Category: Book Musings (Page 8 of 29)

How are we halfway through the year already? This month is all about reading books for the #20BooksOfSummer Challenge. I have almost finished my fifth and have eight lined up for this month along with a few from the nature reading challenge that I am doing. So without further ado, here is the list of books that I will be picking around 16 to 18 books from:

 

Still Reading

Exciting Times – Naoise Dolan

Review Books

Isles at the Edge of the Sea – Jonny Muir

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

The House of Islam – Ed Husain

On the Scent: Unlocking The Mysteries Of Smell – And How Losing It Can Change Our World – Paola Totaro and Robert Wainwright

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

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife: 3rd edition – Peter Holden & Geoffrey Abbott

Reconnection: Fixing our Broken Relationship with Nature – Miles Richardson

One Fine Day: A Journey Through English Time – Ian Marchant

The Possibility of Life: Searching for Kinship in the Cosmos – Jaime Green

Once Upon a Raven’s Nest: A Life On Exmoor In An Epoch Of Change – Catrina Davies

The View from the Hill: Four Seasons in a Walker’s Britain – Christopher Somerville

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

Minor Monuments – Ian Maleney

Cry of the Wild: Tales Of Sea, Woods and Hill – Charles Foster

The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey – Tim Hannigan

Elowen – William Henry Searle

The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths – Brad Fox

Call of the Kingfisher: Bright Sights and Birdsong in a Year by the River – Nick Penny

 

Other Books

Waypoints: A Journey On Foot – Robert Martineau

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

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

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

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

The Swimmer: The Wild Life Of Roger Deakin – Patrick Barkham

 

Challenge Books

Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland – Lisa Schneidau

Nightingale – Marina Kemp

A Perfect Explanation – Eleanor Anstruther

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street – Natasha Pulley

The Bedlam Stacks – Natasha Pulley

Himself – Jess Kidd

Don’t Look Now – Daphne du Maurier

The Mermaid of Black Conch – Monique Roffey

Blood Storm – Colin Forbes

One August Night – Victoria Hislop

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

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

In Search Of One Last Song: Britain’s Disappearing Birds And The People Trying To Save Them – Patrick Galbraith

 

Photo / Art

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

 

Poetry

Out For Air – Olly Todd

 

Any that takes your fancy in this list? Let me know in the comments below

I have been through 23 catalogues so far and it is that time of the year when I release the list of books coming out in the Autumn that I really like the sound of. It is not a full list, there are many more books being published than I have included here. It is not complete, so this may be updated if I come across any more after this has been published.

 

Bloomsbury

The Other Pandemic – James Ball

Code of Conduct – Chris Bryant

The Globemakers – Peter Bellerby

Slow Seasons – Rosie Steer

Unfinished Woman – Robyn Davidson

The Gardener of Lashkar – Larisa Brown

God Is An Octopus – Ben Goldsmith

 

Bodley Head

Techno-Feudalism What Killed Capitalism – Yanis Varoufakis

 

Bradt

Call of the Kingfisher: Bright Sights and birdsong in a Year by the River – Nick Penny

 

Canongate

Footprints in the Woods: The Secret Life of Forest and Riverbank – John Lister-Kaye

Uprooting: From the Caribbean to the Countryside – Finding Home in an English Country Garden – Marchella Farrell

The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World – James Crawford

Namesake: Reflections on A Warrior Woman – N.S. Nuseibeh

Let the Light Pour In – Lemn Sissay

A History of Women in 101 Objects: A walk through female history – Annabelle Hirsch Tr. Eleanor Updegraff

The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews – Ed Adam Biles

Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China – Noo Saro-Wiwa

 

Cheerio

Shopping Lists: A Consuming Fascination – Ingrid Swenson

 

Faber & Faber

Cahokia Jazz – Francis Spufford

The Farmer’s Wife – Helen Rebanks

Property – Rowan Moore

The Wisdom of Sheep (And Other Animals): Observations From a Cotswold Farm – Rosamund Young

 

Granta

Nature’s Calendar: The British Year in 72 Seasons – Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren

A Book of Noises” Notes on the Auraculous – Caspar Henderson

 

Headline

High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest in Russia’s Haunted Hinterland – Tom Parfitt

Lost Music of the Holocaust – Francesco Lotoro

 

