Well that’s a much better list than last week isn’t it. I mean it’s mostly because I was exhausted and so didn’t try and get any theatre tickets while I was staying in London and stayed in instead. And it was a bit rainy too which doesn’t exactly encourage wandering around. That said, I did wander over to Waterstones Gower Street and yes, I did buy a book and there were some Kindle offers. Ahem. But I can’t be perfect all the time…
Not going to lie when I saw all of these in Waterstones Piccadilly it made me really quite happy. And of course it made me wonder how many of them I have read. And then I started writing it and realised there were a few more I had on the pile and a few I had read but not written about so if I could just do that the post would be better. And then suddenly it’s three months later. Ahem. Anyway after having finally finished and posted the BLCC roundup that that that started (slowed by several of them ending up as Books of the Week rather than round up post fodder), here we are.
And so here we go… One the wall from clockwise top right we have He Who Whispers (read but haven’t written about), The Lost Gallows – haven’t read, Capital Crimes, Murder in the Mill Race, The Hogs Back Mystery,then two more I haven’t read (yet) It Walks by Night and Miraculous Mysteries.
Let’s start on the back row and work left to right going forward: Guilty Creatures – which I haven’t read; The Ten Teacups, The Edinburgh Mystery – haven’t read, Murder in Vienna; Death of a Bookseller; Capital Crimes again, Murder as Fine Art and Post After Post-Mortem. One the second row: The Wheel Spins – which I haven’t read but which is the book the Hitchcock movie The Lady Vanishes is based on, Tour de Force, Metropolitan Mysteries, Blood on the Train, Quick Curtain, The Cornish Coast Mystery, The Notting Hill Mystery which is one of the very first murder mystery books and which I read nearly a decade ago and Crimes of Cymru which I haven’t read and doesn’t seem to be on Kindle which may explain why that is. And on the front row The Widow of Bath, Someone from the Past, The Lake District Murder, Castle Skull, The Corpse in the Waxworks (haven’t read), The Hogs Back Mystery (again), Murder Underground (one of the very first BLCC I read) and Tea on Sunday.
And there were even more… so here we go again with the table – this time just the ones I haven’t already mentioned: Port of London Murders, Who Killed Father Christmas, Dramatic Murder, Final Acts, Death of Anton, Murder at the Manor, London Particular, Serpents in Eden, The Mysterious Mr Badman, Family Matters, Surfeit of Suspects, and Murder by the Book.
And finally – and this time just the front facing ones that I haven’t already mentioned: Continental Crimes, Settling Scores (read), The Port of London Murders, Crook O’Lune (read), The Z Murders (read but not written about), The Spoilt Kill, The Murder of My Aunt, The Santa Klaus Murder, Mr Pottermack’s Oversight, Scarweather, Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm, and Death of Anton.
Phew. Honestly, I’m pretty pleased with my hit rate on this front, but it has given me a shove to finish a few things off that I have had kicking around on the kindle and on the shelves and also made me aware of a bunch of books in the series that I didn’t know about. Expect a(nother) BLCC post in the near future I think….
Most read author: Judith Flanders – three books in the Sam Clair series.
Books bought: too many
Books read in 2025: 219
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 799
I mean I think you must be bored of me telling you that it’s been a really busy week/month at this point, because I feel like I’m always typing it. But it really is true. In July I had a work trip to Accra, two theatre trips and a concert to name but a few. And the malaria pills and the overnight flight home really wiped me out and it’s taken (is taking?!) a while to recover. But given all of that, I’m pretty pleased with the stats for the month, even if they don’t include any non-fiction books *again*. Must really try and sort that out this month. Possibly wishful thinking though.
Bonus picture: another picture from Accra.
*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 3 this month!
So this week was as busy as advertised, and then some. But here’s the list, I did get a couple of the long runners sorted and I’ve got a few things that are close to being read so it could be worse.
I said last week that this week was busy, and it really was. But every week is busy at the moment, so what can you do. This one had a three event weekend and a theatre trip earlier in the week so I’m surprised that the list is as long as it is. I haven’t added anything new to the long-running list, but I haven’t got anything off it either, so mixed work there. I shall endeavour to focus my efforts this week!
Bonus picture: At the athletics on Saturday, watching the British 4 x 400m men’s relay team from the Athens World Championships in 1997 get their gold medals 28 years on after their result was upgraded.
*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.
Back at the airport again this week – this time Terminal five at Heathrow when I was on my way out the other weekend. I don’t fly from Heathrow that often, and the last two times have both been T5 – and I’ve been disappointed in the books (especially compared to Birmingham) both times.
This is the new airport fiction section – I’ve already got the Emily Henry on a Kindle deal or I would have bought that, and that was about it for me – as I’ve decided the Anthony Horowitz is far too big to read in a physical copy so I’m waiting for a deal on the e-book.
Thankfully they did have the new Richard Cole’s which I had been hoping for, and the I struggled with what to get for the second part of the offer. I have two of the Follet Valley’s waiting to be read so I couldn’t justify another without having read some of the previous.
So that left the non fiction which majored heavily on the self help, biography and war history. I went for the Otto English in the end because it was the most appealing but I can’t lie, I was hoping for more, particularly on the fiction side.
Hello from my sofa back in the UK, where I am safely back after a week in Ghana. It was incredibly busy week and so the list sort of reflects that – especially as the flight home on Saturday was an overnight one. I put an old Bond film on to go to sleep to and it worked a treat – it was Goldfinger and I don’t even remember the card game by the pool! Anyway, I’ve got a couple of days off at the start of this week, but the job list is huge – and we’ve got a super busy weekend as well, so the list maybe similarly small next week…
Happy Monday everyone. I feel like every week I say that it’s been a busy week but this week really has been. And I’m on a work trip at the moment, so it’s only going to get busier. What can you do. I haven’t made much progress at all on the two new books I started last week because I had so many nights away from home and didn’t take them with me.
Most read author: Nicola Upson with the three Josephine Tey books I hadn’t read because they were on offer and Anne Granger with the last two Mitchell and Markbys and the new Campbell and Carter.
Books bought: 4 ebooks, about four book-books and also a pre-order arrived
Books read in 2025: 188
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 795
A pretty solid month all in. The heatwave made it a bit hard to concentrate towards the end of the month and I’m still behind on the new releases but I read a lot of stuff I enjoyed and at least I finished the Mitchell and Markby reread so there’s a fighting chance I might read some more new stuff in July.
Bonus picture: the crowd (and me) outside the Palladium to watch Rachel Zegler so Don’t Cry for Me Argentina from the balcony. I could see her arm and her side profile at best – but I only got there ten minutes before. When I had walked past an hour earlier there were already more than a hundred people in the prime spots and I wasn’t prepared to wait that long!
*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 3 this month!
Hello from the heatwave. It’s so hot. And Britain isn’t built for this heat. It’s making it very hard to concentrate on anything. Oh and I did two shows last week – one was The Frogs, the less said about the other the better! I’ve got another super busy week this week and it’s only going to get hotter, so who knows what this list will look like next week…
