Readings

Books read 2018

  • January
  • Wolf Hollow – Lauren Wolk
  • La Belle Sauvage – Philip Pullman
  • February
  • The Widows of Malabar Hill – Sujata Massey
  • Bad Behaviour – Rebecca Starford
  • Our Souls at Night – Kent Haruf

Books read 2017

  • January
  • The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories – P D James
  • My Old Sweetheart – Susanna Moore
  • What Lies Between us – Nayomi Munaweera
  • The Magician’s Land – Lev Grossman (audio book)
  • February
  • The Gabriel Hounds – Mary Stewart
  • The Bird Tribunal – Agnes Ravtan
  • Darkness Visible – William Styron
  • March
  • Take Six Girls – Laura Thompson
  • Hot Milk – Deborah Levy
  • April
  • The Miracle Inspector – Helen Smith
  • Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy’s Son – Mark Colvin
  • Burial Rites – Hannah Kent (audio book)
  • May
  • A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson (audio book)
  • Eight Months on Ghazzah Street – Hilary Mantel
  • A Winter Away – Elizabeth Fair
  • June
  • Middlemarch – George Eliot (audio book)
  • Wild Swans – Jung Chang (audio book)
  • Lake of Dead Languages – Carol Goodman
  • July
  • A Monster Calls – Patrick Ness
  • Everywhere I Look – Helen Garner (audio book)
  • A Lovely Way to Burn – Louise Welsh
  • From the Wreck – Jane Rawson
  • Across the Nightingale Floor – Lian Hearn (audio book)
  • August
  • The Lost Swimmer – Ann Turner
  • Anatomy of a Disappearance – Hisham Matar
  • Wind off the Small Isles – Mary Stewart
  • Hitch 22 – Christopher Hitchens – audio book
  • September
  • The Keep – Jennifer Egan
  • The Greenstone Grail – Amanda Hemingway
  • October
  • The Weed That Strings the Hagman’s Bag – Alan Bradley
  • One Life – Kate Grenville (audio book)
  • November
  • The Paris Winter – Imogen Robertson
  • Blackberry Wine – Joanne Harris
  • Grass For His Pillow – Lian Hearn (audio book)
  • December
  • In the Midst of Winter – Isabel Allende
  • The Good People – Hannah Kent
  • Based on a True Story – Delphine de Vigan

Books read 2016

  • January
  • Weathering – Lucy Wood
  • My History: A Memoir of Growing Up – Antonia Fraser
  • February
  • Black Rabbit Hall – Eve Chase
  • Jemima Shore’s First Case – Antonia Fraser
  • March
  • Witch Week – Diana Wynne Jones
  • My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante
  • Blythewood – Carol Goodman
  • April
  • Enemy Women – Paulette Jiles
  • Gentlemen and Players – Joanne Harris
  • Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
  • Still Alice – Lisa Genova
  • May
  • Juniper Time – Kate Wilhelm
  • Stone Mattress – Margaret Atwood
  • June
  • Euphoria – Lily King
  • Uprooted – Naomi Novik
  • The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie – Alan Bradley
  • July
  • The Dinner – Herman Koch
  • The Heart Goes Last – Margaret Atwood
  • The Crime Writer – Jill Dawson
  • August
  • A Golden Age – Tahmina Anam
  • The Circle – Dave Eggers
  • September
  • Diary of a Nobody – George Grosssmith
  • The Year of the Griffin – Diana Wynne Jones
  • October
  • Travelling to Infinity – Jane Hawking
  • Hope Farm – Peggy Frew
  • November 
  • The Adoration of Jenna Fox – Mary E Pearson
  • Iris & Ruby – Rosie Thomas
  • December
  • Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue
  • The Book of Whispers – Kimberley Starr
  • The Magician King – Lev Grossman (audio book)
  • The Witches: Salem 1692 A History – Stacy Schiff

