Tag: Books

2024 In Reading

My reads, not the books that came out this year…

It’s certainly true this year, 2024, had probably the least new activity from me. As a result of all this my blog has been quiet, I hope to improve on that in 2025. That doesn’t mean I stopped reading, and so below are four of the books I enjoyed in 2024. As always I want to try and avoid spoilers, but just give you a taste of what to expect if you were to read any of the listed works below. There are links at the bottom if you wish to investigate further.

Two In The Bush – Gerald Durrell. Books by Gerald Durrell are always a good go-to when you want something easy, but worthwhile. There’s so much to learn about the wildlife of this planet, and as Gerald Durrell makes his discoveries he invites you to join him through his books. Two in the Bush is about a journey through New Zealand and Australia in the 1960s, in an attempt to film and learn, what at the time, was new information to the majority of us on this side of the world. Starting with a trip through New Zealand, seeing what was being done to protect endangered species rare to those islands, the book then crosses over to Australia for the same purpose. As always I thoroughly enjoyed this, Durrell recreates the land, the vistas, the fauna and the flora with insight and wit, as well as in such a way you itch to be there with him. The local characters come to life and you wonder what happened to them after. What is nice is that an internet search from 2024 reveals how some of these projects turned out, and in most cases, the work done back then had a good outcome.

“Just at that moment the skipper of the launch cut the engines down, and we drifted under the cliff, rising and falling on the blue green swell and watching the breakers cream and suck at the jagged cliff some twenty-five feet away. The nose of the crane appeared high above, and from it dangled – at the end of an extremely fragile-looking hawser – something closely resembling a gigantic pig net. The crane uttered a series of clankings, groans and shrieks that were quite audible, even above the noise of the wind and the sea, and the pig net started to descend. Jim gave me a mute look of anguish and I must say that I sympathised with him. I have no head for heights at all and I did not relish, any more than he did, being hauled up that cliff in a pig net slung on the end of a crane that, from the sound of it, was a very frail octogenarian who had been without the benefit of oil for a considerable number of years. Chris, wrapped up in his duffle coat and looking more like a disgruntled Duke of Wellington than ever, started Organising with the same fanatical gleam in his eye that Brian always had in similar situations.
‘Now I want you to go up first, Jim, and get the camera set up by the crane so that you can film Gerry and Jacquie as they land,’ he said. ‘I’ll go up next and get shots of the launch from the net, and then Gerry and Jacquie will follow with the rest of the equipment. Okay?’
‘No,’ said Jim. ‘Why should I have to go first? Supposing the thing breaks just as I get to the top? Have you seen the rocks down here?’
‘Well, if it breaks we’ll know it’s unsafe and go back to Picton,’ said Jacquie sweetly.
Jim gave her a withering look as he reluctantly climbed into the pig net, which had by now landed on the tiny deck of the launch. The skipper waved his hand, there was a most terrifying screech of tortured metal, and Jim, clinging desperately to the mesh of the pig net, rose slowly and majestically into the air, whirling slowly round and round.
‘I wonder if he gets net-sick as well as sea -sick?’ said Jacquie.’”
― Gerald Durrell, Two In The Bush

Stowaway To Mars – John Wyndham. I bought this at a second hand book stall in the early 1990s back home at a market in Milton Keynes, and I’d just never got around to reading it. The last few years saw a sudden burst of enthusiasm from myself for this author and so I dug out this paperback and decided 2024 was finally the year, probably about 30 years late. The story is of a competition to be the first to get a man to Mars. It follows a British team, and all the intrigue and politics connected with such a mission. First published in 1936, this is a fascinating insight into how the future was seen way back then. So many things that weren’t predicted make a huge difference to the way the world works nearly a hundred years later, that this future feels quite primitive. For example, the media interest in the project is almost entirely newspaper-based, how old-fashioned that looks in the days of instant 24/7 news via the internet. Even the way society works and interacts is still very much class-based. Not only is this worth reading for the story, it’s ironically a fun journey back in time.

