Category: Book Musings (Page 21 of 32)

In our current political and social climate, much-loved poet Jim Miller and his frank observations of a downtrodden society, seem both relevant and important for conversations regarding social reform. In this collection, it is the bonds of love, even through troubled waters, which are offered as solutions to a society currently shying away from a duty of care for one another.

This collection, which addresses addiction, recovery and love in its many forms, reflects the poet’s observations about regression in societal morals. Although these are Miller’s personal viewpoints, his political thinking is relevant against the wider backdrop of the USA, whose divisions threaten to tear its citizens down the centre.

Miller was born in 1970s, in a small town in northern Indiana. His early life was spent between Indiana, Florida and the New York area. After his many years in college, he took to the road and travelled the country in a quest to find himself and some meaning or purpose in life. Poetry helped Miller articulate his emotions. Miller said that he hopes his philosophical and reflective collection, “will bring comfort to readers who currently despair at societal divisions. We need to raise our children with hope and instil a sense of morality.”

 Isabelle Kenyon from Fly on the Wall Press said: “Divided into three sections, Miller is unafraid to delve into our current political and social climate in all its flaws, passionate love in all its ups and downs and presents an ode to hope for our future children, that they will learn from our mistakes.”

One thing is for sure, it is the vulnerability in Miller’s writing and his bravery in sharing his deepest thoughts and fears which will win his readers over, as he opens his notepad to journal his observations of society.

Here is a sample poem from his collection

The Phantom I Became

I awoke the other night inundated in my perspiration;
I saw her face where memory awakened,
walking away, her back towards the sun setting along the shoreline,
the golden-red tint of sunrays highlighted
her hair’s natural gold; I traced the silhouette of her face,
drunk in a love abandoned, once upon a distant day.

I cannot justify why still I refuse to remember;
I shake away the temptation,
that foolish urge to call out her name,
that taunting urge to scream, to call out for her.
I refuse to swallow the cyanide of decisions
as a sentence served in a prison of remorse.

A shot of bourbon swallowed to numb;
the other to ease the pain;
another shot for courage
and another, another, another…
wherein the darkness hides a ghost
& aches memory of decisions derived:
this life, that road, the many footsteps taken.

If apologies could bandage the scars
I have induced & the wreckage abandoned,
that she wears as a burden so beautifully flawed,
and could erase the scars embedded,
I would. but I cannot muster the courage
to master meaningless words,
words softly spoken sound so selfishly sincere,
words sadly spoken only so my suffering could dissipate,
evaporate like rain in a desert
to justify the decisions of a child: words that would do nothing
to bandage the wounds they helped create.

Even when reason remained dormant; unknown,
my every footstep made was destined,
delivering yesterday to today.
Still, it’s difficult to justify the emotions defied,
nor the costs or sacrifice.

I cannot fathom the means to forgive,
nor the reasons for the scared child I was
or for phantom I became.

Buy this at your local independent bookshop. If you’re not sure where your nearest is then you can find one here or direct from Miller himself.

Why is it that January always seems so long.? There were some hilarious memes out there on social media about how many days there are in the month, but we finally made it to the end. Even though it dragged on, I only managed to read 17 books. There were a couple that I wasn’t overly enamoured with, but most were good and there were a couple of great books. So this is what I read:

 

Colson Whitehead has won the Pulitzer and the Clarke award with The Underground Railroad, but I wasn’t that impressed by it.

     

 

My wife is a big knitter so when I saw that Granta was publishing This Golden Fleece by Esther Rutter I’d thought I’d get a copy for us to read. It had a reservation on it, so I had to read it quickly and return it. I really liked it, not only does she talk about the social history of knitting and wool in general, but for each chapter, she makes a project relevant to the place that she is visiting around the UK.

I read Charlotte Higgins book on Roman Britain a while ago now and was quite pleased that I got a review copy of Red Thread as I have long had a fascination with Mazes and Labyrinths. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting as it was more focused on the classics rather than contemporary mazes, but thought it was still an interesting read.

