Happy Leap Year to those that celebrate it… I tend to think of it as an extra day reading. February seemed to both fly and drag at times, but in terms of what I read, it was really good. I took the prompt from Kaggsy’s and Lizzy’s Literary Life about reading books from independent publishers. And I did, all the books listed below are from Indies and I have popped the publisher at the end. Do take a look at their website for a bundle of good reading. So here are the books:
Books Read
Crawling Horror: Creeping Tales of the Insect Weird – Ed. Daisy Butcher & Janette Leaf – 3 Stars (British Library)
Aromabingo – David Gaffney – 3 Stars (Salt)
As the Women Lay Dreaming – Donald S. Murray – 3 Stars (Saraband)
The Museum of Cathy – Anna Stothard – 3.5 Stars (Salt)
Where Furnaces Burn – Joel Lane – 4 Stars (Influx)
Footprints In The Woods: The Secret Life Of Forest And Riverbank – John Lister-Kaye – 3.5 Stars (Canongate)
All Around The Year – Michael Morpurgo – 4 Stars (Little Toller)
The Hero and the Girl Next Door – Sophie Hannah – 3 Stars (Carcanet)
The Narrow Smile: A Journey Back to the Northwest Frontier – Peter Mayne – 3.5 Stars (Eland)
Apple Island Wife: Slow Living In Tasmania – Fiona Stocker – 4 Stars (Unbound)
The Christian Watt Papers: Memoirs of a Fraserburgh Fishwife – Christian Watt, Ed. David Fraser – 4 Stars (Eland)
Book(s) Of The Month
There were several four star books this month and this by Iain just had the edge:
The Only Gaijin In The Village – Iain Maloney – 4 Stars (Birlinn)
Top Genres
I have only read seven genres so far this year with travel writing way ahead so far
Travel – 10
Fiction – 7
Natural History – 3
Poetry – 2
Biography – 1
Writing – 1
History – 1
Top Publishers
Salt – 2
Eland – 2
Bloomsbury – 2
Canongate – 1
Carcanet – 1
British Library Publishing – 1
Vintage – 1
Unbound – 1
Faber & Faber – 1
Little Toller – 1
Review Copies Received
Modern Fog – Chris Emery
Seaglass: Essays, Moments and Reflections – Kathryn Tann
Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain and the Myths and Stories That Surround Them – Derek Gow
Hedgelands: A Wild Wander Around Britain’s Greatest Habitat – Christopher Hart
The Long Unwinding Road: A Journey Through the Heart of Wales – Marc P. Jones
Mystic Orchards – Jonathan Koven
Sunken Lands – Gareth E. Rees
Library Books Checked Out
Stone Will Answer: A Journey Guided by Craft, Myth and Geology – Beatrice Searle
All The Wide Border: Wales, England and the Places Between – Mike Parker
The Orchid Outlaw: On A Mission To Save Britain’s Rarest Flowers – Ben Jacob
Late Light: Finding Home In The West Country – Michael Malay
The Story of Silbury Hill – Jim Leary & David Field
Footmarks: A Journey Into Our Restless Past – Jim Leary
Books Bought
Dress & Textiles – Rachel Worth (Signed)
Techno-Feudalism What Killed Capitalism – Yanis Varoufakis
Someone At A Distance – Dorothy Whipple
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art – James Nestor
52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time – Annabel Streets
Venice Sketchbook – Tudy Sammartini
A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast – Dorthe Nors
West with the Night – Beryl Markham
Trouble Brewing in the Loire – Tommy Barnes
Cairngorms: A Secret History – Patrick Baker
Discovering Hedgerows – David Streeter & Rosamond Richardson
The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook: Extended Edition – Ian Brodie (Signed)
First Overland: London-Singapore by Land Rover – Tim Slessor
North – Seamus Heaney
Discovering Prehistoric England: A Gazetteer of Prehistoric Sites – James Dyer
An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliyâ Çelebi – Evliyâ Çelebi & Ed. Robert Dankoff
Wild Geese: A Collection of Nan Shepherd’s Writing – Nan Shepherd
The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life – Ryszard Kapuściński Tr. Klara Glowczewska
Dorset: The Isle of Purbeck – Rena Gardiner
High Street – J.M. Richards & Eric Ravilious
Tyneham: Dorset’s Ghost Village – Rodney Legg (Signed)
The Years – Annie Ernaux Tr. Alison L. Strayer
Mother Tongues – Helena Drysdale
An Englishman In Patagonia – John Pilkington (Signed)
In Search of Genghis Khan: An Exhilarating Journey on Horseback across the Steppes of Mongolia – Tim Severin
Venice: A Literary Guide for Travellers – Marie-Jose Gransard
Boneshaker – Cherie Priest
So are there any from that huge list above, that you have read, or now seeing them, now want to read? Let me know in the comments below.
You’re not messing around with the book buying, are you? And I thought I was bad!!!
Er. No. There have been comments from Sarah again…
One book goes out the front door and two sneak in the back, hey?
Some great sounding books here. Particularly like the sound of Seaglass, The Only Gaijin, Stone will tell and Apple Island wife.
Shhhh! Essentially yes. I am keeping a log now of how many enter and leave the house. It was negative in January and positive in February.
I have just written a review for The Only Gaijin and Apple Island Wife, so watch out for those.
Don’t worry, my March buying will eclipse anything anyone else has bought ever, by the way it’s going. At least I’m in Spain for a week, surely I can’t compulsively buy books here??? Sunken Lands sounds intriguing – real ones or Atlantis etc?
I think I bought 52 in one month… Enjoy your break, I hope you find at least one bookshop there though. I haven’t even read the blurb of the book, but one of his previous books, Unofficial Britain was a book of the year of mine
I loved that one too! I saw some book stalls in Málaga City today but they were near some flower stalls that were making me sneeze!
Oh dear. I spent all of yesterday at the London book fair and then to Stanfords to a book event at Stanfords to hear Mike Parker speak