A Year Between the Covers

 It might be a bit sad really - keeping track of everything read through the year.  And what a year it has been, with a total 182 books read, which is an average of two-day reading.  Quite astonishing, though it might suggest that I haven't spent enough time cycling.  More likely too many hours where sleep may have been a distant bedfello.

The end of the year is always a good time to delve into the records, to produce some numbers:

Fiction - 147; Non Fiction 39.  These break between male and female authors pretty evenly on the non fiction, 21 to 18, with the males edging ahead 82 to 65 in fiction.  (the numbers get skewed very slightly with a few jointly authored works, often featuring Thomas Enger, either with Jorn Lier Horst or with Johanna Gustawsson).

There is a huge increase in my fiction reading, particularly crime fiction, (even from the massive total of 141 recorded in 2024) and that has to be down to reading on my Kobo.  Non fiction remains largely in hardback, and predominantly Nature and Travel and those numbers have held up well under the onslaught of the Kobo crime.

I have then tried to select a top three reads in each category (though not placed at all which would be a step too far).  From the lists I keep over at LaidBackMuse, the following emerges:

Male Fiction - Niklas Natt och Dag - The Wolf and The Watchman;  Douglas Jackson - Blood Vengeance; Olivier Norken - The Winter Warriors.

Female Fiction - Agnes Ravatn - The Seven Doors; Johanna Gustawsson (with Thomas Enger) - Son;  Essie Fox - Dangerous.

Male Non Fiction - Tom Bowser - The Waters of Life;  Gerry Cambridge - The Ayrshire Nestling;  Richard Halliburton - The Flying Carpet.  Special mentions too for Laurie Lee and Peter Levi.

Female Non Fiction - Kirsten MacQuarrie - Remember the Rowan;  Linda Cracknell - Sea Marked;  Merryn Glover - The Hidden Fires.  Ones to watch are Cal Flyn and Christina Riley.

So, much delicious new writing for the Female Non Fiction category, whilst there has been some re-reading of old favourites for the boys.  Interesting.

It is noted that John Boyne is the only sole author to appear twice on that list at LBM, though Thomas Enger manages appearances with two different joint authorships (with Jorn Lier Horst and with Johanna Gustawsson)

It has been a splendid year for discovering new authors and delving into their back catalogues.  The girls are surging ahead here with, amongst others, Johanna Gustawsson; Maria Adolfsson; Kristina Ohlsson; Mari Jungstedt; Mari Hannah; Cal Flyn; Kati Hiekkapalto.  New boys on the block have included Ken Lussey; Anders de la Motte; Orjan Karlsson.

Old favourites holding their own include Sylvain Tesson, Bruce Chatwin and Laurie Lee, whilst Allan Martin continues to keep a Scottish crime fiction interest (though both Douglas Jackson and Ken Lussey are adding to that genre).  The Icelandic pair of Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Lilja Sigurdardottir continue to fly the flag for the girls, new works awaited very impatiently. 

Let's hope for more of the same in 2026.  Pages turning.  As always there is a quest for beautiful writing, with my non fiction interests spreading slowly into poetry (which is all down to the promptings of Angela Locke).  New crime teams hold a fascination, with the characters and interactions, as much as the plots, keeping interests through entire series of works.  Most of my crime reading tends to follow my historic non fiction interests - people and places, overseas, though Mari Hannah adds a Geordie accent and Ken Lussey tours favourite places in Scotland.

Onwards.

Humbug

 It's that time of year; you'll have noticed.  Every time you switch on the radio, walk into a supermarket, bombarded with muzak.  All those tunes from decades ago, again and again and again.  Spend, spend, spend.  Just as well we have Shelagh Fogarty and Test Match Special to keep us sane.  One day the cricketers might go to work for the full five days.

Time to find a tree, late as usual.  Or at least later than most.  Limited choice.  Find a good one; have it delivered.   Firstly you need to attend to the base of the trunk, which, of course, doesn't fit into the tree stand.  Power tools, the plane, so much easier than hacking about with a saw.  You leave the wood shavings to be scattered by the wind, mulched under hedgerows.  In it goes, claws tightened.  Stands majestically.  All you have to do is lift it through the doors and set it down on the table.  There is no extra pair of hands.  It's a bit of a struggle.  But it's beginning to look  - ach you know how that one goes.

Then you spend hours decorating it.  Lights first, after buying a couple of new strings.  Unpack all the treasured memories gathered from travels over the years.  Gifts from special friends.  Perhaps even remnants from childhood.  Put on some music.  Tim Edey, his own version of festive tunes, acoustic guitar, a wee touch on the melodeon.  Then The Outside Track, taking us to Killarney, and beyond.    Eventually, it's looking good.  Lights blinking, sparkly baubles.  Precious memories to ponder over.  And relax.

Next morning.  The tree's down.  Glass everywhere.  You look at the cats.  They've never done that before.  Neither them nor their predecessors.  They whine for breakfast.  As they do.

The carpet is strewn with remnants.  Paper thin shards of glass.  In all colours.  Strings of lights trail.  Then you remember pouring more than half a gallon of water into the tree stand.  There are four plugs in an extension cable.  In a puddle.

Eventually you clear a path, a safe space.  And struggle to lift the tree and set it back on the table by the french doors.  Half an hour later, whilst still hoovering up the debris, down it comes again.  The cats are sleeping on the stove, fast broken.  It wisnae them.  Must be the weight of the tree, off centre, badly set into the stand.  Finger pointing.

The clear up continues.  The silvered glass of the wolf head; remnants of hot air balloons.  Broken hand painted goose eggs.  Brief times in Budapest, or Krakow.  Orkney too.  The stained glass puffin.  A plant pot overflows with what's left.  The carpet sparkles like the lemmel tray under a jeweller's bench.

Time to set it up again.  On the floor or back on the table?   Change the waterproof picnic mat on the table.  One needs drained, then dried.  We opt for the table again.  Most of the stuff left might be the unbreakable bits and pieces; the non-precious.  The ones that don't immediately remind of special places with special people.  If we can manage to rearrange the lights on a half-dressed tree.  Not risking plugging them in yet.

You dress it again, not really caring.  Does it matter which side faces into the room; or if it leans to one side or another.  Nup.  Don't care.  Not one bit.

After trying to reset the tree in the stand, it then gets tied on to the handles of the french doors.  We have used the curtain pole before, but this beast might take that down too.  Such is the Law of Sod.  Then we add another anchor, a long stretch of cable ties, fearing the string may not have been strong enough.  If it goes again.

And still the hoover has work to do.  And the cat sleeps on the stove.  Oh the festive fun.  Let it all begin.  Humbug.  Outside the steps were sheltered.  It rained overnight.  Wood shavings and bark chippings  have turned to mush on the doorsteps.  There's a plant pot on the kitchen table filled with all that remains of a half a lifetime of memory prompts.  But the memories remain.  Precious times.  Must get working on those brain exercises.  Now that the prompts are gone.

Have a good one folks.