Category: Book Musings (Page 3 of 31)

My final TBR of 2025 was supposed to be a short one as I only have 7 books to go on the Good Reads Challenge. But I think that I am going to go over… So here is the not quite so short list for books to read this month:

Daily Reading

A Tree A Day – Amy-Jane Beer

An Insect a Day: Bees, Bugs, And Pollinators For Every Day Of The Year – Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton

Still Reading

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

Cage of Souls – Adrian Tchaikovsky

#20BooksOfSummer (Ha!)

The Cruel Stars – John Birmingham

Sunfall – Jim Al-Khalili

Revenger – Alastair Reynolds

Shadow Captain – Alastair Reynolds

The Old Drift – Namwali Serpell

WFMAC

The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country – Helen Russell

Along the River that Flows Uphill: From the Orinoco to the Amazon – Richard Starks

Review Books

Small Earthquakes: A Journey Through Lost British History In South America – Shafik Meghji

21 Lessons for the 21st Century – Yuval Noah Harari

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

Slow Trains Around Britain: Notes from a 4,088-Mile Adventure on 143 Rides – Tom Chesshyre

Return of the Ancients: Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird – Katy Soar  (Ed)

Little Ruins – Manni Coe

We Are All Adrift – David Banning & Iain Sharpe

Books I’m Clearing

A Butterfly Journey: Maria Sibylla Merian Artist and Scientist – Boris Friedewald & Stephan von Pohl (Tr)

Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain – Pen Vogler

Russians Among Us – Gordon Corera

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History – Lea Ypi

The Owl Service – Alan Garner

Library

Nature Needs You: The Fight To Save Our Swifts – Hannah Bourne- Taylor

The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future – David Wallace-Wells

Sticky: The Secret Science of Surfaces – Laurie Winkless

The Future Of Agriculture – Sarah Bearchell

The Accidental Garden: Gardens, Wilderness And The Space In Between – Richard Mabey

Poetry

Poetry on the Buses – Valerie Belsey & Candy Neubert (Ed)

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.

A bit of a slower reading month in October, didn’t get through as many as I had hoped, as we were up and down to Stevenage a couple of times to see my daughter as she settles into her PhD placement. But I did get eleven books rea,d including one that I have had on my never-ending TBR for months!

Books Read

Letters to the Earth: Writing Inspired by Climate Emergency – Various – 4 Stars

Nevernight – Jay Kristoff – 3 Stars

Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love – Joanne Ella Parsons – 3 Stars

Never Had A Dad – Georgie Cudd – 3 Stars

The Ponies At The Edge Of The World: A Story of Hope and Belonging in Shetland – Catherine Munro – 3.5 Stars

Sea Bean: A Beachcombers Search for Magical Charm – Sally Huband – 4 Stars

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud – Ana Sampson (Ed) – 3 Stars

Stone Lands: A Journey Of Darkness And Light Through Britain’s Ancient Places – Fiona Robertson – 4 Stars

The Spymasters: How The CIA’s Directors Shape History And The Future – Chris Whipple – 3 Stars

The Shipping Forecast – Meg Clothier – 3.5 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

Dilbert 2.0 – Scott Adams – 4.5 Stars

Top Genres

Travel – 17

Fiction – 12

Natural History – 11

Poetry – 10

Science Fiction – 10

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 7

Simon & Schuster – 6

Penguin – 6

Bloomsbury – 5

Picador – 4

Review Copies Received

The Future Of Travel – Daniel Maurer – Melville House

The Longest Walk Home: The Epic 2,000-Mile Escape Of A WWII POW, In His Own Words – Ray Bailey With David Wilkins – Quercus

The Haunted Library: Tales of Cursed Books And Forbidden Shelves – Tanya Kirk (Ed) – British Library Publishing

All the Fear of the Fair: Uncanny Tales of Circus and Sideshow – Edward Parnell (Ed) – British Library Publishing

Library Books Checked Out

To Catch A Spy: How The Spycatcher Affair Brought Mi5 In From The Cold – Tim Tate

Upon A White Horse: Journeys In Ancient Britain And Ireland – Peter Ross

There Will Be Headwinds: Kayaking The Northwest Passage – Mark Agnew

Lone Wolf: Walking The Faultlines Of Europe – Adam Weymouth

Books Bought (Or Sent by Friends)

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

Books in: 10 I kept these below:

The Wild Garden – William Robinson

Folklore And Witchcraft in Dorset and Wiltshire – John C. Chadwick

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!!!).
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.

