The pile

Books Incoming: Mid-April 2026

Well I realise that this looks bad. I’ve been talking about how hard I’ve been working to try and bring the size of the to-read pile down and here I am with another bumper crop of purchases, but bear with me – I can explain. Seven of these came from one day out in Leicestershire (there was also a cook book purchase that isn’t in the picture because it’s down in the kitchen being used!) which I’ve written about the last few Saturdays. And those seen are: the two Emily Wildes and Murder off the Books which are sequels to books that I’ve already enjoyed, In Want of a Suspect – a Pride and Prejudice adjacent books which is a special interest of mine, the Kate Bateman – who was at the Book Extravaganza in person and Just Playing House and Mrs Plansky’s Revenge which were the beautifully wrapped blind date with a books from the Book Extravaganza.

Once you’re take those out of the list, that just leaves Paris Match and Honey Bee Mine which were pre-orders and the George Plimpton which is a second hand copy of his book about Capote and the Angela Thirkell which is the latest in the Virago copies of her Barsetshire books. So it’s actually almost reasonable. If you look at it sideways and squint and don’t think about my logic too hard. I’m fine with it at any rate!

Have a great weekend everyone.

books, stats

Reading Stats: March 2026

Books read this month: 33*

New books:26

Re-reads: 7 (6 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 10

NetGalley books read: 8

Kindle Unlimited read: 6

Ebooks: 3

Audiobooks: 6

Non-fiction books: 1

Favourite book: of the things that have been published Agnes Aubert but also the upcoming Nora Breen sequel

Books bought: lets just skip over this because that Saturday in Leicestershire was a lot and that’s before anything else I did…

Most read author: Jess Kidd with Murder at Gulls Nest and the sequel

Books read in 2025: 92

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 598

A pretty solid month all in. I was actually quite surprised when I came to put this together because I thought I had more novellas in there than I did, but actually my dedication to the NetGalley list and reading from the pile at weekends has paid off a bit. Not as good on the non-fiction front though, so that’s something to work on – and it’s Good Friday today so maybe Easter weekend is my opportunity. All the motorsport is cancelled after all!

Bonus picture: Leicester Square Theatre right back at the start of the month ahead of a recording of The Horne Section podcast – complete with former Taskmaster contestant special guests!

*often includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – 4 this month!

books, stats

Reading Stats: February 2026

Books read this month: 29*

New books: 23

Re-reads: 6 (5 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 3

NetGalley books read: 11

Kindle Unlimited read: 9

Ebooks: 1

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 1

Favourite book: Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter

Books bought: 9 books and 9 ebooks – it was all going really well until the last 10 days of the month when the Heated Rivalry books went on offer and then the damn burst on a bit of physical book purchasing too.

Most read author: hard to tell because it’s probably among the audiobooks – either Ngaio Marsh or Elizabeth Peters, because the Falcon at the Portal is now the longest book I’ve read this year and I’m a way through the next one too, but I’ve also done four Inspector Alleyns.

Books read in 2025: 58

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 599 – this is back a little again because I’ve added a bunch of the 2026 releases that I either want to read or have copies of via NetGalley. So hopefully that will come down again as I read them!

Firstly an apology that I’m posting this so far into March, but there were a few things that I wanted to talk about in the first week of the month that couldn’t really wait, and so this was the thing that got bumped. A pretty good month in reading to be honest. I’m pretty pleased with the number of books on the list from NetGalley, even if the to-read pile list is a bit shorter. I’m still some way off getting the list down to where I want it, but progress is progress.

Bonus picture: Unexpected stained glass spotted while wandering through Soho.

*often includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – 7 this month!

books, stats

Reading Stats: January 2026

Books read this month: 31*

New books: 26

Re-reads: 5 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 5

NetGalley books read: 5

Kindle Unlimited read: 12

Ebooks: 4

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 2

Favourite book: Meet the Newmans

Books bought: 4 actual books (3 of them in Sheffield), 1 pre-order placed, 5 ebooks

Most read author: Goodreads tells me that the Elissa Sussman is the longest book I’ve read this year so far so it must be that!

Books read in 2025: 31

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 597 (I told you I’d done a cull!)

January started well, but then sailed a little bit off course on account of that entire week of skating in Sheffield. Which was amazing and I regret nothing. The week of recovery I regret a little bit more, but hey these things happen. There are more novellas on this list than usual – because at times that was all my fried little brain could cope with, but also because Patti Benning writes annoyingly readable things and I kept going straight on to the next one but also because Amazon dropped another Valentines Novella collection with a bunch of romance authors I like and I ended up reading those instead of finishing off some of the things I had on the go. I’d like to think February will be a better month in reading, but the Winter Olympics start on Friday and we all know how much I love the Olympics. And given that I can only watch one thing at a time and I also have to work, the reading may get a little sidelined in favour of figure skating, skiing and sliding,

Bonus picture: Another picture from my fabulous week in Sheffield!

*often includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – 10 this month!

The pile

Books Incoming: Mid-January 2026

There were nearly no books for this post, and I was actually starting to congratulate myself a little bit, but then I went into a bookshop on Tuesday night and bought two books and then another one on Thursday and bought a third and so here we are. The Mitford and Waugh letters should hopefully be interesting, Just As You Are is a Pride and Prejudice retelling and The Gay Best Friend has got comps to other books that I’ve really enjoyed so fingers crossed!

books, stats

December Stats

Books read this month: 35*

New books: 29

Re-reads: 6 (5 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 7

NetGalley books read: 6

Kindle Unlimited read: 10

Ebooks: 7

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 2

Favourite book: Tough to choose between Season of Love and Second Chance Romance

Books bought: lets not talk about it

Most read author: Really hard to say because there weren’t any repeats ths month except Georgette Heyer rereads. So lets say that

Books read in 2025: 381

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 829 at the end of the year, but has now gone down after the cull I mentioned in yesterday’s resolutions post.