Rob Temple’s Very British Problems is a guaranteed laugh every day. This book I picked up from somewhere about the perils of travelling abroad is a fine piece of tongue in cheek humour.

I have been an engineer at two lighting companies over the last 15 years, so when I saw that Saraband were publishing Incandescent: We Need to Talk about Light by Anna Levin I thought I’d give it a go. It is an interesting book about the rise of CFL and LED lamps that were replacing the old incandescent lamps to save energy and carbon dioxide. Not everyone can get along with these new light sources for a variety of health reasons and this is her well-crafted argument as to why we still should have them available for sale.

Ghostland was another find from Twitter. It is an interesting mix of family memoir, literary reminiscence and fringed by the author visiting the places where the books were set. It wasn’t quite what i was expecting as it occassional venture into the slightly strange and surreal.

   

I read two poetry books this month as I indicated in my 202 goals. First was Memorial by Alice Oswald and it is her interpretation of a character in the Iliad. Not bad overall. The second was the debut collection from Nathan Evans & Justin David and is called Threads. It is a collaboration of verse and photo and I thought that it was really good.

I had intended to read the Emma Newman book for my science fiction selection but realised that the review copy I had is book three in the series. The library cam to the rescue and now have all four books in the series. Ended up reading Defender by G X Todd as I have been promising to read it for ages. Thought it was really good depiction of a brutal dystopian society with a supernatural element

           

I read seven travel books in total this month. For the first four I ventured to South America with Oliver Balch as he meets the people of a number of countries, Indonesia with Will Buckingham as he goes in search of three sculptors and all across Europe following the Epic tales that still have resonance in this modern time with Nicholas Jubber and finally to Montana with Joanna Pocock

I also read three from the shortlist for the adventure category for the Edward Stanford Awards:

       

Journeys in the Wild  by Gavin Thurston, Where There’s A Will by Emily Chappell and From the Lion’s Mouth by Iain Campbell, but I can’t say much about them until after the awards are announced on the 26th February!

My book of the month is The Wee Free Men Terry Pratchett. A brilliant introduction for a formidable new witch to the Disc. And she is only nine!

January seemed to last for ages but suddenly it is February so a day or so late, here is my TBR for this month:

Finishing Off

The Impossible Climb by Mark Synott (The final book from the shortlist I am judging)

 

Review Copies

American Dirt – Jeanie Cummins (wavering on this one a little with all the publicity about this)
Eothen: Traces Of Travel Brought Home From The East – Alexander William Kinglake
Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality – Anil Ananthaswamy
Under the Stars: A Journey into Light – Matt Gaw
The Magicians – Marcus Chown
Along the Amber Route: St Petersburg to Venice – C.J. Schuller
Vickery’s Folk Flora: An A-Z of the Folklore and Uses of British and Irish Plants – Roy Vickery
The Many Lives of Carbon – Dag Olav Hessen, Tr. Kerri Pierce
Spinning Silver – Naomi Novrik
The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey on Two Rivers – Moritz Thomsen
The Book of Puka-Puka: A Lone Trader in the South Pacific Robert – Dean Frisbie
Irreplaceable: The Fight To Save Our Wild Places – Julian Hoffman
The House of Islam – Ed Husain
Blue Mind: How Water Makes You Happier, More Connected and Better at What You Do – Wallace J. Nichols
When the Rivers Run Dry: Water – The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century – Fred Pearce
The Glass Woman – Caroline Lea
Sunfall – Jim Al-Khalili

 

Library Books

The Edge Of The World – Michael Pye (Really Must finish this one)
Mudlarking: Lost And Found On The River Thames – Lara Maiklem
Doggerland – Ben Smith
Figures in a Landscape: People and Places – Paul Theroux
The Odditorium – David Bramwell & Jo Keeling
Ciderology – Gabe Cook
The Almost Nearly Perfect People – Michael Booth
Tweet Of The Day – Brett Westwood & Stephen Moss
Elephant Complex: Travels In Sri Lanka – John Gimlette
Cobra In The Bath: Adventures In Less Travelled Lands – Miles Morland
Down In The Valley: A Writer’s Landscape – Laurie Lee

 

Challenge Books

A Hat Full of Sky – Terry Pratchett

This is Going to Hurt – Adam Kay

A Year In Kingcombe – Anita Roy

 

Poetry

Soho – Richard Scott

A Force That Takes – Edward Ragg

 

Science Fiction

One Way – S.J. Morden

There are only sixteen books this year that made five stars for me, and they are my books of the year below.

