Book stats 2023 and December books
Jan. 2nd, 2024 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callmemadamTotal books read in 2023: 127. 89 dead tree, 40 on Kindle. By men 47, by women 81. Fiction 98, non-fiction 29. As usual, I resolve to read more books by men and more non-fiction.
December Books
The Fortunes of Jacky, Katharine L Oldmeadow (for Children’s Press project)
Portrait of a Murderer: a Christmas Crime Story, Anne Meredith BLCC
Christmas at Nettleford, Malcolm Saville
The Girls of Chequertrees, Marion St John Webb (for CP project)
Bunty of the Blackbirds, Christine Chaundler (for CP project)
A Redbird Christmas, Fannie Flagg
The Box of Delights, John Masefield
A Surprise for Christmas and other Seasonal Mysteries, BLCC ed. Martin Edwards.
A Country Christmas, Miss Read
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Headland Mystery, Arthur Groom (for CP project)
Christmas at Fairacre, Miss Read
Currently reading Moonshine Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Christmas reading was all re-reading, apart from the British Library Crime Classic books. Working on my Children’s Press project, I found I’d read some of the books so long ago, I needed to refresh my memory of what they were about. Luckily, they’re so short you can read one in an evening. Judging from what I’ve read so far, I’d say the books printed earliest are less good than some of the later ones.
Portrait of a Murderer: a Christmas Crime Story, is a strange book and not really a thriller. On the first page we are told who will be murdered and that one of six people will kill him. Not very much later, the murderer confesses all to the reader and explains his actions. So, not a whodunnit but a ‘will he get caught?’ story. A Surprise for Christmas consists of short stories, some by well-known writers like G K Chesterton and others by the more obscure; I liked it better than the other.one.
I read Christmas at Nettleford every year, skipping the chapters I don’t much like. When I wrote about it one year, someone said it was the most boring book ever. That is actually the whole point of it. Published in 1953 when I was far too young to read it, it describes perfectly what Christmas was like for most people in the 1950s, right down to the Christmas Market in the church hall to the Nativity Play after Christmas. I recognise it all, even Elizabeth buying ‘a shampoo’ at the chemist’s. Remember those, anyone? It’s a long time since I read A Redbird Christmas and found the re-read as good as the first.
December Books
The Fortunes of Jacky, Katharine L Oldmeadow (for Children’s Press project)
Portrait of a Murderer: a Christmas Crime Story, Anne Meredith BLCC
Christmas at Nettleford, Malcolm Saville
The Girls of Chequertrees, Marion St John Webb (for CP project)
Bunty of the Blackbirds, Christine Chaundler (for CP project)
A Redbird Christmas, Fannie Flagg
The Box of Delights, John Masefield
A Surprise for Christmas and other Seasonal Mysteries, BLCC ed. Martin Edwards.
A Country Christmas, Miss Read
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Headland Mystery, Arthur Groom (for CP project)
Christmas at Fairacre, Miss Read
Currently reading Moonshine Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Christmas reading was all re-reading, apart from the British Library Crime Classic books. Working on my Children’s Press project, I found I’d read some of the books so long ago, I needed to refresh my memory of what they were about. Luckily, they’re so short you can read one in an evening. Judging from what I’ve read so far, I’d say the books printed earliest are less good than some of the later ones.
Portrait of a Murderer: a Christmas Crime Story, is a strange book and not really a thriller. On the first page we are told who will be murdered and that one of six people will kill him. Not very much later, the murderer confesses all to the reader and explains his actions. So, not a whodunnit but a ‘will he get caught?’ story. A Surprise for Christmas consists of short stories, some by well-known writers like G K Chesterton and others by the more obscure; I liked it better than the other.one.
I read Christmas at Nettleford every year, skipping the chapters I don’t much like. When I wrote about it one year, someone said it was the most boring book ever. That is actually the whole point of it. Published in 1953 when I was far too young to read it, it describes perfectly what Christmas was like for most people in the 1950s, right down to the Christmas Market in the church hall to the Nativity Play after Christmas. I recognise it all, even Elizabeth buying ‘a shampoo’ at the chemist’s. Remember those, anyone? It’s a long time since I read A Redbird Christmas and found the re-read as good as the first.
