Tag: reading

Resolutions for 2024

Well, we made it. Got through 2023, and here’s a fresh new year.

Reading-wise, 2023 was pretty good. I read 82 books in total, including a couple on December 31st. I’d originally set my goal at 52 on the basis that a book a week is pretty good for me, then promptly smashed through it sometime in mid-August.

January, as you can see, was a cracking month for reading. Helped somewhat by having already started a book on 31st December, then by the way the holidays fell and ultimately by catching Covid and being confined to the sofa, not able to go anywhere or do anything.

Monthbooks read
January13
February3
March4
April5
May9
June5
July9
August8
September7
October7
November6
December6
books read in 2023

Breaking down the numbers, 58% of the books I read were crime, with only 25% sci-fi or fantasy. Definite shift from previous years! I suspect the crime book numbers were influenced by going to the Theakson Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate in 2023. I’m very much looking forward to going again in 2024 and not being the newbie this time! 

My favourite books of the year, part 1 and part 2

I also only read six non-fiction books this year. I’m not sure how many I usually read, but fairly sure it’s more than that. Three cracking books made my favourite books of 2023: non-fiction edition list.

Also, considering that I call myself a book blogger, I’ve only written 27 blog posts this year, and not all of those were reviews. Ooops.

So for 2024 I’ve set my goal at 52 books again. But I also have a couple of aims.

Read some big chonky books that I’ve picked up over the years. You know, the big 500+ page monsters. I’ve been putting those off as they take a while to read, so slow down the OMG MUST HIT MY TARGET.

Take my time with a crime book and see if I can figure out whodunnit. I almost want to break it down chapter by chapter – who have we met? What do we know about them? What clues do we know? Maybe turn this into a series of (spoiler-filled) posts. Pick a classic crime novel and play detective!

Have a go at @runalongwomble‘s 2024 Booktempter’s TBR Challenge. I love the idea of having different aims for a month and Womble has come up with some great ones here!

Read more non-fiction. I’ve got a bit of a backlog of books building up, so it’d be good to get through some more of them.

Review more books! Really, as a bookblogger this should be taken as read (there’s a pun in there somewhere), but I’m going to try and be better at keeping notes and writing up reviews as I go.

On that note, I also want to catch up with my NetGalley backlog. I have 47 books on my NetGalley shelf, but somewhat embarrassingly I’ve read half but either not written up a review yet or not posted one up. Ooops. No more NetGalley books until I’ve caught up!

Right, that’s more than enough I think.

Do you have any bookish aims for 2024? I’d love to hear about them!

    Favourite books of 2023: part 1

    It’s the time of year when a bookblogger turns to their list of books and tries to wrangle a top ten list together. This year I’ve read more books than ever before, so we’re back to the ‘here are some of my favourites’ list.

    Kicking off with one I read in 2022 (hey, it’s my list, I can do what I like)

    Children of the Sun, by Beth Lewis [Hodder, March 2023]

    One of my all-time favourite authors, Beth Lewis has given us some incredible books. The Wolf Road is just stunning, and last year’s The Origins of Iris was wonderful. Dark, raw and startlingly original, it will linger long in the memory after you turn the last page. It took me a while to recover myself after reading. Children of the Sun is an incredible book about cults and family and belief and loss. Lewis’s writing is, as ever, just beautiful. Hugely recommended.

    Moving onto 2023, we started the year with

    End of Story, by Louise Swanson [Hodder, March 2023]

    Oh, this book is amazing. Loved Louise’s earlier books (writing as Louise Beech), this is her first foray into a dystopian sci-fi. 2035 and fiction has been banned. Writing novels is a crime. Reading stories to children is punishable by law. The writing is beautiful, the setting is horrific, and it finishes with an ending that’ll leave you stunned. Hugely recommended.

    Needless Alley, by Natalie Marlow [Baskerville, January 2023]

    From a dystopian future to Birmingham, 1933. William Garret, private enquiry agent, specialises in helping men with divorces, but it all goes awry when he meets the beautiful Clara, the wife of one of his clients. Gloriously gritty Brummie Noir. A hugely impressive debut, and one which I highly recommend.

    The Devil Takes You Home – Gabino Iglesias [Mulholland, 2022]

    Utterly stunning. A father takes a job as a hitman to save his daughter and goes on a journey into darkness. Dark and bleak, but breathtakingly good. Not for the faint-hearted, but when I finished it, I knew that it would be top of my books of the year list, and I was only eight days into the year. It’s THAT good. If you read one from this list, read this one.

