willoyd

January summary In raw terms, a pretty dire month, with just the one book completed, Stephen Moss's The Wren - my lowest total ever (for any month!) since I started recording my reading. I'm also about half way through another, admittedly the chunky The Way We Live Now, some 800+ pages worth, but even allowing for that, it's only just over 600 pages of reading for the month. Not a lot! In fact, very little. This is primarily because I've just been too busy doing other things - not least writing this annual bird report. It's been a far bigger exercise than I anticipated, largely because it's been the first one and I've had to do a lot of sorting out first, and have not had time to get any systems in place to make this work properly - I'm already plotting for next year! As I said before, fascinating stuff though. I'm not overly bothered by all this, partly because I want to do this project (unlike the rubbish I had to do teaching, when so much was a waste of time), and partly because I said from the word go that this year was about concentrating on fewer, bigger books. They don't get that much more substantial than a chunky Victorian classic (although LesMis is in a different league!), so that at least has got off to a good start. Book acquisitions have also slowed down this month: with just 7 books added to the library (and more removed from it). Four have already been listed in an early post, the other three are: The Favourite by Ophelia Field (the book upon which the film was based - great film too!) In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin (a nice Folio Society edition in a sale) Along the Divide by Chris Townsend (99p Kindle purchase) All non-fiction. I've virtually given up buying fiction, using the libraries more and more instead, and catching up on my own TBR.

A review is only of any use if you know where the reviewer is coming from. And then you need to know how you relate to them. Thus there are people in my book groups who I know have a similar mind to me - if they have liked a book, then more likely than not, I will too, whilst there are others who I just know that if they've liked a book, I need to avoid it like the plague (and there are people who as soon as they say they've disliked a book, I know there is a good chance I will like it - depending on what they've disliked about it of course!). I've hated far too many bestsellers to go along with the mainstream or Amazon of Goodreads reviewing (Gone Girl? Girl on the Train? I Am Pilgrim? Man Called Ove? The Circle? Ben Elton? David Nicholls? Tim Moore? Four out of five Man Booker prize winners? Ugh, you get the idea!). Having said that, I will sometimes check out a non-fiction book, particularly history, before reading - these are generally less about personal appeal and more about their quality and rigour. But fiction reviews I tend to ignore until afterwards, when they can be very entertaining.

Yes - a male. Woman from the BTO was on Radio 4 Today programme this morning, talking about their Tawny Owl survey. Trying to better establish how many there are as there is a fear that numbers are falling (as most of bird population in the UK is).

All of these are non-fiction books, and therefore, at least theoretically, not eligible for this list. Freakonomics does appear in James Mustich's 1000 Books To Read Before You Die, whilst Bryson is cited for his book A Walk in the Woods, but that book includes non-fiction (and, for me, as I've said, is a more interesting list). Each to their own! Personally, having tried computer gaming, I found it thoroughly addictive and distinctly the opposite of life enhancing. I now prefer engaging with aspects of the real world, but then others think I'm geeky about reading, wildlife, birding, and the outdoors too! Of course, one could say that reading fiction is anything but engaging with the real world!

We're lucky in having really good views 5 or 6 miles across the Wharfe valley near Otley so we get to see a fair bit. Red Kite is ubiquitous round here -we see at least one from the house every 2 or 3 days, quite often more, often drifting directly over the house. Buzzard, Sparrowhawk and Kestrel have all flown over or within sight within the past year, whilst neigbours had a pair of Tawnies roosting in a tree in their garden last winter - they've been known to sit on our chimney pot (the owls, not the neighbours)! We're plum in the middle of residential housing, although fields and moors are nearby. Really excited to see a pair of Barn Owl in the fields last spring, but sadly they didn't breed successfully.

Went to see The Favourite today. As wothwhile as the reviews suggest. Great to see a film with 3 strong female leads,and the men supporting. The three are goooooood!

