December reading

I cannot believe we are in December! The year has flown by. And every month I have enjoyed picking my book as part of Laura's The Year in Books. 

My year has looked like this:

January: A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli

February: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

March: The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard

April: The Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt

May: Fox Encounters in the Wild by Jim Crumley

June: The Search Warrant by Patrick Modiano

July: Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard

August: Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

September: Findings by Kathleen Jamie

October: The Hog's Back Mystery by Freeman Wills Crofts

November: Limoncello and Linen Water by Tessa Kiros

December: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Over the course of the year I have read and enjoyed lots more , especially H is for Hawk and I Capture the Castle and luckily my pile of books is healthily growing so there's plenty for the coming months!

November reading

This month I'm reading plenty (just finishing Steve Silberman's Neurotribes which has just won the Samuel Johnson prize and looks at the history of autism. It is fascinating and is written in an engaging, storytelling way. It also focuses on the positives, which is so important for those whose lives are affected by their child's or their own autism). I'm also trying desperately to inject a little something into my daily cooking. I have fallen into the 'oh no, what will we eat today' trap and find myself making the same ten things for dinner and rotating them over the week - yawn. I spotted Limoncello and Linen Water by Tessa Kiros and thought 'help me pretty lady with the nice book titles!' Limoncello is all about celebrating Italian cooking and Tessa's writing weaves a nostalgic whimsical story into each recipe. So basically I'm hoping that she will save me from myself. Not much to ask for now, is it?

*** joining in with Laura's The Year in Books***

October reading

These October days are pretty packed but I have to admit I truly love settling down in the evenings to read and I suppose one of the (many) good things about not having a TV is that there is no distraction and, as a result, I read far more than I used to. This month it's all about mystery and disappearances and possibly murder. The Hog's Back Mystery is 1930s detective fiction, written by Freeman Wills Crofts whose Inspector French is called in to solve the unusual disappearance of a retired doctor... It's well crafted with enough suspense to keep you reading and guessing and page turning and it's just right for a cold evening or two by the fire.

***Joining in with Circle of Pine Trees and The Year in Books***

September reading

I am doing a bit of tail chasing this month so far. It's been a busy few weeks but I've still found time for reading, though it's more snatched happen-chance rather than luxurious wallowing.  I have to admit I haven't yet finished Testament of Youth ~ I'm still enjoying it but, as with all big books I find smaller books nuzzle their way in seeking attention and so I've read Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James and The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness in the meantime. 

Death Comes to Pemberley - a sequel to Pride and Prejudice but this time with murder most foul - was a fun read, although I'd have liked Elizabeth Bennet to have had a bit more 'oomph' to her, the book featured more of Mr Darcy than it did of her and there wasn't much mystery solving to it.

The Crane Wife was unusual - part fable, part love story - it tells of George who, in the middle of the night, rescues a crane which has been shot by an arrow .... the next day the mysterious Kumiko appears in his shop and George falls in love with her.... The book's fairytale quality made it a bit hard to believe and, to be honest, I preferred the likeable, real and humourous characters of George's daughter, Amanda, and also that of Mehmet who works for George. 

This month's book is Findings by the poet Kathleen Jamie. I'm afraid I'm a sucker for anything Scottish, wild and winterish. I'm barely 10 pages in and I'm already captivated by her writing which holds close the everyday mundane alongside the magical.

**Joining in with The Year in Books**

August reading

I bought Testament of Youth way back in January and between the swings and the roundabouts didn't think to pick it up. To be honest I think its size scared me a little. It's hefty (600 or so pages) but the other evening with the rain dripping endlessly outside I lit the fire and started it. Of course Vera Brittain's writing is such that you get effortlessly sucked into her story, beginning with her early life and her battle to get out of provincial Buxton and into Oxford. Of course the Great War gets in the way of those plans and takes the lives of her brother Edward, her fiance Roland Leighton and their friends, creating the lost generation, and of course changing her life too. If the summer continues in its dismal way I shall have lots of fireside reading time - although I'm wondering should this be my August and September choice for The Year in Books and that way I can stop hyperventilating over its size...

July reading

Well, that was a bit of an unintentional holiday from blogging. We'd no internet for days, days I tell you and so instead of spending time on-line reading and generally nosing around in other peoples' lives I have been forced to spend time with my husband, my children, my friends, my laundry basket and myself and oh, what a relief it is to find all is working in the www.world.com again.

