Looking Back at the Books Read in 2023

Grand total of 123 books read in 2023. Roughly divided up into 21 Non Fiction, 23 General Fiction, 63 Recently Written Crime Fiction (after 1960), 13 Older Republished Crime Fiction,  and 3 Children's Fiction. (I lost count twice and gave up!)

Although I went to two large and three small charity second-hand book sales,  almost most all books read were borrowed from the library

Thanks to the publishers who are bringing back stories that have been lost in time, I've read many from the 1940's and 50's and was very sad in March when I heard there would be no more from Dean St Press in the Furrowed Middlebrow imprint because of the death of Rupert Heath the founder of the company. British Library Crime Classics are still going strong, now reprinting one each month. 

I also found that the early Donna Leon books were being reprinted and the library had them in stock so have caught up on many that I'd not had the chance to read before.

Looking through the details of the 123 books I've read there weren't many that stand out as absolutely wonderful and to be remembered forever - which is sad I guess - but doesn't really matter. However the books most enjoyed most were..............

E.C.R. Lorac - Death of an Author. Crime Fiction. ( British Library Crime Classic Published 2023 Originally Published 1935). Vivian Lestrange is a well known author of a mystery book but he's a total recluse. The only people who've seen him are his house keeper and his secretary. When he suddenly vanishes Inspector Bond and Chief Inspector Warner don't know what to believe and later a burned body in a remote part of the countryside seems to have a connection. This is the 9th by this author that BLCC have reprinted, one of their best authors and this title has been out of print since it's first edition. A very good story.
Ann Cleeves - The Rising Tide. Crime Fiction. (Published 2022). This is the 10th in the Vera Stanhope series (although there have been many more TV programmes made). Much of this story is set on Lindisfarne, the island reached by a causeway from the Northumbrian mainland. Friends who went there on a school trip return every five years  for a reunion and now they are almost at retiring age.  Soon there is a murder that looks like a suicide but is the reason a modern one or something from a hidden past. Excellent story as always. It's already turned into a TV episode which was on over Christmas. I thought it wasn't as good as the book.
Anthony Horowitz - The Twist of a Knife. Crime Fiction (Published 2022) This is the 4th book in which Horowitz  writes himself into the book as one of the main characters. He is again helping Daniel Hawthorne who is a private investigator but this time it's Horowitz himself who is accused of the crime of murder. The woman killed is a theatre critic who has written a very nasty piece about his latest play. An excellent story where it becomes difficult to decide between fact and fiction.
Anne Perry - The Traitor Among Us. Crime Fiction (Published 2023) This is the 5th in a series that features Elena Standish, photographer and MI6 agent - as was her Grandfather in years past. It is 1934 when retired MI6 Agent John Repton's body is found near Wyndham Hall in the Cotswolds. He was known to have been investigating the ties that the Wyndham family have with fascist sympathisers. Elena's sister Margo is about to become engaged to the  Lady Wyndham's brother and unaware that her sister is a spy invites her to a house party. The atmosphere becomes tense as the party meet with the man about to be King and his mistress Wallace Simpson. Who is the traitor in the party?                                                                                                                        

Sadly Anne Perry died earlier this year so that will be the last of these really well written stories.

(Another "ending" this year was the last of the Dr. Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths - although she has other crime series to continue with.)

Nina De Gramont - The Christie Affair. Fiction.(Published 2022) Another story of what might have happened during Agatha Christies mysterious 11 day disappearance in 1926. Written mainly from the perspective of Nancy - Archie Christie's mistress. A good story and well written.

E. Arnot Robertson- Ordinary Families. Fiction. (Published 1933) This is a Virago Modern Classic reprint. Lallie is one of four children of the eccentric Rush family. Their whole life revolves around sailing and inter family rivalries at Pin Mill in Suffolk. As Lallie grows to adult hood she both loves and hates her ordinary family trying to make a place for herself in the shadow of her beautiful sister Margaret. Eventually she finds a man she wants to hold onto even though she may only be his second love.