I finished the year pretty strongly once I had finished off my last states I actually managed to read some Christmas books and get some more NetGalley books off the list too. I’ve already said a lot about 2025, so there’s not a lot more to say here for once. But as we are now well into January, it’s time to look forward!

Bonus picture: one last Christmas photo – from Liberty’s main hall, it’s the good ship Liberty!

*often includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – 6 this month!

The pile

Books Incoming: Christmas 2025

Ho ho ho, we’re already into the new year, but I’m flashing back to Christmas because Santa Claus brought me some books again this year and it’s delightful. Inevitably I will have acquired a stack more before it’s time for the January Books Incoming because of the sales and also my birthday. I am realistic about my will power. So here we have it:

So here we have it: there’s a new cook book, a crochet book because I sucuessfully made my first crochet project a few months back, three books from my Buy Me a Book for Christmas post – the Tim Curry memoir, the first Nora Breen book and The Author’s Guide to Murder and then my Christmas book to myself – Sarah McCammon’s The Exvangelicals. Becuase of course I bought myself a Christmas book, what else would you expect from me?!

The pile

Books Incoming: Mid-December edition

Happy Saturday everyone, we’re in the middle of December and I’m back with a round up of the books that have arrived in the house over the last little while. I’m expecting to be doing a post-Christmas Books Incoming this month too, so consider this a first bite of the December cherry.

As you know, a couple of these are already off the pile – I read Second Chance Romance last week pretty much as soon as it arrived, although I paced myself while reading it to try and make it last. Strawberried Alive from Jenn McKinlay’s Cupcake Bakery series is this year’s Arizona book for the Fifty States Challenge, and Sugar Plum Poisoned will be next years – as will One for the Books from her Library Lovers series for Connecticut. Actually there are quite a lot here that could end up being on the 50 states list next year – To Brew or Not to Brew is the first in a cozy mystery series set in Pennsylvania that I picked up in Waterstones Picadilly when I was checking out their Legami popup, Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town is a short story collection set in Alaska and the American West, Love is a War Song is a romantic comedy with a pop star and a cowboy set in Oklahoma and On Spine of Death is the sequel to last week’s Book of the Week Buried in a Good Book and set in Washington. That just leaves the non-states books and Do Admit is a graphic novel about the Mitford sisters while How to Spot a Fascist was a purchase in Riverside Books.

Happy Saturday!

books, stats

November Stats

Books read this month: 30*

New books: 26

Re-reads: 4 (all audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 6

NetGalley books read: 1

Kindle Unlimited read: 8

Ebooks: 11

Audiobooks: 4

Non-fiction books: 1

Favourite book: hard to pick – the Phryne Fisher was bittersweet but lovely, the Helen Ellis was fun and I still really, really love Romantic Comedy even if I didn’t love the audiobook narrator’s rendering of the male characters!

Books bought: moving on…

Most read author: Jenn McKinlay if we’re looking at the new reads, Dorothy L Sayers if we include the re-reads too.

Books read in 2025: 346

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 802

I wrote a whole list of books that I was going to read in November at the start of the month, and then about a week later I did an audit of the 50 states challenge and realised that I needed to throw the original list out of the window. And so my major achievement for the month is ticking 16 (!) states off the list. Eight of those were already on either the virtual pile or the physical pile and another four came from Kindle Unlimited, so that was pretty good too. Now I just need to keep the momentum going and tick the last states off – we’re into single figures now so it’s very, very doable…

Bonus picture: I finished the beat the to read shelf bookcase in my journal. All of those green colours are mysteries of various types so you can see a bit of a pattern there…

*often includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – 3 this month!

The pile

Books Incoming: Mid-November edition

Happy Saturday everyone, I’m back with some more new arrivals in the house. Some of them are already off the pile though, so that’s good and one of them will help me with the 50 States Challenge, which is becoming ever more critical so that’s good too!

So here we have three more Jill Churchill books because I went a little mad on Abebooks. But two of them are safely off the pile already so they don’t really count. Also not really counting is The Dead Side of the Mike which is a Charles Paris novel, which I have already read and already own in ebook format. But I couldn’t resist this when I saw it on a charity donation shelf at a cafe in Cumbria. The shelf had a lot of Simon Brett of various types and I think I did well to just stick to one – and I picked this one because of the BBC microphone and all the tape. So this is also going off to a proper shelf and not the pile. Also from that charity shelf is the Edith Skom, which is set on Hawaii and so even if it is truly terrible, it is useful to me! Then we have the second Rosemary Shrager after I enjoyed The Last Supper so much. The Anthony Horowitz is The Marble Hall Murders, the latest Magpie Murders, which is less giant now it’s out in paperback and also was on offer. Another offer was Jonathan Miles’s The Once Upon a Time World which is a history of the French Riviera, which as you know is a firmly in my Rich People Problems non-fiction area and I have been waiting for an offer on for ages. And finally there is the new Katherine Center in paperback which I had preordered even though it came out in kindle months ago.

And finally as a bonus, because I had left Days at the Torunka Café at my parents’ house last month and it wasn’t in the picture for Books Incoming, here it is with this month’s books:

Have a great Saturday everyone.