,The time between the final proofs and the publication of a book is one of transition. Other than waiting for the cover reveal, there’s little for the author to do. Add the Christmas holiday into the mix and for me, the experience has become a dreamscape.

I’m filling the time with the usual: seasonal lurgy, festive fun, twiddling thumbs; first draft of next story. And filling in 2016 dates in my new desk diary: birthdays, MOT renewal, publication date (*Grin*) and so forth. In my personal diary I’ve listed the books I read throughout the year. For no other reason than I used to do it on Live Journal, I’m going to post them here.

Several of the later books are by writers I have come to know and admire via social media. It’s a continuing joy!

(Anything marked with an asterisk* is a reread)

1. H is for Hawk – Helen MacDonald
2. Mapp & Lucia (Volume One) – E F Benson *
3. The Snow Globe – Judith Kinghorn
4. Night Waking – Sarah Moss
5. Don’t Look Back – Karin Fossum
6. When God Was a Rabbit – Sarah Winman *
7. Mortal Love – Elizabeth Hand *
8. Waking the Moon – Elizabeth Hand *
9. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves – Karen Joy Fowler
10. Mitz – Sigrid Nunez
11. Vanessa and Her Sister – Priya Parmar
12. Howards End Is On The Landing – Susan Hill
13. The Humans – Matt Haig
14. Monday or Tuesday – Virginia Woolf
15. Life After Life – Kate Atkinson
16. Rough Music – Patrick Gale
17. The Sense Of An Ending – Julian Barnes
18. Suite Française –  Irène Némirovsky
19. Dark Witch – Nora Roberts
20. The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson
21. The River King – Alice Hoffman *
22. Weird Sister – Kate Pullinger
23. The Garden of Evening Mists – Tan Twan Eng
24. The Ocean At The End Of The Lane – Neil Gaiman *
25. Orkney – Amy Sackville *
26. The Children’s Book – A S Byatt *
27. Elizabeth is Missing – Emma Healey
28. The Color of Secrets – Lindsay Ashford
29. The Enchanted April – Elizabeth Von Arnim *
30. A Kind Man – Susan Hill
31. The Man In The Picture – Susan Hill
32. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë *
33. Landed – Tim Pears
34. On Green Dolphin Street – Sebastian Faulks
35. Fraud – Anita Brookner
36. Little Bits of Baby – Patrick Gale
37. Stonemouth – Iain Banks
38. The Various – Steve Angarde
39. The Stranger’s Child – Alan Hollinghurst
40. The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
41. The Mysteries of Glass – Sue Gee *
42. Legacy of Love – Caroline Harvey
43. Howards End – E M Forster *
44. Pattern of Shadows – Judith Barrow
45. We That Are Left – Juliet Greenwood
46. Inshallah – Alys Einion
47. Eden’s Garden – Juliet Greenwood *
48. The Summer of Secrets – Sarah Jasmon
49. The Snow Child – Eowyn Ivey
50. In the Kingdom of Mists – Jane Jakeman
51. The Bolter – Frances Osborne
52. The Kiss of Death – Marcus Sedgwick
53. Someone – Alice McDermott
54. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky – Patrick Hamilton *
55. How To Be Brave – Louise Beech
56. A Time For Silence – Thorne Moore
57. Island of Lost Girls – Jennifer McMahon
58. Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories
59. The Almost Moon – Alice Sebold
60. The Children Act – Ian McEwan
61. Girl Interrupted – Susanna Kaysen
62. Moments of Being – Virginia Woolf *
63. Brooklyn – Colm Tóibín
64. Wild Mary: A Life of Mary Wesley – Patrick Marnham *
65. Ridley Road – Jo Bloom
66. Seeking Carolina – Terri-Lynne DeFino
67. A Sweet Obscurity – Patrick Gale
68. Before the Fall – Juliet west
69. Negotiating With The Dead – Margaret Atwood
70. Carol – Patricia Highsmith *
71. Talk of the Toun – Helen MacKinven
72. The Orphan Choir – Sophie Hannah
73. Her Fearful Symmetry _ Audrey Niffenegger *
74. The Pure in Heart – Susan Hill
75. The House of Eliot – Jean Marsh
76. A Family Romance – Anita Brookner
77. The Peppered Moth – Margaret Drabble
78. Illumination Night – Alice Hoffman *
79. The Night Watch – Sarah Waters … still reading this…
80. A Writer’s Diary – Virginia Woolf (on-going,almost every day read…)