Back Soon

Apologies for the lack of updates into 2018 - I haven't given up on blogging, however the health issues I mentioned in passing at the end of last year have continued in to 2018 and I am still finding reading a bit of a struggle and using laptop also nearly impossible.

I will be back when I can!

Books of the Year 2017

As is my tradition I've not even looked back at my 2017 reading journal until 2018 has started.

2017 ended up on a bit of low reading note as for a good two weeks in December I wasn't able to read more than about a page at a time due to being ill. This was a new experience for me as my usual default when poorly is to turn to books as comfort.

It wasn't all bad news however as when everything was counted up I discovered that I had read 254 books in 2017. Unlike the past few years I have tried to review more books here on the blog, and the monthly reading round-ups have helped with this, as did taking part in the Reading Agency /Baileys Women's Prize shadowing and also reading for the Radio 2 fiction and non fiction book selection panels,

Now without further ado here are my top Childrens/YA reads, adult fiction and non fiction selection. Some of these have featured on the blog before but others are ones that jumped out at me as I re-read my book journal.

Children and YA
Piglettes written (and translated from the French) by Clementine Beauvais.
Smell of Other People's Houses - Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
A Galaxy of her Own - Libby Jackson
A Change is Gonna Come - short stories by various BAME authors
Things A Bright Girl Can Do - Sally Nicholls

Adult Fiction
Stay With Me - Adabayo Ayobami
White Chrysanthemums - Mary Lynn Bracht
Circe - Madeline Miller (read in July 2017 but not published until spring 2018)
Do Not Say We Have Nothing - Madeleine Thien
These Dividing Walls - Fran Cooper

Adult Non-Fiction
Balancing Acts - Nicholas Hytner
Reading Aloud - Chris Paling
Ask an Astronaut - Tim Peake
From Source to Sea - Tom Chesshyre
Take Courage - Samantha Ellis


Picking my overall book of the year has been a nightmare but I think that once more a book aimed at the younger audience wins and Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls wins out as my top book of the year.

I did fail completely with the challenges I set myself back in March which doesn't hugely surprise me, but the projects with the Reading Agency more than made up for this.

I'm already reading lots of articles and blog posts about books to look out for in 2018 and to be honest thanks to Net Galley(and other projects) I've read quite a few of these already but there is a new book from Kate Atkinson coming in 2018 and also the sequel to last year's book of the year (The Apprentice Witch) by James Nicol is due out on 1st March.