – Benjamin Myers

 

Bodley Head

Attack Warning Red – Julie McDowall

Being Human – Lewis Dartnell

 

Calon

Shaping the Wild – David Elias

 

Canongate

We Are Electric: The New Science Of Our Body’S Electrome – Sally Adee

Grounded: A Journey Into The Landscapes Of Our Ancestors – James Canton

Wolfish: The Stories We Tell About Fear, Ferocity And Freedom – Erica Berry

Why Women Grow: Stories Of Soil, Sisterhood And Survival – Alice Vincent

Beastly: A New History Of Animals And Us – Keggie Carew

The Memory Keeper: A Journey Into The Holocaust To Find My Family – Jackie Kohnstamm

Homelands: The History Of A Friendship – Chitra Ramaswamy

Cacophony Of Bone – Kerri Ní Dochartaigh

Black Ghosts: Encounters With The Africans Changing China – Noo Saro-Wiwa

 

Chatto & Windus

In Her Nature – Rachel Hewitt

 

Constable

It’s Not About Whiteness, It’s About Wealth: How the Economics of Race Really Work – Remi Adekoya

 

Corsair

Wounded Tigris: A river journey through the cradle of civilisation – Leon McCarron

Métropolitain: An Ode to the Paris Métro – Andrew Martin

 

Duckworth

The Case for Nature – Siddarth Shrikanth

The Possibility of Life – Jaime Green

 

Ebury Press

AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future – Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan

British Woodland: Discover the Secret World of Our Trees – Ray Mears

The Russia Conundrum: How the West Fell For Putin’s Power Gambit – and How to Fix It – Mikhail Khodorkovsky (with Martin Sixsmith)

The Bleeding Tree: A Pathway Through Grief Guided by Forests, Folk Tales and the Ritual Year – Hollie Starling

 

Elliott & Thompson

And Then What? Inside Stories of 21st Century Diplomacy – Catherine Ashton –

The Future Of Geography: How Power And Politics In Space Will Challenge Our World – Tim Marshall

Taking Flight: A Celebration Of The Miraculous Phenomenon Of Flight – Lev Parikian

A Day In the Life Of The Global Economy – Dharshini David

 

Europa Editions

Free to Obey: How The Nazis Invented Modern Management – Johann Chapoutot Tr. Steven Rendall

 

Faber & Faber

Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age – Katherine May

Shy – Max Porter

Emotional Ignorance – Dean Burnett

On Being Unreasonable – Kirsty Sedgman

Ten Birds That Changed The World – Stephen Moss

Floodmeadow – Toby Martinez De Las Rivas – Male

 

Fly On The Wall

We Saw It All Happen – Julian Bishop

The Naming Of Moths – Tracy Fells

 

Fum D’Estampa Press

In Yellow Evenings – Jordi Larios Tr. Ronald Puppo

Pharmakon – Almudena Sánchez Tr. Katie Whittemore

 

Harvill Secker

Spring Rain – Marc Hamer

Stone Will Answer – Beatrice Searle

 

Head of Zeus

Quantum Radio – A.G. Riddle

The Best of World SF Volume 2 – Various

Alien Worlds: The Secret Life Of Insects – Steve Nicholls

Stuck Monkey: How The Things We Love Are Killing the Environment – James Hamilton-Paterson

The Known Unknowns: The Unsolved Mysteries of the Cosmos – Lawrence Krauss

The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey – Tim Hannigan

The Vanished Collection – Pauline Baer de Perignon Tr. Natasha Lehrer

 

Headline

Between the Chalk and the Sea – Gail Simmons

The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time – Richard Fisher

The Queen of Codes – Jacki Ui Chionna

Who Cares – Emily Kenway

The Red Hotel – Alan Philps

Steeple Chasing – Peter Ross

Rivets, Trivets and Galvanised Buckets – Tom Fort

 

Hodder & Stoughton

If Nietzsche Were A Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity – Justin Gregg

Defeating The Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail In The Age Of The Strongman – Charles Dunst

Nuts And Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed The World (In A Big Way) – Roma Agrawal

