Now in it’s 7th year, my annual book post with bonus pointless charts and lists.

One might expect that given that EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD WAS CLOSED, I would have read more books this year than last year. But I managed 59 this year against 2019’s high water of 93. Partly this was the impact of not commuting – a 6 hour round trip to Milton Keynes weekly certainly chunks through a number of audiobooks. But also habits changed and I didn’t devote as much time to books as previously. But more than one a week is acceptable.

In terms of genre, I pretty much completed my transition to being leisure reader, with crime dominating:

As I mentioned in the film post, this may be a function of the 2020 emotional hangover, but also a function of getting older and just not worrying so much anymore.

By author gender, women were in the majority:

And audiobooks were my main format. I’ve defended this before, so don’t @ me:

Here are 5 newish fiction books I enjoyed this year:

• Sweetpea – CJ Skuse
• Stay with me – Ayobami Adebayo
• Remarkable Creatures – Tracy Chevalier
• The Fishermen – Chigozie Obioma
• Savage Season – Joe Lansdale

And here’s 7 non-fiction ones which I will drop into conversation as if I’m now an expert on the subject:

• Emperors of the Deep – William McKeever
• indian Summer – Alex von Tunzelmann
• Misbehaving – Richard Thaler
• Other Minds: The Octopus and The Evolution of Intelligent Life – Peter Godfrey-Smith
• Mudlarking – Lara Maiklem
• Why We Sleep – Matthew Walker
• Underland – Robert Macfarlane

Here is the full list if you want to judge me:

• Sweetpea – CJ Skuse
• Original sin – PD James
• Murder at the vicarage – Agatha Christie
• Wilding – Isaballe Tree
• Well of the Winds – Denzil Meyrick
• With Our Blessing – Jo spain
• Rome: A History in 7 sackings Matthew Kneale
• Grimm Tales – Philip Pullman
• Underland – Robert Macfarlane
• Little bones – Sam Blake
• Dirty little secrets – Jo Spain
• Shroud for a nightingale – PD James
• indian summer – Alex von Tunzelmann
• The outcast dead – Elly Griffiths
• The lighthouse – PD J ames
• a mind to murder – PD Jjames
• The dutch house – Ann Patchett
• From doon with death – Ruth Rendell
• At the edge of the orchard – Tracy Chevalier
• The dark angel – Elly Griffiths
• Misbehaving – Richard Thaler
• Greetings from bury park – Sarfraz Manzoor
• The turn of the screw – Henry James
• Ttay with me – Ayobami Adebayo
• Death at la fenice – Donna Leon
• Remarkable creatures – Tracy Chevalier
• The order of time – Carlo Rovelli
• The outcasts of time – Ian Mortimer
• Beneath the surface – Jo Spain
• Mudlarking – lara Maiklem
• My Life In Horror Volume One: Paperback edition – Kit Power
• Savage season – Joe Lansdale
• Mucho mojo – Joe Lansdale
• The two bear mambo – Joe Lansdale
• Antidote to venom – Freeman Wills Croft
• The stone circle – Elly Griffiths
• Emperors of the deep – William McKeever
• Leviathan wakes – James Corey
• Into the blue – Robert Goddard
• The Zombies are Coming – Kelly Baker
• The Tales of Max Carrados – Ernest Bramah
• Other Minds: The Octopus and The Evolution of Intelligent Life – Peter Godfrey-Smith
• The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World – Peter Wohlleben
• The Glorious Life of the Oak – John Lewis-Stempel,
• The Hog’s Back Mystery – Freeman Wills Croft
• The Fishermen – Chigozie Obioma
• The Boy Who Fell – Jo Spain
• Big Sky Kate Atkinson
• The Lost World – Arthur Conan Doyle
• Why we sleep – Matthew Walker
• Garden of the evening mists – Tan Twan Eng
• The Sisters – Dervla McTiernan
• The Black Tower – PD James
• No Mans Nightingale – Ruth Rendell
• Frogkisser! – Garth Nix
• The Franchise Affair – Josephine Tey
• A Room full of Bones – Elly griffiths
• Wanderlust – Rebecca Solnit
• The Skull Beneath the Skin – PD James