The usual massively ambitious TBR for this month is below, though now the clocks have gone back, staying in and reading seems like the best plan.

Daily Reading

A Tree A Day – Amy-Jane Beer

An Insect a Day: Bees, Bugs, And Pollinators For Every Day Of The Year – Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton

Still Reading

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

Phantoms of Kernow – Joan Passey (Ed)

Weather – Storm Dunlop

Themed Reads

PhotoCity New York – Guillaume Gaudet & Zora O’Neill

New York Vertical – Horst Hamann

Plus if I can get to these:

Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation – Edward Glaeser, David Cutler

Banksy: The Man Behind The Wall – Will Elsworth Jones

The Fifth Risk – Michael Lewis

Constable: Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings – Leslie Parris

Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain – Pen Vogler

Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI – James Muldoon, Mark Graham & Callum Cant

When the Rivers Run Dry: Water – The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century – Fred Pearce

The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future – David Wallace-Wells

#20BooksOfSummer (Ha!)

The Cruel Stars – John Birmingham

The Solar War – A.G. Riddle

Cage of Souls – Adrian Tchaikovsky

Jade City – Fonda Lee

The Old Drift – Namwali Serpell

WFMAC

The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country – Helen Russell

Along the River that Flows Uphill: From the Orinoco to the Amazon – Richard Starks

Review Books

Small Earthquakes: A Journey Through Lost British History In South America – Shafik Meghji

21 Lessons for the 21st Century – Yuval Noah Harari

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

The Future Of Travel – Daniel Maurer

Slow Trains Around Britain: Notes from a 4,088-Mile Adventure on 143 Rides – Tom Chesshyre

Return of the Ancients: Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird – Katy Soar (Ed)

Little Ruins – Manni Coe

Books I’m Clearing

Russians Among Us – Gordon Corera

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History – Lea Ypi

Library

Upon A White Horse: Journeys In Ancient Britain And Ireland – Peter Ross

Lone Wolf: Walking The Faultlines Of Europe – Adam Weymouth

Nature Needs You: The Fight To Save Our Swifts – Hannah Bourne- Taylor

Sticky: The Secret Science of Surfaces – Laurie Winkless

Craftland: A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts & Vanishing Trades – James Fox

Poetry

Green and Pleasant Land: Best-Loved Poems of the British Countryside – Ana Sampson (Ed)

Book Club

It is a crime thriller this month, so I’m passing on it…

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.

Another month passes and and few more books read and cleared. Not as many as August though… This was the past months reading and stats below:

Books Read

Forgotten Churches: Exploring England’s Hidden Treasures  – Luke Sherlock – 3 Stars

This Motherless Land – Nikki May – 3 Stars

Eliot’s Book Of Bookish Lists – Henry Eliot – 3 Stars

Tyger Tyger Burning Bright: Much-Loved Poems You Half-Remember – Ana Sampson (Ed) – 3 Stars

Evolution – Stephen Baxter – 2 Stars

Red Moon – Kim Stanley Robinson – 3.5 Stars

The Bridge – Janine Ellen Young – 4 Stars

Robot: The Future of Flesh and Machines – Rodney A Brooks – 2.5 Stars

Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future – Martin Ford – 3.5 Stars

God Is An Octopus: Loss, Love and a Calling to Nature – Ben Goldsmith – 3 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

The Whispers of Rock: Stories from the Earth – Anjana Khatwa – 4 Stars

Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide To The Churches Of The British Isles – Andrew Ziminski – 4 Stars

