Features and blogging

The best way to deal with New Year resolutions, I find, is simply not to have any. Well, I guess I do have them but I call them projects. This year’s project is to plough through my bedside book stack, taking the stories in no particular order but being sure to select them one at a time, instead of doing the random dipping for which I’m better known (Gemini, sorry).
Some of these books date back to my birthday in June, some further still, some were written in the 1980s but are still relevant and catchy, and some are borrowed. Some are on my Kindle, others on Audible, and then there’s the rows and rows of actual books on my shelves.
Begged, borrowed or bought, here’s what I’m looking at as we kick off the year:

GIFTED
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee – Day 3 of the new year and I’m 41 pages into one of my Christmas reads, about a Korean family living in Japan. Elegant and evocative, this turn-of-the-century book is about life as an expat in a foreign land. Beautiful so far.
Follow This Thread by Henry Eliot – Gifted to me from the same person who gave me Pachinko, I started it but lost the thread. I’ll pick it up again once I’m out of Japan (see above).
The Tunnel Through Time by Gillian Tindall – When I was growing up in 1970s north London, a popular book was The Fields Beneath by the same author, which told the historical tale of Kentish Town and its surrounds. The Tunnel takes an updated look at the city.
The Singapore Grip by JG Farrell – As an ex-expat, I will forever have the best of two worlds. Last June, when my sister was gifting me the London book (see above), a good friend visiting from Singapore was presenting me with this hefty tome, about The Red Dot just before the infamous crushing Japanese invasion. Reverence needed for this one.
Cassandra Darke by Posy Simmonds – I have actually finished this one, a picture book that was easy to speed through. Thanks go to my son, who took it off my Christmas book list. This was a great jaunt down the memory lane of all Simmonds’ fantastic picture books. These ‘cartoons’ are dense and hilarious stories, commentaries on life in north London. If you lived here in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and Noughties, you’ll spot many familiar characters.

BORROWED
The Tillerman Cycle by Cynthia Voight – There’s a series of books sitting patiently on my shelf that I must one day tackle. The series follows the fortunes of teen Dicey, a teen struggling to care for her siblings after their mother deserts them in a car park. It was recommended to me as I embarked on a writing course aimed at young adult (YA) fiction. Based in the US east coast of the 1980s, the stories contain strong teen themes of separation, anxiety, responsibility and family. The books have a retro feel but the topics are timeless and the stories beautifully told. I’ve read the first two (Homecoming and Dicey’s Song) but there’s a whole load still to go: A Solitary Blue, The Runner, Come a Stranger, Sons From Afar, Seventeen Against The Dealer. Yes I know, I might be some time.

BOUGHT
Truly, Madly, Guilty by Lianne Moriarty – Is the work of this author chick-lit? Not sure I really care, I love her sharp, insightful writing style and her dramatic story-building. Since writing this blog, Moriarty’s darkly comical books have been turned into several TV serials, like Big Little Lies. I adore them.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi – This one was on the recommended list of my YA course, specifically the section on ‘plotting and world-building’. But even so, I’ve seen it mentioned everywhere and it’s at the top of my queue.
The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders – Since writing this blog, the author – a very close family friend – died from a sudden illness. We all miss her to pieces, but what a legacy she left behind in her books, mainly from the YA genre. I show unashamed bias when I say that all her books are completely magical. I have yet to read this one but her most famous children’s books – Five Children on the Western Front – won the Costa Children’s Book Award 2014. Dear Kate, thank you for all the words, in person and print.

Thank goodness for the FB Bedside Table Bookclub that keeps me up to date on new reads. If I can just finish this stack before I get around to the recommendations on there…

What’s on your shelf this year?