Echolands: A Journey In Search Of Boudica – Duncan Mackay

Hands Of Time: A Watchmaker’S History – Rebecca Struthers

Undercurrent: A Cornish Memoir Of Poverty, Nature And Resilience – Natasha Carthew

The Tidal Year: A Memoir On Grief, Swimming And Sisterhood – Freya Bromley

 

Hurst Publishers

Plotters: The UK Terrorists Who Failed – Lizzie Dearden

Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer – Kathy Kleiman

How To Fight A War – Mike Martin

 

Hutchinson Heinman

Hermit: A memoir of finding freedom in a wild place – Jade Angeles Fitton

Sea Bean: A Beachcomber’s Search for a Magical Charm – Sally Huband

How to Build Impossible Things: Lessons in Life and Carpentry – Mark Ellison

 

Icon Books

Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built The CIA And Changed The Future Of Espionage – Nathalia Holt

Unravelling The Silk Road: Travels And Textiles In Central Asia – Chris Aslan

The Jay, The Beech And The Limpetshell: Teaching My Kids About Wild Things – Richard Smyth

Across A Waking Land: A 1,000-Mile Walk Through A British Spring – Roger Morgan-Grenville

India Uniform Nine: Secrets From Inside A Covert Customs Unit – Mark Perlstrom And Douglas Wight

Here Comes The Fun: A Year Of Making Merry – Ben Aitken

The Life Cycle: 8,000 Miles In The Andes By Bamboo Bike – Kate Rawles

 

Jonathan Cape

Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time – Kapka Kassabova

Urban Jungle: Wilding the City – Ben Wilson

One Midsummer’s Day: Swifts and the Story of Life on Earth – Mark Cocker

 

Little Toller

List to follow!!

 

Lund Humphries

What is it that will last?: Land and tidal art of Julie Brook – “Julie Brook, Simon Groom, Alexandra Harris, Kichizaemon XV, Raku Jikinyū and Robert Macfarlane”

 

Oneworld

Sleeping Beauties: The Mystery Of Dormant Innovations In Nature And Culture – Andreas Wagner

Black Ops And Beaver Bombing: Adventures With Britain’s Wild Mammals – Fiona Mathews And Tim Kendall

The Battle For Thought: Freethinking In The Twenty-First Century – Simon Mccarthy-Jones

Goodbye Eastern Europe: An Intimate history of a Divided Land – Jacob Mikanowski

 

Particular Books

Chicken Boy: My Life With Hens – Arthur Parkinson

 

Pelagic Publishing

Invisible Friends: How Microbes Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us – Jake M. Robinson

Reconnection: Fixing our Broken Relationship with Nature – Miles Richardson

 

Profile Books

Common Or Garden: Encounters With Britain’S Most Successful Wild Plants – Ken Thompson

Tree Stories – Stefano Mancuso

The Observant Walker: Wild Food, Nature And Hidden Treasures On The Pathways Of Britain – John Wright

George: A Magpie Memoir – Frieda Hughes

Is Maths Real?: & Other Questions That Reveal Mathematics’ Deepest Truths – Eugenia Cheng

The Invention Of Essex: The Making Of An English County – Tim Burrows

 

Quercus

My Russia: War Or Peace? – Mikhail Shishkin Tr. Gesche Ipsen

 

Reaktion Books

Astray: A History of Wandering – Eluned Summers-Bremner

Travellers Through Time: A Gypsy History – Jeremy Harte

Wind: Nature And Culture – Louise M Pryke

Yew – Fred Hageneder

 

Red Dog Books
Brittany: Stone Stories – Wendy Mews

 

Saraband

The Nature Chronicles – Ed. Kathryn Aalto

Singing Like Larks – Andrew Millham

 

September Publishing

Two Lights: Walking through Landscapes of Loss and Life – James Roberts

 

Seren Books

Real Dorset by Jon Woolcott

 

Souvenir Press

One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi And The Vanished World Of Jewish Rhodes – Michael Frank And Maira Kalman

 

Summersdale

Lost In The Lakes: Notes From A 379-Mile Walk In The Lake District – Tom Chesshyre

 

Transworld

Blue Machine – Helen Czerski

 