I am writing the local area bird report,which essentially involves pulling together all the observations made in the group's area (about 8000 records!) and writing a report on each species, around 150of them. It's a fairly chunky job, but fascinating. In between, I've got various surveys to do and a couple of visits to lead. All much more fun than the teaching I used to do! Not really. I spent an hour or so watching birds out the bathroom window (the best viewing spot of the gardens and distant views behind the house) this morning, mostly various tits and finches, and found it fascinating; usually get around 15-20spp. I obviously enjoy seeing something rare (for instance, managed to get to see the first ever local Iberian Chiffchaff last year), I'm not a twitcher, as I don't travel to specifically see a bird - it's what's where I am that I find interesting (the IC was only 5 miles from where I live!) Nuthatches are gorgeous birds, and I never tire of seeing them. Although the garden list is now up to 42 species, including 5 raptors, it doesn't include Nuthatch, so lucky you! Sounds like they are Tawnies (you're right about the calls) - hope you get a look at them. I'd be surprised if they were Barn Owls, unless you live out in the country. BTW, you probably know, but the 'kerwick' is made the female, and the 'hoohoo' by the males. Thank you - same to you!

Reading update, Jan 14th A fairly slow start to the year, not least because I've got my head down in a fairly major birding project, but having started The Cuckoo's Calling and found it wanting - it's perfectly OK but just didn't grab me - I've now started Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now, for the next meeting of my book group. At the end of the week, I'm just over 100pp in, and it's proving a remarkably smooth read. At 800pp it probably needs to be! Books acquired since the start of the year: Asquith by Roy Jenkins (large format paperback, Oxfam) Aspects of Britlsh Political History 1815-1914 by Stephen Lee (paperback, Oxfam) The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane (hardback, Oxfam) Fishing; How the Sea Fed Civilisation by Brian Fagan (hardback, local independent sale)

Well, I can't say I'm inspired to pick it up again! Anyway, it's gone back to the library, and I've started my book group's choice for our February meeting - The Way We Were by Anthony Trollope. It's a biggie (>800pp), but, just over 100pp in, I'm finding it a very easy read. It'll still take a while though!

I've been trying to read The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling. It strikes me as quite a good book, but I really can't get into it, or excited about it - just another crime story with a damaged detective. Or am I missing something? Anyway, sent it back to the library today; I might try again some time, but definitely not in the mood at present. Not sure what I'm in the mood for though!

The Wren by Stephen Moss **** A Christmas present, this is a companion volume to the author's earlier book on the Robin. It's fairly short, just over 180 pages, with chapters based on the months of the year, through which the evolution and life-cycle of the Wren is discussed, along with asides on the bird's place in tradition, literature, on our coinage (uniquely so in in Britain) etc, whilst the whole is extensively illustrated with samples of old prints, drawings and book illustrations, mostly in colour. It's a cracking little read, bouncing along like the energetic bird it portrays, full of insight and anecdote, with much that was new to me - I didn't know, for instance, that the Wren is the one British (actually it is resident in the whole of Europe and Asia) bird that originally evolved in the Americas, and expanded westwards across the landbridge that is now the Bering Straits, until it reached the Atlantic. It now occupies 97% of all the 10km OS grid squares and is (I did know this) the most populous bird in the British Isles, representing 10% of all birdlife here. Moss writes with a light but sure touch (I find Simon Barnes rather more heavy handed on this front), with enough (very) gentle humour to keep the reader entertained whilst not over-egging it (Which reminds me.....apparently a clutch of six eggs will weigh almost the same as the female incubating them, that's one-sixth of her bodyweight being laid every morning for almost week!). It's a book I will definitely keep on my shelves to be able to dip back into it - there's too much to absorb in just one reading. I will also definitely read its companion, and hope that more are in the pipeline - this has the makings of an excellent series.

Well, given the response to my last post, I suspect there's not been much going on, and several of those who took up the initial challenge haven't posted since the board started up again earlier in the autumn (thanks for your response @Madeleine. I certainly stuttered when we lost the forum in the summer, and finished up the year having not made any progress in the last month, so have read 6/9 in the main challenge, and 4/9 of those I challenged others with, making a total of 10 / 18. That's another 10 from my TBR pile that I suspect I wouldn't have got round to, which is what the challenge was all about, so definitely something achieved there, even if not finishing them all! I'm going to make a real effort to read the others, but I'm not sure I'm going to suggest doing the challenge again this year, not because I wouldn't be up for it (I would), but because there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm otherwise. It was worth a try though, and I'd still be interested to know how people got on.