Hodder & Stoughton

Many Things Under a Rock: The Mysteries of Octopuses – David Scheel

Dust: The Story of the Modern World in a Trillion Particles – Jay Owens

Mountains Of Fire: The Secret Lives of Volcanoes – Clive Oppenheimer

 

Hurst Publishers

Stuff” Humanity’s Epic Journey from Naked Ape to Nonstop Shopper – Chip Colwell

All That Glistens: Chinese Party-State Influence in Britain – Martin Thorley

Edge of England: Landfall in Lincolnshire – Darek Turner

 

John Murray

Interesting Stories about Curious Words – Susie Dent

Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions – Akshat Rathi

The Race To The Future: Peking to Paris and Beyond – Kassia St Clair

The Women Who Made Modern Economics – Rachel Reeves

Starborn – Roberto Trotta

 

Jonathan Cape

Orbital – Samantha Harvey

 

Little Toller

Elowen – William Henry Serle

 

Oneworld

What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds – Jennifer Ackerman

What We Owe the Future: A Million-Year View – William MacAskill

The Battle for Thought: Freethinking in the Twenty-First Century – Simon McCarthy-Jones

 

Pan Macmillan

Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History – Ben Mezrich

 

Profile Books

Invisible Lines: Boundaries and Belts That Define the World – Maxim Samson

The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs – David Runciman

The Book at War: Libraries and Readers in an Age of Conflict – Andrew Pettegree

The Secret Life of John le Carré – Adam Sisman

The Deorhord: An Old English Bestiary – Hana Videen

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper – Roland Allen

 

Pushkin

The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths Brad Fox

National Dish: Around The World In Search Of Food, History And The Meaning Of Home – Anya von Bremzen

A Line In The World: A Year On The North Sea Coast – Dorthe Nors

 

Reaktion Books

Way Makers: An Anthology of Women’s Writing about Walking – Kerri Andrews

Enchanted Forests: The Poetic Construction of a World before Time – Boria Sax

Alone – Daniel Schreiber Tr. Ben Fergusson

The Food Adventurers: How Around-the-World Travel Changed the Way We Eat – Daniel E. Bender

The Point of the Needle: Why Sewing Matters – Barbara Burman

Stones: A Material and Cultural History – Cally Oldershaw

Living with the Dead: How We Care for the Deceased Vibeke – Maria Viestad and Andreas Viestad

Dreamwork: Why All Work Is Imaginary – Steven Connor

 

Square Peg

The Owl: A Biography – Stephen Moss

Weird Medieval Guys: How to Live, Laugh, Love (and Die) in Dark Times – Olivia Swarthout

 

Summersdale

Moderate Becoming Good Later: Sea Kayaking the Shipping Forecast – Katie Carr & Toby Carr

 

Two Roads

Rambling Man: Travels of a Lifetime – Billy Connolly

 

William Collins

Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas – Karen Pinchin

The Bone Chests – Cat Jarman

Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands – Annie Worsley

The Infinite City: Utopian Dreams on the Streets of London – Niall Kishtainy

 

So are there any there that you have heard of before? Are you now making your TBR much longer? Let me know in the comments below

Even though we had three bank holidays in May, I didn’t get as much read as I hoped. Story of my life really. However, I did manage to read 16 in the end and had three books of the month and here they are:

Books Read

Brittany – Stone Stories – Wendy Mewes – 4 Stars

The Fell – Sarah Moss – 3 Stars

Threads – William Henry Searle – 3.5 Stars

Enchantment – Katherine May – 3.5 Stars

Elegy For A River – Tom Moorhouse – 3.5 Stars

Shaping the Wild – David Elias – 4 Stars

Wild City – Florence Wilkinson – 4 Stars

The Golden Valley – Phil Cope – 3.5 Stars

Two Cures for Love – Wendy Cope – 3.5 Stars

The Passengers – Will Ashon – 3.5 Stars

Sarn Helen – Tom Bullough – 4 Stars

Coffee First, Then The World – Jenny Graham – 4 Stars

Glowing Still – Sara Wheeler – 4 Stars

 

Book(s) Of The Month

Taking Flight – Lev Parikian – 4.5 Stars

Real Dorset – Jon Woolcott t 4.5 Stars

Between The Chalk And The Sea – Gail Simmons – 4.5 Stars

 

Top Genres

Travel – 12

Natural History – 12

Fiction – 9

Poetry – 8

History – 5

Science Fiction – 5

Memoir – 5

Photography – 3

Fantasy – 3

Social History – 2

 