Virago

Mother Tongue: The surprising history of women’s words – Jenni Nuttall

 

W&N

On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe – Caroline Dodds Pennock

 

Books Read

Wild: Tales From Early Medieval Britain – Amy Jeffs – 3 stars

What Abigail Did That Summer – Ben Aaronovitch – 3.5 stars

My Life in France: The Classic Memoir Of Food And French Living – Julia Child – 3.5 stars

Tree Glee: How and Why Trees Make Us Feel Better – Cheryl Rickman – 3.5 stars

The Sloth Lemur’s Song: Madagascar from the Deep Past to the Uncertain Present – Alison Richard – 3.5 stars

Burn: A Story of Fire, Woods and Healing – Ben Short – 4 stars

No Country For Eight-Spot Butterflies – Julian Aguon – 4 stars

Black Lion: Alive in the Wilderness – Sicelo Mbatha – 4 stars

Eric Ravilious: Artist And Designer – Alan Powers – 4 stars

Wild Nephin – Sean Lysaght – 4 stars

A Still Life: A Memoir – Josie George – 4 stars

The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus – Michael McCarthy, Peter Marren, Jeremy Mynott – 4 stars

 

Book(s) Of The Month

I have chosen two books of the month this month. The first book is a terrifying account of how hacked the web is, how we are at the mercy of rogue, and what we would like to think are good governments. Read it and weep.

This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyber Weapons Arms Race – Nicole Perlroth – 4.5 stars

 

My second book is a travel memoir set in Iceland and it is just a beautiful piece of writing.

The Ravens Nest – Sarah Thomas – 4.5 stars

 

Top Genres

Natural History – 35

Travel – 23

Poetry – 15

Memoir – 14

History – 14

Fiction – 9

Science – 9

Environmental – 7

Science Fiction – 6

Photography – 5

 

Top Publishers

William Collins – 8

Faber & Faber – 8

Gollancz – 6

Bloomsbury – 6

Unbound – 5

Little Toller – 5

Eland – 4

Canongate – 4

Picador – 4

Elliott & Thompson – 4

 

Review Copies Received

Haunters at the Hearth: Eerie Tales For Christmas Nights – Ed. Tanya Kirk

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

 

Library Books Checked Out

The Consolation Of Nature: Spring In The Time Of Coronavirus – Michael McCarthy

Wild: Tales From Early Medieval Britain – Amy Jeffs

Cornerstones: Wild Forces That Can Change Our World – Benedict Macdonald

Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide – Bill McGuire

England’s Green – Zaffar Kunial

Ephemeron – Fiona Benson

Eating to Extinction – Dan Saladino

36 Islands – Robert Twigger

 

Books Bought

Cocaine Train: Tracing My Bloodline Through Colombia – Stephen Smith

The Wind At My Back: A Cycling Life – Paul Maunder

The Swallow: A Biography – Stephen Moss

Ancient Stones Of Dorset – Peter Knight

Old Calabria – Norman Douglas

A Life in Car Design – Oliver Winterbottom

Mariana – Monica Dickens

Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers who Turned the Tide in the Second World War – Paul Kennedy

Elisabeth’s Lists: A Life Between the Lines – Lulah Ellender

The Olive Farm – Carol Drinkwater

Squirrel Pie (and other stories): Adventures in Food Across the Globe – Elisabeth Luard

Walking the Woods and the Water: In Patrick Leigh Fermor’s footsteps from the Hook of Holland to the Golden Horn – Nick Hunt

Thinking Again – Jan Morris

Trees & Woodland in the British Landscape: The Complete History of Britain’s Trees, Woods & Hedgerows – Oliver Rackham

The Manor Houses of Dorset – Una Russell & Audrey Grindrod

The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors – David George Haskell

 

I think that is it! Any that you have read or that takes you fancy? Let me know in the comments below

Here is my December TBR. Yes, I know it is much shorter than usual, but I am focused on getting what I need to read for the Good Reads challenge and the Natural History book reading challenge. It may change as inevitably library books that I have out, get reserved by others…

 

Reading Through The Year

A Poem for Every Night of the Year Allie Esiri

Word Perfect: Etymological Entertainment For Every Day of the Year – Susie Dent

 

Finishing Off (Still!)

