Bookshelf Blitz

Well February is supposed to be a month of purification, in anticipation of Spring – at least, it was in Ancient Rome, and of course we still usually have Lent beginning in February – and being a votary of Juno, who presides over this month as Lucina, Bringer of Light and Februata, Purifier, I've been doing stuff like cleaning windows and getting rid of clutter. Not that there's much opportunity for clutter to accumulate in the little one-bed annexe that Mr B and I call home - we always have to throw something out if we acquire something new, and that includes books, which if space were no object would be lining the walls of our well-stocked library!

So I did my yearly routine of going through the shelves and taking out every book that it wasn't strictly necessary to keep – my usual rule of thumb being to hang on to reference books and weed out novels, unless they're by Jane Austen, one of the Brontes or Susanna Clarke. I did pretty well this year and carted off a big bag of paperbacks to the charity shop – thereby leaving a vacant shelf to fill with a genre that will not under any circumstances be culled - fiction and non-fiction written by friends, both the online and the real life variety. I now have a special shelf dedicated to my Goodreads Author friends, and here's what's on it!

By Jill Bush: Lionel Morris and the Red Baron: Air War on the Somme

By Julie Bozza: No Holds Bard: Modern LGBTQ+ fiction inspired by the works of William Shakespeare and The Butterfly Hunter Trilogy

By Val Brown: toupie lowther her life

By Veronica Doubleday: Three Women of Herat

By Jill Gardiner: From the Closet to the Screen: Women at the Gateways Club 1945-85 and 'With Some Wild Woman' (poetry collection).

By Elinor Gray: Compound a Felony: A Queer Affair of Sherlock Holmes and 'The Adventure of the Doctor and the Duellist (short story published by the John H Watson Society).

By Richard Gough-Buijs: Ooh Yes I Woof!: The Adventures of a Miniature Schnauzer

By Bryn Hammond: Against Walls

By Narrelle M. Harris: The Adventure of the Colonial Boy

By Angela Patmore: The Silent Songs Of Owen Parsnip and Doggerel: The Moving Memoirs of Rescue Dogs and Their Second Lives - In Poetry and Prose; and The Dog Revolution (as 'Owen Parsnip').

By Charlie Raven: The Compact and of course A Case of Domestic Pilfering which was originally her story!

By Maggie Redding: The Education of Mattie Dobson and The Incident

By Jane Traies: Now You See Me: Lesbian Life Stories and her Jay Taverner books Rebellion; Hearts and Minds; and Something Wicked

By Christine Webb: After Babel and Catching Your Breath

By Magenta Wise: Messages are Dancing in the Rain: and other poems and Kill & Cure: Short Stories

and by Lexi Wolfe: Women Of Forgotten Importance: Three Stories


Until last week, I had no idea I knew so many Goodreads authors! Thanks you so much, all of you, for your writing, your generosity and your friendship, and here's to a creative year for all of us!