Tag: to-read pile

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week in Books: July 28 – August 3

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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…

Read:

Making Money by Terry Pratchett

Sweet Little Lies by Jill Shalvis

At Bertram’s Hotel by Agatha Christie

Scandalize My Name by Fiona Sinclair

The Ex-Wives Club by Sally Hepworth

A Dark and Twisting Path by Julia Buckley

The Windsors at War by Alexander Larman

The Prodigal Son by Sulari Gentill

The Celebrants by Steven Rowley

Started:

Heads You Lose by Christianna Brand

A Star is Bored by Byron Lane

Still reading:

A Schooling in Murder by Andrew Taylor*

Abdication by Juliet Nicolson

Five ebooks (because there were offers) and one ebook preorder, and then the book from Waterstones…

Bonus picture: it’s Wisteria season again

*next to a book book title indicates that it came from NetGalley. ** indicates it was an advance copy from a source other than NetGalley.

books, stats

July Stats

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Books read this month: 31*

New books: 23

Re-reads: 8 (6 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 4

NetGalley books read: 1

Kindle Unlimited read: 12

Ebooks: 5

Audiobooks: 6

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book: Dear Miss Lake probably

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!

Book of the Week, new releases, reviews, romance

Book of the Week: Finders Keepers

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It’s Tuesday and I’m using this week’s BotW to report back in on the new Sarah Adler, which came out back at the end of June, but which I bought in paperback which hampered my reading of it what with having started it right before I went to Ghana.

Quentin and Nina were best friends when they were at school, right up until they weren’t. But now they’re both back in their home town for the summer and living next door to each other again. Nina was expecting to be moving in with her boyfriend and getting ready for the new term as a professor. Instead she’s single, homeless and jobless. Quentin is back from Europe and also newly single and suggests resurrecting the treasure hunt that that they were trying to solve that last summer when they fell out. Surely after nearly two decades they can figure out what went wrong that summer – in the hunt and between the two of them?

Is it a second chance romance if they weren’t ever really together the first time and they just had massive crushes on each other? Because that is what we have here. It should also be noted that I absolutely loved Mrs Nash’s Ashes, and really liked Happy Medium despite the presence of ghosts and fake mediums. This is making the hat trick of BotWs for Adler’s first three novels but I liked this the least. But that’s because it turns out two of the main things it’s doing are not really my favourite tropes: this has got an incredibly oblivious heroine with anxiety problems that make me stressed and the two of them need to use their words more. If they had done that then they wouldn’t be in the mess they are and I wouldn’t find it so stressful to read and could probably deal with the cringey bits of their treasure hunt better.

But I’m still recommending it because I know that this is very much a me thing and I know other people are going to really love this. Yes I’m hoping adler’s next one goes back towards the vibes of Mrs Nash’s Ashes and gives more sunshine-but-quirky but given where we are in romance at the moment with a lot of college age pairings and early 20s heroines who are learning to adult I will still take it. Because that’s not where I am in my reading life at the moment and you just need to look at my post from The Works on Saturday to start seeing why that’s a problem right now!

I’ve got this in paperback so I’m hoping it will be one of my easier picks to get hold of and of course it’s on Kindle and Kobo too for £2.99 at the moment (but who knows how long that will last given that it’s nearly the end of the month.

Happy Reading!

books, stats

June Stats

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Books read this month: 31*

New books: 22

Re-reads: 9 (5 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 5

NetGalley books read: 6

Kindle Unlimited read: 5

Ebooks: 10

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book: maybe A Murder for Miss Hortense of the new stuff, but I’ve really enjoyed the re-reads too

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!

The pile

Books Incoming: Mid-June edition

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It’s that time again, and this month I have done much better on the restraint front.

So here we have this month’s haul: two pre-orders, one charity shop acquisition, two from Upper Street Books and one pre-holiday purchase. The preorders are the new Taylor Jenkins Reid Atmosphere (special Waterstones edition, signed by the author) and the new Annabel Monaghan It’s a Love Story, which is already read and off the pile. The Upper Street Books acquisitions are the two non-fiction books, A Waiter in Paris and Sovietistan. The charity shop purchase is The 7-10 Split which was recommended to me as an option for the 50 states challenge at the back end of last year. And the holiday book is the new Plum Sykes Wives Like Us, which I picked because I thought I could pass it on to my sister (also on the trip) after I finished it.

Have a great weekend!

books, stats

May Stats

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Books read this month: 32*

New books: 13

Re-reads: 19 (5 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 6

NetGalley books read: 1

Kindle Unlimited read: 6

Ebooks: 13

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book: of the new things that I read, probably On Turpentine Lane.

Most read author: Ann Granger with 14 (!) books (re)read – see below

Books bought: still too many – especially given that I had to buy the Mitchell and Markby‘s because I had borrowed them from a friend when I read them the first time.

Books read in 2025: 156

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 793

After finishing the Ruth Galloway binge last month, I have gone on an even more intensive binge re-reading the Mitchell and Markby books after I bought that one at Baddesley Clinton despite everything else that was demanding to be read. This is why the NetGalley total is so measly – just the one, right at the start of the month before the binge started – and explains the lack of non-fiction too. The good news here (I guess) is that I’ve only got a couple left to read before I’ve finished the series and then I’ll have to read other things. But it probably says something about where my head is at at the moment that I’ve retreated into cosy murder mystery re-reads.

