Books read In January

I feel like I've spent the entire month hibernating in front of a the fire... reading. After an autumn where I just didn't feel like reading very much I've more than made up for it by reading eight books through January. For some that may not be all that many, but for me that's a *lot*. Of course, it wasn't supposed to be this way. My husband was due to have knee surgery at the beginning of the month but because his long term blood sugar was too high it was postponed while he works on getting it down. No idea when it will now happen but my guess is, not until well into Spring. Several very nice book blogging friends emailed to ask how he was and I thank them for that.

Anyhoo, books. This is what I read in January:

1. The Willows - Algernon Blackwood. A weird story which I read about in The Fellowship of Ghosts by Paul Watkins. I found the novella on the net and downloaded it to my Kindle. I enjoyed the sense of place, ie. an area on the River Danube, and the idea that a place can be so close to another dimension or world that the border is very thin and things might cross over. But I also found it rather too rambling and overly descriptive. My mind kept wandering to be honest.

2. Jacquot and the Master - Martin O'Brien

3. Blood Will Tell - Dana Stabenow

4. Kick: The True Story of JFK's Forgotten Sister - Paula Byrne

5. The Haunted Library - edited by Tanya Kirk

6. Maigret in New York - Georges Simenon

7. The Lewis Man - Peter May

8. Bill Oddie Unplucked - Bill Oddie. A household name in the UK, Bill Oddie was a TV presenter of wildlife programmes until a few years ago when ill health intervened. The book contains fifty of his essays, magazine articles and blog entries. They're mainly connected with his love of birds, recounting trips to farflung places to film for the TV, personal birding trips, describing his wildlife friendly garden and so on. All are entertaining as well as funny but also often make a serious point concerning the subject in hand. I enjoyed this very much. Bill always makes me think, sometimes making me form an opinion on things I've never given much thought to. I like his forthrightness even when his opinion may not be a popular one. A great pity he's not on TV very much now. This is my book 4 for Bev's Mount TBR 2017.


So, an excellent reading month and a varied one as well. Six fiction books, two non-fiction, all good reads. I'm still majoring on crime stories it seems, four of those read this month, plus two ghost stories. Of the two non-fiction one was biographical the other essays. I think that's a pretty varied crop of books and I'm quite happy with that.

Quite hard to pick a favourite as I really did enjoy the crime yarns, particularly The Lewis Man and Jacquot and the Master, but really my favourite book for January was this:



Kick: The True Story of JFK's Forgotten Sister by Paula Byrne. This was just so readable and interesting... loved it to bits.

~~~oOo~~~