Kristin Hannah - The Great Alone. Fiction. (Published 2018) 13 year old Leni is caught up in her parents tumultuous marriage. Her father Eart has changed since his return from Vietnam yet her mother Cora can't leave him. His latest crazy idea is moving them all to Alaska. Luckily  Matthew, the only boy her age at their small Alaskan school is the one person there who seems to understand Leni. The descriptions of the remote landscapes and wildness and increasingly wild and violent behaviour of Eart form the main part of the story. Then two tragedies tear Leni and Mathew apart.

Kristin Hannah - Winter Garden. Fiction. (Published 2014). Meredith and Nina Whitson are sisters and very different. Their mother has always been a mystery to them, she appears to be a cold Russian woman. When all three come together at their fathers death bed he has one last promise to extract from all of them. From the apple orchards of Washington State in the year 2,000 to Leningrad in the 1940's and the fairy story their mother tells them and then onto Alaska the sisters realise they didn't know their mother at all. A very good  wide sweeping story - sad in places.

Rory Clements - The English Fuhrer. Crime Fiction. (Published 2023) At the end of 1945 former spy Professor Tom Wilde has returned to teaching at Cambridge University and a quiet family life, until a phone call from a senior MI5 boss draws him back into the aftermath of war and the people who are still Nazis or Communists. There are rumours of chemical warfare and a Blacklist of people still to be killed. This list includes Tom and his wife Lydia who has managed to talk her way into training  to be a doctor in London.

Stella Gibbons - The Weather at Tregulla. Fiction (Furrowed Middlebrow Reprint 2021 Originally Published 1962). Una Broadbent is 19 and desperate to leave the "boring" Cornish countryside and get to London to start her acting career. The death of her mother means this isn't possible but her disappointment of being stuck working on her father's violet farm melts away with the arrival in the village for the summer of  artist Terence and his sister Emmeline. An interesting little story of life in the early 60's when even then the locals were moaning about the tourists.

H.E.Bates - Fair Stood the Wind for France. Fiction. (Published 1944). When John Franklin crash lands his Wellington bomber in occupied France in the Second World War, he has two things to concern him - the safety of his crew and his badly damaged arm. The family of a mill-owner risk their lives to hide him, find him doctors and look after him until he is well again. During that summer he falls in love with Françoise, the daughter of the family and together they have to escape as German patrols get closer.

Louise Doughty - A Bird in Winter. Fiction. (Published 2023) One day Heather gets up from a meeting in her office and walks out, not even going home before going on the run. The book goes back and forward in her life before this - eventually telling her story. She was in the army and then worked for the government as did her father before her. She changes her identity several times and reached Iceland before she feels safe - although that might be only temporary.

I've mentioned that several publishers are bringing back fiction from the first half of C20 but Little Toller Books are one of the few(? I think) reprinting Non Fiction with their wonderful series of Nature Classics. I've enjoyed these this year.........

Juliette De Bairacli Levy - Wanderers in the New Forest. Non Fiction (Little Toller Reprint 2023 Originally 1958). Know as the 'grandmother of herbalism' Juliette travelled widely researching and experimenting with herbal remedies. This book tells the story of her 3 years living in a small home in the New Forest and raising her two small children in the woods. Wild swimming, foraging and stories of the Gypsies who lived around her, this is a fascinating look at a way of life that would be impossible now.
Robert Gibbings - Sweet Thames Run Softly. Non Fiction. (Originally Published 1940) Gibbings was an artist and engraver and wrote this book about a gentle trip down the Thames taken in 1939/40 just before and after the outbreak of war. An interesting book of nature and anecdotes.
John Wyatt - The Shining Levels. Non Fiction (Originally Published 1973).  The authors story of his time working as a forester in the Lake District. The Shining Levels is about the early days, before the National Park when he is working for one of the landowners at coppicing, hedging and ditching while living in a small rough hut - which comes with the job. He became the first Lake District National Park Ranger.

I'm looking forward to two more of their books, firstly 'The Allotment' by David Crouch and Michael Morpurgo's  'All around The Year'. . The second is reserved at the library and the first I've asked them to purchase.

So........... it's time to start the new page - Books Read 2024. I wonder what book treasures I will find.

Thank you to everyone who has suggested books for me to read this year and to people who say they enjoy my library book photos and book reviews.

Happy Reading!

Back Tomorrow

Sue