Most read author: None – I read books by 25 different authors this month!
Books read this year: 25
Books bought: 12(ish) books – all bar 2 on my birthday trip and 1 ebook
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 493 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)
New year, new stats post. Not many tweaks this year – but one is more visible than the others – and it’s my lovely #ReadHarder Bingo card down the bottom here. I’ll be crossing more books off every month – or hoping to. I’ve also made a #ReadHarder shelf on my Goodreads profile if you want to see more details about which books are the ones that tick boxes for the challenge. Some books count for more than one category, and some categories I have (already) read more than one book which counts (I have 5 which would fit the published betwen 1900-1950 category!), so I’m not filling out the form yet, I’ll save that for the end of the year and try and pick some (at least) books I haven’t already talked about!
I’m actually quite surprised how many I’ve already ticked off.
*Includes some short stories/novellas/comics (2 this month)
Most read author: Courtney Milan and Deanna Raybourn (2 short stories each)
Books read this year: 328
Books bought: 12 ebooks and 4 books
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 484 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)
I’m not even going to talk about how many books I’ve bought this month – and I wasn’t doing great even before the elbow-fracture induced pain purchases. Bad Verity. Still, hopefully I’ll be able to restrain myself in December with the prospect of Christmas present books on the horizon. Oh who am I kidding.
*Includes some short stories/novellas/comics (8 this month)
During a trip to The Works this week I happened upon some of Christina Jones’ books that I didn’t own – having borrowed them from the library back in my days in Essex. And then it occurred to me that this might be the time to make another entry in my very occasional series of posts about Authors I love (see previous installments on Katie Fforde and Georgette Heyer) as as far as I can see there’s no new book from her on the way at the moment which I might be able to rave about.
My copy of Heaven Sent – recently rescued from the pile of favourites next to the bed
Christina Jones writes wonderfully quirky romantic comedies, usually set in or around the Cotswolds. They have often magical or mystical elements – which is not usually something I go for, but she does it so well – and come in interconnected series – where a secondary character in one book (a best friend for example) will end up being the lead character in the next book. Old characters often make cameos in later books so you get a chance to see what happened in their happily ever afters, without it being a sequel where they face strife and conflict.
As I said in my BotW post on Stealing the Show in June last year I first discovered her work when I came across a copy of Heaven Sent in a display of books nominated for the Melissa Nathan Award – as is often the way, it’s still my favourite of her novels, perhaps because I’m a sucker for a dark-haired bloke in eyeliner and Yaya is an absolute hoot. Once I’d read that I started trawling my way through older books via the library – and buying new ones as soon as they came out. I’ve got most of the reissues of her earlier stuff on the kindle – although I haven’t read them all as I’m trying to ration myself in the absence of new books.
The Christina Jones shelf, such as it is, the rest are on my kindle as they were hard to get in paperback
But basically, these have everything I want in a light romantic fiction book.* The heroines are smart and usually very good at their jobs**, they have supportive friends and find men who celebrate their achievements and love them for who they are without trying to change them. There’s conflict, but it’s often based on misunderstandings rather than someone having done something actually terrible. No one is perfect. And they’re funny – mostly witty funny as opposed to laughing at someone’s humiliation funny, although there are some embarrassing moments in them too.
So, if you want to read your way into Christina Jones where should you start? Well each novel stands alone – and as I said at the top of this post, my local branch of The Works had a cache of them at the moment – and they have the same ones online too Love Potions, Seeing Stars, Moonshine and the aforementioned Heaven Sent which are all in their 6-for-£10 promotion (sorry). All of those would be fine places to start to give you a taster – and they’re cheaper there than Amazon or on Kindle. There are few short stories/novellas available on Kindle for quite low prices – but I never think they are a particularly good way of trying a new author (unless they’re free!) because you might be missing background, in jokes, world rules etc, so I would suggest the slightly older-but-recently-reissued Milton St John series, which are available as a bundled set on Kindle for £2.99 at time of writing – I haven’t read all of them yet, but the ones I have are good so that would be a cheap way of dipping your toe in the water.
Happy reading!
*Magic is an optional extra
**or at least they are once they get their head around the magical stuff.
Most read author: Jodi Taylor (3 Chronicles of St Mary’s novels, 3 novellas)
Books read this year: 270
Books bought: 1 book and 7 ebooks
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 466 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)
Not bad going this month on the book front – most of the ebooks were bought on holiday when I went on the Jodi Taylor binge, and the 1 actual book was a second hand one.
*Includes some short stories/novellas/comics (6 this month)
Non-fiction books: 0 (although I have one started)
Most read author: Margery Allingham – sort of – I read one Campion and there was an Allingham short story in a collection that I read as well.
Books read this year: 234
Books bought: 6 (all actual books)
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 459 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)
I was worried that August would be a book buying fest – and actually, in new book terms, I’ve been quite restrained. Of course I bought 12 Chalet School paperbacks to add to/improve my collection, but they don’t count – because I’ve definitely read all of them before!