The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre – Tim Hannigan

 

Blog Tour

None this month!

 

Challenge Books

The last six for the nature reading challenge:

I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain – Anita Sethi

Swifts and Us: The Life of the Bird that Sleeps in the Sky – Sarah Gibson

The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus – Michael McCarthy, Peter Marren, Jeremy Mynott

The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us – Nick Hayes

The Overstory – Richard Powers

True North – Gavin Francis

 

Review Books

What Remains?: Life, Death and the Human Art of Undertaking – Rupert Callender

West Cumbria Mining: The Silence Between The Shadows – David Banning

Smelling the Breezes: A Journey through the High Lebanon in 1957 – Ralph Izzard & Molly Izzard

The Wheel of the Year: A Nurturing Guide to Rediscovering Nature’s Seasons and Cycles – Rebecca Beattie

On Travel and the Journey Through Life – Ed. Barnaby Rogerson

Haunters at the Hearth: Eerie Tales For Christmas Nights – Ed. Tanya Kirk (Kind of a Christmassy read…)

 

Library

Who knows this month? All the books I had planned to read were passed as I had five other reservations!

 

Big Books

When I have finished the Good Reads challenge, I like to start on some big books that I don’t always get around to reading in other months with the intention of finishing them in January. I have some huge books to get through from the library and review copies and these are some that I am going to pick from:

Gnomon – Nick Harkaway
Endurance: 100 Tales of Survival, Endurance and Exploration – Ed. Levison Wood
Iconicon: A Journey Around the Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain –  John Grindrod
Seveneves –  Neal Stephenson
The Night Lies Bleeding – M.D. Lachlan
Hunted – G X Todd
Red Moon – Kim Stanley Robinson
Thin Air – Richard Morgan
Shadow Captain –  Alastair Reynolds
Horizon – Barry Lopez
The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall – Mark W. Moffett
The Warehouse – Rob Hart
The Cruel Stars – John Birmingham
The Solar War – A.G. Riddle
Cage of Souls – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation – Ken Liu
The Border – A Journey Around Russia: Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, … Finland, Norway and the Northeast Passage – Erika Fatland Tr. Kari Dickson
Britain Alone: The Path from Suez to Brexit – Philip Stephens
Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation – Edward Glaeser, David Cutler
The Serpent Coiled in Naples – Marius Kociejowski
From Utmost East to Utmost West: My life of exploration and adventure – John Blashford-Snell

 

Any that you have heard of or like the sound of? Let me know in the comments below

This blog post came from an idea from the master book tempter, Runalong Womble and you can read more about his idea in his blog post here. In essence, it is to highlight the magnificent work that the small publishers and presses do in bringing books that the big five see as too risky or not commercial enough. Independent publishers are great and they were the subject of a series of posts that I did a few years ago, just search for Publisher Profiles on here.

I want to talk about two books and two publishers in my post today. The first is the mighty Little Toller. There are based on the other side of Dorset to me and have two main themes of books that they publish. The first is the reprinting of nature classics that have gone out of print and they now also publish modern and contemporary books on the natural world. You can read more about their story here.

The book that I want to bring to your attention today is brother. do. you. love. me. by Manni and Ruben Coe.

Reuben, aged 38, was living in a home for adults with learning disabilities. He hadn’t established an independent life in the care system and was still struggling to accept that he had Down’s syndrome. Depressed and in a fog of anti-depressants, he hadn’t spoken for over a year. The only way he expressed himself was by writing poems or drawing felt-tip scenes from his favourite West End musicals and Hollywood films. Increasingly isolated, cut off from everyone and everything he loved, Reuben sent a text message: ‘brother. do. you. love. me.’ 

When Manni received this desperate message from his youngest brother, he knew everything had to change. He immediately left his life in Spain and returned to England, moving Reuben out of the care home and into an old farm cottage in the countryside. In the stillness of winter, they began an extraordinary journey of repair, rediscovering the depths of their brotherhood, one gradual step at a time.