“There was a short interval of stupefaction before he regained presence of mind enough to relatch the locker and go in search of a pistol. Back in the living-room he reported: “There’s a stowaway aboard, Dale.”
The four stared at him as the remark sank in. Dale grunted, scornfully: “Impossible. The ship’s been guarded all the time.”
“But there is. I saw—”
“And searched before we left.”
“I tell you I saw his foot in the chart locker. Go and look for yourself.”
“You’re sure?”
“Dead certain.”
Dale rose from the control desk and held out his hand.
“Give me that pistol. I’ll settle with him. Now we know where the extra weight was.””
― John Wyndham, Stowaway To Mars

Brunel, The Man Who Built Britain – Steven Brindle. The main shopping centre in Bletchley, where I grew up, was named The Brunel Centre, I’ve no idea why. To child me it was just a name of someone from the past. It wasn’t until I seriously started looking into history that I realised how important this man was to the industrialisation of, not only Britain, but the world! Now, many years later, I have a high respect for what this man achieved so when I came across this book about his life I decided I wanted to know more, also I love trains. Like most biographies, this starts at the beginning, with his parent’s history, and then goes on to tell about Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his achievements as well as his struggles, although it does so by project, rather than entirely chronologically. For instance, it tells the stories of the railways, then the bridges and then ships, even though often these things were happening concurrently. This helps understand the processes, but seeing the bigger picture of his life involves flicking back and forth to remember what was happening at the same time. It’s not too much of a disadvantage and I learnt a whole lot more than I did before I picked up this book. Brunel really was someone to name buildings after, although I still don’t know why he had one in Bletchley.

“For nine weeks, Brunel laboured away for up to 20 hours a day, searching for this ideal route, mostly living on horseback, retreating to country inns when the light faded and working on into the night, snatching a few hours’ sleep, then starting again at dawn. William Townsend seems to have faded from the picture within a few weeks: Brunel had become impatient with his comparatively slack working hours. Instead he called on the services of various local surveyors to help him take levels and annotate the Ordnance Survey maps.”
― Steven Brindle, Brunel, The Man Who Built Britain

High Fidelity – Nick Hornby. This is a very famous novel, and I never really had any impulse to read it, that is until a chance conversation with a friend drew it properly to my attention. I have so many books in my “To Be Read” pile, but I like it when I spontaneously buy a book I feel I need to read then and there and go off on an adventure I hadn’t seen coming. This is what happened here. It’s a story about life not going the way it’s supposed to, and it was due to the fact there are many of these, that I hadn’t really paid too much attention to this one. However as a big fan of the 1990s, for me, the nostalgia in this book was palpable. The main characters would have been way older than me at the time of its setting, but just the atmosphere of England in the 90s is exactly what I look back fondly on. As well as books I love music, and so teenage me was often searching out vinyl in record shops, of the type depicted here, there was one just by the Brunel Centre! As stated, this could be just another “bad relationship” book, but there’s something both amusing and thoughtful about the insights of Rob, the main character, as he deals with (or doesn’t) what life throws at him, as well as the moral issues of just what type of a man is he? All this makes this more than just another relationship novel. Along with the tone and the memories of better times, this seals the deal for me. Where did the England of the 1990s go? I genuinely think it was the best decade I’ve lived in.

“People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands – literally thousands – of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

As for me, I had started various new projects but hit, not writer’s block – for I knew exactly what I wanted to write, but something preventing me from really getting into it. I’ve said elsewhere this was the realisation that I knew my previous work could be improved. I’d learnt so much up until now and being a self-published writer, I was in a position to go back and redraft, and so I realised this is what I needed to do: redraft EVERYTHING before I could go forward! Therefore my goal, my need, for 2024 became clear.

Amidst a change job in my real life, one day I may make enough money to live from my writing, things became busy, however, I was able to complete Humanity, Framed of Rathgar, Indoldrum and the first series of Beck’s Game; I’m currently halfway through the second series so hope to get that out before the end of the year. Although I was surprised at how much I enjoyed properly reading these works again, I feel at ease now that they have been pushed to a higher bar.

This leaves me the relatively easy task of Series Three and some other bits and bobs for next year, and then I’m clear to get going on something new. What that is, I don’t know – if I continue with a stalled project or want to go from scratch with one of many new ideas I’ll wait to see how I feel. Of course, in addition, there is much to be read. Bring on 2025!

Buy Two In The Bush – Gerald Durrell
Buy Stowaway To Mars – John Wyndham
Buy Brunel, The Man Who Built Britain – Steven Brindle
Buy High Fidelity – Nick Hornby

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Dune: It Stresses Me

Jumping On The Bandwagon

With the release of Dune Part Two, I’ve decided to blog about how things Dune related tend to end up stressing me out; sometimes for literary reasons, sometimes my own stupid fault. A long, long time ago, the late nineties to be not that precise, I acquired a copy of Dune; a second hand paperback, published in 1987. I knew this was considered a classic science-fiction novel and I planned on reading it at some point.