Top Genres

Travel – 17

Fiction – 11

Natural History – 11

Science Fiction – 10

Poetry – 9

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 7

Simon & Schuster – 6

Bloomsbury – 5

Penguin – 5

Picador – 4

Review Copies Received

The Wayfarer’s Weird: Wild Tales of Uncanny Rambles – Weird Walk

The Tiger Skin: And Other Tales of the Uneasy by Violet Hunt – Violet Hunt & Melissa Edmundson (ed)

Hafren: The Wisdom of the River Severn – Sarah Siân Chave

An Unnatural History of Britain: A Journey In Search of Our Non-Native Species – Kevin Parr

Library Books Checked Out

Lost Gods of Albion – Paul Newman

Stone Lands: A Journey Of Darkness And Light Through Britain’s Ancient Places – Fiona Robertson

Books Bought (Or Sent by Friends)

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

Books in: 10. I kept these below:

Moonlight Express: Around the World By Night Train – Monisha Rajesh

Overnight: Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark – Dan Richards

111 Place In Dorset That You Really Shouldn’t Miss – Jenni Bell & Karen Heaney

Madagascar: The Eighth Continent: Life, Death and Discovery in a Lost World – Peter Tyson

Books out: 41 (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!!!).

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.

Well that was quite a month in lots of ways… See Books Bought at the end to see why. I did manage to read 14 in the end as we had lots going on at home, include my daughters major surgery and making the decision that we need to move house for various reasons. Anyway, you’re here for the books and this is what I read last month:

Books Read

Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future – Philip Lymbery – Environmental – 4 Stars

The Man Who Planted Trees – Jean Giono, Harry Brockway (Ill) & Aline Giono – Fiction – 3 Stars

A Wilder Way: How Gardens Grow Us – Poppy Okotcha – Gardening – 3 Stars

What Is Your Cat Really Thinking? – Sophie Johnson & Danny Cameron – Humour – 2.5 Stars

Trees In Winter – Richard Shimell – Memoir – 4 Stars

Our Oaken Bones: Reviving A Family, A Farm And Britain’s Ancient Rainforests – Merlin Hanbury-Tenison – Natural History – 3.5 Stars

Neurodivergent, By Nature: Why Biodiversity Needs Neurodiversity – Joe Harkness – Navigation – 4 Stars

Abandoned Churches: Unclaimed Places of Worship – Francis Meslet – Photography – 3.5 Stars

The Peace Of Wild Things – Wendell Berry – Poetry – 3 Stars

The Three Body Problem – Ci Xin Liu – Science Fiction – 3.5 Stars

A Second Chance at Eden – Peter F. Hamilton – Science Fiction – 3.5 Stars

The Postal Paths: Rediscovering Britain’s Forgotten Routes – And The People Who Walked Them – Alan Cleaver – Social History – 4 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

Under A Metal Sky: A Journey Through Minerals, Greed and Wonder – Philip Marsden – Geology – 4.5 Stars

The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite – Jake Bernstein – True Crime – 4.5 Stars

Top Genres

Travel – 17

Fiction – 10

Natural History – 10

Poetry – 8

Science Fiction – 7

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 7

Picador – 4

Simon & Schuster – 4

Canongate – 4

Bloomsbury – 4

Eland – 4

Review Copies Received

Little Ruins – Manni Coe

Library Books Checked Out

Night Train To Odesa: Covering The Human Cost of Russia’s War – Jen Stout

A Wilder Way: How Gardens Grow Us – Poppy Okotcha

Postal Paths: Rediscovering Britain’s Forgotten Routes – And The People Who Walked Them – Alan Cleaver

Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide To The Churches Of The British Isles – Andrew Ziminski

Landscape, Monuments and Society: The Prehistory of Cranborne Chase – “John Barrett, Richard J. Bradley & Martin T. Green (Ed)”

Books Bought (Or Sent by Friends)

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

August Books in: 13

August Books out: 229 (!!!!!) (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!!!). I kept these below:

Spring – Michael Morpurgo

Slow Boat to Uragruy – Andrew Tunstall

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.