Combining Manni’s tender words with Reuben’s powerful illustrations, their story of hope and resilience questions how we care for those we love, and demands that, through troubled times, we learn how to take better care of each other.

This is a wonderful and heartwarming tale of how Manni rescues Ruben and they rekindle their deep brotherly friendship. My review is here

 

The second publisher that I want to talk about is one of those that inspired Little Toller, Eland. They have been publishing travel books for forty years now, and whilst they do have some modern  travelogues, their primary aim is to bring back to life the travel books that were considered great and can now be found in second-hand bookshops. There is more on their story here.

The book that I want to bring to your attention today is On Travel edited by Barnaby Rogerson.

On Travel presents a pyrotechnic display of cracking one-liners, cynical wordplay and comic observation, mining three thousand years of global wit and wisdom: from Pliny to Spinoza and from Albert Einstein to Aunt Augusta. Beyond the mad diversity of opinions and ideas, there is a gradually emerging consensus: that other people are crucial to our understanding of ourselves and that there is more than one right way to be.

It also offers occasional practical tips to make the most of your trip, ranging from advice on choosing your companions to the importance of tethering your camel. And it proves that travel – far from being an indulgent escape – is real preparation for the journey through life.

I haven’t read this yet, it is one I have lined up for December!

Do follow the hashtag #SmallPressBigStories  on Twitter and Mastodon

Runalong Womble can be found on Twitter and on Mastodon

With the possible demise of Twitter, I can now be found on Mastodon and Instagram

Somehow I managed to read 16 books again this month. Some were quite short though which probably helped. There was a good mix too, as you can see below. Sarah has now completed three cycles of chemo and has found a routine that works for her, but this week they found another lump in her other boob. 🙁 She described it as whack a mole, just seeing what will happen next. Anyway here they are:

 

Books Read

The Illustrated Woman – Helen Mort – 3 Stars

The Magic of Mushrooms: Fungi In Folklore, Superstition And Traditional Medicine – Sandra Lawrence – 3 Stars

Wild Child: A Journey Through Nature – Dara McAnulty – 3 Stars

Wild Nights Out: The Magic of Exploring the Outdoors After Dark – Chris Salisbury – 3 Stars

All Island No Sea – Chris Campbell – 3 Stars

The Slain Birds – Michael Longley – 3 Stars

The Art of Jeremy Gardiner: Unfolding Landscape – Wendy Baron – 3.5 Stars

The Heath: A Year in the Life of Hampstead Heath – Hunter Davies – 3.5 Stars

The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 19 ½ Front Gardens – Ben Dark – 3.5 Stars

The Travel Photographer’s Way – Nori Jemil – 3.5 Stars

A Song for a New Day – Sarah Pinsker – 4 Stars

At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond – Various – 4 Stars

Taverna by the Sea: One Greek Island Summer – Jennifer Barclay – 4 Stars

My Family and Other Enemies: Life and Travels in Croatia’s Hinterland – Mary Novakovich – 4 Stars

Bunker: Building For The End Times – Bradley L. Garrett – 4 Stars

 

Book Of The Month

This is a heartwarming story of two brothers during the pandemic. It is about how Manni brought his brother Ruben back out of the self-inflicted silence caused by the care home he was in.

brother. do. you. love. me. – Manni Coe & Reuben Coe  – 4 Stars

 

Top Genres

Natural History – 32

Travel – 22

Poetry – 15

History – 13

Memoir – 12

Fiction – 9

Science – 8

Science Fiction – 6

Environmental – 6

Photography – 5

 

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 8

William Collins – 7

Little Toller – 5

Gollancz – 5

Unbound – 5

Elliott & Thompson – 4

Bloomsbury – 4

Canongate – 4

Eland – 4

Picador – 4

 

Review Copies Received

West Cumbria Mining: The Silence Between The Shadows – David Banning

Spectral Sounds: Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird – Ed. Manon Burz-Labrande

From Utmost East to Utmost West: My life of exploration and adventure – John Blashford-Snell

Tree Glee: How and Why Trees Make Us Feel Better – Cheryl Rickman

Smelling the Breezes: A Journey through the High Lebanon in 1957 – Ralph Izzard & Molly Izzard