These were the days before you automatically checked the internet for information, therefore I had no real idea of what Dune was about, or that there was more than what I saw at face value. As it was, it took me a while to realise it was the first of a series of books. I have no problems with a series of novels, but because I am an “all or nothing” type of chap. I knew if I started this I was going to be in it for the long run and so, as I had other things I was reading at the time, put it to one side.

Time passed. I read loads and then moved to Ireland. In the move, I was only able to take some of my books and so my copy of Dune ended up in a box at my parents’ house. It was there waiting for me so I wasn’t going to buy a new copy, but as it was in another country. When I visited home I had other things on my mind than routing through old boxes, and my To Read Pile was big enough as it was

Time passed. I read loads and eventually moved back to England. On my return I was able to finally put together the two parts of my library (the books I had in Ireland and those I’d left behind). In doing so I found all sorts of interesting things, including my copy of Dune.

Looking at the Wikipedia page there are five further books written by the original author, Frank Herbert. The full series is:

Dune (1965)
Dune Messiah (1969)
Children of Dune (1976)
God Emperor of Dune (1981)
Heretics of Dune (1984)
Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)

Then there is all the other stuff, it had become a whole universe. Not only were there loads of short stories and comics by Herbert, but after his death in 1986, his son Brian Herbert, along with Kevin J. Anderson, wrote more, a lot more; prequels and sequels. Just looking at in-universe lists is somewhat overwhelming. For someone like me, this was very stressful; where do I stop? I don’t have the time, or wall space, for all of this. Stress number one. But is does raise a question, at what point dose all this universe building put people off? I’ll be coming back to that.

It was on a trip to Helsinki that I finally got around to reading this now long-overdue novel, and I loved it. The story gripped me to the point I was missing out on seeing the Nordic city I had gone there for. In the long hours of light, I stayed up late to read and read. I got a boat across to Suomenlinna and nearly stayed onboard when we got there, I hadn’t noticed. And then… I always get to an airport earlier than I need to. I’ll happily be in the departure lounge hours before it’s required; and so on my return, I did exactly this. I was safe, I was at the gate, nothing could go wrong. I could relax and just read. I was nearly finished at this point, knowing I would probably complete the book on the plane home. I read and read. I read some more, I had lost all awareness of what was going on around me. As I began to feel the remaining pages reduce I looked up. How had I read so much? I was early, but not THAT early? I looked at the clock. It was one hour after my flight had been due to depart.

I absolutely can lose all track of the world around me, but this seemed excessive. How had I missed the call for the flight? The queues for the gate? I had checked in, had my name been called over the tannoy? How had so much time passed and I hadn’t noticed? I was angry with myself, and quite fairly I thought, I blamed Frank Herbert! Stress number two.

I mean, there are far worse places to be stranded than Helsinki, in fact, I rather like the city and hadn’t really wanted to come home, but it is expensive.

Standing up, I realised I needed to do something about this and so went to find someone who worked for the airline. I asked about my flight and was quickly pointed to one of the displays. The flight had been delayed, and the plane hadn’t even arrived yet. I’d not missed my way home, but even so, if they had announced this I’d been so engrossed that I’d not heard. I genuinely believe that had the plane left I wouldn’t have noticed. I remember nothing of sitting in that departure lounge, other than Arrakis.

Obviously, I was enjoying what I was reading. The story and characters are compelling and the world created is huge, it’s no surprise there is so much space for all these extra stories. It’s inviting as not only is the universe big, it’s so clearly defined.

The problem was now I had read the first, was I committed? It felt like it. However, I decided I wanted to read something else and would decide if I would take up the next novel, Dune Messiah, later. I got busy again and more years passed. All that time I felt like I was a fraud. Yes, I’d read the first novel, but until I’d read more I couldn’t tell anyone, I’d only done one-sixth of the job! I was a cheat! People who knew what they were talking about would roll their eyes and think, ‘He’s one of them.’ Oh, the shame!

And then I heard they were making a new film. As stated elsewhere, I don’t like watching adaptions if I’ve read the book. I don’t see how changing the format can do it justice, so much has to be missed or restructured. (But if anyone wants to make a film of my books, I’m up for it, just show me the money!) I also don’t like what I saw in my head being replaced with new images. For this reason, and others, I hadn’t watched the 1984 David Lynch version and I’d decided that I wouldn’t this new version either, until everyone I know told me I was wrong, that I really needed to see this. They had persuaded me to a degree. If I didn’t, was I missing out? More than this, because it had been some years since that trip to Finland, how much did I actually remember? Did I need to read it again, just to preserve my own personal version of this story, before these new images were put in my mind? These are things I do worry about, so, stress number three.