In my reading intentions, I had promised to read the remainder of the Discworld books that I hadn’t ever rear. Whilst I haven’t finished them all, I did make progress this year. The Last Hero was the first from that list and in true Terry Pratchett for it did not disappoint. Very funny and a tiny parody of life on our world too.

The Wild Remedy was my book of the month back in March. It is a thing of beauty and needs to be read by those that have emerged from the Winter and are still feeling the effects of depression. It is very personal too as Emma recounts points when she was at her very lowest ebb.

Earth from Space is very much a coffee table book and the phots in here are as sumptuous as they are amazing.

I have a fascination about lighthouses and Seashaken Houses by Tom Nancollas  is a brilliantly written history of these  structures around the UK.

Roger Deakin was the founder of the modern revival in nature writing and this book by his son, Rufus Deakin, and the man, Titus Rowlandson, who currently lives in his house is a wonderful persoanl history of a home.

Robert Macfarlane is a magnificent writer, and his latest book, Underland continues that trend. Instead of being in the wild open spaces and the mountains, he heads underground to discover the places where people do not often venture.

The link between mental health and the benefits that the natural world can bring has been proved many times now. In Bird Therapy,  Joe Harkness tells a personal story of his fightback from a suicide attempt and how being out bird watching helped him in every stage of recovery.

All Together Now is a brilliant state of our nation book, as Mike Carter walks the same journey his father did three decades before and listens to the people along his route.

Hoping that having his own plot of land and space for his family to grow would be the inspiration that he needed for his writing, didn’t quite work out for Paul Kingsnorth. In Savage Gods he talks about how the writing process has changed him.

Another Discworld book, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is one of the children’s books in the series. It is still written with his razor-sharp wit and take on the aspects of life that affect us all.

I will admit that Andy Goldsworthy is my favourite artist and found Enclosure in my local library. Brilliant art as ever.

Until Eland kindly sent me the Jonathan Raban books that they were republishing I had never read any of his books. They were all very good, but he writes about America so very well as you can find in Old Glory and this one, Hunting Mister Heartbreak. Great writer and great book.

Mark Cocker is one of the many modern nature writers who I admire. I actually met him at the Wainwright shortlist announcement and had a good chat, and his last book, A Claxton Diary is as well written as all his others.

A writer who is forging his own paths in nature writing is Tom Cox. 21st Century Yokel was brilliant and the sort of sequel, Ring the Hill maintains that same  standard.

Robert Macfarlane is best known for non-fiction, but this collaboration with Stanley Donwood is his first foray into poetry and fiction. Sharp, eerie and devastating. This is Ness.

And my book of the year is Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie. Any of her writing is a treat and this does not disappoint in any way at all.

 

A New Year and a new decade too. Lots to read this month the start of the annual Good Reads reading challenge. I have set mine at 190  again, and just need to crack on with it.

I also run a group on Good Reads where I design and set an annual challenge for the members. This year it is Dusty Shelf Bingo and the bingo grid for books to select for this is below. Just selecting the books that I want to read for this list is great fun. Will post about this more soon.

Anyway onto my TBR for this month. I am hoping to make these a little more focused based on my reading intentions here.

