My Year In Books: 2025

 The Night After Christmas - Kes Gray
*Night Side Of The River - Jeanette Winterson
The Blue-Footed Booby - Rob Biddulph
Hotel World - Ali Smith
The Penguin Lessons - Tom Michell
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Pageboy - Elliot Page 
The Dead - James Joyce

My Year In Books: 2024

Shadow Reader - Imtiaz Dharker

*Hotel World - Ali Smith

The Marble Collector - Cecelia Ahern

Postman Pat And The Pet Show - John Cunliffe    

Kindness Is Magic - Duba Kolanovic    

The Magic Crayon - Amy Sparkes & Ali Pye        

Cave Baby - Julia Donaldson & Emily Gravett

You Must Bring A Hat - Simon Phillip & Kate Hindley        

Mouse's Wood - Alice Melvin        

Too Much Stuff - Emily Gravett        

LOVE - Corinne Averiss & Kristi Beautyman        

A Day That's Ours - Blake Nuto & Vyara Boyadjieva                 

Sunny Side Up - Clare Helen Welsh & Ana Sanfelippo        

The Who's Whonicorn of Unicorns - Kes Gray & Garry Parsons

From Crimea With Love - Jason Salkey 

.  .  .  .  . 
 

On the Sharpe Series:  

If I was to recommend a reading order to others, I would say to start with either Eagle or perhaps Rifles, read in publication order up to the end of the India Trilogy in 1999, & then stop. One can make a case for the later-published books if one just wants to know more about the battles, but from the perspective of making sense of Sharpe, they should be put on the same level as Lois Lane’s ‘imaginary stories’ from 1960s Superman comics. Discount them from your reading order altogether.

— https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/post/prequel-problems-sharpe-s-reading-order

My Year In Books: 2023

Ghosts: The Button House Archives - Them There
How to Buy a House - Kirstie Allsopp & Phil Spencer 
*The Relentless Elimination of Hurry - John Mark Comer
I Dreamed I Met Vermeer - Carol Hill Marks
The Grinny Granny Donkey - Richard Curtis
Four Weddings & a Funeral: The Screenplay - Craig Smith & Katz Cowley
Go Set A Watchman - Harper Lee  
A Thousand Mornings - Mary Oliver
Mr Peacock’s Possessions - Lydia Syson
The Art Of The Tea Towel - Marnie Fogg
Breadsong: How Baking Changed Our Lives - Al Tait & Kitty Tait
The Same But Different Too - Karl Newson
Attachments - Rainbow Rowell
Song From Faraway  -  Simon Stephens
My Name Is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout
The Philosophy of Beer - Jane Peyton
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - David Levithan & Rachel Cohn

My Year In Books: 2022

*The Relentless Elimination of Hurry - John Mark Comer

The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes

The House With Chicken Legs - Sophie Anderson

Open Water - Caleb Azuma Nelson

Two Across - Jeffrey Bartsch

The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep - H.G. Parry

The Bread Pet: A Sourdough Story - Kate DePalma

The Bad Beekeeper's Club - Bill Turnbull

Flush - Virginia Woolf

Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan

Was She Pretty? - Leanne Shapton

The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
The Art of Sourdough Scoring - Brittany Wood

Howards End Is On The Landing - Susan Hill

Dear Fahrenheit 451 - Annie Spence

Virginia Woolf At Home - Hilary Macaskill

Novel Houses: Twenty Famous Fictional Dwellings - Christina Hardyment

Hedwig And The Angry Inch - John Cameron Mitchell & Stephen Trask 

The Dictionary of Lost Words - Pip Williams

There's a Dinosaur in my Bathtub - Catalina Echeverri

Becoming - Michelle Obama

My Year In Books: 2021

The Enormous Turnip - Katie Daynes & Georgien Overwater 
Giraffe on a Bicycle - Julia Woolf
*Becoming - Michelle Obama
Paddington & the Christmas Surprise - Michael Bond
Austenland - Shannon Hale
Sourdough - Robin Sloan 
The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart - David Greig
Hugless Douglas - David Melling
Busy People: Astronaut - Lucy M. George & AndoTwin
King of the Mountain: Fireman Sam - Adam Long
Little Miss Magic; Mr. Tickle in a Tangle - Roger Hargreaves
One Hundred Steps: The Story of Captain Tom Moore
- illus. Adam Larkum
Our House - Louise Candlish
The Golden Thread - Kassia St Clare
The Wild Places - Robert MacFarlane 
The Patchwork Quilt - Valerie Flournoy & Jerry Pinkney
You’re Called What? - Kes Gray & Nikki Dyson
Oi, Puppies - Kes Gray & Jim Field
Knowing God - J.I. Packer
How to raise a loaf & fall in love with sourdough - Roly Allen