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 7

Simon & Schuster – 3

Bloomsbury – 3

Little Toller – 3

William Collins – 3

Monoray – 3

Orbit – 2

Michael Joseph – 2

Fum D’Estamps Press – 2

Jonathan Cape – 2

 

Review Copies Received

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

Brazilian Adventure – Peter Fleming

Hard Lying; An Intelligence Officer on the Levantine Shore, 1914-1919 – Lewen Weldon

Travellers Through Time: A Gypsy History – Jeremy Harte

The Language of Trees: How Trees Make Our World, Change Our Minds and Rewild Our Lives – Katie Holten

The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths – Brad Fox

 

Library Books Checked Out

Enchantment : Reawakening Wonder In An Exhausted Age – Katherine May

In Her Nature: How Women Break Boundaries In The Great Outdoors : A Past, Present And Personal Story – Rachel Hewitt

How to Read a Tree: Clues and Patterns from Bark to Leaves – Tristan Gooley

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

Nomads : the wanderers who shaped our world – Anthony Sattin

 

Books Bought 

Selected Poems 1923 – 1958 – E.E. Cummings

Selected Poems – W.H. Auden

New Selected Poems 1966-1987 – Seamus Heaney

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History – Lewis Buzbee

How to be a Knowledge Ninja: Study Smarter. Focus Better. Achieve More. – Graham Allcott

Dorset (The King’s England) – Arthur Mee

A Chip Shop in Poznań: My Unlikely Year in Poland – Ben Aitken

Boat in Our Baggage: Around the World With a Kayak – Maria Coffey

Unknown Dorset – Donald Maxwell

Jade City – Fonda Lee

Last Chance to See – Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine

Nala’s World: One Man, His Rescue Cat, and a Bike Ride around the Globe – Dean Nicholson & Garry Jenkins

A Wild Life: My Adventures Around the World Filming Wildlife – Martin Hughes-Games

The English Village – Richard Muir

 

Any from there that you have read or now want to read? Let me know in the comments below.

Hello again. Here is my June TBR. I have quite a few challenge books lined up this month as I have once again signed up to Cathy at 746Books 20 Books Of Summer Challenge. I have a few books on walks to read and a fair number of library books. So without further ado, here is the list of books that I will be picking around 16 to 18 books from:

 

Still Reading

Between The Chalk And The Sea: A Journey On Foot Into The Past – Gail Simmons

 

Review Books

Isles at the Edge of the Sea – Jonny Muir

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

The House of Islam – Ed Husain

On the Scent: Unlocking The Mysteries Of Smell – And How Losing It Can Change Our World – Paola Totaro and Robert Wainwright

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

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife: 3rd edition – Peter Holden & Geoffrey Abbott

Reconnection: Fixing our Broken Relationship with Nature – Miles Richardson

One Fine Day: A Journey Through English Time – Ian Marchant

The Possibility of Life: Searching for Kinship in the Cosmos – Jaime Green

Once Upon a Raven’s Nest: A Life On Exmoor In An Epoch Of Change Catrina DaviesReview Books The View from the Hill: Four Seasons in a Walker’s Britain – Christopher Somerville

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

Minor Monuments – Ian Maleney

Cry of the Wild: Tales Of Sea, Woods and Hill – Charles Foster

Hard Lying; An Intelligence Officer on the Levantine Shore, 1914-1919 – Lewen Weldon

The Language of Trees: How Trees Make Our World, Change Our Minds and Rewild Our Lives – Katie Holten

 

Other Books

The Last Overland: Singapore to London: The Return Journey Of The Iconic Land Rover Expedition – Alex Bescoby

A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People’s Institution – Travis Elborough

Wanderers: A History of Women Walking – Kerri Andrews

The Ten Equations That Rule The World And How You Can Use Them Too – David Sumpter

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

Small Island: A History Of Britain In 12 Maps – Philip Parker

Grounding: Finding Home In A Garden – Lulah Ellender

Apple Island Wife: Slow Living In Tasmania – Fiona Stocker

In Search Of One Last Song: Britain’s Disappearing Birds And The People Trying To Save Them – Patrick Galbraith

Waypoints: A Journey On Foot – Robert Martineau

 

Challenge Books

Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland – Lisa Schneidau

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

Exciting Times – Naoise Dolan

Nightingale – Marina Kemp

Acts of Desperation – Megan Nolan

Open Water – Nelson Caleb Azumah

Here Comes the Miracle – Anna Beecher

The Testaments – Margaret Atwood

 

Poetry

My Darling from the Lions Rachel Long

 

Photobooks

David Weston: An Artist at Home and Abroad – David Weston

It is almost June. It is scary just how fast this year is going. And whilst the bank holiday weather was remarkably sunny, as I type this there are big black clouds building outside my office window. , And being almost June must mean that it is time for 20 books of Summer again, the challenge dreamt up by Cathy at 746 Books.