Edward Stanford Adventure Travel Shortlist

I am judging this shortlist in early February, but want to get them read ASAP

From The Lion’s Mouth: A Journey Along the Indus – Iain Campbell

The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan and the Climbing Life – Mark Synnott

Where There’s A Will – Emily Chappell

Journeys in the Wild: The Secret Life of a Cameraman – Gavin Thurston

There are two more on the list but I have already read them:

Outpost – Dan Richards

Rough Magic: Riding the World’s Wildest Horse Race – Lara Prior-Palmer

 

Review Copies

American Dirt – Jeanie Cummins

A Good Neighbourhood -Therese Anne Fowler

Vickery’s Folk Flora – Roy Vickery

The Many Lives of Carbon – Dag Olav Hessen, Tr. Kerri Pierce

Spinning Silver – Naomi Novrik

Red Thread: On Mazes and Labyrinths – Charlotte Higgins

Stealing With The Eyes – Will Buckingham

The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey on Two Rivers by Moritz Thomsen

The Book of Puka-Puka: A Lone Trader in the South Pacific by Robert Dean Frisbie

Irreplaceable: The Fight To Save Our Wild Places by Julian Hoffman

Incandescent – Ann Levin

The House of Islam – Ed Husain

Blue Mind – Wallace J. Nichols

When the Rivers Run Dry – Fred Pearce

The Glass Woman – Caroline Lea

Sunfall by Jim Al-Khalili

 

Library Books

This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain’s Knitted History – Esther Rutter

The Edge Of The World: A Cultural History Of The North Sea And The Transformation Of Europe – Michael Pye

The Ice House – Tim Clare

Pie Fidelity: In Defence Of British Food – Pete Brown

Defender – G X Todd

On The Marsh: A Year Surrounded By Wildness And Wet – Simon Barnes

 

Challenge Books

The Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett

 

Poetry

Memorial: An Excavation of the Iliad – Alice Oswald

Threads – Nathan Evans

 

Science Fiction

Before Mars – Emma Newman

 

I think that will do!

I have been reviewing what I wrote for my 2019 reading intentions and seeing how many I failed at!  Did manage a lot of them, but not all. I have written about that in my year in review here. That said I still like to have some broad goals that I can aim for, or most likely shuffle broadly in the direction of. And here they are:

 

My Own Books

Sarah has said again that I have too many books piled up (Tsundoko) around the house. (Note to self, try not to buy so many books). Did manage to read 25 of my own books, but that isn’t enough. That said,  I am allowed to get some more bookshelves!  So that is a new year project to sort that all of that out and unhaul some books. I am looking forward to having all my Little Toller and Eland books together in one place too!

 

Review Copies

According to my spreadsheet, I have 124 outstanding review copies to read. Even though there is a lot of books on the two shelves that I have for them,  I’m not sure if this is right as I counted way less than that on the shelf!!! I am grateful for every book I receive through the post from publishers, so thank you to you all. I fully intend to read and review as many of those as possible as soon as I can, but also see the blogging post below.

 

Library Books

As I said last year, these places are a precious resource. Sadly, our present government seems hell-bent on eradicating them from our cities, towns and villages. I still have too many library books out, and will still keep getting them out too. The author gets a small amount every time a book of theirs is borrowed and for the reader, most books are free or have a nominal reservation fee. I am fortunate that I have two library cards, and I am going to try not to max each one out…

 

Female and BAME Authors

In 2018, 35% of my reading was by female authors. Had intended to raise that for 2019, but have dropped back to 33%. So will be aiming for 40% in 2020. I want around 5% of my reading to be  BAME authors too.

 

Poetry

Last year I managed to read a poetry book each and every month and sometimes read more than one. I like poetry, even though I don’t always get it, so am going to try to read around two books a month in 2020.

 

Literary Awards

Will be aiming to read all of these again (Next year I might get to the Baillie Gifford list as I didn’t this year)

Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards (I am judging the Adventure Travel next year)

Wainwright

Royal Society

Baillie Gifford

Arthur C Clarke

 

The World From My Armchair Challenge

Managed to read 13 more books for this long term challenge bringing my total read so far to 44. I have been acquiring books for it though, and have a further 41 books on various bookshelves scattered around the house to read for other countries. I am still looking for travel books (or non-fiction) that are set in or pass through these countries, below. So if you know any, please do let me know.