    Games for Dead Girls – Jen Williams [HarperVoyager, March 2023]

    Huuuge fan of Jen Williams’ books, so very excited to get my hands on an ebook proof of Games for Dead Girls. Played out over dual timelines, a macabre game in the past turned into tragedy, whilst present-day Charlotte returns to the caravan park to research local folklore and uncover the secrets of what went on all those years ago. Stitch-faced Sue is a fantastically spooky creation that will linger long after you’ve finished. Just hope she doesn’t come for you…

    Grave Danger/Grave Suspicions – Alice James [Solaris, 2023]

    Murder and mayhem with everyone’s favourite estate agent by day, necromancer by night, Lavington ‘Toni’ Windsor. These books are funny, dark, gory, a love story with a side order of whodunnit. What more could you want? Hugely recommended, if you hadn’t guessed.

    All Of Us Are Broken – Fiona Cummins [Macmillan, July 2023]

    The short version is simply this: Go buy a copy. Brace yourself, for you are not ready for what is about to unfold. Read it, take a deep breath, then tell all of your friends. Quite simply, it’s her best book yet. And those other books, my friends, are really bloody good.

    Beautiful Shining People – Michael Grothaus [Orenda Books, April 2023]

    Beautiful Shining People is a book that just wraps itself around you and refuses to let go. Part love story, albeit an unusual one, meshed in literary science fiction. Like the title, this story is beautiful, the characters shine and you watch entranced as they come together, each with their own secrets and past, each trying to figure out where and how they fit in this strange new world. It’s a world of superpowers battling with deepfakes and AIs rather than conventional weapons. Of quantum computing and how it’ll change our society. Of Big Corporations and whether they’re good or bad. And how humanity is dealing with all of this.

    Blacktop Wasteland – S.A. Cosby [Headline, 2020]

    It’s an exploration of character and family, but also of place, with the sweltering heat of rural Virgina oozing off the page. It’s also very gritty and graphic in places, and the story moves as fast as Bug’s superior driving skills. Combining heart in your mouth action scenes with heart-rending, moving moments with Bug’s family, Blacktop Wasteland is brilliant. Short and perfect, and a book I will pester you to read. This is me pestering you to read it.

    The Associate – Victoria Goldman [Three Crowns Publishing, September 2023]

    Goldman has followed up her excellent debut with another great installment of the Shanna Regan mysteries. Long may the series continue. As with book 1, The Redeemer, there’s a strong theme exploring Jewish identity and life here, and it’s fascinating to see this side of the community. Not something I’m familiar with, and not something I’ve seen much of in crime fiction. It’s interwoven throughout the novel, and I really enjoyed the twists and turns that Goldman throws into the narrative. 

    The Only Truly Dead – Rob Parker [Audible, 2023]

    The first two books in Rob Parker’s superb Thirty Miles trilogy were (and indeed are) superb. Book three just cranks the dials hard over to eleven and beyond. Proper edge of your seat stuff, the stakes have been raised and no-one is safe.

    I really can’t recommend this book highly enough. Warren Brown (DI Ripley from Luther) is back for a third turn at narration duties and elevates what is already a superb story to stratospheric heights. The first book accompanied me on dog walks, the second on the college drop off and pickup, but book three was with me in every spare minute I had. Utterly brilliant, hugely recommended.

    All The Little Liars – Victoria Selman

    Deliciously dark tale of secrets and lies, toxic relationships. A young girl goes missing from a party by a lake. But did her friends kill her? Told across two timelines, this is Selman on fine form. Absolute edge-of-your-seat stuff!

    Nice round dozen to get you started! Stay tuned for part 2…

    Obligatory New Year resolutions post

    Well, here we are in 2014. Traditionally the time of year when we start making resolutions for all the things we’re going to do (or not do, or stop doing) over the course of the next twelve months.

     

    I’ve given this some thought. Photo a day? Blog post a day? Read all my unread books?

    Handily I managed to get through January 1st without doing anything much other than relax, so all thoughts of ‘do X every day in 2014’ have neatly gone out of the window. It does rather take the pressure off.

    That said, I would like to do more things in 2014. I hesitate to call them resolutions as such, but for my own reference, here they are.

    Blog more
    Or at the very least, blog more regularly.
    The handy WordPress review of the year showed that I posted 201 blog posts in 2013. That seems like a nice number – I put up a post for just over half of the year. However, lots of this was clustered – February and November had a post every day as part of various challenges, whereas other months were very quiet. December, I’m looking at you. So, I’d like to get into more of a routine, post more regularly and make more use of scheduled posts for when I’m not feeling inspired. I’m sure there will be various ‘blog every day in [month]’ challenges along the way as well!