Another month rolls by and another totally unrealistic TBR appears! No idea how many of these I’ll get through, but I hope at least 15!

Daily Reading

A Tree A Day – Amy-Jane Beer

An Insect a Day: Bees, Bugs, And Pollinators For Every Day Of The Year – Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton

Still Reading

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

The Whispers of Rock – Anjana Khatwa

Themed Reads

Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI – James Muldoon, Mark Graham & Callum Cant

Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future – Martin Ford

Robot – Rodney A Brooks

Plus If I can get to these:

Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation – Edward Glaeser, David Cutler

Banksy: The Man Behind The Wall – Will Elsworth Jones

The Fifth Risk – Michael Lewis

Constable: Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings – Leslie Parris

Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain – Pen Vogler

#20BooksOfSummer

Red Moon – Kim Stanley Robinson

The Cruel Stars – John Birmingham

The Solar War – A.G. Riddle

Cage of Souls – Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Bridge – Janine Ellen Young

World From My Armchair

The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country – Helen Russell

Along the River that Flows Uphill: From the Orinoco to the Amazon – Richard Starks

Review Books

Small Earthquakes: A Journey Through Lost British History In South America – Shafik Meghji

21 Lessons for the 21st Century – Yuval Noah Harari

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

Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love – Joanne Ella Parsons

Phantoms of Kernow – Joan Passey (Ed)

Return of the Ancients: Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird – Katy Soar  (Ed)

Books I’m clearing

Sky – Storm Dunlop

Dilbert 2.0 – Scott Adams

Russians Among Us – Gordon Corera

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History – Lea Ypi

Library

God Is An Octopus: Loss, Love and a Calling to Nature – Ben Goldsmith

The Spymasters: How The CIA’s Directors Shape History And The Future – Chris Whipple

Eliot’s Book Of Bookish Lists – Henry Eliot

Church Going: A Stonemason’s Guide To The Churches Of The British Isles – Andrew Ziminski

Forgotten Churches: Exploring England’s Hidden Treasures  – Luke Sherlock

Poetry

Tyger Tyger Burning Bright: Much-Loved Poems You Half-Remember – Ana Sampson (Ed)

Book Club

This Motherless Land – Nikki May

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.

July came and went fairly quickly. We were on holiday and then my daughter had major foot surgery, so we have had a bit of a stressful time!  It is my birthday back then, and got given a book token! Though I won’t be spending this anytime soon (see at the bottom of this post). Anyway, this is what I read in July:

Books Read

On The Roof:  A Thatcher’s Journey – Tom Allan – 3.5 Stars

Borderland: A Journey Through The History Of Ukraine – Anna Reid – 3.5 Stars

Words From The Hedge: A Hedgelayer’s View Of The Countryside – Richard Negus – 4 Stars

Hedgelands: A Wild Wander Around Britain’s Greatest Habitat – Christopher Hart – 4 Stars

Letters to Camondo – Edmund de Waal – 4 Stars

Tickbox – David Boyle – 3 Stars

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right – Atul Gawande – 3 Stars

After Beethoven – Alison Brackenbury – 3 Stars

Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation – Ken Liu – 3.5 Stars

The Wall – John Lanchester – 4 Stars

The Warehouse – Rob Hart – 4 Stars

Ten Birds That Changed The World – Stephen Moss – 3.5 Stars

Book(s) Of The Month

Of Thorn & Briar: A Year With The West Country Hedgelayer – Paul Lamb – 4.5 Stars

How to Lose a Country: The Seven Warning Signs of Rising Populism – Ece Temelkuran – 4.5 Stars

Top Genres

Faber & Faber

Canongate

Picador

Simon & Schuster

Eland

Top Publishers

Travel

Fiction

Natural History

Poetry

Social History

Review Copies Received

Small Earthquakes: A Journey Through Lost British History In South America – Shafik Meghji