Books read 2015

  • January
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J K Rowling
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J K Rowling
  • Digging for Richard III – Mike Pitts
  • A Thousand Acres – Jane Smiley
  • February
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J K Rowling
  • Zealot – Reza Aslan
  • March
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J K Rowling
  • Green as Grass – Emma Smith
  • Above Suspicion – Helen MacInnes
  • April
  • The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – Hilary Mantel
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J K Rowling
  • The Crown – Nancy Bilyeau
  • May
  • The Painted Veil – W Somerset Maugham
  • Turn of Mind – Alice LaPlante
  • The Wolf Border – Sarah Hall
  • I am Half Sick of Shadows – Alan Bradley
  • June
  • The Disclaimer – Renee Knight
  • The Disinherited – Robert Sackville-West
  • Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
  • Jane of Lantern Hill – L M Montgomery
  • Clade – James Bradley
  • July
  • The Strays – Emily Bitto
  • Miss Timmins’ School for Girls – Nayana Currimbhoy
  • Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor
  • August
  • Withering By Sea – Judith Rossell
  • The Last Weekend – Blake Morrison
  • Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail – Cheryl Strayed
  • September
  • The Well – Catherine Chanter
  • The Utopia Experiment – Dylan Evans
  • Yesterday Morning – Diana Athill
  • Three Moments of an Explosion – China Mieville
  • October
  • Jack of Spades – Joyce Carol Oates
  • Tailchaser’s Song – Tad Williams
  • Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton – JG Ballard
  • November
  • Z is for Zachariah – Robert C O’Brien
  • I Never Said Goodbye – Pauline Knowles-Samarraie
  • Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – JK Rowling
  • Crocodile on the Sandbank – Elizabeth Peters
  • December
  • The Natural Way of Things – Charlotte Wood
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – JK Rowling

Books read 2014

  • January
  • Imaginary Friends – Alison Lurie
  • Among Others – Jo Walton
  • February
  • A House in Fez – Susanna Clarke
  • The Violins of Saint-Jacques – Patrick Leigh Fermor
  • March
  • How I Live Now – Meg Rosoff
  • The Land of Decoration – Grace McGleen
  • The Luminaries – Eleanor Catton
  • April
  • Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • Speaking From Among the Bones – Alan Bradley
  • May
  • Agatha Christie and Archaeology – Charlotte Trumpler ed.
  • Absent in the Spring – Mary Westmacott
  • June
  • The Trouble With Flying – Richard Rossiter (ed)
  • The Bees – Laline Paull
  • The Battle of the Villa Fiorita – Rumer Godden
  • July
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman
  • The Adjacent – Christopher Priest
  • The River of No Return – Bee Ridgway
  • My Salinger Year – Joanna Rakoff
  • August
  • The Jewels of Paradise – Donna Leon
  • The Night Guest – Fiona McFarlane
  • A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes
  • September
  • The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
  • The Turret – Margery Sharp
  • Sunset Song – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
  • October
  • Thunder on the Right – Mary Stewart
  • Dragonclaw – Kate Forsyth
  • The Weirdstone of Brisingamen – Alan Garner
  • November
  • The Dovekeepers – Alice Hoffman
  • The Narrow Road to the Deep North – Richard Flannigan
  • The Witch of Blackbird Pond – Elizabeth George Speare
  • December
  • Madeleine – Helen Trinca
  • Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel
  • Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis

TBR

  • The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford
  • Charlotte’s Web E. B. White
  • Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
  • Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
  • Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor
  • Waiting for the Barbarians JM Coetzee

Books read 2013

  • January
  • The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
  • The Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar – Suzanne Joinson
  • Why be Happy When You Can be Normal – Jeanette Winterson
  • February
  • Peony in Love – Lisa See
  • The Age of Miracles – Karen Thompson Walker
  • March
  • Flight Behaviour – Barbara Kingsolver
  • Zoo Time – Howard Jacobson
  • April
  • The Splendour Falls – Susanna Kearsley
  • The Far Time Incident – Neve Maslakovic
  • May
  • New Guinea Moon – Kate Constable
  • Have His Carcase – Dorothy L Sayers
  • Before I go to Sleep – SJ Watson
  • June
  • Daphne Du Maurier and her Sisters – Jane Dunn
  • Communion Town – Sam Thompson
  • July
  • Cold Magic – Kate Elliott
  • The Woman Upstairs – Claire Massud
  • August
  • The Crysalids – John Wynfham
  • Love Falls – Esther Freud
  • The Professor of Poetry – Grace McCleen
  • The Demonologist – Andrew Pryor
  • September
  • Miss Pym Disposes – Josephine Tey
  • Shelter – Frances Greenslade
  • October
  • When the Killing’s Done – T C Boyle
  • The Catcher in the Rye – J D Salinger
  • November
  • A Book for All and None – Clare Morgan
  • True North – Brenda Niall
  • December
  • The Women in Black – Madelaine St John
  • Lexicon – Max Barry
  • The Great Western Beach – Emma Smith