    Make more photographs
    I took a lot of photos last year with the (admittedly quite good) camera on my phone. But I want to get out and explore the city more as part of an upcoming collaborative project I’ve got in the works. As part of that I’ll be digging out my DSLR and getting back into the habit of making more photos.

    Read more
    I used GoodReads last year to keep track of the books I’ve read. I’d planned to make inroads into my Great Unread Book Pile, which didn’t really happen. I got through 27 books last year, though quite a few of them were new ones. This year I’d like to spend more time reading rather than faffing around on the internet. Can I clear some more books off the list?

    Practice on my guitar
    I bought a guitar towards the end of 2012, with the intention of teaching myself how to play it – I’ve never played an instrument before but figured now was as good a time as any to get started. I’ve taken it out of the case at least four times in the course of 2013, had a go and put it away again. A friend has persuaded me that ten minutes’ practice each day will pay dividends, and has given me some exercises to get started. We’ll see where that ends up.

    Ride my bike more
    I didn’t get out on my bike as much as I’d have liked last year, mainly due to laziness on my behalf. Couple that with a nasty spill towards the end of the year which left me with bloodied palms, bashed elbows, grazed knees and a lovely scratch on the face of my new watch. Always wear a helmet when out riding, kids. And gloves…
    I’d find that I had an hour spare, but think it wasn’t worth going out for such a short time – I love the weekend long 20-30 mile rides! So I’d make excuses and leave the bike in the garage. Now wish I’d taken the chances where I’d got them. After all, an hour spent on the bike is better than an hour spent not on a bike.

    That’s it, I think. Have you made any resolutions for 2014? What are yours?

    books in 2013: progress report

    A short catch-up of the plan to read the Great Unread Book Pile. I’m eight books into 2013, and there have been some cracking reads in there. I’ve still got to write up full reviews for each, but Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway (@Harkaway) and The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes (@Beukes) in particular were absolutely brilliant.

    I’ve kind of wavered from the TBR pile a little – I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of The Shining Girls from the lovely Hannah and Kate at HarperCollins (@KillerReads) which promptly bustled all other books out of the way and was devoured over the course of a weekend. Glorious stuff, time travelling serial killers and a girl who didn’t die. It’s out soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

    Angelmaker has also gone and won The Red Tentacle Award for best novel at The Kitschies. Congratulations to Nick on both the award, and his epic suit.

    Similarly ARCs of The Teleportation Accident, London Falling and Fade to Black also appeared. The first was so-so, with some lovely characters (well, brilliantly described and written characters), but doing… well, nothing that I could work out. Meh.

    London Falling, on the other hand, was superb. A darker, nastier take on the magical London scene, kind of a grittier Whispers of London. Can’t wait for the sequel.

    I finished Fade to Black yesterday. It was pretty good – interesting characters doing interesting things in a world that I’d not come across before. Again, there’s a sequel on the way and I’m looking forward to it.

    I’ve had a couple of other recommendations to investigate, but am (at the moment) being good and attacking the TBR pile once more.

    Read so far in 2013:
    The Right Way to Do Wrong, by Harry Houdini
    The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes
    The Teleportation Accident, by Ned Beauman
    Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar, by David Millar
    Railsea, by China Mieville
    London Falling, by Paul Cornell
    Angelmaker, by Nick Harkaway
    Fade to Black (Rojan Dizon Novels), by Francis Knight
    Currently reading:
    From Russia with Love, by Ian Fleming (part of my eternally late BlogalongaBondathon)

     

    So, dear reader. What books have you read and enjoyed lately?

    My love affair with books – the early years

    Following on from yesterday’s ebook vs paperback debate, I wanted to talk about reading in general. I’ve always been a keen reader. I was reading before I started school and quickly exhausted the set reading books available, to the point where the teacher in my last year at junior school said to just bring in a book from home.

    Cover of "The Stainless Steel Rat"

    I’d already been plundering my dad’s book collection – it was fairly small, consisting of books on the shelf by his bed and some in his office at work, but I soon picked up a taste for pulp sci-fi. Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat is still a favourite of mine, and I went through Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series in no time. Followed up with Asimov’s I, Robot, and his Lucky Starr -Space Ranger series, E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman books, the list goes on. I think my teacher was a bit alarmed when I turned up with a well-thumbed copy of one of the early Mars books, with their covers strewn with giant green aliens and bikini-clad heroines.