Everything Will Swallow You – Tom Cox

Library Books Checked Out

Forgotten Churches: Exploring England’s Hidden Treasures  – Luke Sherlock

Nature Needs You: The Fight To Save Our Swifts – Hannah Bourne-Taylor

On The Roof:  A Thatcher’s Journey – Tom Allen

Trees In Winter – Richard Shimell

Under A Metal Sky: A Journey Through Minerals, Greed and Wonder – Philip Marsden

Our Oaken Bones: Reviving A Family, A Farm And Britain’s Ancient Rainforests – Merlin Hanbury-Tenison

Books Bought (Or Sent by Friends)

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

July Books in: 21

July Books out: 23 (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!!!). I kept these below:

Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Land – Tim Mackintosh-Smith

Plot 29: A Love Affair With Land – Allan Jenkins

Sunrise on the Southbound Sleeper: More Great Railway Journeys from the Daily Telegraph – Michael Kerr

Don’t Mention the War! : A Shameful European Adventure – Stewart Ferris & Paul Bassett

I Came, I Saw: An Autobiography – Norman Lewis

We are aiming to move at some point, and I have several books to clear to get it down to a manageable level. Sarah wants me to have books on bookcases, not in piles all over the place, so I will be getting rid of lots. I have about 20 Persephone’s that I have decided that I am never going to read, so if you’re interested, then they are available for £10 inc postage

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.

A bit late with posting as we have been away to Jersey, and then my daughter has had major foot surgery, so I have been otherwise occupied!

Random list again this month, aiming to read as many of these as I can.

Daily Reading

A Tree A Day – Amy-Jane Beer

An Insect a Day: Bees, Bugs, And Pollinators For Every Day Of The Year – Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton

Still Reading

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation – Edward Glaeser, David Cutler

Banksy: The Man Behind The Wall – Will Elsworth Jones

The Fifth Risk – Michael Lewis

Constable: Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings – Leslie Parris

Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain – Pen Vogler

#20BooksOfSummer

Red Moon – Kim Stanley Robinson

The Cruel Stars – John Birmingham

The Solar War – A.G. Riddle

Cage of Souls – Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Bridge – Janine Ellen Young

WFMAC

The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country – Helen Russell

Along the River that Flows Uphill: From the Orinoco to the Amazon – Richard Starks

Review Books

Small Earthquakes: A Journey Through Lost British History In South America – Shafik Meghji

21 Lessons for the 21st Century – Yuval Noah Harari

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

Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love – Joanne Ella Parsons

Neurodivergent, By Nature: Why Biodiversity Needs Neurodiversity – Joe Harkness

The Whispers of Rock – Anjana Khatwa

Books I’m clearing

The Peace Of Wild Things – Wendell Berry

Dilbert 2.0 – Scott Adams

The Man Who Planted Trees – Jean Giono, Harry Brockway (Ill) & Aline Giono

Russians Among Us – Gordon Corera

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History – Lea Ypi

Library

The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite – Jake Bernstein

Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future – Philip Lymbery

Trees In Winter– Richard Shimell
Our Oaken Bones: Reviving A Family, A Farm And Britain’s Ancient Rainforests– Merlin Hanbury-Tenison
A Wilder Way: How Gardens Grow Us– Paoppy Okotcha
Postal Paths: Rediscovering Britain’s Forgotten Routes – And The People Who Walked Them– Alan Cleaver

Poetry

Meridian – Nancy Gaffield

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.

June flew by as ever, and the amount of books that I wanted to read versus the amount of books I did actually read was very different. But I did read twelve. And three of those were five star reads, too. So without further ado, here is last month’s round up.