It is a challenge for bloggers and anyone else who wants to and the aim is to try and read through 20 books that are on their TBR. I have tried for the past few years. In the first year, I read 18, in 2020 managed 12 in 2021 only 10 and in 2022 I almost finished with 19 books read! Even though I have never finished it, I  like the idea of it and It is good to support other bloggers in what they are doing to promote reading. l like to pick themes usually, I have had travel,  outstanding review books and I combined it with a natural history challenge last year. This year I am going for something really different, fiction!!!!!

For those at the back who have just fainted, let me explain. I buy a lot of books and with all that has been going on over the past year, I have stepped back on the amount of reviews I am writing. te plan for these is just to read and rate them and pass them on to others who may (or may not) want to read them. So here are the twenty books that I am aiming to read.

 

A Perfect Explanation	Eleanor Anstruther
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street	Natasha Pulley
The Bedlam Stacks	Natasha Pulley
Himself	Jess Kidd
Don’t Look Now	Daphne du Maurier
Mayhem	Sarah Pinborough
Exciting Times	Naoise Dolan
Nightingale	Marina Kemp
Acts of Desperation	Megan Nolan
Open Water	Nelson Caleb Azumah
Here Comes the Miracle	Anna Beecher
The Testaments	Margaret Atwood
Hot Milk	Deborah Levy
The Mermaid of Black Conch	Monique Roffey
From a Low and Quiet Sea	Donal Ryan
Blood Storm	Colin Forbes
Year of the Golden Ape	Colin Forbes
One August Night	Victoria Hislop
The Last Dance And Other Stories	Victoria Hislop
The Acid Test	Élmer Mendoza Tr. Mark Fried

I am happy to pass these on, so if there is anything that you want to read I can send it on. A couple are spoken for though

Follow the hashtag #20booksofsummer22 to follow those who are taking part this year.

The month started really well. I had a week off and I read six books, and then it kind of went a bit awry, and I ended up reading 15 in the end. Less than I had hoped for, but still a reasonable number. It was a good month for books too, with four making my book of the month that we almost but not quite five-star reads. So here is what I read and the books that made it through my door.

 

Books Read

Hide and Seek – Sofia Borges, Sven Ehmann & Di Ozesanmuseum Bamberg – Architecture – 3.5 Stars

Seining Along Chesil – Sarah Acton – Dorset – 4 Stars

More Numbers Every Day – Micael Dahlén & Helge Thorbjørnsen – Economics – 3.5 Stars

The Angel Of Santa Sofia – Josep M. Argemí Tr. Tiago Miller – Fiction – 3.5 Stars

Longshoreman – Benjamin Pond – Memoir – 3.5 Stars

Illuminated by Water – Malachy Tallack – Natural History – 3.5 Stars

The Treeline – Ben Rawlence – Natural History – 4 Stars

The Catch – Fiona Sampson – Poetry – 3 Stars

Polling UnPacked – Mark Pack – Politics – 3.5 Stars

Far From The Light – Tade Thompson – Science Fiction – 3.5 Stars

Three Women of Herat: Afghanistan 1973-77 – Veronica Doubleday – Travel – 4 Stars

 

Book(s) Of The Month

Notes from the Cévennes – Adam Thorpe – Travel – 4.5 Stars

The Serpent Coiled in Naples – Marius Kociejowski – Travel – 4.5 Stars

The Lost Rainforests Of Britain – Guy Shrubsole – Natural History – 4.5 Stars

Rosewater – Tade Thompson – Science Fiction – 4.5 Stars

 

Top Genres

Natural History – 9

Travel – 8

Fiction – 7

Poetry – 7

Science Fiction – 5

History – 5

Memoir – 4

Fantasy – 3

Politics – 2

Economics – 2

 

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 4

William Collins – 3

Monoray – 3

Little Toller – 3

Simon & Schuster – 3

Bloomsbury – 2

Allen Lane – 2

Fum D’Estamps Press – 2

Doubleday – 2

Michael Joseph – 2

 

