France

I had a quick look though it and was rather put off by glancing through the Reading the World challenge and seeing books listed as being of that country which weren't, Where the Crawdads Sing listed for Brazil and Murder on the Orient Express for Turkey for instance.

I have to buy loads of books - there is an English bookshop in Bordeaux but it's small and by necessity expensive, there isn't an English library within 250 km and the nearest charity shops with English books are 150 km... There is a big charity booksale held twice a year which is good for stocking up on the thrillers my husband likes reading. So I trawl second hand sites, get anything that looks interesting and if a book comes up at a good price that looks reasonably interesting I get it. I know authors need royalties (I'm one myself) but I can only afford to buy a very few new. I agree though that sometimes the sheer quantity of books can seem oppressive but if I do a cull I rapidly find myself restlessly searching books sites for something to fill the gap. I often read more than one book at a time. If I've borrowed a book I only read it where I can keep it in absolutely pristine condition, so not at breakfast or in the bath. Ditto books with pictures don't go into the bathroom and when I'm tired I'll read something light that doesn't need too much concentration.

A Rising Man by Abir Mukharjee got the year off to a cracking start. Sam Wyndham, ex Scotland yard arrives in Calcutta in 1919, and has to deal with the murder of a prominent member of the British community almost immediately. It looks like the work of Indian terrorists yet Wyndham, assisted by his sergeant Surrender-not Bannerjee and Digby, an old India hand who is resentful at not getting the top job, has his doubts. It's a well written, fast moving story full of life and colour. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next in the series.

