What I read in January 2022
In January, I read 11 books, and no doubt added more than 11 books to my TBR pile. I blame, variously, sales, tempting blog tours, and discovering new-to-me authors with ample back catalogues.
This is my first blog post on my new laptop! It’s so nice not to be infuriated by slowness when trying to do anything with my site. And I’m damn impressed with myself for managing to get my site up and running on a new machine with only Google for help.
The Book of Form and Emptiness, by Ruth Ozeki - wonderful. 5*
Dark Pines, by Will Carver - I so wanted to like this more because this author is Having A Moment, but it was kind of boring in places and the main character was annoyingly bad at keeping her hearing aids and phone charged. 3*
Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold, by various authors - as with any anthology, there were a couple of stories that didn’t hit the mark for me, but the ones that were great more than made up for them. 4*
The Twyford Code, by Janice Hallett - 4*
The Creak on the Stairs, by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, translated by Victoria Cribb - 4*
Cemetery Lake, by Paul Cleave - 4*
Wilthaven, by Oli Jacobs - so creepy! So fun! 4.5*
Our Fathers, by Rebecca Wait - my pick for January’s Book Shelf Raiders. 4*
Hydra, by Matt Wesolowski - new obsession? Yes. 5*
Fen, by Daisy Johnson - ugh, I want to BE Daisy Johnson. She writes the kind of stories I aspire to write. 5*
Looking ahead…
As indicated above, I have a couple of new-to-me authors I want to get better acquainted with! I’ve read two of Matt Wesolowski’s Six Stories series and am impressed so far, so Changeling is on my list for February. Following on from my blog tour stop for Wilthaven, Oli Jacobs kindly sent me a review copy of his next book, Deep Down There, which comes out on the 22nd.
Jane Casey was one of the first crime writers I got into but I just hadn’t got round to reading her latest, The Killing Kind, yet, so I took the opportunity to jump on the blog tour for the paperback publication. Having run out of Daisy Johnson books to read, meanwhile Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and other stories seems like a natural next step.
February’s Book Shelf Raiders theme is ‘a book with two words in the title’, giving me the perfect opportunity to read Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens which has, shamefully, been on my pile since the TV series came out.