    Back in those days, books also seemed to be a lot thinner!

    I’d joined the local library too, and whizzed through books at a rate of knots. This was back in the days before computerised library issue systems, and each book had a little card ticket[1] which went into a pocket in one of your library cards. I got told off by the librarian at the tiny local branch library (maybe 50 metres from our front door, bliss!) for reading too quickly, as I’d returned a book that I’d borrowed a couple of hours earlier and she hadn’t got round to filing the tickets yet! Luckily she took pity on me and gave me a couple of extra library tickets.

    My own bookshelves followed and were soon groaning under the weight. Then came the dream weekend job – working in a public library to make a bit of extra money, and getting paid to look after and talk to people about books. Great fun, and with a whole world of books at my disposal. Plus I got to persuade the librarians there to buy copies of a book I wanted to read, and got to read them before anyone else. I spent a few happy years working evenings and weekends in a variety of libraries across the city, from the tiny little local libraries to the bigger city branches. Had a weird moment one day working in Byker library when I realised that it was *exactly* the same design of building as my base at Fenham library, only with half the number of books.

    I’ve got a load of library-related tales to tell, but that’s for another day. The question I have for you today, dear reader, is about your early reading – did you start young, late, what sort of books did you like?

    [1] The Browne Issue System, for the curious amongst you

    books – ebook vs dead-tree

    This week’s Weekly Writing Challenge: Mind the Gap: (from WordPress.com)

    How do you prefer to read, with an eReader like a Kindle or Nook, or with an old school paperback in hand?

    Now, there’s an interesting question. Subtly different to ‘do you prefer ebooks over paperbacks?’

    For a long time I thought about getting an eReader. The ability to carry many books in a small space really appealed – often I’d go on holiday or on a business trip with a selection of books to read, just in case one didn’t take my fancy or I finished one and needed another one whilst I was away.

    Finally, for a birthday a couple of years ago, I got a Kindle. I became a shameless convert, loading it up with a wide variety of books. Fiction, non-fiction, some I’d already read in paperback, some new. I probably read more that first year with the Kindle than I had done for a long time beforehand. The convenience, the size, weight were all perfect. The lovely e-ink screen, readable in full sunlight on a beach. It had (still has) a case with a built-in light, so I could read at night. Brilliant. I thought I’d also solved the problem of running out of bookshelf space at home too – after all, my virtual bookshelf was as long as I needed it to be.

    Books, pre-ordered weeks or months ago would automagically appear on my Kindle on the day of release. I remember the first time I pre-ordered something, switching the Kindle on at midnight and hitting Sync. There it was – a fresh book, ready to be enjoyed. Bargains to be had too – Amazon often had offers on with books for £1.99 or less. I stocked up for a rainy day. My ebookshelf was getting longer and longer…

    There were niggles, of course. Remembering to make sure it was charged up (a minor problem, given the astonishing battery life of the Kindle). The page refresh, which was *just* a shade slower than I’d like it to be. The slightly clunky user interface, and the fingermarks from the kids who expected it to be a touchscreen. 🙂

    The biggest problem for me? Sharing books. One of the true joys of reading a dead-tree book is that moment you finish it and want to press it into a friend’s hands, urging them to read it as you just *know* they’ll love it. My brother and I would see each other occasionally and do a book swap – half a dozen paperbacks picked up across the intervening months that we knew each other would enjoy. With the Kindle, that wasn’t possible. Sure, we could recommend books to each other, but both had to buy a copy. Which, I’m sure the publishers (and Amazon) loved. (Yes, I hear Amazon is doing a lending library thing, but having an ebook for 2 weeks just isn’t enough.) We’d lost the discovery, the book that you wouldn’t have bought, but having read one, would happily go and acquire the author’s back catalogue.

    The other thing I’ve found is that I missed reading a ‘proper’ book. Knowing how much you had left to read by the ever-decreasing pile of pages under your right thumb. Sorry Amazon, but a ‘percentage read’ just doesn’t give you the same feel. The ability to flick back a few pages to refresh your memory on a scene or plot point – again, the Kindle lets you do that, but frankly, it’s a faff.

    And also there’s something just brilliant about holding and reading a physical book. The tactile sensation of flicking through the pages, or peeling back the covers on an unread book is something I don’t ever want to be without.

    So, these days I split my time between the ebook and the dead-tree versions. They both have their place, and I wouldn’t be without either.

    How about you, dear reader? Are you an ebook convert, or an old-school die-hard? Or, like me, somewhere inbetween?