It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish. —S.I. Hayakawa
This week/year I will mostly be reading Next To Nature, a compilation of seasonal nature notes by Ronald Blythe with contributions and reflections by such luminaries as Dr Rowan Williams, Vikram Seth, Richard Holloway, Hillary Spurling, Frances Ward, Robert Macfarlene and others.
I have begun reading some of the 2025 Christmas gifts and am enjoying them. One was a book I requested by William McInnes, It's a scorcher, Tales of the Australian summer. Remembrances and reflections of his family and their lives in Brisbane during the 70's. Amusing and heartfelt and I do recommend, loved it!
Now I am onto A guide to Regency dress by Hilary Davidson. Cheery daughter asked whether I would like this for Christmas and as I enjoy Jane Austen, I thought why not? As well as being easy to read I am enjoying the illustrations. Cheery daughter follows a few historical dress people on social media and I suspect the author may be one of them. I am enjoying it and will have to hurry up and finish as I suspect she would like a browse as well!
@Gamma Gamaliel Next to Nature sounds wonderful - some really good authors there.
I'm dipping in and out of Spitalfields Life, by The Gentle Author. It's a collection of his blog entries - I've been following the blog for years, and really enjoy it. He interviews people locally, and talks about the history, and it's just a lovely relaxing read.
I'm going to a Regency ball in June @Cheery Gardener . I have a pattern for a frock, just need to go and see my neighbour who will help me make it. That book sounds really interesting so I might look out for it next time I'm in one of our local bookshops.
Back to reading, 2026 is the National Year of Reading in the UK so I'm going to try and do my bit. I belong to various book groups so I have enough stuff to keep me going. At present I'm re-reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie for a detective novel group, which will be followed by the book for the SOF's January read.
I also have the sequel to Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd lined up. Gabriel's moon was one of my favourite reads of last year, but I don't want to read the sequel too soon in case it spoils my enjoyment for the first book.
I'm currently part way through RF Kuang's latest novel: Katabasis.
Very much enjoying it so far. It's amusing take on the classical tradition of a journey into the underworld, told by a postgraduate student whose doctoral supervisor has had the temerity to die and go to hell. As he is the only person who can pass her, she descends into hell to resurrect him, just so she can get her PhD.
I’m still reading a book by Jim Stewart, and I have several new books (to add to the massive array I have) that I got for Christmas, including one I’m very keen on called Smuggler’s Cove, which is about tiki culture with recipes!
I have made a concerted effort on my TBR pile over the last few weeks. The McInnes What a scorcher! was top of the pile - great fun. Glad you enjoyed it @Cheery Gardener
Since then I have read a memoir by the last Chief Traffic Manager of the NSW Railways who rose from Relief Junior Porter to that eminent post. A couple of photographic collections from postwar railway operations came at Christmas. Richard Osman's The Impossible Fortune provided more pleasure. Today I picked up the annual collection of Best Australian Political Cartoons, which I have just finished.
In the meantime, I have been slowly immersing myself in Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet. I am greatly enjoying her use of language and building of characters.
It must be said that this is not making me popular with Mrs BA, but I had got out of the habit of holding a book and reading. My newspapers and magazines are now all online, which I find actually slows my reading, so I am making a determined effort to read as much hard copy as possible.
A few chapters into Joan Didion’s The Year Of Magical Thinking. Death has been on my mind and figured in my recent reading. Matt Haig’s The Life Impossible less realistically and Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air which is very much the opposite. I’ve always been comfortable with my own mortality but it is the holes which the passing of some in my life will leave that worries me.
Starting the new year with Francesca Wade's Gertrude Stein: an Afterlife on how Stein and her partner Alice B Toklas secured her fame for posterity, the making and unmaking of literary reputations in 1920s Paris, one of my favourite historical periods. Not least because of the optimism and creative excitement of young American expats that included writers such as Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Ezra Pound encountering the art of Matisse and Picasso.
That sounds really interesting @MaryLouise, a real melting pot of creativity!
@Sarasa, the costume book is published by Yale University Press, I hope you can track it down, it's fun and interesting.
I got an email the other day, which I overlooked, not sure whether to be happy or sad about that as huge savings to be had on books and I know I would be sorely tempted, but some items I would have purchased have already sold out - probably for the best!!
