Wotcha readin'?

Cartoon left by son today on kitchen table! I usually read a number of books at one time, although currently ‘reading-lite’ (for me!), having only two on the go: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and AE Housman’s poetry collection A Shropshire Lad. I like to mix up the book buffet, interspersing big guns with thinner volumes, fiction with non-fiction, poetry, the odd graphic novel. I like popular fiction as well as the literary stuff, but there are limits - sorry to her fans, but you won’t find me reading Barbara Cartland....

There’s so much out there! Never mind the steady information stream from Twitter, Facebook, BBC website, daily papers etc etc. They say that a Sunday newspaper alone, with all of its supplements, amounts to what would have been the lifetime input for the average medieval person (had more than a handful been able to read!).

The website par excellence, of course, for keen readers, must surely be Goodreads, and I’ve already had a lot of fun adding my 1300+ reads to my page. I’ve had to withdraw from the conversation threads though - looking at these was taking up too much of my precious reading time!

I drive to work, and have my packed lunch round the table with colleagues, so it seems a bit rude to get a book out. My sister, however, who has 40 minutes each way on the train Monday-Friday, gets through a lot more books than me. She’s currently enjoying Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, having recently returned from holiday in Colombia.

As a confirmed bibliophile, and nosey with it,  one of life’s pleasures is sneaking a look over people’s shoulders to see what they’re reading, so e-readers can frustrate this innocent pastime for me, though there is always the cryptic-crossword-style game of trying to guess, from the page on view, what the book might be!

I thought I’d ask people I met this last week what they’re reading, which turned out to be a wide selection. Here’s a dozen of them (six by the fairer sex - hoorah!):

The Talented Mr Ripley    Patricia Highsmith
 Corvus   Esther Woolfson
 Elizabeth is Missing   Emma Healey
 Germany: Memories of a Nation   Neil MacGregor
 Americanah   Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
 How Music Works    David Byrne
 Le Chapeau de Mitterand   Antoine Laurain
 Rubicon  Tom Holland
 The Diary of Anne Frank’(in Spanish)
 The Private Eye Annual of 2014   Ian Hislop
 The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying   Marie Kondo
 The Bone Clocks   David Mitchell

But  if I thought I read a lot of books at once, the rosette must surely go to a running friend, whose current reads I enquired upon (breathlessly) the other evening on our 4 mile mostly uphill jaunt round Tunbridge Wells. Here they are - be impressed!!

Hunters of Dune   Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson
Lila   Marilynne Robinson
Who runs this place?   Anthony Sampson
Greek Political Oratory  Penguin Classics
Stardust  Neil Gaiman (on Kindle)

and has recently finished:

The Peripheral    William Gibson
Liberty    Shami Chakrabati
The Trial of Henry Kissinger   Christopher Hitchens

so no David Baldacci or John Grisham there then ...!

I’ll finish with a plug for my husband’s two books, Niedermayer & Hart, a horror thriller, and psychological thriller Roadrage  - both of which he is not ashamed to admit are popular fiction. I really enjoyed reading them, they are both good yarns with well-drawn characters; in spite of my long-term doula/midwife duties before their births (listening to ideas, encouraging, researching and proof-reading) I still found them thrilling, moving and hard to put down, which is a kind of small amazing miracle in itself!  I won’t go on - you can find reviews (the genuine article!) on Goodreads, Amazon and Martin’s website and decide for yourself, but he has a Kindle offer on over the next week (only available on Amazon UK from 8 am Monday 26 January until 2 February) for Niedermayer & Hart, which might be of interest.

If you haven’t heard of an author but the reviews are good, I guess 99p is an acceptable outlay!

Martin’s website: www.mj-johnson.com