On Travel and the Journey Through Life – Ed. Barnaby Rogerson

The Wheel of the Year: A Nurturing Guide to Rediscovering Nature’s Seasons and Cycles – Rebecca Beattie

My Life in France: The Classic Memoir Of Food And French Living – Julia Child

 

Library Books Checked Out

Remainders Of The Day: More Diaries From The Bookshop, Wigtown – Shaun Bythell

Eric Ravilious: Artist And Designer – Alan Powers

Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses To Rural England’s Colonial Connections – Corinne Fowler

Wild Nights Out: The Magic Of Exploring The Outdoors After Dark – Chris Salisbury

Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain – Tim Moore

Into Iraq – Michael Palin

No Country For Eight-Spot Butterflies – Julian Aguon

Burn: A Story of Fire, Woods and Healing – Ben Short

The Slain Birds – Michael Longley

Wild Child – Dara McAnulty

The Ravens Nest – Sarah Thomas

Bibliomaniac – Robin Ince

Once Upon a Tome – Oliver Darkshire

 

Books Bought

The Bedlam Stacks – Natasha Pulley

Perfume from Provence – Lady Winifred Fortescue

Ancestors: A prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials – Alice Roberts

Hidden Histories: A Spotter’s Guide to the British Landscape – Mary-Ann Ochota

Elements Of Italy – Lisa St. Aubin De Teran

The Industrial Past – Peter Stanier

Regency Riot & Reform – Jo Draper

Traveller From Tokyo – John Morris

Folklore Of Dorset – Fran & Geoff Doel

Apricots On the Nile – Colette Rossant

Night Trains – Andrew Martin

A Year In The World – Frances Mayes

Tree Tales: A Celebration of Exeter’s Trees – Jos Smith & Luke Thompson

The Rights Of The Reader – Daniel Pennac

This Luminous Coast – Jules Pretty

The Bullet Journal Method – Ryder Carrol

Dorset Up Along and Down Along: a Collection of History, Tradition, Folk Lore, Flower Names and Herbal Lore – Ed. Marianne Dacombe

Heathlands – Lesley Haskins

Dorset Dialect Days – James Atwell

The Flora of Dorset – Humphry Bowen

Toujours Provence – Peter Mayle

The Life of My Choice – Wilfred Thesiger

One More Croissant for the Road – Felicity Cloake

The Premonitions Bureau – Sam Knight

Gardener’s Nightcap – Muriel Stuart

Island Wife: Living On The Edge Of The Wild – Judy Fairbairns (Signed)

Seven Years in Tibet – Heinrich Harrer

Any that you have heard of from that (huge) list. Let me know in the comments below.

Here is my November TBR. Yes, I know it is much shorter than usual, but I am focused on getting what I need to read for the Good Reads challenge and the Natural History book reading challenge. It may change as inevitably library books that I have out, get reserved by others…

 

Reading Through The Year

A Poem for Every Night of the Year Allie Esiri

Word Perfect: Etymological Entertainment For Every Day of the Year – Susie Dent

 

Finishing Off (Still!)

The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre – Tim Hannigan

This Is How They Tell Me The World Ends: The Cyber Weapons Arms Race – Nicole Perlroth

 

Blog Tour

My Life in France: The Classic Memoir Of Food And French Living – Julia Child

Tree Glee: How and Why Trees Make Us Feel Better – Cheryl Rickman

What’s for Dessert: Simple Recipes for Dessert People – Claire Saffitz

 

Challenge Books

I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain – Anita Sethi

Wild Nephin – Sean Lysaght

Swifts and Us: The Life of the Bird that Sleeps in the Sky – Sarah Gibson

A Still Life: A Memoir – Josie George

Black Lion: Alive in the Wilderness – Sicelo Mbatha

 

Library

A Trillion Trees: How We Can Reforest Our World – Fred Pearce

Venice: The Lion, The City And The Water – Cees Nooteboom

What Abigail Did That Summer – Ben Aaronovitch

 

Any that you have heard of or like the sound of? Let me know in the comments below