Review Copies Received

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

Elowen – William Henry Searle

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

The Granite Kingdom: A Cornish Journey – Tim Hannigan

 

Library Books Checked Out

The Passengers – Will Ashon

Glowing Still: A Woman’S Life On The Road – Sara Wheeler

Cucina Di Amalfi : Sun-Drenched Recipes From Southern Italy’s Most Magical Coastline – Ursula Ferrigno

Coffee First, Then The World: One Woman’s Record-Breaking Pedal Around The Planet – Jenny Graham

Singing Like Larks – Andrew Millham

Wild Isles – Patrick Barkham

Soundings: Journeys In The Company Of Whales – Doreen Cunningham

 

Books Bought

A Beer In The Loire: One Family’s Quest To Brew British Beer In French Wine Country – Tommy Barnes

The Golden Valley: A Visual Biography of the Garw – Phil Cope

Sheds On The Seashore: A Tour Through Beach Hut History – Kathryn Ferry

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

Bald Coot and Screaming Loon: A Handbook for the Curious Bird Lover – Niall Edworthy

Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World – Anthony Doerr

Vision of England: Dorset – Aubrey de Selincourt & Barabra Jones

Atlas of Magical Britain – Janet & Colin Bord

The Meaning of Geese: A Thousand Miles in Search of Home – Nick Acheson

Edge of Blue Heaven: A Journey Through Mongolia – Benedict Allen

Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske – Julia Blackburn

Seriously Funny: The Endlessly Quotable Terry Pratchett – Terry Pratchett

The Weather In Africa – Martha Gellhorn

The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World – Malcolm Gaskill

Life of a Chalkstream – Simon Cooper

Po: Beyond Yes And No – Edward de Bono

The 5-Day Course in Thinking – Edward de Bono

Mumbai to Mecca – Ilija Trojanow Tr. Rebecca Morrison

Pacific Passages – Travelling the South Seas – Hans-Christof Wächter

Seeking Provence: Old Myths, New Paths – Nicholas Woodsworth

Pacific Passages – Travelling the South Seas – Hans-Christof Wächter

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

 

Any from that vast list that takes your fancy? Or that you have but haven’t got around to reading yet? Le me know in the comments below.

 

April whizzed by! We celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary and I had a week off work, pottering around at home and seeing some of the beautiful Dorset countryside. Read a few books, but more about that in another post soon. Here is my TBR from May. Three bank holidays too! Though Sarah has lots of jobs around the house lined up… I have three books on Wales to read this month and quite a lot of books on walking.

Still Reading

Three Women of Herat: Afghanistan 1973-77 – Veronica Doubleday

 

Review Books

Isles at the Edge of the Sea – Jonny Muir

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

The House of Islam – Ed Husain

On the Scent: Unlocking The Mysteries Of Smell – And How Losing It Can Change Our World – Paola Totaro and Robert Wainwright

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

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover – Nick Garbutt

RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife: 3rd edition – Peter Holden & Geoffrey Abbott

Reconnection: Fixing our Broken Relationship with Nature – Miles Richardson

One Fine Day: A Journey Through English Time – Ian Marchant

The Possibility of Life: Searching for Kinship in the Cosmos – Jaime Green

Once Upon a Raven’s Nest: A Life On Exmoor In An Epoch Of Change – Catrina Davies

Shaping the Wild: Wisdom from a Welsh Hill Farm – David Elias

The View from the Hill: Four Seasons in a Walker’s Britain – Christopher Somerville

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

Brittany – Stone Stories – Wendy Mewes

Minor Monuments – Ian Maleney

Real Dorset – Jon Woolcott

Taking Flight – Lev Parikian

 

Other Books

The Last Overland: Singapore to London: The Return Journey Of The Iconic Land Rover Expedition – Alex Bescoby

A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People’s Institution – Travis Elborough

Wanderers: A History of Women Walking – Kerri Andrews

Wild City: Encounters With Urban Wildlife – Florence Wilkinson

Endurance: 100 Tales Of Survival, Endurance And Exploration – Ed. Levison Wood

Vuelta Skelter: Riding The Remarkable 1941 Tour Of Spain – Tim Moore

The Ten Equations That Rule The World And How You Can Use Them Too – David Sumpter

Waypoints: A Journey On Foot – Robert Martineau

Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present And Future – Tom Bullough

The Passengers – Will Ashon

Between The Chalk And The Sea: A Journey On Foot Into The Past Gail Simmons

 

Challenge Books

The Overstory – Richard Powers

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

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

 

Poetry

Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems, 1979-2006 Wendy Cope

 

Photobooks

The Golden Valley: A Visual Biography of the Garw – Phil Cope

 

Fiction

The Fell – Sarah Moss

 

So my aim of having slightly shorter TBRs really isn’t working… Any from that list that takes your fancy? Let me know in the comments below.