Books read 2012

  • January
  • Death Comes to Pemberley – P D James
  • How I Became a Famous Novelist – Steve Hely
  • February
  • No Word From Winifred – Amanda Cross
  • Chalcot Crescent – Fay Weldon
  • March
  • Things We Didn’t See Coming – Stephen Amsterdam
  • A kingdom By The Sea – Nancy Phelan
  • April
  • The 19th Wife – David Ebershoff
  • May
  • Tirra Lirra by the River – Jessica Anderson
  • June
  • A Little Princess – Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • Skios – Michael Frayn
  • July
  • You Must be Sisters – Deborah Moggach
  • A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness
  • August
  • The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes
  • The Mystery of a Hansom Cab – Fergus Hume
  • September
  • A River in the Sky  – Elizabeth Peters
  • We of the Never Never – Jeannie Gunn
  • October
  • The Book of Murder – Guillermo Martinez
  • Fortress – Gabrielle Lord
  • Puberty Blues – Gabrielle Carey, Kathy Lette
  • November
  • Instruments of Darkness – Imogen Robertson
  • By Night in Chile – Roberto Bolano
  • The Villa of Death – Joanna Challis
  • The Bay of Noon – Shirley Hazzard
  • December
  • The Engagement – Chloe Hooper
  • Reading by Moonlight – Brenda Walker

Books read 2011

  • January
  • Whose Body? – Dorothy L Sayers
  • Avalon – Anya Seton
  • The Three Miss Kings – Ada Cambridge
  • February
  • The Third Policeman – Flann O’Brien
  • The Sandalwood Tree – Elle Newmark
  • March
  • The Makioka Sisters – Tanizaki
  • April
  • Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
  • Elizabeth and her German Garden – Elizabeth Von Arnim
  • May
  • The Raven’s Heart – Jess Blackadder
  • Sister – Rosamund Lupton
  • June
  • Don’t Tell Alfred – Nancy Mitford
  • The Finest Type of English Womanhood – Rachel Heath
    July
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock – Joan Lindsay
  • The Distant Hours – Kate Morton
  • August
  • Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
  • Breakout – David Tchappat
  • Bus Stop on a Strange Loop – Shaune Lafferty Webb
  • September
  • Lady Audley’s Secret – Mary Elizabeth Braddon
  • The Swan Thieves – Elizabeth Kostova (audio book)
  • October
  • The Tiger’s Wife – Tea Obreht
  • The Mystery of the Portland Vase – Robin Brooks
  • November
  • Pioneer Writer: Louisa Atkinson – Patricia Clarke
  • The Magicians – Lev Grossman
  • December
  • A Thatched Roof – Beverley Nichols
  • Room – Emma Donoghue

Books read 2010

  • January
  • The Year of the Flood – Margaret Atwood
  • Zombie Blondes – Brian James
  • February
  • Fugitive Blue – Claire Thomas
  • The Yiddish Policeman’s Union – Michael Chabon
  • The Owl Killers – Karen Maitland
  • March
  • The Anatomy of Wings – Karen Foxlee
  • April
  • The Wishing Game – Patrick Redmond
  • Youth – J M Coetzee
  • May
  • Quarantine – Jim Crace
  • Of Bees and Mist – Erick Setiawan
  • June
  • Thank you, Jeeves – P G Wodehouse
  • The Last Brother – Nathacha Appanah
  • The Blackstone Key – Rose Melikan
  • July
  • Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir – Agatha Christie Mallowan
  • The Ladies of Missalonghi – Colleen McCulloch
  • The  Behaviour of Moths – Poppy Adams
  • August
  • The Haunting of Bellamy 4, Monica Dickens
  • Touch Not the Cat, Mary Stewart
  • September
  • Jasper Jones, Craig Silvey
  • Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
  • The Last Stormlord, Glenda Larke
  • We have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
  • October
  • Summertime, J M Coetzee
  • On the Jellicoe Road, Melina Marchetta
  • The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas
  • November
  • Leonard Woolf: A Life, Victoria Glendinning
  • The Bed I Made, Lucie Whitehouse
  • December
  • Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
  • The Small Hand, Susan Hill
  • The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women, Susan Williams & Richard Glynn Jones