What I Read in the Year 2019

2019 was the year that I started to post on this blog. I had been reviewing and blogging on a website belonging to my sister for some years but she had decided to draw that to a close so I took the plunge and started this site of my own – technically it was up and running in 2018 but in reality I really began it in 2019. A look through my early blogs on here gives a view of some of what I was reading and I summed up the year in three lists of favourite books – novels (see here), audio books (see here), and non-fiction (see here).

I still, however, kept recording my reading in a paper notebook – this year’s being a small but substantial volume in dark grey which was a freebie from the publishing house Mills and Boon, together with a tote bag. I actually read very little, if any, books from this publisher but there must have been some sort of offer or giveaway to attract my attention – I have a weakness for free stuff ! I read 353 books in the year, the majority of which I noted were paper books. I also have a list in the back of this notebook of the countries that the books I read were set in – I was trying to read books from eighty countries in the year but I didn’t reach the goal.

The first book I read in the year was Edge by Jeffery Deaver. The author writes lots of different crime stories in series but this book was actually a collection of his short stories. It wasn’t a particular favourite of mine but, as I have commented before, short stories aren’t my preferred type of fiction.

The last book I read in the year was a thriller by Robert Harris set in Russia/Soviet Union called Archangel. I enjoy this author’s books a lot and this was an interesting one about machinations in the country at the time of Stalin’s death.

Looking at the books that I read during the year I note that I am still rereading books to determine whether or not I will keep them, something that I do even now in my never-ending attempt to make sure that I only keep books that I love or will reread. I also began to read many more classics and modern classics. Books that fit this category that I read in the year include The Land of Green Ginger by Winifred Holtby which is actually about post-war broken dreams, The Go-between by LP Hartley which is about innocence abused, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy which was my first Russian literature, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf which was about relationships and lost dreams, A Month in the Country by JL Carr which is an absolute gem of a novel, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner which is an American classic that I really didn’t get at all, My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier which is creepy and clever (here’s a link to my review), Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand which was a mammoth undertaking and would never have been finished had it not been on audio, and Dear Life by Alice Munro which is beautifully written short stories which left me rather cold.

A lot of variety again in my reading but I note that I am tackling more serious books. Some of that is because I was listening to many on audio but I think it may also have been that I wanted to have good books to write about. The reading influences what I write on the blog but having the blog influences what I read…