*Includes some short stories/novellas/comics (4 this month)
A Bank Holiday weekend bonus post for you – on my recent “rationalisation” of the to-be-read pile. When I was little, when mum wanted us to have a tidy up and clear out of our rooms, she would call it a rationalisation. I think this was mostly because Little Sister and I were extremely loath to throw anything away, so if we thought that we’d have to we’d kick up a stink. But a rationalisation was different (or so my mum said) we were just looking to make sure we had what we needed – no duplication etc. She’s cunning my mum. Thus a clear out for me is always called a rationalisation. It sounds less scary, less final – more productive.
So my to-read pile has got a little out of hand – even for me, so on a recent Saturday night, after I’d finished the book that I was reading I had a round of the 50 pages and out reading challenge to help get the to-read bookshelf down. The challenge is fairly self-explanatory – you give a book 50 pages – and if you’re not hooked or don’t care by that point you can give it up and put it on the charity shop pile. Some of the books didn’t need 50 pages. This doesn’t mean that they’re bad books, it just means they’re not for me. Often it means they come under the “Verity tries to kid herself that she’ll read literary fiction” banner. Because we all know that if given a choice, I’ll go for romance, or crime, or historical fiction, or comic fiction over award winning books. You’ve seen my Week in Books posts, you know the score.
Some of the 50-pages and out victims – nothing wrong with them, just not for me.
Then I took to the piles behind the sofa. I did this while The Boy was at work, so he couldn’t see how bad it had got. I have a magpie’s eye for books. I’m always picking up more and I have various different sources for them – many are second hand, or review copies – so I often haven’t paid anywhere near jacket price for them.* I yank them all out, inspect what’s there, hope there aren’t any duplicates in the pile (it has happened) and then have a weed. What literary fiction have I picked up thinking “I’ll read that some day” and then ignored in favour of pretty much everything else? Which books are in there by an author that I’ve got fed up of or have overdosed on? Which ones would I take on holiday with me to read, and then end up ignoring them in favour of the Kindle all week?*** Which are later books in series that I could read if only I pulled my finger out and read the earlier ones? Which have been sitting in that pile for ages, not getting moved onto the to-read bookshelf because there’s always something I fancy more? Which, if I’m being really very honest with myself, am I never going to get around to?
I’m not good at this part. But I don’t have time to give all of these 50 pages. I keep make a new pile of candidates for the 50-pages and out challenge – the ones where there is a realistic chance that I’ll like them enough to keep reading – and give that a prime spot near the front of the sofa arm.. But some, after careful consideration, I move straight to the charity shop bag. Then I reform the piles – trying to move some of the older stuff to the top, to sort it into genres and sizes and hide it all behind the sofa again.
One bag of books in front of the to read shelf after the sofa pile cull. The photos meant to be arty…
I hate admitting that I won’t read some of these books, that my eyes are too big for my stomach in book terms. But having a rationalisation does usually put the brakes on my aquisitions a little bit because I feel so guilty about the big stack of stuff that’s still waiting to be read. I could – in a very real sense – keep myself stocked up for books for months without having to buy any more, but we all know I don’t have that will power. So I sort, I give the excess to one of a series of charity shops I like around town, and then I make an effort to try and read from the pile for a few weeks. Or that’s the idea at any rate…
*Which is obviously a good thing or I’d be wasting money hand over fist,** which wouldn’t be good.
**I do sometimes wonder if the to-read pile would be any better if I did have to pay for all my books, and then I remember that when I moved to Essex I took 7 books with me, and when I moved back to Northamptonshire 3 years later I brought nearly 80 back with me – and that was after having held a cull before moving and having got rid of some as I went a long. So having to pay full price doesn’t stop the book acquisition – even when (as I was at that point) I have a *very* tight budget.
*** It happens. I take something literary fiction-y on holiday with me to force myself to read it, and then I end up ignoring it in favour of the kindle – reading backlog or buying more books in series – and then bring it home, unread, but well travelled.
Oh boy, this week ended up a lot busier that I thought it would. And the reading has suffered. I was still quite post nightshift-y at the start of the week – so reading was slow and gentle, and then I did a lot of work and didn’t have a lot of free time. All this made me tired and find it slow to settle to anything.
Read:
Murder at the Manor: Country House Mysteries by Various Authors
The Highlander by Kerrigan Byrne
Sweet Tomorrows by Debbie Macomber
A Killer Closet by Paula Paul
The Crepes of Wrath by Sarah Fox
The Canal Boat Cafe by Cresside McLaughlin
Started:
What I Did For A Duke by Julie Anne Long
The Man on Top of the World by Vanessa Clark
Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham
Still reading:
The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley
Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink
On the brightside, I didn’t buy any books. So progress there even if I didn’t read as much as I wanted.
Most read author: Mary Balogh and Frances Brody (3 books each)
Books read this year: 206
Books bought: 11 (5 ebooks, 6 books)
Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf: 462 (I don’t have copies of all of these!)
Could have been much worse, considering there were nights in the back end of July! I didn’t buy too much compared to what I can do on nights, but I did read a fair bit. Fingers crossed August doesn’t turn into a book buying-fest!
*Includes some short stories/novellas/comics (2 this month)
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 