Bonus picture: Despite the re-reading last month, I am ahead of schedule on my beat the TBR pile bookcase. Of course some of this is due to the Elly Griffiths binge – check out all those dark green books – but there’s basically just a lot of murder mystery in my first five months of physical book reading!

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

The pile

Books Incoming: Early May edition

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This month’s Books Incoming comes slightly earlier than mid-month, but that’s because the arrival pile was getting a bit teetering and I wanted to sort it out. And some of these have already been read so they can go straight from the pile to the proper shelves, without adding to the pending pile(s).

Lets start with the ones I’ve already read, so that’s Death at the Playhouses which is the sequel to Death at the Dress Rehearsal, then there is A Case of Mice and Murder and The Witching Hour aka the most recent book in the Dandy Gilver series. Then we have a couple more in series that I read: the latest in Ann Granger’s Campbell and Carter series which came out in paperback this week and which I had preordered, likewise the eighth Vinyl Detective, then there are two Follet Valley books, one of Elly Griffiths’ Brighton series, another of the Edmund Crispins as I try and tick that series off, another in the Writers Apprentice series, and the next book in a historical mystery series that I had somewhat forgotten about.

And on the non-series front, there’s Beyond Belief which is non fiction about the Pentecostal church and which I bought after seeing the author pop up as a talking head on a documentary the other week and my two purchases from Market Harborough the other week – A Conflict of Interest which was the purchase in Quinns and the Rosemary Shrager which was the Oxfam bookshop one. That’s the lot, and it’s still too many – the pile next to the tbr shelf is teetering, so I really need to do something about it. And yet I keep getting distracted by re-reads and the NetGalley list. What can I say – I’m a law unto myself!

Have a great weekend everyone.

books, stats

April Stats

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Books read this month: 30*

New books: 22

Re-reads: 8 (5 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 10

NetGalley books read: 6

Kindle Unlimited read: 5

Ebooks: 4

Audiobooks: 5

Non-fiction books: 1

Favourite book: Tough – but I’m going to go with The Last Remains because I thought it finished the Ruth Galloway series off so nicely

Most read author: Probably Kerry Greenwood – with three Corinna Chapmans, but it would be tight on page count with the two Elly Griffiths and Sally Smiths’ two Gabriel Vine books.

Books bought: still too many

Books read in 2025: 124

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 789

Lots of stuff going on in the real world too but still pretty solid month in reading all in. Onwards to May!

Bonus picture: House plant progress with a flower coming on a new plant

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

books, stats

March Stats

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Books read this month: 33*

New books: 24

Re-reads: 9 (9 audiobooks)

Books from the to-read pile: 17

NetGalley books read: 2

Kindle Unlimited read: 3

Ebooks: 1

Audiobooks: 9

Non-fiction books: 0

Favourite book: I mean one of the Ruth Galloways, I just don’t know which one…

Most read author: Elly Griffiths – 12 Ruth Galloway books…

Books bought: still too many

Books read in 2025: 94

Books on the Goodreads to-read shelf (I don’t have copies of all of these!): 780

A pretty good month in reading all in, although it has presented a problem or two. A massive, massive binge like I’ve been on with the Ruth Galloway series reduces the options for Books of the Week – because of my rules about repeat authors and later books in series – and that in its turn presents issues for the Quick Reviews, as you could see on Wednesday. But given that I’ve very nearly finished the series now, April should be better on that front. I might even finish a non-fiction book…

Bonus picture: Progress on this year’s Beat the to-read Pile bookshelf – we are ahead of schedule! Reader, it will not last. It never lasts! Also: boy oh boy can’t you see the Ruth Galloway binge impact – in volume and colours.

*includes some short stories/novellas/comics/graphic novels – including 2 this month!

The pile

Books Incoming: Mid-March 2025

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This isn’t as bad as it could have been. I know it looks like a lot, but four of them are off the pile already because I’ve read three of the Elly Griffiths and the Curtis Sittenfeld are already read and on the normal shelves. One of those Griffiths plus the two Streatfields and the Georgette Heyer detective novel came from that Carlisle trip, the Anne De Courcy came from a trip to Gower Street Waterstones to pick up another Elly Griffiths, the Benevolent Society of Ill Mannered Ladies came from a trip to buy a book as a gift because I have poor will power and then the other two Elly Griffiths were secondhand purchases because I’m on a proper binge as you can tell from the Week in Books posts. And on that basis I expect there will be more of them next month…

Addendum: The willpower has been weak this week. More books have arrive since I took the top photo and as the original photo was already pretty full, I took another rather than restaging (and hauling everything back off the shelves) because if I didn’t it was only going to make next month’s photo even worse…

So here we have the preorder of the new book by Charlotte Stein that turned up on Thursday, another Edmund Crispin and three more Ruth Galloways, one of which is already read and off the to-read pile and onto the “needs to find a shelf for it” pile.