 

Well, March was a good reading month. I managed to read a total of 18 books in the end, with three of them reaching 4.5 stars. Natural history has just reached the top of my genre chart too, with six, the same as fiction. Faber are top of my publishers list probably because of the poetry. I only bought 29 books too..

 

Books Read

Taxtopia – The Rebel Accountant – 4 Stars

Another Gulmohar Tree – Aamer Hussein – 2 Stars

Falling Away – David Banning – 3.5 Stars

The Women Who Saved the English Countryside – Matthew Kelly – 3.5 Stars

The Road: A Story of Romans and Ways to the Past – Christopher Hadley – 4 Stars

These Envoys of Beauty – Anna Vaught – 4 Stars

The Last Sunset in the West: Britain’s Vanishing West Coast Orcas – Natalie Sanders – 3.5 Stars

Nightwalking – John Lewis-Stempel – 4 Stars

Cane, Corn & Gully – Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa – 3 Stars

Manorism – Yomi Sode – 3 Stars

Quiet – Victoria Adukwei Bulley – 3.5 Stars

Afropean – Johny Pitts – 4 Stars

In the Shadow of the Mountain – Silvia Vasquez-Lavado – 3.5 Stars

The Travel Writing Tribe – Tim Hannigan – 4 Stars

Extraordinary Clouds – Richard Hamblyn – 3.5 Stars

 

Book(s) Of The Month

Nomad Century – Gaia Vince – 4.5 Stars

Two Lights – James Roberts – 4.5 Stars

One Place De L’Eglise – Trevor Dolby – 4.5 Stars

 

Top Genres

Fiction – 6

Natural History – 6

Poetry – 6

History – 5

Travel – 4

Memoir – 3

Fantasy – 3

Science Fiction – 3

Photography – 2

Environmental – 2

 

Top Publishers

Faber & Faber – 4

Simon & Schuster – 3

Particular Books – 2

Allen Lane – 2

Little Toller – 2

William Collins – 2

Monoray – 2

Summersdale – 1

Sandstone Press – 1

Fum D’Estamps Press – 1

 

Review Copies Received

The Possibility of Life: Searching for Kinship in the Cosmos – Jaime Green

Once Upon a Raven’s Nest: A Life On Exmoor In An Epoch Of Change – Catrina Davies

Shaping the Wild: Wisdom from a Welsh Hill Farm – David Elias

Cry of the Wild: Tales Of Sea, Woods and Hill – Charles Foster

In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy – Jeff Biggers

Minor Monuments – Ian Maleney

 

Library Books Checked Out

The Lost Rainforests Of Britain – Guy Shrubsole

One Thousand Shades Of Green: A Year In Search Of Britain’s Wild Plants – Mike Dilger

Spring Rain – Marc Hamer

Between The Chalk And The Sea: A Journey On Foot Into The Past – Gail Simmons

Am I Normal?: The 200-year Search For Normal People (And Why They Don’t Exist) – Sarah Chaney

Ten Birds That Changed The World – Stephen Moss

Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future – Tom Bullough

 

 

Books Bought

Better Than Fiction: True Travel Tales from Great Fiction Writers – Ed. Don George

Walking With Plato: A Philosophical Hike Through the British Isles – Gary Hayden

Almost French: A New Life in Paris – Sarah Turnbull

Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire – Simon Winchester

Best of Lonely Planet Travel Writing – Ed. Tony Wheeler

The Last Overland: Singapore to London: The Return Journey Of The Iconic Land Rover Expedition – Alex Bescoby (signed)

Travels With Epicurus: Meditations from a Greek Island on the Pleasures of Old Age – Daniel Klein

A Rose for Winter – Laurie Lee

Prehistoric Britain from the Air – Janet & Colin Bord

Spain – Jan Morris

Three Rivers Of France: Dordogne, Lot, Tarn – Freda White

Italian Journeys – Jonathan Keates

From Source to Sea: Notes from Walking 215 Miles Along the River Thames – Tom Chesshyre

Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth – J.R.R. Tolkien

Poets of the Great War: Edward Thomas – Edward Thomas

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals – Oliver Burkeman

Jumping Ships: The Global Misadventures of a Cargo Ship Apprentice – David Baboulene

Prehistoric Dorset – John Gale

Fresh Woods Pastures New – Ian Niall

The Cuckoo in June: Tales of a Sussex Orchard – David Atkins

Mysterious Britain: Ancient Secrets of the United Kingdom and Ireland – Janet & Colin Bord

Ley Lines: Their Nature and Properties : A Dowser’s Investigation – J. Havelock Fidler

Human kind: A Hopeful History – Rutger Bregman

Period Piece – Gwen Raverat

Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change – Jared Diamond

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

The Lost Whale – Hannah Gold (signed)

Time Junction – Helen Solomon (signed)

Wild Embers: Poems of Rebellion, Fire and Beauty – Nikita Gill

 

Any from that huge list that take you fancy, let me know in the comments below

Tiny bit late posting this! Sorry. Here is the list of books for my April TBR that I hope to make serious inroads into. We’ll see…

 

Still Reading

Notes from the Cévennes: Half a Lifetime in Provincial France Adam Thorpe

One Place De L’Eglise: A Year Or Two In A French Village Trevor Dolby

 

Blog Tour

More Numbers Every Day: How Data, Stats, and Figures Control Our Lives and How to Set Ourselves Free Micael Dahlén & Helge Thorbjørnsen

 

Review Books

Isles at the Edge of the Sea Jonny Muir

The Wonderful Mr Willughby: The First True Ornithologist Tim Birkhead

The House of Islam Ed Husain

Three Women of Herat: Afghanistan 1973-77 Veronica Doubleday

Polling UnPacked: The History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls Mark Pack

On the Scent: Unlocking The Mysteries Of Smell – And How Losing It Can Change Our World Paola Totaro and Robert Wainwright

The Serpent Coiled in Naples Marius Kociejowski

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

Seining Along Chesil: Voices From A Dorset Fishing Community Sarah Acton

Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar Hardcover Nick Garbutt

RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife: 3rd edition Peter Holden & Geoffrey Abbott

Falling Away David Banning

The Angel Of Santa Sofia Josep M. Argemí Tr. Tiago Miller

Reconnection: Fixing our Broken Relationship with Nature Miles Richardson

One Fine Day: A Journey Through English Time Ian Marchant

Coast of Teeth: Travels to English Seaside Towns in an Age of Anxietyy Tom Sykes

The Possibility of Life: Searching for Kinship in the Cosmos Jaime Green

Once Upon a Raven’s Nest: A Life On Exmoor In An Epoch Of Change Catrina Davies

Shaping the Wild: Wisdom from a Welsh Hill Farm David Elias

 

Other Books

The Last Overland: Singapore to London: The Return Journey Of The Iconic Land Rover Expedition Alex Bescoby

A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People’s Institution Travis Elborough

Wanderers: A History of Women Walking Kerri Andrews

Far From The Light Tade Thompson

The Lost Rainforests Of Britain Guy Shrubsole

The Treeline: The Last Forest And The Future Of Life On Earth Ben Rawlence

Iconicon: A Journey Around The Landmark Buildings Of Contemporary Britain John Grindrod

Rosewater Tade Thompson

 

Challenge Books

The Overstory Richard Powers

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

 

Poetry

The Catch Fiona Sampson

 

Photobooks

Hide and Seek: The Architecture of Cabins and Hideouts Sofia Borges, Sven Ehmann & Di Ozesanmuseum Bamberg

 

The intention of shorter TBRs seems to have gone! I read 18 in March so Would like to do the same again in April.

Any that you’ve read or that take your fancy let me know in the comments below.

Why use a spreadsheet at all?

I started making a note of the books that I was reading after I got about three chapters into a book and realised that I had read it before. That was back in 2002 and I began by keeping a list in a Word document. It dawned on me a while after that that I really should be keeping that information in Excel and I transferred the data over in 2009.

I see those who use all manner of different methods to keep a track of what they are reading and a list of books on their TBR list, but for me, a spreadsheet is the best method. It works similarly to my brain, and I can compartmentalise the blocks of data in a way that suits me. It is also a great way of getting lots of pertinent facts out about my reading habits and the way that they have changed over the years.