I did watch the first part, and I enjoyed it. As much as the imagery is spectacular, I didn’t feel it was telling me what remembered was wrong. And so I went to see Part Two, just as good. Have my life’s principles been wrong? More stress.

And now I have to decide on the other books. But as they are books, I will need to read Dune again first as the films won’t have all the detail I need – this is spiralling out of control. Dune is a great book, but it’s very stressful.

Buy Dune – Frank Herbert

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Free Humanity! It’s Out Now!

30 January 2024

FREE on February 1st as a Kindle! Click here!

Middlestead is just a quiet, suburban English town, but when some residents form a local science fiction group, they discover they can manipulate their neighbours in ways they never realised. Soon plans are in place and something is brewing that will lead to disaster… and none of this is science fiction – it could actually happen… couldn’t it?

Have you ever just gone too far? Do you believe everything you are told?

Humanity – Out Now

To celebrate my reissue of Humanity I’m giving away Kindle versions of the novel on Thursday 1st February.

You can buy either a paperback (£8.99) or download for your Kindle (£2.75 or see above), or read as part of Kindle Unlimited. Click here.

‘That’s the point,’ said Tony. ‘We do all believe what we’re told by the radio, just as we’ve been talking about with weather reports. Each time they get it wrong, we complain as if it’s the first time it’s happened.’
‘Yeah, but,’ interrupted Allan, ‘the weather is different to an alien invasion. We don’t know how to predict the weather, the Met Office do. We also know that aliens are not about to invade.’

The 1990s are my decade, and so this is a book set during an era l love, it’s about science-fiction, a subject I love. I’m really proud of this novel and if you want to read something fun, dark and just that bit different, read Humanity!

As posted in my last blog, I’ve decided to re-edit my work as I believe I can improve on the content in various ways. If I’m going to ask for money for these things, they had better be as good as I can make them. One of the benefits of self-publishing is I can do this. What’s more, as a writer you never finish writing your stories. There’s always points that you think in hindsight could be changed, from small details no one else will notice to bits of continuity I missed.

Writing a whole novel is hard work and so at the beginning, during my first novel, Humanity, I had to learn a lot! And I’m still learning. However, during the process of doing this project at the end of last year and the beginning of this one, I was really pleased with the improvements.

I was able to run the whole text through better spell-checkers and it found things which, although I’ve read the thing so many times, I’d completely missed! As a writer as good as you may be with English grammar and spelling, being so close to the text means your brain will tell you what you assume it says rather than what it does. I can’t afford an editor, and beta reading can be hard to organise, so it was up to me to do the whole lot, well me and the program I used.

It did make me smile when it decided it didn’t like turns of phrase I stubbornly refuse to amend, for example when a character “dashed hurriedly”, I love that even though half of it is redundant, it just sounds good to my eyes along with “cacophony of sound” (and reminds me of a Doctor Who story from the 1970s – The Deadly Assassin).

I’ve also redone the cover image and I’m so much more pleased with it than my first attempt at designing my own book covers. This is a book that even though it’s been over 20 years since I first wrote it, still has a lot to say about life today… in fact, I’d say it’s more relevant than ever. Happy reading.

‘What if a real scientific person calls up and says it’s all ridiculous?’ asked Allan.
‘Then another scientist will call and confirm everything we’ve just said,’ offered Scott. ‘They tend to do that.’

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

2023 In Reading

My reads, not the books that came out this year…

Once again it’s time for me to look back at my year in reading and recommend four favourites. This year I actually made a spreadsheet to keep track of the books I had finished; I’m getting old you know, the memory is not what it was. I’ve mentioned in previous year end blogs I tend to get everything I’ve read over the twelve months together and put them in a pile, just to see it; last year I even took a photograph, so I did the same this year! I’m quite pleased with that.

This year began with a look back at my Norwegian trip from the previous December. Investigating I came across several authors from that Nordic country and by far my favourite novel from all of that was Doppler by Erlend Loe, which I’ve already blogged about.