Antigua and Barbuda
Brunei Darussalam
Capo Verde
Central African Republic
Chad
Dominica
Gambia
Grenada
Kuwait
Micronesia
Persian Gulf
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Sao Tome and Principe
Seychelles
Swaziland
Timor-Leste
Trinidad and Tobago
Uruguay
Balearic Sea
Ligurian Sea
Alboran Sea

 

Discworld

Managed two more from the Discworld series, but these are still to go:

The Wee Free Men
A Hat Full of Sky
Unseen Academicals
I Shall Wear Midnight
Snuff
Raising Steam
The Shepherd’s Crown

Please feel free to pester me to remind me that need to keep reading them.

 

Science Fiction

Only read two (yes two) science fiction books this year which I am ashamed of really as I had high hopes of getting more than that read. Aiming to read at least one a month.

 

Blogging

I have always been a reader first and foremost and I get immense pleasure from reading and talking about books. It was reading that introduced me to NB magazine and the blog came off the back of that. After a lot of thought, I have decided that I am going to change the way that I am blogging. I am going to still be reading and reviewing on here and Good Reads and so on, but will be drastically reducing the number of review copies that I request as I can’t keep up.  I am still happy to receive a book if a publisher or publicist still wishes to send them to me, but will not guarantee when I will get to read it. Instead, I have decided that I will either get the newly released books in 2020 from the library or buy them myself to read as and when I can. I will still take part in Blog Tours, but only a maximum of once a month as I don’t always like reading to a deadline.

 

So there we have it, some changes and evolution from last years intentions as my priorities have changed.

What are your reading intentions?

A couple of times a year a list of books appears that someone else thinks that you need to have read to have become a complete reader or person or something else. The latest one was on the BBC a few weeks ago and was called The 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. The link is here for those that want to go and see how many they have read.

The premise behind this latest one was to have a list of novels that have in some way affected or had some impact on that particular group of readers that compiled the list. I thought it was an interesting selection, but as with a lot of the others that are published, it did feel like a list of books that others feel you ought to read rather than books that someone else genuinely loved. So I thought, how difficult is this to do?

It turns out actually more difficult than I thought. Mostly because narrowing it down to 100 is hard. Really hard.

I thought long and hard about which authors to include and then which of their books were my favourites. I have tried to include one each of their books in each of the categories that I selected, but so easily could have of included more (ok, in some cases all of them).

So why these books?

Well, there are a variety of reasons that I have chosen these titles. There are books in this list that I loved when I first read them, there are books that helped me discover a particular genre or subject. Some have been transformational in their own way, opening my eyes to a new way of thinking, but most are here because I think that they are brilliant works written by some of the best authors.

I am not going to suggest that you must read these. I am very much of the mind that anyone should impose their reading tastes on anyone else. What I would like you to do, though is give a few of these a go, or use this list to find out about these and other authors whose writing might spark your interest or curiosity.

 

Travel

A Time of Gifts – Patrick Leigh Fermor

To a Mountain in Tibet – Colin Thubron

A Year in Provence – Peter Mayle

Tequila Oil – Hugh Thomson

French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France – Tim Moore

Wild Coast: Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge – John Gimlette

A Dip in the Ocean: Rowing Solo Across the Indian Ocean – Sarah Outen

An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan – Jason Elliot

Old Glory: An American Voyage – Jonathan Raban

This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland – Gretel Ehrlich

Revolutionary Ride: On the Road in Search of the Real Iran – Lois Pryce

Around India in 80 Trains – Monisha Rajesh

Bearback: The World Overland – Pat Garrod

 

Natural History

Sightlines – Kathleen Jamie

Waterlog – Roger Deakin

Landmarks – Robert Macfarlane

The Last Wilderness – Neil Ansell

Crow Country – Mark Cocker

21st Century Yokel – Tom Cox

Turning – Jessica J. Lee

Nightwalk: A Journey to the Heart of Nature – Chris Yates

The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland – John Lewis-Stempel

The Running Sky: A Bird-Watching Life – Tim Dee

Bird Therapy – Joe Harkness

Flora Britannica – Richard Mabey

 

