What I read in the Year 2001

The second year in which I recorded my reading is 2001. For this I used a cheap exercise book which I vaguely remember was bought as part of a pack, although I cannot now remember for what purpose I originally acquired them. The one I chose was green and it has, in common with all cheap exercise books, very rough and absorbent paper. At that time I had a passion for coloured (and often glittered) gel pens and these have not stood the test of time well, with many of the pages becoming faded and in danger of being unreadable. I have written over the entries in better biro now. At that point in time it seems like I wasn’t anticipating the fact that I would retain and look at this notebook again.

In 2001 I was working part time and my children were still at home. I also had a variety of voluntary roles. As my life was busy and often complex I very much read to relax and escape so the majority of the books read in this year are short, fiction and forgettable. I used the library a lot to access reading material and as my work role involved travelling around the city of Sheffield I often borrowed books from different branches and then returned them to my local one after I had read them – you were permitted to do that then but I don’t know if you still can. I read 320 books in the year which is around about what I have read each. I borrowed most of them from the library and I don’t now recognise a lot of the titles or authors. There are times when only undemanding and easy to read books will do and at this time crime novels were what I turned to – these days I might also read romance but that was a genre I didn’t read then.

The first book of the year was N or M by Agatha Christie which is, if I remember correctly, one of her Tommy and Tuppence books and one of the better ones. I’ve been reading Agatha Christie since I was a teenager as my mother had all of them in a collected set – I used to start at the beginning and read through them all and when I had finished I restarted the process. I still read Agatha Christie and am, at present, rereading them all, although it is taking me a few years as they tend to linger at the bottom of the to-be-read pile. Even though I have read a lot of crime novels since then I still regard these as favourites and enjoy rereading them. I write here about one of her other titles which I read recently.

The final book read in the year was A Peaceful Retirement by Miss Read which I borrowed from the library. This is one of her books about a teacher in a small country school which began with Village School. Her books are gentle and kind and often amusing. I write about my relationship with the series in this blog. I haven’t read these books in years but I remember them with affection.

Sprinkled among the crime novels and a few science fiction/fantasy are some biographies. I borrowed these from my friend Val who collected biographies of women. I still read a lot of biographies and memoirs but I don’t restrict them as Val did. There is very little in the way of non-fiction in my reading record for the year 2001 which I think is symptomatic of how my reading was for enjoyment rather than for challenge. I still reach for undemanding books for comfort but without my life being filled with the demands of children and employment I do read more complex books and was delighted at the end of last year that nearly one quarter of my 2023 reading was non-fiction.