I’m now back at home after our Christmas and New Year festivities, which included a family wedding. I am now so far behind with blogging that I’m not going to attempt to catch up with writing about all the books I’ve read. But I’ve got several posts in draft form summing up my reading over the year and this is the first one.

2015 was a good year for books and I read 103 books in total, most of them fiction, but I did read more non-fiction (19) than in previous years, even though I didn’t manage to write about all of them.

Each month I picked a favourite book/s of the month and here are my favourite books of 2015 (the links, where they exist, are to my posts on the books):

January: The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley

February: Wreckage by Emily Bleeker

March: Turn of the Tide by Margaret Skea

April: Dacre’s War by Rosemary Goring & Have His Carcase by Dorothy L Sayers

May: Harbour Street by Ann Cleeves

June: The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

July: The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards

August: A Change of Climate by Hilary Mantel

September: The Ghosts of Altona by Craig Russell & A Dark and Twisted Tide by Sharon Bolton

October: House of Shadows by Nicola Cornick

November: Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin & Mrs Jordan’s Profession by Claire Tomalin

December: The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson – I probably won’t get round to writing about this book, but it is an excellent book. This is the summary from Goodreads:

On the fiftieth anniversary of Churchill’s death, Boris Johnson celebrates the singular brilliance of one of the most important leaders of the twentieth century. Taking on the myths and misconceptions along with the outsized reality, he portrays’”with characteristic wit and passion’”a man of contagious bravery, breathtaking eloquence, matchless strategizing, and deep humanity.
 
Fearless on the battlefield, Churchill had to be ordered by the king to stay out of action on D-Day; he pioneered aerial bombing and few could match his experience in organizing violence on a colossal scale,  yet he hated war and scorned politicians who had not experienced its horrors. He was the most famous journalist of his time and perhaps the greatest orator of all time, despite a lisp and chronic depression he kept at bay by painting. His maneuvering positioned America for entry into World War II, even as it ushered in England’s post-war decline. His openmindedness made him a trailblazer in health care, education, and social welfare, though he remained incorrigibly politically incorrect. Most of all, he was a rebuttal to the idea that history is the story of vast and impersonal forces; he is proof that one person’”intrepid, ingenious, determined’”can make all the difference.

It’s a difficult choice to make from so many excellent books but my book of the year 2015 is:

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton. I loved everything about it ‘“ the descriptive passages, the mystery, the secrets and the people involved.

Happy New Year and I’m looking forward to reading more excellent books in 2016!