Landscapes

Edgelands – Paul Farley & Michael Symmons Roberts

Strands: A Year of Discoveries on the Beach – Jean Sprackland

Under the Rock: The Poetry of a Place – Benjamin Myers

Four Fields – Tim Dee

On the Marshes – Carol Donaldson

Limestone Country – Fiona Sampson

This Luminous Coast – Jules Pretty

 

Children’s

Stig of the Dump – Clive King

Swallowdale – Arthur Ransome

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 – Sue Townsend

Volcano Adventure – Willard Price

Asterix – René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo

Comet in Moonminland – Tove Jansson

 

Biography

Patrick Leigh Fermor – Artemis Cooper

Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson

The Fry Chronicles – Stephen Fry

Gavin Maxwell: A Life – Douglas Botting

Life at Walnut Tree Farm – Rufus Deakin & Titus Rowlandson

Stargazing – Peter Hill

 

Fiction

The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

At Hawthorn Time – Melissa Harrison

The Girl on the Landing – Paul Torday

The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood

The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafón

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John le Carré

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas – John Boyne

Reamde – Neal Stephenson

The Gallows Pole – Benjamin Myers

Lanny – Max Porter

Elmet – Fiona Mozley

 

Science Fiction

Consider Phlebas – Iain M Banks

Eon – Greg Bear

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

The City & the City – China Miéville

Pattern Recognition – William Gibson

Redrobe – Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Embers of War – Gareth L Powell

 

Books & Bookshops

Robin Ince’s Bad Book Club – Robin Ince

Stuff I’ve Been Reading – Nick Hornby

The Bookshop Book – Jen Campbell

The Bookshop That Floated Away – Sarah Henshaw

The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life – Andy Miller

Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs: The Left Bank World of Shakespeare and Co – Jeremy Mercer

84 Charing Cross Road – Helene Hanff

Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books – Tim Parks

The Gifts of Reading – Robert Macfarlane

The Book Smugglers Of Timbuktu : The Race To Reach The Fabled City And The Fantastic Effort To Save Its Past – Charlie English

The Diary Of A Bookseller – Shaun Bythell

Jacob’s Room Is Full Of Books: A Year Of Reading – Susan Hill

 

History

SBS: The Inside Story of the Special Boat Service – John Parker

Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: The Most Notorious Double Agent of World War II – Ben Macintyre

East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity – Philippe Sands

Vesuvius: The Most Famous Volcano in the World – Gillian Darley

Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox – Victoria Finlay

Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey – Rachel Hewitt

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time – Dava Sobel

Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, The Great War – John Lewis-Stempel

The Story of England – Michael Wood

 

Science

Bad Science – Ben Goldacre

Alex’s Adventures in Numberland: Dispatches from the Wonderful World of Mathematics – Alex Bellos

Trick or Treatment?: Alternative Medicine on Trial – Simon Singh

Ocean of Life. How Our Seas are Changing? – Callum Roberts

An Ocean Of Air: A Natural History Of The Atmosphere – Gabrielle Walker

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet – Mark Lynas

Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour – Philip Ball

Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star That Gives Us Life – Richard Cohen

 

Fantasy

Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman

Guards, Guards – Terry Pratchett

Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin

Spring – William Horwood

Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch

Uprooted – Naomi Novik

Perdido Street Station – China Miéville

Magician – Raymond E. Fiest

 

Language

Mother Tongues: Travels Through Tribal Europe – Helena Drysdale

The Horologicon: A Day’s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language – Mark Forsyth

Who Touched Base in My Thought Shower?: A Treasury of Unbearable Office Jargon – Steven Poole

The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities: A Yearbook of Forgotten Words – Paul Anthony Jones

The Gift Of The Gab: How Eloquence Works – David Crystal

Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language – Bill Bryson

 

Other Books

Passage – Andy Goldsworthy

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking – Susan Cain

Just My Type – Simon Garfield

Paper: An Elegy – Ian Sanson

Stanza Stones – Simon Armitage

Envisioning Information – Edward Tufte

Are You Dave Gorman? – Dave Gorman

Everything Bad is Good For You – Steven Johnson

 

So to answer the question, that I often get asked: what is your favourite book? It is probably one of these above, or it could be another that I haven’t quite remembered as you have put me on the spot.

