Sunday Salon – This Year’s Books

It seems a good day to look back over my reading in the first two months of the year. I’ve read 15 books – 8 in January and 7 this month.

Titles marked * are crime fiction, underlined are non-fiction and in italics are library books. The rest are my own books acquired from various booksellers.

Drood by Dan Simmons
Invisible by Paul Auster
Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan
Let it Bleed by Ian Rankin *
Black and Blue by Ian Rankin *
Losing You by Nicci French *
The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie *
The Music Room by William Fiennes
Can any Mother Help Me? By Jenna Bailey
Fallen Gods by Quintin Jardine *
The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin *
The Hollow by Agatha Christie *
Not Safe After Dark & other works by Peter Robinson * (short stories)
The Warrior’s Princess by Barbara Erskine
Dead Souls by Ian Rankin *

Of these 15 books 9 are crime fiction, which is partly because I’m taking part in Agatha Christie Reading Challenge and also Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet series. This means writing about a book related to the letter of the week. It can either be the first letter of a book’s title, the first letter of an author’s first name, or the first letter of the author’s surname. Tomorrow it’s the letter T and I’m currently reading The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey. I’ve read about half the book and may finish it later today and write about it Monday or Tuesday.

I think the best of these 15 books is Black and Blue by Ian Rankin.

The only challenge I’m doing this year is Emily’s To-Be-Read challenge which is to read at least 20 books from your to-be-read piles before buying any more books. I’m doing this with the proviso that I’m actually allowing myself to buy a few books as it would be too hard otherwise.

I’ve bought four books this year – one of them being Dead Souls by Ian Rankin. I “had” to buy this because I’m reading his Rebus books in chronological order and didn’t have this one and it was the next one to read. So far then, I’ve read 10 books off my to-be-read piles in two months – not bad!

As well as reading The Franchise Affair I’m also reading Poetic Lives: Shelley by Daniel Hahn and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Books I’ll be reading next are:

Being Shelley: The Poet’s Search for Himself by Anne Wroe

The next Rebus book – Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin

7 thoughts on “Sunday Salon – This Year’s Books”

I would also like to read all the Rebus stories in order, but I am so far behind that it seems like an enormous task.

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This is great list. My husband has read all of Rankin in order and they sit waiting for me on the shelf. Maybe someday. Have a great week.

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I refuse to read the Rebus books out of order (obsessive that way!) and am still am waiting for the first Rebus book from the library – it must be very popular!

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Isn’t Black and Blue so very good? I haven’t read it in a while, it’s due for a reread sometime this year. I love Rankin’s books, I ‘ve read most of them – I think there’s an early one I missed, but overall he is my favourite crime writer. I have my fingers crossed he’ll come back with Siobhan Clarke in a new series, and I’m waiting for The Complaints to come out in paperback (the one with malcom Fox). Black and Blue is on my list of favourite books. I’m so happy you enjoyed it too!

I have to go read your review of Drood, it’s sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.

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Margaret, I looked back at what I’ve read this year and I’ve read 20 books. 75% of them are mystery/crime. Not really surprising I guess. Half of them have been on my Kindle and half were mine, except for 1 library book. I haven’t started the Rebus series yet. Hope I will someday. Have you seen the TV adaptations? I keep pondering them on Netflix.

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