I did however use the time to do some reading and am well through my book for July Marking Time by Elizabeth Howard. It's the second in the Cazalet family series and picks up where the first book left off, so now the family are in 1940 and the reality of war is starting to bite. It's perfect for this time of year when having a book that you can pick up and put down, as children demand, is needed. It's also fairly much character driven so there's no pesky plot wranglings to deal with if you have to leave it for a day or two. I'll also be reading The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair from Persephone Books. So those are my choices for The Year in Books  over at Circle of Pine Trees.

June reading

How do you choose a book? The size? (I especially love slim books, 200 pages or less). The cover? The hype? The title? The smell? All of the above? When we're book shopping it's usually with the three boys. Peaceful and quiet choosing time is limited, even when we spend an age in the children's section while they choose theirs, I usually get a hurried ten minutes to see what I might like to read. Last week we were in Hodges Figgis in Dublin and as I'm nearly finished H is for Hawk I thought I'd pick up something new. Immediately I saw The Search Warrant I knew it was for me. Thin, intriguingly titled and about the disappearance of a girl in Paris during the second world war it was ticking a lot of boxes. I flipped it open about half way through and read, in the bustling bookshop, a few paragraphs. That is how I choose. If it feels right, if I like the writing, if there's an atmosphere, if the voices of the characters sound real even though I don't know the story then I buy the book. Oh, and the size, the cover, the hype, the title and the smell also count.

***This is my June choice for The Year in Books at the always lovely Circle of Pine Trees***

May reading

Not one, not two, not three, but four books for May. Yes, I know I'm showing off a bit. But I can't help it. Now, two of these are quick reads so they barely count, right? And one is a children's book. So we're really down to one proper book for May. Phew!

The first is Carson Ellis's book Home. I love Carson's illustrations and this book is so sweet with homes of Slovakian duchesses, Kenyan blacksmiths, Norse gods and babushkas all in gorgeous painted detail. 

Next up is Sitting Still Like a Frog by Eline Snel, a book about mindfulness for children designed to help with anxiety, difficulty sleeping, kindness, breathing calmly and generally coping with stress. 

Then there's Fox Encounters in the Wild by Jim Crumley. Foxes are among my favourite animals. We have plenty here and I love hearing that eerie bark coming from the woods behind the house or, like the other night, from our garden. This is a slim book - just about 60 pages - but I'm really looking forward to reading it.

Finally there's Gladys Mitchell's Speedy Death. Written in 1929, it features Mrs Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, unorthodox amateur sleuth whose name alone deserves a prize. 

Before I start with any of those I have to finish Mr. Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. I know this is a classic, I know it's based on his own experiences in WW1 but...but I'm just not enjoying it as much as I'd hoped. 

****Joining in with Circle of Pine Trees A Year in Books****

wild garlic pesto

We've just returned from a weekend by the sea where we enjoyed our first barbecue by the beach. Well, okay, barbecue might be a bit grand considering it was only hotdogs and toasted marshmallows. But it was by the sea, in the sun (and the wind) with our toes in the ocean. That's impressive, right? Anyway on our return home after a quick garden inspection I saw that the wild garlic clump was looking good, so I made this wild garlic pesto recipe from Circle of Pine Trees. Oh, it's SO good. It's a real Spring treat and easy, peasy to whip up. We ate it with griddled toasts but it would be delicious with pasta or maybe as a topping on a big bowl of pea soup.

April reading

Hugo, who is twelve, does a lot of reading. It's hard to keep up with him. He likes a wide variety of books but they have to be exciting, have complicated plots, a bit of gore and preferably be fat and in a series. I had read a lovely review of The Letter for the King on EmilyBooks and I thought of Hugo.

But then I thought of me. 

And I'm so glad I did. It's my book for April for Circle of Pine Trees The Year in Books. Imagine you are 16 and are on the cusp of becoming a knight. Imagine you are suddenly called on a quest. A secret quest to deliver a letter, the contents of which you do not know. Enemies are all around you. Who can you trust? How far will you go to deliver this letter? How long will your courage hold? It's such a different book to my last one (The Light Years, which I loved and, like Hugo, I'm delighted it's in a series!) but I have to say I'm gripped and look forward to it each evening when the household quiets and stills and medieval life and chivalry take over.

spring reading

The calendar tells me it's early March, the beginning of Spring. I happen to know otherwise. It's still very cold and wintry here and with snow showers and blustery wind it's hard to believe Spring has come. These days I am never very far away from a pot of tea. I warm my hands around a favourite cup and there's gingerbread too. Of course a new month means a new book as part of Laura's The Year in Books. This time it's The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard. The first in a series it follows the Cazalet family just as the world stands on the cusp of war. I'm looking forward to starting it and if the weather continues its wintry ways I think some fireside reading will be time well spent.