The sharp-eyed of you that have made it to the bottom of the list and not nodded off, will notice that there isn’t exactly 100 books in here. And that is the point really, constraining yourself to a particular number for no apparent reason isn’t that helpful in the end. It doesn’t matter if your list of favourite books has 5 or 25 or 125 books on it, the important thing is that they are your favourites and have some personal significance to you.

What do you think of these lists of books?

Would any of these appear on your list?

Let me know what you think below.

This past year has been my best ever for reading and I finished 204 books. This was 4 more than last year. and 14 ahead of my Good Reads Target. So here are my stats for the last years reading.

My pages read was 51495 in total, and my monthly average of books was 17, just ahead of last years, 16.7. This broke down into these monthly totals:

January – 20

February – 17

March – 16

April – 17

May – 21

June – 17

July – 17

August – 16

September – 17

October – 16

November – 17

December – 13

The split of books read

Male Authors – 136

Female Authors – 68 i.e. 33%

This was 2% down on last year’s reading

Review Copies  – 90 (last year was 109)

Library Books – 89 (last year was 73)

Own Books– 25 (last year was 18) I still really need to read more of my own books that I have bought.

 

Non-Fiction – 160 – 78%

Fiction – 29 – 14.5%

Poetry – 15 – 7.5%

 

Stars Awarded:

5 Stars – 16 Books
4.5 Stars – 20 Books
4 Stars – 71 Books
3.5 stars – 51 Books
3 stars – 34 Books
2.5 Stars – 9 Books
2 Stars – 3 Books
1.5 stars 0 Books
1 stars – 0 Books

 

Genre

I use a spreadsheet to keep a note of the types and genres of books that I read. There are detailed below:

These are my favourite covers of the books that I have read over the course of 2019. They are in no particular order, but the one at the bottom is my cover of the year. The way I see it, the cover of book has one job only and that is to be catching or attractive enough to make me want to pause, pick them up and then make me want to read it. In my opinion, all of these covers do that.

And my cover of the year has to be Underland. Like all of Stanley Donwood’s images it is just staggering

I have been through all of the 2020 publishers catalogues that could lay my hands on and have extracted all the books that I really like the look of. Most are non-fiction, as you have probably come to expect by now, but there are a smattering of fiction and sci-fi in there.

 

Allen Lane

The Future of Food: How Digital Technology Will Change the Way We Feed the Planet by Caleb Harper

Rivers of Power: How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilizations, and Shapes Our World by Laurence C. Smith

Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild by Lucy Jones

The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price

English Pastoral An Inheritance by James Rebanks

The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World  by Sarah Stewart Johnson

 

Arrow

Threads by William Henry Searle

 

Bloomsbury

Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale by Adam Minter

Dark, Salt, Clear: Life in a Cornish Fishing Village by Lamorna Ash

Nothing Ordinary: A Still Life by Josie George

Fewer, Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects by Glenn Adamson

Last Train to Hilversum: A journey in search of the magic of radio by Charlie Connelly

The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company by William Dalrymple

A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma by David Eimer

Tangier: From the Romans to The Rolling Stones by Richard Hamilton

Wanderland by Jini Reddy

On the Trail of Wolves by Philippa Forrester

His Imperial Majesty: A Natural History of the Purple Emperor Butterfly by Matthew Oates

Tracking The Highland Tiger: In Search of Scottish Wildcats by Marianne Taylor

Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots by Kate Devlin

 

Canongate

Rootbound: Rewilding a Life by Alice Vincent

Department of Mind-Blowing Theories by Tom Gauld

Island Dreams: The Mapping of an Obsession by Gavin Francis

 

Elliott & Thompson

Cabinet of Calm: Soothing Words for Troubled Times by Paul Anthony Jones

We’re Living Through The Breakdown: And Here’s What We Can Do About It by Tatton Spiller

