I'm not quite sure where the year has gone - I think I've literally slept through a large part of it! - but here we are in Advent again. We've had the wonderful Advent Carol Service at church, got out the advent calendar at home, and have now decorated the Christmas tree which beautifully illuminates its corner of the living room. For the past six years, this has been a particularly reflective time for me - not only in the ways the church intends, but also in a very personal

October started particularly well, with my birthday at the start of the month becoming a day dedicated to reading the new Richard Osman - a lovely gift from Offspring #1. after that, sadly, my reading declined again and is only just starting to pick up. The other day I discovered a pile of 5-6 half-read books, which probably goes rather a long way to explaining why although I’m sure I read more than this suggests, I don’t have many finished items to list here! The Impossible

For the past few months I've been living with extreme exhaustion, and have been confronted with the need to adapt my life to fit my vastly reduced energy levels, both mental and physical. One concept which has been brought up to me a couple of times recently, by different people and in different contexts, is that of wintering, retreat, or sabbatical. That we all have occasional fallow periods in our lives; times of retreat, of quiet withdrawal, of reflection or preparation. W

The Swedish theme definitely continues this month as it begins while I’m North of the Arctic Circle (by quite some way!). Even once home...

There's definitely a theme to my reading this month - whereas I often have a book or two on Swedish, this time it's more than half the...

For as long as there have been books, there have been authorities wishing to censor their contents in order to protect a narrative,...

If I thought June's three books was a rather low month, July has somehow managed to be no better. Things have been pretty busy here with...

A while ago I wrote about starting to play Minecraft , and my surprise at how utterly captivating I found it. Safe to say, I'm still...

Despite still being signed off work, I haven't managed to do very much reading at the moment. Somehow it just takes more energy and focus...

Despite all the difficulties I had during my steady decline between March and May, I managed to continue reading fairly steadily - sort...

Well, it's been a few months since I last wrote anything here, so it feels as though I'm long overdue a post. I've been struggling with...

Life has suddenly got a bit busier, as i'm back doing musical things regularly, but i'm still making sure I have time to read. The...

My earliest memory of birds is as a primary school child looking out of the kitchen window with my dad as he pointed out a wren in the...

For as long as I can remember, music has played a huge role in my life - from learning piano, recorder and guitar in primary school, to...

The Japanese word tsundoku describes to a habit well known to all booklovers - that of buying books and not reading them; it can also...

I actually enjoyed keeping my reading log last year, so have decided to continue keeping it going. I found it interesting to see what I'd...

It's been rather interesting - and I think quite telling, looking back over the past year of blog posts that the variety and regularity...

My book dragon guarding the hoard on my bedside table 1 Locked-room mystery  Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie 2 Bibliosmia:...

I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to finish as many part-read books for the 52 book challenge as I can, as well as managing a couple of...

This one is something of a challenge to compile, as I didn't note down a single book I read all month. I didn't manage to finish many,...