 

My different spreadsheets

I have two main spreadsheets that I use. One is called New Books Read Dashboard and the other is TBR Master. (I need to sort the names out…).

New Books Read Dashboard has five tabs:

Overview which is my dashboard for this sheet

Running Sheet, so I can keep a track of everything that I have read in the current year

Main Data, which is where I have a list of every book that I can remember having read, as well as my yearly reading lists which I have kept since 2002. (There are several books from childhood reading missing, some of which I must add, but there are some that I know I will never be able to recall).

Stats where I use pivot tables to drag information out from the Main Data tab and the final one i

Lookups which is now common across all of the spreadsheets.

TBR Master has evolved from two sheets. One had a list of all the library books that I had on loan and another sheet had a list of review books that I have been sent. I had since added to it quite a lot and it now has eight tabs! These are:

TBR Dashboard which is mostly pivot tables of the information in the tabs,

TBR Plan which is where I attempt to pull together the books that I want to read for the coming month.

Library Books is the list of books that I currently am borrowing from the library.

Review books is a list of books that I have been kindly sent by publishers (And is way too long!!).

Own book is something that I have started recently, where I have been logging the many many books that I buy.

Borrowed books tab is also self-explanatory and believe it or not, only has two listed on it.

Virtual TBR is where I log books that I want to read but as yet have not got a copy. I really need to tie this in with my Good Read’s want-to-read selection.

Lookups which is the same as in New Books Read Dashboard and other sheets.

 

Those are the two main spreadsheets that I use day in and day out. I also have three specifically for reading challenges; a general one, a natural history one and one for my World From My Armchair challenge. I then have a further 17 spreadsheets that are for awards, such as the Wainwright, Stanford Dolman, Portico and so on. There are then numerous others that contain lists of books from authors, publishers and other random lists that I haven’t quite got around to sorting out yet.

 

How I Use Spreadsheets

When I first moved over from a list in a document to a spreadsheet, I only had four columns, author and title, year read and so on, but as time has gone on I have added extra columns to be able to get meaningful data out.

I now have ten columns of information that make up what I call my core set. These all appear in the same order in each (ok most as I still haven’t updated them all yet) of the spreadsheets that I use. This means that I can copy information easily between each spreadsheet without having to change anything. I know that it is always going to be the same.

 

Core Columns

Title: Pretty self-explanatory really, it is the title of the book.

Author: Also, self-explanatory. I use Ed. for editor and Tr. and translator where necessary

Gender: I have a dropdown that is either male or female. I haven’t included the various other genders out there at the moment.

Publisher: This is the name of the publisher. I rarely read self-published books now, but I use Self in that column when I do so.

Pages: This is how many pages the book has, including indexes etc.

ISBN: A record of the ISBN of the edition I am reading.

Publication Date: This is the date that the edition I have recorded was published

Binding: I have three choices here, Hardback, Paperback and ebook.

Price: This is the price of the book on the cover, not necessarily what I paid for it!

Genre: I have three choices on this dropdown, Non-fiction, fiction, and Poetry

 

Dashboards

It is all very well having the data in my spreadsheet, but it isn’t much use if I cannot extract meaningful or useful information. I have started using simple dashboards now in some of my sheets as I have found this is a good way of summarising the data. Most of this I do through pivot tables, these are a clever way of taking big dollops of data and distilling it into easy-to-read information. I also use various formulas to sum and count very specific pieces of information, normally to do with reading challenges.

In my TBR Master sheet, I use most pivots so I can see how many books are on my reading plan for the month, review copies that I have got outstanding, books on my virtual TBR and how many books I have. It kind of works at the moment, but there are gaps in what I want from this sheet at the moment.

 

Lookups

One of the key parts of each of the spreadsheets is the tab titled Lookups. This sheet is now being included in all new spreadsheets that I am doing and this is what it looks like:

In this tab, all the data is in specific named areas and are formatted as a table. This makes the data validation fairly easy to do and the dropdowns in each spreadsheet match each time. It might not be for everyone, but I find it helps me.

 

Pros & cons

When I first set about thinking about the ways that I wanted to improve my spreadsheets I set about it using good old pencil and paper. It took a lot of thinking and sketches before coming up with the current solution. I have been using these modified sheets for just over a year now and mostly this has worked really well. However, I have seen ways to make improvements and that is going to be covered in the next post on this.