My Year In Books: 2020

The Nativity Play ~ Nick Butterworth & Mick Inkpen

A Christmas Story ~ Brian Wildsmith

Ruby the Donkey ~ Mirabel Cecil & Christina Gascoigne

Jesus’ Christmas Party ~ Nicholas Allen

The Adventures of Parsley the Lion ~ Michael Bond & Rob Biddulph

Glass, Irony & God ~ Anne Carson 

Ernest the Moose who doesn’t fit  ~ Catherine Rayner

*Knowing God ~ J.I. Packer 

While We Can’t Hug ~ Eoin McLaughlin & Polly Dunbar

Middle England ~ Jonathan Coe
Time’s Arrow ~ Martin Amis
The Valley of Vision ~ Arthur G. Bennett
*The Golden Thread ~ Kassia St Clair
The Bell Jar ~ Sylvia Plath
Codename Villanelle ~ Luke Jennings
The Next Right Thing ~ Emily P. Freeman
The Pursuit of Love ~ Nancy Mitford
The Name of the Rose ~ Umberto Eco

My Year In Books: 2019

The Crayons' Christmas ~ Drew Daywalt & Oliver Jeffers

Gertie & Elsie's Adventures in Petlandia

Blue Chameleon ~ Emily Gravett

Elmer in the Snow; Elmer & the Lost Teddy

~ David McKee

Aliens Love Underpants  ~ Claire Freedman

To the Lighthouse ~ Virginia Woolf

Last Term at Malory Towers

In the Fifth at Malory Towers

Upper Fourth at Malory Towers 

Third Year at Malory Towers  

Second Form at Malory Towers
First Term at Malory Towers 
~ Enid Blyton
Peace At Last ~ Jill Murphy
Ten Little Dinosaurs ~ Mike Brownlow & Simon Rickerty
Jack & The Flumflum Tree ~ Julia Donaldson
Der Regenbogenfisch ~ Marcus Pfister
King Otter ~ Jane Porter
Pivot ~ Jenny Blake
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Don’t Do Drugs!  ~ Bobbi Katz
 Nuns Go To Penguin Island ~ Jonathan Routh
Supertato: Carnival Catastro-Pea! ~ Sue Hendra & Paul Linnet
Jude The Obscure ~ Thomas Hardy
Let’s Have A Picnic! ~ Hunter Reid & Stephanie Hinton
Knight Time ~ Jane E. Clarke & Jane Massey

Red Dust Road ~ Jackie Kay

Fishbowl ~ Bradley Somer

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ~ Susanna Clarke

The Wonky Donkey ~ Craig Smith & Katz Cowley
Oi Dog; Oi Frog ~ Kes Gray & Jim Field

Wise Children ~ Angela Carter

Barn Burning ~ Haruki Murakami

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? ~ Jeanette Winterson

Top Girls ~ Caryl Churchill 

No Room On The Broom ~ Julia Donaldson 

My Year In Books : 2018

I’m A Big Brother - Joanna Cole

Rabbit’s Nap - Julia Donaldson

Pooh’s Christmas Adventure - Andrew Grey

Thomas & Friends: The Snowy Surprise

Sincerity - Carol Ann Duffy

The Bees - Carol Ann Duffy

Starter for Ten - David Nicholls

Hamilton: The Revolution - Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jeremy McCarter

R.U.R. (Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti) - Karel Čapek

On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan 

What the Ladybird Heard - Julia Donaldson

Shakespeare's The Tempest

Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia - Orlando Figes

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs

Circle Mirror Transformation - Annie Baker

The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy

One True Story - Tim Chester