110. The January Man: A Year of Walking, by Christopher Somerville
Recommended by betts. Does what it says on the tin. A chapter for each month, describing one or two walks in different parts of the UK. This was a well-timed read. I took a day off work and took the train to the coast for a wet and windy and exhilarating walk, and read most of this on the train. Looks like it will be a while before I'll get to do it again, so it was very welcome.
111. A Tomb with a View, by Peter Ross
Non-fiction account ranging over Victorian cemeteries, Muslim burial practices, the natural mummies of St Michaels in Dublin (I was taken to see them as a child -gave me nightmares) and writers such as Sheridan Le Fanu. It felt a rather arbitrary selection, but it's nicely done. He says in the acknowledgements that in the end, it's not really about death and more about love, and it does feel that way.
112. Well-read Black Girl, Glory Edime
An anthology by Black female writers, mostly American, talking about what reading means to them. Read individually, the essays were likeable, but when you have a whole book of essays where every writer has been commissioner to answer the same question, the obvious risk is that it's going to get repetitive, and that happens here. For obvious reasons, there are a lot of references to Maya Angelou, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. I was grateful to the writer of Eritrean heritage who said she identified with Boy, by Roald Dahl, for the laconic references to personal suffering, which reminded her of her family's reticence.
113. I am an Island, Tamsin Calidas.
I was on the library waiting list when this came up on the daily deal (waves at noodle).. No reticence about personal suffering here. English woman moves to Hebridean island and has awful time. Marriage falls apart, infertility, money problems, local hostility. I was a bit torn about this. Fair due to her for sticking it and it's all very vivid, but it's all at such a high pitch, i did wonder if other people's version of events would be the same. It's always a storm at midnight or a searing midsummer day, never an overcast Tuesday at 4pm. One minute she's so poor that she's nibbling on leaves, and then, in some unexplained way, it's fine and she doesn't need to sell her lambs for meat and can just use them for wool for her hobby of spinning.