Print/Kobo 1. A Rising Man - Abir Mukherjee ++++1/2 2. Night Trains - Andrew Martin +++1/2 3. Find You First - Linwood Barclay ++++ 4. Civilisations - Laurent Binet +++ 5. The Strays of Paris - Jane Smiley ++++1/2 6. Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight - Alexandra Fuller +++++ 7. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee ++++1/2 All The Brave Shall be Forgiven - Chris Cleave DNF 8. Inge's War - Svenja O'Donnell ++++ 9. The Last Graduate - Naomi Novik ++++ 10. Chances Are - Richard Russo ++++ 11. A Comedy of Terrors - Lindsay Davis ++++ 12. Birdcage Walk - Helen Dunmore ++++ 13. Spring - Ali Smith +++1/2 14. The THursday Murder Club - Richard Osman (rr for Book Group) ++++1/2 15. Mission to Paris - Alan Furst ++++1/2 16. Elizabeth of the German Garden - Jennifer Walker +++ 17. Doomsday Book - Connie Willis ++++1/2 18. Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo +++++ 19. Outbound Train - Renea Winchester ++++ 20. Course of Honour - LindsayDavies ++++ 21. The Magician - Colm Toibin +++ 22. Sorrow And Bliss - Meg Mason +++1/2 23. Saving Time - Jodi Taylor +++++ 24. Let The Dead Speak - Jane Casey ++++1/2 25. Diamond and the Eye - Peter Lovesey +++ 26. The Psychology of Time Travel - Kate Mascarenhas ++++1/2 27. Still Life - Sarah Winman +++++ 28. Lost Dog - Kate Spicer +++ 29; The Reading List - Sara Nisha Adams +++ 30. Odd Boy Out - Gyles Brandreth +++1/2 31. Mr Loverman - Bernardine Evaristo ++++1/2 32. Astonish Me - Maggie Shipstead +++++ 33.Redhead by the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler +++++ 34. Malibu Rising - Taylor Jenkins Read ++++ 35; All My Mothers - Joanna Glen +++1/2 36. Stiletto ' Daniel Massey. ++++1/2 37. Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi ++++1/2 38. American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins+++++ 39. A short History of the World According to Sheep -Sally Coulthard ++++1/2 40.Oh William! Elizabeth Strout ++++1/2 41. Mother's Boy - Patrick Gale +++++ The House on the Cerulean Sea - T J Klune Abandoned 42. The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison +++++ 43. Doing Time - Jodi Taylor ++++1/2 44. The ManWho Died Twice - Richard Osman ++++ 45. Miss Buncle's Book - D E Stevenson +++++ 46. The Dark - Sharon Bolton+++++ 47. Cold Kill - P J Tracy ++++ 48. The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Akiwira ++++ 49. Good Riddance - Elinor Lipman +++1/2 50 The Talk of Pram Town - Joanna Nadin +++ 51. The Lincoln Highway - Amor Towles 52 The Mystery of the Paper Bark Tree - Ovidia Yu ++++ 53. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heap - H G Parry ++++ 54. The Feast - Margaret Kennedy +++++ 55. Tales From the Folly - Ben Aaronnvitch ++++(RR° 56. THe Half Life of Valery K - Natasha Pulley ++++1/2 57. Lake Silence - Anne Bishop ++++ 58. The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafek +++++ 59. The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett +++++ 60. The Last Party - Clare Macintosh +++ 62. Nora goes off script - Annabel Monnahan ++ 61. The Final Reunion of Opal and Nev - Dawnie Walton ++++1/2 62. The Stone Chamber - Kate Ellis +++ 63. Wake - Shelley Burr +++1/2 64. Smoke and Ashes - Akbir Mukajee ++++ 65. Murder Before Evensong - Rev Richard Coles ++ 66. The Bog Child - Siobhan Dowd ++++ 67. The Lady of Adderley - Robert Barnard ++++ 68. Death Wore White - Jim Kelley +++ 69. The Dead Will Tell - Linda Castillo ++++ 70. My Word is My Bond - Roger Moore ++++ 71. Blue Monday - Nicci French +++ (downgraded for the truly annoying ending) 72. Death in the East - Akbir Mukajee +++1/2 73. Dirt Town - Hayley Scrivinor +++ 74. French Braid - Anne Tyler +++++ 75. The Last to Disappear +++ 76. Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doer +++/+++++ (Can't make up my mind whether it's overblown or brilliant) 77. This Charming Man - CK McDonnell ++++1/2 78. O Caledonia - Elspeth Barker ++++ 79. Shamed - Linda Castillo ++++1/2 80. Mrs Harris Goes to Paris - Paul Gallico +++1/2 81. Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead ++++1/2 82. The Angels of Venice - Phillip Wynne Jones ++++ 83. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus +++1/2 84. Business As Usual - Jane Oliver +++++ 85. Fresh Water for Flowers - Valerie Perrin ++++ 86. The Golden Enclaves - Naomi Novik ++++1/2 87. Miss Buncle Married - D E Stevenson +++ Audio Books The Husband's Secret - Liane Moriaty +++ for story, top notch narrating Holidays on Ice - David Sedaris

I don't think brains are necessarily a prerequisite for writing a good and thoughtful book. A mastery of language and the ability to put words together (whether or not it follows grammatical mores) definitely is. Writing is a craft that needs to be worked at and honed, just like somebody can't design a ballgown that will fit, flatter, be comfortable and suit the fabric without knowing about dressmaking and the properties of various materials. The other thing is to read, read, read. I wouldn't call discussing all sorts of subjects while the reader waits for something to happen clever, it's the literary equivalent of being a pub bore as far as I'm concerned (I haven't read Focault's Pendulum by the way!) Your Youtuber while probably being bright is also probably not reading every word of the books she reviews (ask yourself for a moment how the judges for the Booker manage to read all the books entered, they have to skim) and she may be writing her book in conjunction with someone else. Otherwise she could simply be very organised, if you set yourself to write 500 words a day you can complete an 80,000 word novel in under 6 months. Was Jane Austen super bright? Clever certainly and she came from a very literate family and she wrote and wrote. Dickens? Much of his writing was motivated by the need to make money, Dostoievski was another who was paid by the page. Dickens was also driven by social injustice. Was Emily Bronte brilliant or the owner of an incredible imagination (and another who wrote and wrote and wrote)? Lee Child may be a genius IQ wise for all I know but for me he's the perfect example of someone who is very slick and practiced at producing page turners, some of the plots have huge unliklinesses in them but it doesn't matter because he's so good at making the reader turn the page. That is clever.