Books Read

The Anechoic Chamber And Other Weird Tales – Will Wiles – 3.5

Natural Selection: A Year In The Garden – Dan Pearson – 4

Normally Weird And Weirdly Normal: My Adventures In Neurodiversity – Robin Ince – 4.5

Wild Galloway: From the Hilltops to the Solway, a Portrait of a Glen – Ian Carter – 4

Renaturing: Small Ways To Wild The World – James Canton – 4.5

Selected Poems  – Kathleen Jamie – 4

Idlewild – Nick Sagan – 2.5

Annihilation – Jeff VanderMeer – 4

Lifelines: Finding a Home in the Mountains of Greece – Julian Hoffman – 4

Book(s) Of The Month

Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop? – Chris van Tulleken – 5

The North Road – Rob Cowen – 5

In Search of the Perfect Peach: Why Flavour Holds the Answer to Fixing Our Food System – Franco Fubini – 5

Top Genres

Travel – 17

Natural History – 9

Fiction – 9

Poetry – 6

Photography – 5

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 5

Eland – 4

Canongate – 4

Picador – 4

Oneworld – 3

Review Copies Received

The Lost Stradivarius – J. Meade Falkner

Phantoms of Kernow – Joan Passey (Ed)

Return of the Ancients: Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird – Katy Soar  (Ed)

Library Books Checked Out

Of Thorn & Briar: A Year With The West Country Hedgelayer – Paul Lamb

Words From The Hedge: A Hedgelayer’s View Of The Countryside – Negus, Richard

The North Road – Rob Cowen

Books Bought (Or Sent by Friends)

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

June Books in: 14

June Books out: 13 (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!!!). I kept these below:

The Book of English Magic – Philip Carr-Gomm & Richard Heygate

Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World – Tom Burgis

The Mountains Of Rasselas – An Ethopian Adventure – Thomas Pakenham

A Piano In The Pyrenees: A Coming Of Age Adventure in The South OF France – Tony Hawks

Angels in the Cellar – Peter Hahn (Signed)

How To Rewild: A Practical Manual from Underhill Wood Nature Reserve from One to Fifty Acres – Jonathan Thomson (Signed)

Life on the Line – Jeremy Bullard (Signed)

Key and Other Poems – James E. Kenward (Signed)

Devonshire Folk Tales – Michael Dacre (Signed)

So are there any from the list above that you have read, or now seeing them, now want to read? Let me know in the comments below.

Well, June vanished much faster than I expected and hello, July. In a quest to make a shorter TBR, I failed. Hence, the list below, but July is a longer month and there is talk of a brief break later in the month too.

Daily Reading

A Tree A Day – Amy-Jane Beer

An Insect a Day: Bees, Bugs, And Pollinators For Every Day Of The Year – Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton

Still Reading

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation – Ken Liu

Themed Reads

Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain – Pen Vogler

Of Thorn & Briar: A Year With The West Country Hedgelayer – Paul Lamb

Words From The Hedge: A Hedgelayer’s View Of The Countryside – Negus, Richard

Hedgelands: A Wild Wander Around Britain’s Greatest Habitat – Christopher Hart

#20BooksOfSummer

The Warehouse – Rob Hart

Evolution – Stephen Baxter

Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation – Ken Liu

Evolution – Stephen Baxter

The Wall – John Lanchester

Red Moon – Kim Stanley Robinson

The Cruel Stars – John Birmingham

The Solar War – A.G. Riddle

Cage of Souls – Adrian Tchaikovsky

WFMAC

The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country – Helen Russell

Along the River that Flows Uphill: From the Orinoco to the Amazon – Richard Starks

Review Books

21 Lessons for the 21st Century – Yuval Noah Harari

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

Doomed Romances: Strange Tales of Uncanny Love – Joanne Ella Parsons

The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East – Barnaby Rogerson

Books I’m Clearing

Dilbert 2.0 – Scott Adams

Letters to Camondo – Edmund de Waal

Russians Among Us – Gordon Corera

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History – Lea Ypi

Library

Borderland: A Journey Through The History Of Ukraine – Anna Reid

How to Lose a Country: The Seven Warning Signs of Rising Populism – Ece Temelkuran

Ten Birds That Changed The World – Stephen Moss

The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite – Jake Bernstein

Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future – Philip Lymbery

Poetry

After Beethoven – Alison Brackenbury

Bookclub

The Last Resort – Heidi Perks

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.