I am looking forward to a new novel and a new biography making their way to my place, plus one for the gift box and I thought that was very disciplined!
I've just started What Moves the Dead, by T. Kingfisher. It's a re-telling of the Fall of the House of Usher, with evil mushrooms! She does creepy atmospheres very well.
This week I burned through the new Trent Dalton, Gravity let me go. I am glad to say I worked out who the murderer was, it's not something I can usually do, so it gave me some satisfaction, but perhaps that means it was obvious!!!
I haven't picked my next read as I have several books piled up, but there is a new one in my last book order that I think might be the one. I am trying to make myself spend more time reading this year as I find it is something I am forgetting to do, but when I get around to it, I could do it all day long!! I don't know why I have gotten out of the habit....
Last night I finished my first book of the year. This is a shock, as I would normally on four or five, but I was reading Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars trilogy Blue Mars - the final book.
Which is 800 pages long. And dense. And superb. The whole trilogy (which comes in at 2000 pages long!) is a brilliant work of imaginative SF. But - wow, is it hard going.
I mean, discussion of jamais vu, presque vu as related to deja vu, discussed in quite some depth. In a novel.
Last night I finished my first book of the year. This is a shock, as I would normally on four or five, but I was reading Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars trilogy Blue Mars - the final book.
Which is 800 pages long. And dense. And superb. The whole trilogy (which comes in at 2000 pages long!) is a brilliant work of imaginative SF. But - wow, is it hard going.
I mean, discussion of jamais vu, presque vu as related to deja vu, discussed in quite some depth. In a novel.
KSR is a favourite of mine, even if he has really weird ideas about *gestures vaguely* quite a lot of things, but noticeably Muslims. And sex. The random asides into pseudo-psychology, plant biomes, disease control, dialect evolution, and a few dozen others make for plotting that is not in any way tight but makes up for it by being an autistic paradise.
And at the moment I'm reading the final book in the Pride of Chanur series by CJ Cherryh. I read the first four not long after she wrote them, in the 1980s, and was unaware that she had written a sequel, Chanur's Legacy, until recently.
This one follows the niece of Pyanfar Chanur, the main character in the original series. Hilfy is now the Captain of the Chanur's Legacy, and she's having problems with delivering a precious artefact for the stsho, and dealing with a young male of her own species - male hani have only recently been allowed to go into space, and the poor lad is running into a lot of prejudice.
And at the moment I'm reading the final book in the Pride of Chanur series by CJ Cherryh. I read the first four not long after she wrote them, in the 1980s, and was unaware that she had written a sequel, Chanur's Legacy, until recently.
This one follows the niece of Pyanfar Chanur, the main character in the original series. Hilfy is now the Captain of the Chanur's Legacy, and she's having problems with delivering a precious artefact for the stsho, and dealing with a young male of her own species - male hani have only recently been allowed to go into space, and the poor lad is running into a lot of prejudice.
I've got the KSR Mars series on my "to read" pile, and I've also read the Chanur series. I love CJC's hani universe but I find her style hard going, can't exactly say why.
I would put KSR in the "optimistic humanist" category - that he believes in the power of humanity, but he is positive about the outcomes. Believing that the majority of people are good.
I may disagree with him in this, but it makes for really uplifting reading. And you know that the details are the probably scientifically possible. And the detail makes for a very solidly built framework.
I'll have to look out for Chanur's Legacy. I think the big problem with Cherryh's style is that she tends to choose protagonists who are fairly inarticulate, and her style of writing mimicks their inner thoughts. It's particularly noticeable in the Finisterre series (my favourite, if only because it shows what Pern might have been like with a different writer).
I'm attempting a close read of Hannah Arendt "The Human Condition". I'm not sure I would recommend it so far.
I've read several other very light detective novels so far this year. Currently reading one by David Baldacci about a rogue FBI agent. It's fine but forgettable.
I have my real life book group here tomorrow and we'll be discussing Robert Harris's Precipice which I thought was quite a good read.
I'm now reading The Correspondent by Virginia Evans which was my Christmas present to myself, having heard it recommended on the radio. Enjoying it very much - and as it's a series of letters it lends itself to being picked up for a quick read and then put down again.
Just for some comfort reading, I've just started Sense and Sensibility again. For about the fifteenth time! I'll probably watch the Emma Thompson movie again while reading.
Comments
It's like sipping a rich and complex single malt.