These are Ingie and Dino, both rescues. Ingie was in a refuge for over 5 years after being removed from his owners for cruelty and was already 10 when we adopted him. We thought we'd give him a home for his last years, when he arrived in September 2020 he didn't know to wag his tail or move his ears in response when someone spoke to him. We've been unbelievably lucky because though he has a few issues he is very loving and affectionate. Since Desi died he's appointed himself chief comforter which involves spending a lot of time draped across my lap. Dino, on the right, is my daughter's and was thrown out of a car and left to fend for himself.

Not rubbish! And very characterful. No, that was Flynn who was most definitely a character! She has a paw of iron dressed up in some pretty speckled fur. I reckon you can be pretty sure that if you are invited to someone's home and get to meet the mother that the puppies are OK. They won't be from a puppy farm or imported illegally. I know a couple of breeders here in France and they are very careful about who their puppies go to and if for some reason the new owners decide to get rid of the dog will work their butts off to find the dog a new, decent home.

You're a really good photographer Hux! I love that picture, so full of essence of dog.

Sybil, now aged two but still just as opinionated, disapproving of my reading material.

Isabel Allende's first book The House of the Spirits is featured on the last episode of Graham Norton's Book Club podcast and there's a really interesting interview with her. She sound like exactly the sort of person I'd love to meet! I know we still have a copy of The House of the Spirits, I'm going to dig it out and reread it.

We had a Dalmatian (almost as accomplished thieves as Labradors) who worked out how to open the bread bin by getting his nose under the handle and rolling it up.

Lily looks like quite a character. There's attitude there! Is she a beagle?

Last posting of the year! Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers. It's 1957 and Jean, 39, a journalist on the North Kent Echo who normally covers all the light womanly stories is sent to interview Gretchen, a young Swiss woman, who claims to have had a virgin birth. The more Jean investigates, the closer she becomes to the whole family, Gretchen, Getchen's daughter Margaret and her husband Howard and the more puzzled she is by Gretchen's story. There are many good things about this book and I loved the way some of Jean's other writing is included so we can see how banal her normal work usually is but the first half is really slow moving and the ending reads as if Clare Chambers wasn't sure how to bring it to a close so threw everything in (actually this isn't the case as is made clear in the epilogue but it still feels that way). The Girl in the Ice - Robert Bryndza. Fast moving, well written, wrecked by ridiculous ending with multiple things that just wouldn't happen (ie police officer taking a suspect's keys and letting themself into the suspect's house) and totally nonsensical tying up of loose ends - ie why is A doing business with ? It hasn't been mentioned earlier. Shame I was enjoying it up to that point.

Have you tried Isabel Allende? Or Alice Hoffman. Both of them write about the real world but with magical elements, Hoffman verges on outright fantasy sometimes but Allende is firmly of this, albeit a slightly skewed, world.

Munchkin looks enoiugh to distract anyone! We're lucky enough to have 2 still with us, my daughter's dog Dino and Ingie whom we rescued last year after he'd spent 5 years in a refuge. They are both delightful but neither of them smile like Desi did and I miss being greeted by this:

Thanks all. It doesn't matter how much you've been preparing yourself it still hits hard.

I'm binge reading very light stuff, my dog, my friend for over 13 years, was put down just before Christmas and there's a huge dog-shaped hole, I'm finding it hard to focus on anything too sad or difficult. That's why I'm really struggling with Property by Valerie Martin which I'm re-reading for my book group, which is about slavery in Louisiana in 1826 and doesn't have a single sympathetic character in it. I'll have to continue as I've promised to pass it on.

Oh goodness, if you loved this one then you've got a lot to look forward to as most of the Liane Moriaty fans I know (me included) really didn't like this one! It's not a patch on Big Little Lies which is really really good.

Mine might be to not buy any books for at least three months (specials on Kobo don't count!) so I can work my way through some of my huge TBR list, bioth real and electronic. However I doubt I'll keep to it for long so it probably isn't worth the bother.