Wilding by Isabella Tree ****** The seventy-third and last book of the year, and what a book to finish on! The author is married to Charles Burrell, and they own the Knepp estate in Sussex. At the end of the twentieth century, they came to the conclusion that continuing to try farming it in the conventional high-intensity style was a dead end, and that it would lead to financial ruin. They swapped track completely and started a programme of 'rewilding' the whole estate (although they actually avoid using that word as it has connotations which they want to avoid), inspired by work they observed in the Netherlands, intervening as little as possible and as much as possible letting nature take its course.. It is this programme that Wilding is about, twenty years down the line. It's an absolutely fascinating insight, and very thought provoking, not least because of the number of prejudices, givens, and theories that they have helped challenge and break down. An awful lot of conventional environmental thinking has been turned completely on its head! The section on how Britain's natural vegetation is a mixed landscape, with 'messy' scrubland playing a vital part, and not just neat closed canopy woodland was one particular highlight, another the chapter detailing the issues of grain-fed as opposed to grass-fed cattle, but at virtually every turn of the page I needed to pause to absorb, and to rethink much of what I've either learned or accepted. I loved picking up little snippets, such as when, near the start of the project, the newly introduced Tamworth pigs were allowed to roam free, and started digging up all the verges and public footpaths (neatly along the lines!) simply because they were the only 'unimproved' areas of soil - all the cultivated land was too poor to attract them. Britain is one of the most (if not the most) nature-deprived countries in Europe, perhaps the world. At a time when this deprivation is accelerating ever faster (the last 20 years have been a disaster environmentally and for health in this country, not least with farming encouraged into ever higher intensity practices), it was good to read about a practical project that shows that we can do something about it beyond the simplistic creation of small nature reserve islands, although it was scary to see quite how far gone we are. What made this book particularly outstanding though is the combination of what I learned and the readability, passion, and background science with which it was put over. I just hope we are prepared to learn in time.

Currently reading my first book of the year The Wren, A Biography by Stephen Moss - a Christmas present - and thoroughly enjoying it.

My review is here. There are no signficant spoilers - other than my rudeness about the book! I read it in January for my book group, and it's been favourite for Duffer of the Year ever since. Sorry!

Welcome to my reading blog for 2019. This thread is now open!