Now I am onto A guide to Regency dress by Hilary Davidson. Cheery daughter asked whether I would like this for Christmas and as I enjoy Jane Austen, I thought why not? As well as being easy to read I am enjoying the illustrations. Cheery daughter follows a few historical dress people on social media and I suspect the author may be one of them. I am enjoying it and will have to hurry up and finish as I suspect she would like a browse as well!
I'm dipping in and out of Spitalfields Life, by The Gentle Author. It's a collection of his blog entries - I've been following the blog for years, and really enjoy it. He interviews people locally, and talks about the history, and it's just a lovely relaxing read.
Back to reading, 2026 is the National Year of Reading in the UK so I'm going to try and do my bit. I belong to various book groups so I have enough stuff to keep me going. At present I'm re-reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie for a detective novel group, which will be followed by the book for the SOF's January read.
I also have the sequel to Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd lined up. Gabriel's moon was one of my favourite reads of last year, but I don't want to read the sequel too soon in case it spoils my enjoyment for the first book.
Very much enjoying it so far. It's amusing take on the classical tradition of a journey into the underworld, told by a postgraduate student whose doctoral supervisor has had the temerity to die and go to hell. As he is the only person who can pass her, she descends into hell to resurrect him, just so she can get her PhD.
Since then I have read a memoir by the last Chief Traffic Manager of the NSW Railways who rose from Relief Junior Porter to that eminent post. A couple of photographic collections from postwar railway operations came at Christmas. Richard Osman's The Impossible Fortune provided more pleasure. Today I picked up the annual collection of Best Australian Political Cartoons, which I have just finished.
In the meantime, I have been slowly immersing myself in Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet. I am greatly enjoying her use of language and building of characters.
It must be said that this is not making me popular with Mrs BA, but I had got out of the habit of holding a book and reading. My newspapers and magazines are now all online, which I find actually slows my reading, so I am making a determined effort to read as much hard copy as possible.
@Sarasa, the costume book is published by Yale University Press, I hope you can track it down, it's fun and interesting.
I got an email the other day, which I overlooked, not sure whether to be happy or sad about that as huge savings to be had on books and I know I would be sorely tempted, but some items I would have purchased have already sold out - probably for the best!!
I am looking forward to a new novel and a new biography making their way to my place, plus one for the gift box and I thought that was very disciplined!
I haven't picked my next read as I have several books piled up, but there is a new one in my last book order that I think might be the one. I am trying to make myself spend more time reading this year as I find it is something I am forgetting to do, but when I get around to it, I could do it all day long!! I don't know why I have gotten out of the habit....
Which is 800 pages long. And dense. And superb. The whole trilogy (which comes in at 2000 pages long!) is a brilliant work of imaginative SF. But - wow, is it hard going.
I mean, discussion of jamais vu, presque vu as related to deja vu, discussed in quite some depth. In a novel.
KSR is a favourite of mine, even if he has really weird ideas about *gestures vaguely* quite a lot of things, but noticeably Muslims. And sex. The random asides into pseudo-psychology, plant biomes, disease control, dialect evolution, and a few dozen others make for plotting that is not in any way tight but makes up for it by being an autistic paradise.
And at the moment I'm reading the final book in the Pride of Chanur series by CJ Cherryh. I read the first four not long after she wrote them, in the 1980s, and was unaware that she had written a sequel, Chanur's Legacy, until recently.
This one follows the niece of Pyanfar Chanur, the main character in the original series. Hilfy is now the Captain of the Chanur's Legacy, and she's having problems with delivering a precious artefact for the stsho, and dealing with a young male of her own species - male hani have only recently been allowed to go into space, and the poor lad is running into a lot of prejudice.
I've got the KSR Mars series on my "to read" pile, and I've also read the Chanur series. I love CJC's hani universe but I find her style hard going, can't exactly say why.
I may disagree with him in this, but it makes for really uplifting reading. And you know that the details are the probably scientifically possible. And the detail makes for a very solidly built framework.
I've read several other very light detective novels so far this year. Currently reading one by David Baldacci about a rogue FBI agent. It's fine but forgettable.
I'm now reading The Correspondent by Virginia Evans which was my Christmas present to myself, having heard it recommended on the radio. Enjoying it very much - and as it's a series of letters it lends itself to being picked up for a quick read and then put down again.