Thursday 2 January 2014

The Reading Year: January


This spider will keep a tally

There are stacks of unread books in the house. The stacks would be bigger were it not for the Kindle I bought at the end of 2012. In fact, they'd be bigger by about a hundred books. So I have decided that 2014 will be my year of de-unread-book-stack-ing the house. Or — as the practice is more widely known — reading a lot.

At the end of the year, the stacks might still be there, but at least they'll be constructed from read instead of unread books. I might also still be here, but over those twelve months, I'll have explored a mob of new worlds and words.

I've done the maths and it's frightening. I will have to get through a dozen or so books a month. Some of them are long. (I'm looking at you, Steve Pinker.) Sweeping aside my dismal reading record for December — 2013 is dead and gone — here's this month's list:

Fiction:
The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene (espionage)
The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin (crime)
Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper* (fantasy)
Cross and Burn by Val McDermid (crime)
Watch Out for Me by Sylvia Johnson (suspense)
My Island Homicide by Catherine Titasey (crime)

Non-fiction:
Le Freak by Nile Rodgers**
Eureka by Peter FitzSimons
The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper
The Old Ways by Robert McFarlane
The Butterfly Isles by Richard Bakham
White Beech by Germaine Greer

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* Yes, it's a kids' book. I've got a number of children's books in those stacks.
** Still going with this one. Have to take a breather every now and then because he's had such a full life.