As the year progressed I completed a lot of books I’d been meaning to read for years, including one I bought as a kid in 1989, as well as discovering writers and novels I had known nothing about this time last year. I always like that idea, when I come to write the 2024 version of this blog, what will I have found and enjoyed in the next twelve months that I am ignorant of now?

As always I want to try and avoid spoilers, but just give you a taste of what to expect if you were to read any of the listed works below.

The Invisible Man – H. G. Wells. Yes it’s shocking it took me until 2023 to get round to this. Most known for War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells was one of the pioneers of science-fiction to the general English reading audiences, at least in Britain. The Invisible Man is about exactly what you would imagine, a man who is invisible. Published in 1897 it’s a short book, but as the story starts in the middle, at least for the titular character, there is a lot of ground already covered. There’s probably something to be said about how this novel deals with themes like the dangers of messing with sciences we don’t fully understand yet, but how do we learn if we don’t take risks? That is an interesting issue to discuss; but how much Wells intended this to be a message, and how much he just wanted to have fun with the concept of what would happen if people were invisible is a debate which would probably ruin the enjoyment of what at the time would have been a madcap adventure for an audience not as used to the realities and fictions of science gone wild as we are.

“Great and strange ideas transcending experience often have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible considerations.”
― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning – Laurie Lee. Published in 1969, this is the second in a trilogy recalling English poet Laurie Lee’s life. A few years ago I discussed the first in this series of books, Cider With Rosie, and as I very much enjoyed that I got hold of the other two. Whilst Cider With Rosie tells of life growing up in a small village in the Cotswolds, properly rural life in the early part of the twentieth century, this second autobiography details what happened when Lee left home; and he did it in style. The first few chapters deal with his life as a tramp in the south of England in the summer of 1934. By “tramp” I mean someone who just walked around England, which is not quite the image we have today. These were mainly men who led a nomadic life, wandering about the country, sometimes renting rooms for a while in the various towns they visited. Some would work where they could, or they would sleep out in the open, carrying all they owned with them. In the 1930s England and before, as life and transport was different especially for the lower classes, this lifestyle was not as alien to people then as it is to us today. Laurie Lee earnt his money by playing the violin, or finding building work.

After a while he leaves England and gets on a boat for northern Spain. Once more travelling on foot Lee makes his way, through the small villages and towns of that country, making observations and making do with the simplicity this lifestyle offered. I love this and I would say it’s my favourite book I’ve read this year, if I was in the author’s shoes back then, I think I would have done the same. The worlds encapsulated in this book are both idyllic and hard, ones I felt totally immersed in and so wish I would have been able to explore first hand, just like the Laurie Lee did.

“I felt once again the unease of arriving at night in an unknown city–that faint sour panic which seems to cling to a place until one has found oneself a bed.”
― Laurie Lee, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

Brick Lane – Monica Ali. Brick Lane is a real street in the east of London, I’ve been there many times, however the name is also a shorthand for the area of the city with a large Bengali population, as such this book, published in 2003, deals with life within that community from the inside. It’s writer, Monica Ali, was herself born in Bangladesh, where this tale begins, and moved to England when she was small so she knows what she is talking about. The novel is about Nazneen who is sent away from her homeland by her family to marry a man she doesn’t know in London. As the book explores her getting used to the strangeness of the city, whilst not being able to speak the language, we the reader get an insight into what life is really like for such women who really have had similar experiences not just in the East End of London but across the world, and at the same time get to see how different their culture can be to ours. This is a honest book, it tells the good and the bad and leaves the reader to decide for themselves if prices that are paid are worth it or not.

“You can spread your soul over a paddy field, you can whisper to a mango tree, you can feel the earth between your toes and know that this is the place, the place where it begins and ends. But what can you tell to a pile of bricks? The bricks will not be moved.”
― Monica Ali, Brick Lane

An Inspector Calls – J. B. Priestley. I read a lot of plays this year. A few years ago I’d bought a compendium of fourteen well known works that I feel I should know, and then I put it in the To Be Read pile to get on with other books. 2023 was the year I read it all! I may save some of the others from this tome for a later blog, so I’ll just take one for now. Like a lot of plays I believe you need to see them first if you can, rather than read them. As I’ve so far failed to go and see this play, and because I keep myself from spoilers, I therefore knew nothing much about it. It was first preformed in Moscow in 1945 because it seems all the theatres in London were already booked with other plays, it ended up in the UK’s capital the following year.

