The Monthly Booking: July 2022

After a rather extended break, The Monthly Booking is back – and diving straight into summer with a Latin American-themed reading list. As usual, I’ve picked four titles from my digital and physical bookshelves, covering fiction, non-fiction, translation and independent publishers. Happily, having given myself a geographical theme for this month, July’s list is very

The Monthly Booking: October 2021

Autumn is here, meaning – hopefully – more time for reading as the evenings draw in (something my overflowing bookshelves would definitely welcome). It’s also the perfect time to indulge in some more armchair travel, with books that will be taking me on journeys through England, Uruguay, Trinidad and beyond. Happily, and quite by chance,

The Monthly Booking: June 2021

Summer is almost upon us, and my birthday is this month – two excellent reasons to finally pick up a rather large book I’ve been looking at but not reading for roughly a year. In all its almost-1000-page glory, The Eighth Life has become something of a legend: longlisted for last year’s International Booker Prize

The Monthly Booking: May 2021

Reading lists have to be practical, as well as sometimes thematic or current, so this month for me is all about trying to clear up my digital bookshelf. Many of these are review copies I am very grateful to have the chance to read, including one of the titles shortlisted for this year’s International Booker

The Monthly Booking: March 2021

Spring has sprung early this year – so much more pleasant to sit reading in the sunshine – and I’m leaving the cold northern climes of last month’s theme firmly behind me. March’s books have been selected at random, but they are all written (and, where applicable, translated) by women. Happily, the longlist for the

The Monthly Booking: February 2021

An accidental Russian theme has crept into my reading for this month, which I’ve put together from titles waiting patiently on my shelves and a couple of new review copies. Perhaps my leaning towards northern climes reflects the bitterly cold weather we’ve been experiencing here recently; perhaps it’s just my ongoing yearning for travel. Either

The Monthly Booking: January 2021

Never have I been so happy to see the year change. As distressing as it was, 2020 was still a brilliant year for reading – as you can see from my personal Best Books of 2020 list – and while I’m hoping that 2021 will be as different to its predecessor as possible, this is

The Best Books of 2020

It isn’t easy to write a ‘best books of the year’ post. First of all, I hate being asked to choose anything. Secondly, posts of this format mushroom at this time of year – and how many, I wonder, do we really need? All the same, I decided it would be a useful exercise (and

The Monthly Booking: December 2020

Reading has meant a lot this year. I’ve heard many people say that recent events have totally destroyed their concentration, but whatever else has been happening – and however hard I may have found it to concentrate on other things – reading has been a constant and calming presence over the last twelve months. I’m

The Monthly Booking: November 2020

This month is all about short works of literature. I used to struggle a lot with short stories, but over the last couple of years have developed a serious appreciation for them. What I once found difficult to cope with – the regular lack of closure, abrupt endings, missing out on classic character development –