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starting the new year with Wuthering Heights (always wanted to read it but admittedly i'm reading it now because that new movie looks kinda hot lol) and Sea-Witch by Never Angeline Nørth. really enjoying both so far.

I want your love - Chic

eyes rolling like ball-bearings

I Want To Break Free ~ Queen

The Heart You Break May Be Your Own - Patsy Cline

Thank you

I like this one, I've always thought that this was the best of the Perez books, I don't think they ever filmed this one. Enjoy!

After my epic adventure with all kinds of vampires (my 80th book of the year!) I wanted something completely different, so it’s Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves.

Breaking up is hard to do - Neil Sedaka/others

putcheen, the Irish whisky

Sunless Solstice edited by Lucy Evans Another set of stories in the British Library Tales of the Weird series. This collection has stories based around the Christmas season and the solstice. There are stories from Frederick Manley, Lettice Galbraith, Elia Wilkinson Peattie, W J Wintle, E Temple Thurston, Hugh Walpole, Margery Lawrence, H Russell Wakefield, Daphne Du Maurier, Murial Spark, Robert Aickman and James Turner. The stories span 1893 to 1974. AS you would expect, some are stronger than others and some of the usual ghost story tropes are present. There is one tale told around a fire by a group of friends (Thurston). A couple are about vengeful wives: the one by Du Maurier (The Apple Tree) is particularly strong. There are mysterious encounters and a séance with a sceptical group of acquaintances. There is some benevolence: the tales by Walpole and Peattie, although even these have an edge. Wintle’s tale involves a vengeful black cat. There is a mountaineering tale (Wakefield), which is chilling in more ways than one. A good read for dark nights and the Christmas season. 7 out of 10 Starting The Haunted Library edited by Tanya Kirk

the after effects of

heard Santa wailing about

Ippenbury: Graveyard of Ambition is a historical fiction novel by Anthony Clifford, published in July 2025 by Austin Macauley Publishers. What do we really know about the lives of others? The villagers of rural Ippenbury in 1913 puzzle over their new schoolmistress, as Adele reveals very little about herself and almost nothing of her past. Telling her story, using her letters and journals, she recounts the enormous changes in the village during the Great War, including her responses to wounded soldiers recovering in the old mill hospital. She keeps her own life and loves private, but we can follow their twists and turns, even if it is only later that we begin to understand what has driven her reaction to these challenges and the tragic epidemic that followed. Her life in Ippenbury may have been her graveyard of ambition, but her story could be true of many others during these turbulent years, or indeed now. This provocative and compelling exploration of life, passion, love and ambition may leave you questioning how much we really understand about those around us. Has anyone else read it? I found it very thought provoking to think about the lives of people at home during world war one.

Very apt and very true.

intoxication inducing-I once

unpleasant, and frankly quite

Don't Go Breaking My Heart ~ Elton John and Kiki Dee

Seventy up! 67. Jane Austen, A Brief Life by Fional Stafford ***** Both a brief account, and an all too brief life. What would she have achieved if she'd lived a fully three score and ten? Read to mark Jane Austen's 250th birthday. This was an illuminating and eminently readable biography (almost unputdownable!), focusing mainly on her writing development, and providing a useful framework on which one can then hang more detailed biographies such as Claire Tomalin's. It also made we want to read all Austen's novels again! Perhaps not immediately, but certainly a change of plan, and will move on to her last novel, Persuasion, the only one that I've read just the once. Perhaps the others in the new year. 68. Persuasion by Jane Austen ****** Read as a follow up to Fiona Stafford's biography. It's the only one of the big six that I've read just the once, at which time it wasn't one of my favourites (although I have loved them all, with perhaps Northanger Abbey being the only one rated below six stars).And it still doesn't quite mix it with Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, but it's not far off, and Anne Elliot is definitely one of the great 'heroines'. I'm not quite sure why, but it could be something to do with the overcomplex genealogy perhaps, or the more straightforward romantic plotting. There's no doubting though the glorious Austen writing or her needle sharp character development. It was, for this unashamed Austen fan, a wonderful wallow, and I could have just started it all over again straightaway. I must read the others again in the New Year. (And I'm going to watch the BBC adaptation too, currently available on I-Player). 69. L'Etranger by Albert Camus **** I have read this once before, but only as a studied text for French Literature AS-Level, way back in the mid-70s. Needless to say, I barely remember it other than being a tedious translation effort. It's long overdue another go (particularly after reading and enjoying La Peste a couple of years ago), and as The Meursault Investigation seems to be a good choice for Algeria in Reading the World, now seems as good a time as any! So...it's easy to see why it's a classic. It's good, very good. It's seen as an examination of Absurdist philosophy, and I get that. The satire on French justice in part II (or is that 'justice' in general?) is vicious. To me, however, what came over much more strongly, was Meursault's autism. This was the grim, realist, side to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (and no, I'm not compariing them as literature, there is no comparison). I was fairly amazed that I'd never heard this before as it seemed screamingly obvious, so was relieved to find a note about just this right at the end of the book's Wikipedia entry that showed that this has been recognised (I'd begun to doubt myself!). But I can't say I was wowed. For me this is a book more to be admired and respected than enthused about (in contrast to, for instance, La Peste) I found it an interesting read certainly , but I never felt it reached far beyond simply doing what it says on the tin, the raison d'etre always more important than the novel itself. Animal Farm, amongst a number of other classics, had the same effect on me. But I am intrigued to read the Daoud take now! 70. The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud ***** Read as both a follow-up to L'Etranger and as the book for Algeria in Reading the World. This was a fascinating counterpoint to Camus's classic. I was glad to read it immediately afterwards as I might well have missed some (many?) of the points of contact otherwise, and I really enjoyed picking these up! Overall. I was surprised, if anything, to enjoy this more than the original. This felt more human and more deeply rooted in place. There was a colour that Camus's lacked. All of this was obviously deliberate on the part of both authors, but the later book did chime more with me (although it of course needed the earlier work to build on!). Perhaps it would be fairer to say, that they worked really well as a pair, both contrasting and complimenting each other; a case of the sum being distinctly greater than the parts.

It wasn't much more than a passing mention - very positive - in their end of year review of their favourite books. It's not one where I listen to every episode as there are others which do command most of my (fairly limited) listening, but enjoy it selectively (such as their serious of Virginia Woolf centred pods earlier this year).

Colourfields: Writing About Writing About Science Fiction - Paul Kincaid [Kindle] [Started 2025] Short Shrift - David Langford [Kindle] [Started 2025]

I Don't Hear You - George Jones

Start here in the New Year

Awww