Accolades for 2018 Non-Fiction and Overall Book of the Year East West Street by Philippe Sands Non-Fiction Runner Up (and Overall Third Place) Wilding by Isabella Tree Non-fiction Shortlist Battle Cry of Freedom by James Macpherson Bookworm by Lucy Mangan The Pursuit of Victory by Roger Knight Fiction Book of the Year (and Overall Runner-Up) A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor Fiction Runner-Up Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh Fiction shortlist O Pioneers by Willa Cather At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison The Surgeon's Mate by Patrick O'Brian Reread of the Year Coot Club by Arthur Ransome Duffer of the Year I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes Duffer Shortlist Where My Heart Used to Beat by Sebastian Faulks Pendulum by Adam Hamdy Darke by Rik Gekoski The Lighthouse by Alison Moore Most Disappointing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Review of 2018, Preview of 2019 Overall, 2018 has to go down as a 'good' year's reading. In pure number terms, 73 books represents my second best year to date (2016 with 80 books tops the list), but the best year in page terms (just over 23600), in spite of the fact that in last year's review/preview I had anticipated the number of books going down (it was up one) as I wanted to focus on some of my bigger books . This wasn't totally achieved - I expected to read more of them - but there were enough to pull the average book length up from the usual just under 300 pages up to 323, and included such tomes as Roy Jenkins's highly readable Churchill (912 pages) and James Macpherson's magnificent Battle Cry of Freedom (862); not so appreciated was Terry Hayes's dire I Am Pilgrim (910). Most marked difference between this year and previous years has been the increase in non-fiction books as a proportion of my reading, up to a high of 42%. Conversely, or maybe as a result of that, the proportion of female authors read remained below 40% (38%, with female non-fiction authors at just 31%), in marked contrast to the years before 2017. Another big difference is the amount I'm now using libraries - we live close to the border between Leeds and Bradford, making both services eminently accessible, whilst I also took out an experimental subscription with The Leeds Library, the 250-year old subscription library based in the city centre, which has proved a revelation with stocks of so many books that neither of the public services offer, and whose shelves I love exploring. About one-third of my reads in 2018 were library books. In the meantime, my TBR pile has been, and continues to be, whittled away not just through books read, but also through disposal of books which are readily available in the libraries and which I'm otherwise not bothered to retain. More progress to come! Favourite books this year were roughly equally split between fiction and non-fiction, although the latter just about come out on top in this year's accolades. At the bottom end, it was pretty much all fiction; most, if not all, of those were book group selections (as in previous years). I really enjoy the two book groups I belong to, and there were plenty of good, indeed great, reads (both the new 6-star fiction books this year were book group selections), but with the element of personal choice removed, there will inevitably be greater variety in my own ratings! It's always a particular pleasure discovering a writer that you enjoy, and each year seems to produce at least one. This year, that was Willa Cather, discovered through my Tour of the USA challenge, for which her My Antonia was the novel set in Nebraska. O Pioneers if anything proved even better; her work, available in full in Library of America (stocked in the Leeds Library) cries out for further exploration! Elizabeth Taylor continued to impress (even if Angel wasn't my particular cup of tea), Melissa Harrison looks awfully promising on the basis of one fiction at the end of this year and one short non-fiction last year, whilst Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited was perhaps 2018's biggest surprise - a book group choice of an author who had previously left me distinctly chilly. Georges Simenon continues to be both a favourite and my most read author as I try and keep vaguely up with Penguin's monthly publishing schedule. So what about 2019? I really do want to crack some of the bigger books on my shelves - they're starting to mount up a bit (see the relevant post above) - whilst, aside from Simenon, most of my target authors were left somewhat ignored this year- so more of them. I've tidied up and slightly streamlined the various lists pages that precede this review, so hopefully, with fewer to focus on more will actually be read. My USA tour has produced some great reads yet that was only advanced by 2 books last year, so that in particular needs working on. All this probably means that I'll actually read fewer books - probably a good thing as still find myself chasing numbers occasionally. Far better to focus on enjoying as much reading as I can, and to enjoy the posts of everybody else here. The midsummer loss of this forum underlined to me how much BCF has helped me with my reading and my enjoyment of reading over the past 10 years or so - its loss created a huge hole; thank goodness Hayley filled it, and I hope it continues to thrive as it appears to be doing at present.

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Some Stats The Last 10 Years (to end 2018) Books read - 640 (358 in the past 5 years) Most books in a year - 80 (2016) Fewest books in a year - 50 (2009, 2011) Most pages in a year - 23626 (2018) Most books in a month - 19 (Dec 2011) Highest average month - 13.6 (December) Lowest average month - 3.2 (September) % Fiction / Non-Fiction - 70 / 30 % Male / Female author - 59 / 41 Star ratings 1 - 32 (5.0%, 0 rereads) 2 - 56 (8.8%, 0 rereads) 3 - 175 (27.3%, 8 rereads) 4 - 193 (30.2%, 5 rereads) 5 - 124 (19.4%, 13 rereads) 6 - 60 (9.4%, 22 rereads) 2018 figures Books read - 73 (+3 insufficiently completed to count) Most books in a month - 10 (December) Fewest books in a month - 2 (September) Pages in the year - 23626 (323 average per book) Most pages - 912 (Churchill) Fewest pages - 111 (The Postman Always Rings Twice) % Fiction / Non-Fiction - 58 / 42 % Male / Female author - 62 / 38 % Paper / Electronic - 80 / 20 (No audiobooks this year) % Owned / Library - 70 / 30 Star ratings 1 - 5 (6.6%, 0 rereads) 2 - 7 (9.2%, 0 rereads) 3 - 21 (27.6%, 0 rereads) 4 - 24 (31.6%, 1 reread) 5 - 15 (19.7%, 1 reread) 6 - 4 (5.3%, 1 reread) TBR list End of... 2017 - 1472 2018 - 1378 Jan - 1381 Feb - 1384 Mar - 1380 Apr - 1368 May - 1345 Jun - 1348 Jul - 1348 Oct -1337 Nov - 1336 Dec - 1331