I read a biography of Florence Nightingale some years ago and came away with the impression that she was not a particularly nice person which could be one of the reasons she achieved so much. I doubt sweet feminine Victorian ideals of submissive womanhood would ever have been able to organise a hospital.

I've read so much this year, 107 and rising, that it would be unwise to say I should read more books next year. However I do want to read more non-fiction and surf the internet less, it's bad for my concentration.

Love After Love - Ingrid Persaud. This is not a romance despite the title! It come from a marvellous poem by Derek Walcott about loving your life as it happens. Betty is a young Trinidadian widow bring up her son alone, Mr Chetan, a teacher, is her lodger, then her best friend who is hiding his homosexuality from the very homophobic Trinidadian society around him. It's written in a sort of patois (fortunately not phonetically spelt) which can make it a little hard to get into to but once you do this book is absolutely marvelous. It's both joyous and utterly heartrending and totally memorable.I loved it. Darkness Fall - Robert Bryndza. This is no 3 in Robert Bryndza's series about Kate Marshall, an ex police officer turned private detective, and the first of his books I've read. I now understand why he gets such terrific reviews. Well plotted, excellent charecterisation and very well written. I'll definitely be reading more of him, fortunately he's got quite a back list. Devil's Table - Kate Rhodes The fifth in her series about Ben Kitto, a police officer on the isles of Scilly. I enjoy her books because she writes absolutely beautifully (I think, but can't swear to it, that she's also a poet) and Ben has a wolf dog who is very much a player in his own right, but I can't help feeling that there aren't going to be many people left alive in the Scillies if this rate of attrition continues!

A bath pillow for reading in the bath!

I earned £2 a day minding a stall in the Chelsea Antiques Market keeping an eye out that nothing got nicked, the owner did the actual sales and knowledgeable stuff. Then went on to be a barmaid, telephone sales which I loathed but was frighteningly good at so I kept getting promoted. To avoid being trapped in telephone sales for life I went to Australia where I was the first woman in the state of Victoria to sell meat directly to butchers from the abatoir (didn't last long, the butchers were far more interested in whether I was wearing a bra than the quality of the meat), I sold photocopying paper, was the assistant Editor of the Hong Tatler. Back in London I went into advertising, then PR, looked after my children, moved to France, picked grapes and worked in the office at a chateau. Now I'm a tour guide, the best job I've ever had. Love it.

Early Morning Riser - Katherine Heiney This was a cheapie on Kobo with good reviews. It's very readable, very light, very funny in places and I suspect very forgettable. The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym - Paula Byrne One of the most surprising things about this book was learning how closely Barbara Pym based her books on her own experiences when most of her female characters are sensible women with a properly cynical view of men and Barbara herself was neither sensible or cynical. She racketed from one love affair with no future to another, making friends on the way, always writing, always seeming to enjoy herself. It's an extraordinary story told by a very good biographer - the part about the article in the TImes Lit which propels Barbara back into the literary limelight after so long in the wilderness is wonderful and heart -lifting to read. I'll be rereading her books soon. Ninth House - Leigh Bardugo Galaxy 'Alex' Stern can see ghosts. She has a chequered past to say the least and after being found unconscious at a horrific murder was offered a scholarship to Yale to join a society that polices the magic societies there. Of course nothing is quite as simple as she was promised. I absolutely loved this, it is quite gory in places and it ends on a semi cliff hanger but for me it was a can't-take-my-nose-out of it. I've been doing a major tidy on my daughter's bedroom (she's spent the last 7 years working on short term contracts so has tended to return home, dump her stuff then three months later she's back to dump more. Oh and she doesn't throw things away). Unpacking several boxes of books to put them in her book case meant discovering and reading some old favourites, in particular; Getting Rid of Bradley - Jennifer Crusie This was actually written as a genre romance but is stratospherically better than most of them, it's very funny, very smart, well written and not in the least bit soppy. Sorcery and Cecilia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot - Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevener - this book started off with a letter game where they took turns writing letters to each other adding to the story each time with neither knowing what the other was planning. The result, set in an alternative Regency period where there's a lot of magic, is absolutely charming.