Looking both ways

2025

I have read approximately 30 books this year. That’s poor by most definitions, although par for me in recent years (I read a post recently from someone saying they ‘had only’ read 250 books this year, having chosen to prioritise quality over quantity!) My most popular post of those published this year was The Last Devil to Die, the 4th in Richard Osman’s cosy crime series, The Thursday Murder Club. Puzzlingly the short supplementary post I wrote on Clothing in Jane Eyre remains my most popular post of all time.

2026

I still enjoy writing about books and find the discipline of ordering my thoughts about what I have read a useful one, so for now I plan to continue this blog, going into what I think will be year 14. One of my annual traditions at this time is the choice of Dickens novel for the coming year. I have only five left to read: Barnaby Rudge, Pickwick Papers, Martin Chuzzlewit, Little Dorrit and Our Mutual Friend (or six if you include the incomplete Mystery of Edwin Drood). This year the choice is an easy one, as I recently read Peter Ackroyd’s The Great Fire Of London which is based on, or inspired by, Little Dorrit. Other than this year’s Dickens and working my way through the extensive pile of Christmas and birthday presents, both of which I look forward to very much, my reading plans for 2026 are vague. I have shelved, for now, my attempt to read all the Booker Prize winners, despite there being only seven novels, including this year’s winner, Flesh, to go. I say every year I might go back to that challenge but realistically I am not sure I have the appetite for The Bone People or Sacred Hunger. To read more, to read more systematically and to include more women and international authors in my selections are all resolutions I could have made any of the last fourteen years but will continue to be aspirations. If you have read any of my posts, thank you. Comments are always welcome and an important part of the whole process. Guest posts are also very welcome – if you have read something interesting and would like somewhere to publish your thoughts on it let me know.

Looking both ways