It’s the End of the World: But What Are We Really Afraid Of? by Adam Roberts

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Universe by Andrew Newsam

Under the Stars: A Journey into Light by Matt Gaw

Cauld Blasts and Clishmaclavers: A Treasury of 1,000 Scottish Words by Robin A. Crawford

 

Faber & Faber

The Accidental Countryside by Stephen Moss

Thinking Again by Jan Morris

The Magicians by Marcus Chown

The Remarkable Life of Numbers by Derrick Niederman

 

Gollancz

Bone Silence by Alastair Reynolds

 

Hamish Hamilton

Bad Island by Stanley Donwood

 

Harvill Secker

Italian Life by Tim Parks

 

Head of Zeus

We, Robots by Simon Ings (ed.)

Trains, Planes, Ships and Automobiles: The Golden Age 1919–1939 by James Hamilton-Paterson

Money for Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism by Thomas Levenson

Democracy on Leave: How Dark Money, Lobbying and Data Are Destroying Politics by Peter Geoghegan

The Colour of Sky After Rain: China in My Time by Tessa Keswick

The Book Of Kells by Victoria Whitworth

 

Headline

A Good Neighbourhood by Therese Anne Fowler

 

John Murray

The Stonemason: A History of Building Britain by Andrew Ziminski

Rag and Bone: A Family History of What We’ve Thrown Away by Lisa Woollett

The Last Whalers: The Life of an Endangered Tribe in a Land Left Behind by Doug Bock Clark

 

Jonathan Cape

Greenery by Tim Dee

The Martian’s Regress by J. O. Morgan

Tongues of Fire by Seán Hewitt

Last Harvest: The Fight to Save the World’s Most Endangered Foods by Dan Saladino

 

Little Toller

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

 

Michael Joseph

A History of Britain In 12 Maps by Philip Parker

Wild Silence by Raynor Winn

 

OneWorld

The Wild Laughter by Caoilinn Hughes

How to Predict Everything: The Formula Transforming What We Know About Life and the Universe by William Poundstone

Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of a Common Fate by Mark Kurlansky

 

Particular

Lev’s Violin: An Italian Adventure  by Helena Attlee

 

Penguin

Agency by William Gibson

Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany by Uwe Schütte

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Licence to be Bad: How Economics Corrupted Us by Jonathan Aldred

 

Picador

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

The Economists’ Hour: How the False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society by Binyamin Appelbaum

A Place For Everything: The Story of Alphabetical Order by Judith Flanders

Wayfinding: The Art and Science of How We Find and Lose Our Way by Michael Bond

 

Profile

Something Doesn’t Add Up: Surviving Statistics in a Post-Truth World by Paul Goodwin

More: The 10,000 Year Rise of the World Economy by Philip Coggan

The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread – and Why They Stop by Adam Kucharski

Preserved Railways: Journeys Along the Resurrected Lines by Andrew Martin

Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go by Emily Cockayne

I Saw the Dog: How Language Works by Alexandra Aikhenvald

X+Y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng

 

Pushkin Press

Those Who Forget by Geraldine Schwarz

 

Rider

Wintering: How I Learned To Flourish When Life Became Frozen by Katherine May

 

Sandstone Press

Marram: Memories of Sea and Spider Silk by Leonie Charlton

Along the Amber Route: St Petersburg to Venice by C.J. Schuller

 

Tinder Press

American Dirt by Jeanie Cummins

 

Tor

Invisible Sun by Charles Stross

 

Transworld

Taking on Gravity: A Guide to Inventing the Impossible by Richard Browning

I Am An Island by Tamsin Calidas

 

Two Roads

Tall Tales and Wee Stories by Billy Connolly

 

W&N

Walking the Great North Line: From Stonehenge to Lindisfarne to Discover the Mysteries of Our Ancient Past  by Robert Twigger

Pluses and Minuses: How Maths Makes Practical Problems Simpler by Stefan Buijsman

 

Any that you’ve heard of?

What takes your fancy?

More importantly, are there any that I might have missed?