This year for Christmas I got much wanted plant milk maker and a dose of Covid....
We had planned on a bit of a break between Christmas 2023 and the New Year, which we got. Not quite as hoped though. Was going to spend what was probably going to be hot weather doing a final yearly review catch up and clearing the decks ready to be more organised in 2024 (HA!) but we got Covid over Christmas which on the upside meant quite a bit of reading got done. On the downside, sod all of anything else. Still coughing up a lung on a regular basis but let's start as we're hoping to go on.
Few new books snuck into the piles during the break:
Dead Sweet by Katrín Júlíusdóttir (treated myself to this one)
The Beacon by P.A. Thomas, set in Byron Bay, out 30th January from Echo Publishing
Madukka the River Serpent by Julie Janson - this one had been on the list to be get for ages but as usual I stuffed up.
Lots and lots of other books got added to the wish list including Punishment by Ferdinand von Schirach, The Tea Ladies by Amanda Hampson, Killing for Country by David Marr and a catchup of Tim Ayliffe's books.
In terms of what I got read over the break:
Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta is our January bookclub read and I think it's going to be a very very good gathering. So much to think about, so many bookmarks in that book, can predict frequent rereadings.
I also noticed that the copy of Paradise by Patricia Wolf was getting up there in the reading pile and to my shame I'd not read the first DS Walker novel - Outback. So I fixed that.
Also sat down and read The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes the minute it arrived. What a rollercoaster that was! More in a review (which I promise will be very soon).
I'd also been dipping in and out of São Paulo Noir and finished that over the break.
The book I'm currently reading is Kill Your Husbands by Jack Heath (my partner did enquire whether it was fictional or a manual... we've both got Covid and there is an argument that we've been tetchy).
Meanwhile there's a thunderstorm raging overhead and it's technically the first day back at work - coughing and spluttering and feeling just this side of death warmed up aside.
Time to press on.