I really don’t want to spoil this one for you, so what I will say is that at a posh family dinner an Inspector calls, an incident that may well change the lives of everyone present. Something has happened and this family are to be questioned about it, even if there may not seem to be any kind of initial connection. There, I really hope I haven’t said too much. But there is a good question here about our culpability in things even if we feel we are innocent to them. Maybe in 2024 I’ll get to see it on a stage somewhere, and whilst I know the outcome, I hope there are many who will see it as it was supposed to be seen, with little prior knowledge.

“If you think you can bring any pressure to bear on me, Inspector, you’re quite mistaken. Unlike the other three, I did nothing I’m ashamed of or that won’t bear investigation.”
― J. B. Priestly, An Inspector Calls

Buy The Invisible Man – H.G Wells
Buy As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning – by Laurie Lee
Buy Brick Lane – by Monica Ali
Buy An Inspector Calls – by J. B. Priestly

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Recent Interview

With SmartCherry (Twitter @SmartCherrysTho )

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being interviewed by SmartCherry. You can find his YouTube channel here.

These days I’m used to video chatting with people, as most of us are; it’s strange to watch it back though. I’m pleased to say, although I move about a bit and use the word “err” a little to much I think I come across alright. He’s very professional, you can see which one of us is used to it!

I suggested the title. If you want to watch me ramble on about my books click below.

Check out some of his other interviews as there are lots of good ideas and advice from other writers.

Thank you SmartCherry for taking the time to chat to me.

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

How Not To Arrange A Bookshelf

I Don’t Think There Is One Easy Solution

I recently moved homes and as I had been living in a smaller place a lot of my books had been stored in boxes. This to me was a great tragedy, but now I have the space to have most of my books proudly displayed on bookshelves. In fact rebuilding the units and unpacking my books were the first things I did. (It always is when I move.)

My first very important rule is: only books on a bookshelf. I can’t cope with books and then ornaments or “stuff” placed in the remaining space in front, and books should not be put lying on their side resting on the tops of the correctly shelved ones. Some people’s arrangements can make me come out in hives!

My OCD would not cope with this.

To me this is all to be taken for granted, but I then hit upon the issue of how would I arrange my books? In my previous home, when I had the space to do it, I’d had this odd system of arranging my books by size, I’d done this for years. I liked the nice lines on the shelves. Where possible I had tried to buy books by the same authors in the same format so that they could all sit together, I had achieved this with my John Stienbecks and Graham Greenes but there were others that I had had to split. My James Herriots had on odd one out and there was so much difference in my Agatha Christies it was murder trying to organise them.

The thing is I’m not alone in this odd habit. During the first lockdown BBC News reported that a cleaner in a library had rearranged all the books, also by size. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-52412655. Forget Dewey Decimal this makes more sense to me.

However as my book collection is now so random I’ve decided to rethink things. Alphabetical order doesn’t seem right so I’ve gone by subject, although I’ve still mostly separated fiction from non fiction. Therefore all my books on Ancient Greece are together just before my collection on Rome, my copy of Colin Thubron’s In Siberia is grouped with my books on the history of Russia, whilst George Orwell sits next to my complete works of Winnie The Pooh (I’m not quite sure how that happened).

The problem was it felt more correct to put Aesop’s Fables and Homer with my non fiction on Ancient Greece than with my books on modern Greece. Where possible I tried to keep author’s works together so Down And Out In Paris And London is in non fiction but now so is Animal Farm and Keep The Aspidistra Flying, this seems ok, but my Bill Bryson books are scattered amongst my several actual book shelf units which is a bit of an annoyance and it was about here that I realised it was all falling apart.

Andrew Marr’s A History Of The World should really be next to A Short History Of Nearly Everything, but that didn’t work. Then in the fiction, which was originally ordered by location, I reached things like E.M Forster’s A Room With A View which is set in more than one country and don’t start talking to me about anthologies.

Of course at the end of the day I know where to find a specific book when I need it and no one is actually going to judge me on this (you’d better not) so I can live with it… and where possible they are still in size order, but I continue to find myself fiddling with it all every now then, shaking my head and questioning why I was so stupid to put that book there and correcting it.

The same works for everyone as I believe a bookshelf is insight into the person, not just the titles of the books on it, but how they are arranged; so frankly do what you want with what space allows, and don’t let anyone else tell you any different.

I’ll probably always be changing mine, but that’s fine because not only do I enjoy reading but also, now that I have the space to properly display them (of which I am very grateful), I have fun arranging and rearranging my collection, because basically I love books.

Follow My Blog

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.