Reading Lists Up to 2018 I posted a list of all the books read in various reading lists. None of these are being treated as a 'challenge', but I have an inveterate fascination with lists! Unfortunately, the lists were getting to be rather long, so this year, I've abbreviated things a bit. I've only listed books I've read this year for the Boxall list (really don't like it at all for various reasons), have listed all those books I've read from the Mustich list (far more interesting), and have retained the much shorter McCrum list in full. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Peter Boxall (ed.) Supposedly a list of novels, the definition used for the word is, to put it mildly, idiosyncratic, and there's an awful lot that I have no interest in reading. However, it seems to the de facto standard that people refer to, and there is interest in it, especially earlier. The list has now been through several editions, and the 1315 figure represents all the books that have appeared. Read so far: 164 / 1315 Read this year: Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton 1000 Books To Read Before You Die James Mustich First published in 2018, this is more Anglophone, indeed American, orientated than 1001 Books, but I find the list more interesting, and the book more enjoyable, especially as it embraces non-fiction writing far more enthusiastically and overtly, and aspires more to provide a broad range of reading and appeal to the enthusiast than to set a standard. I still disagree with some of it (eg only 1 Eliot, 1 Hardy, yet it includes Gone Girl!!) Read so far: 150 / 1000 Read this year: Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier ****** Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry ***** The 100 Best Novels in English Robert McCrum This is a list that was developed by McCrum in a weekly series in the Observer, and then published as a book by Galileo. It's definitely an individual's list, and I do think there aren't enough female writers on the list, but it's no less interesting for all that, as an object of (heated!) discussion if nothing else, not least because the author only allowed himself one book per writer (I disagree on his choice for several writers!). Books read to date are highlighted in blue, this year in bold. Read so far: 33/100 In chronological order 01. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678) 02. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defore (1719) 03. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726) 04. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (1748) 05. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749) 06. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne (1759) 07. Emma by Jane Austen (1816) 08. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) 09. Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock (1818) 10. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by E A Poe (1838) 11. Sybil by Benjamin Disrael (1845) 12. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847) 13. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847) 14. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray (1848) 15. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850) 16. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) 17. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851) 18. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865) 19. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) 20. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868) 21. Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871) 22. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1875) 23. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884) 24. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886) 25. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (1889) 26. The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle (1890) 27. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891) 28. New Grub Street by George Gissing (1891) 29. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895) 30. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895) 31. Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897) 32. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899) 33. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (1900) 34. Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1901) 35. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (1903) 36. The Golden Bowl by Henry James (1904) 37. Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe (1904) 38. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908) 39. The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells (1910) 40. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (1911) 41. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915) 42. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915) 43. The Rainbow by DH Lawrence (1915) 44. Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham (1915) 45. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920) 46. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922) 47. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis (1922) 48. A Passage to India by EM Forster (1924) 49. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (1925) 50. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925) 51. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (1925) 52. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926) 53. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926) 54. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1929) 55. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930) 56. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) 57. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (1932) 58. Nineteen Nineteen by John Dos Passos (1932) 59. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934) 60. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938) 61. Murphy by Samuel Beckett (1938) 62. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (1939) 63. Party Going by Henry Green (1939) 64. At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (1939) 65. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939) 66. Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse (1946) 67. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946) 68. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (1947) 69. The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen (1948) 70. Nineteen Eight-Four by George Orwell (1949) 71. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (1951) 72. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951) 73. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953) 74. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954) 75. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955) 76. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957) 77. Voss by Patrick White (1957) 78. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960) 79. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1960) 80. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961) 81. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (1962) 82. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962) 83. A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (1964) 84. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966) 85. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1966) 86. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth (1969) 87. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (1971) 88. Rabbit Redux by John Updike (1971) 89. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977) 90. A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul (1979) 91. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981) 92. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (1981) 93. Money by Martin Amis (1984) 94. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (1986) 95. The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald (1988) 96. Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1988) 97. Amongst Women by John McGahern (1990) 98. Underworld by Don DeLillo (1997) 99. Disgrace by JM Coetzee (1999) 00. True Story of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (2000)

I think A View of the Harbour is the best Elizabeth Taylor I've read to date, joining my favourites list earlier this year. Somewhat parallel to you, I recently read Angel, and equally found that it didn't quite match up either. Maybe we were both spoiled a bit?