First reads of 2024

[whatausername]

January is in full swing and the sun is shining up here! I'm reading Greenmantle and a book of Lewis Carroll poetry. Nearly finished the latter.

What have you been reading to kick off 2024?

I've read Send Nudes, (a book of short stories by a woman called Saba Sams) which was great; August Blue by Deborah Levy which was meh - I usually love her work but this was too whimsical and affected to be moving or engaging, Nonfiction (a novel) by Julie Myserson. I'd never read anything by her except her controversial column about family life in a newspaper years ago. She's a good writer but I did feel a bit uneasy about the way she uses her own children's weaknesses as literary cannon fodder.

Just started Rental Person Who Does Nothing by Morimoto - true story of a Japanese man who hated his job so rented himself out to other people so long as they didn't make him do anything (e.g. if someone wanted a companion to eat dinner in a restaurant he'd come along but not say much.) It's intriguing so far.

After that I want to read Demon Copperhead. I bought it but put it down somewhere and can't find it. Everyone says it is great.

So far I've read
Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree
Thorn in my Side by C J Skuse
You'd Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace
Currently reading
Salt and Broom by Sharon Lynn Fisher. A Jane Eyre retelling.

I finished my first book of the year last night. It was Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve been ignoring it in book shops for months and months but I just fancied buying it last week and it made me abandon everything else I was reading.

I don’t know what to read next. I’ve got the next Thursday Murder Club next to me so maybe that? Loads on my kindle. I did want to read The Other Boleyn Girl as that’s the next in that series that I haven’t read. Decisions.

Act of Oblivion has left me with a bit of a book hangover. The characters haven’t left me yet.

Interesting, I gave up at page 200 or thereabouts, when a character crashed to the floor in what was clearly a major medical episode and the next chapter started 'Seven years later.' No explanation of what happened or what happened next or how it affects the action, just let's move on a whole seven years. 🙄

No suspense, no tension, characters on both sides who are remarkably unpleasant and who I couldn't engage with at all, along with chunks of historical research inserted every so often. Can you tell me what I'm clearly missing with this book? because I'd like to know. For me some of the two and three star Amazon reviews summed it up perfectly - move around, hide, have a religious rant at each other, move around to another town and hide there. Then bloke trying to kill you eventually gets to America.

Onto 9th book of the year. Loved
The lost apothecary by Sarah Penner
On the beach by Nevil Shute
Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood
Hold your breath snd A version of events by BP Walter

Currently reading Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames by Lara Maiklem.
A fascinating account of things she has found digging around on the banks of the river at low tide.

I am listening to his and hers Alice feeney

kindle is hearts in Atlantis Stephen king

physical book is daughter of time Josephine Tey

libby app is The Drift by CJ Tudor

I like to have choices 😂

Just finished Winters Gifts one of the Rivers of London series!

Trying to get back into reading as much as I did before baby arrived (don’t all laugh at once) so all your titles are whetting my appetite 📚

I love this…. This is me all over!!

After watching “ Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy “ with Gary Oldman I’m reading “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold “.

Found an original 1964 hard copy. In the fly, in lovely handwriting, it says, “ to Julia - we’ll always have Berlin “

I love finding old books with handwritten messages. I've found letters in a few, as well.

Don't you just wonder about Berlin? 😏

I'm reading Bertrand Russell's The Conquest of Happiness. Really great. So interesting to read what is basically a self-help book written by a major philosopher.

I'm also reading A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Fermor (about the time he spent in a French monastry recovering from depression) and a biography of Isaac Newton (who was one weird guy).

When they're finished, I'm going to re-read Virginia Woolf's Orlando.