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.
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