Morning friends. I got some hard news this weekend - yesterday my grandfather passed away. It was pretty sudden and unexpected and I feel a bit in shock. Christmas this year is going to be very odd without him, not at all what unexpected when I started wrapping presents and decorating early.

Going to try and do some gentle reading and go on a walk today. Maybe after this I‘ll try and read one of my light festive reads from my winter games list.

I‘m not a big cosy mystery reader but the Christmas spirit won me over. I couldn‘t resist reading this one early for #wintergames - it‘s free on the audible plus catalogue if you have access to that 🥰

Nicely written, delightfully sweet and small-town-charming, this felt like it could really be a Netflix series which I would absolutely watch

I don‘t normally like books of the genre I call ‘down and out kinda guy isn‘t up to much‘ but this one, despite fitting into that genre perfectly, did win me over. Vernon is unemployed and spends time in different acquaintances‘ flats in Paris after being evicted. It‘s not very me on paper but the prose and the translation were top notch. That long final paragraph really hit me in the stomach.

Hard to review when I loved the book but hated the audio narration enough that it was hard to get through. I recommend this beautiful, sprawling, very human book about how we relate to objects & memories and fit into the world highly but do NOT get this audio. The narrator seemed to hate the mother and be determined to make her a pathetic airhead valley girl despite being… a serious and poignant main character? It was so hard to get past.

A really rare and valuable example of a science professor who knows what they‘re talking about when surveying neurology studies who is also an autistic person themselves able to talk about her lived experience. One of my favourite books on autism I‘ve read. Maybe the top one I‘d recommend to someone who struggles with the question ‘what is going on inside that persons head?‘ Super well written and informative

@TheSpineView #twofortuesday

1. The uk doesn‘t do thanksgiving so it‘s pretty much a random Thursday for me! I‘m meeting a friend for a pint after work and I‘ll probably watch some TikToks of some peoples lovely food and decorations, does that count as a plan?

2. The one time I ate thanksgiving dinner I had turkey, biscuits, mac and cheese and brown gravy and it was incredible! I can‘t be doing with the odd casseroles tho. That‘s my limit.

Got my audible credit today and used it on the #mistletoemaniacs team read for #wintergames2021! I think this is my stack fully assembled now and I can‘t wait to get started 🎄🥳🎄

@Clwojick

Thank you so much @monalyisha for sending my #newyearwhodis list! And thank you @LapReader for your list which I found SO interesting

Unfortunately Nothing But My Body doesn‘t seem to be available anywhere in the UK so I don‘t think that one will be possible right now, but I do have access to these four. The evening and the morning looked like I‘d understand it better if I‘d read Pillars of the Earth so I thought I‘d start there and move on to it

A horrible thing to read but the writing was so eerily beautiful it made this a bizarre, disturbing pick. Less ‘horror‘ and more tragic, still, melancholy, grotesque. The prose here was incredible even though the things being described are things I probably never need to see on paper again.

So, so many triggers present here so please look them up if you‘re taking this as a recommendation!

Spending my lunch break in a coffee shop on my way to visit an art school for work - quite a nice work day! I‘ve discovered that Pret only gives you the Christmas cups if you get a Christmas drink though and that will be my villain origin story. Where are the festive cups for the plain black coffee drinkers??

Hello all! I‘ve decided to give hosting a readathon a try as part of the #wintergames2021 this year and I‘d love for you to join me for the #blackwellsbookshelfreadathon

Blackwells, one of the UK‘s biggest bookshops based in Oxford, published its ‘five foot shelf‘ lists of ideal ways to fill a bookshelf for different occasions and they‘ve just released their Christmas list of children‘s and adults‘ festive classics.

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1. I‘ve spent the whole week laid up with a sinus infection so I haven‘t photographed much! I did put some of my Christmas tinsel and candles up to make it feel wintry and cosy while I was stuck on the sofa so that‘s nice.

2. Not loads for me but my parents are away abroad for the first time since covid so yay for them!

3. Finally having some breathing room in my sinuses ugh

Alice Munro is such a master of the short story - I completely see why she won the Nobel Prize (which I don‘t always think with the winners…). These short stories were perfectly deep, they felt just the right length, they contained just the right amount of detail and character, and they were wonderful to read while sick with coffee on a winter night.

This felt slightly silly in the beginning but did grow on me. The love at first sight was VERY intense and sudden and then I was never completely sure why these two loved each other or wanted to be together. I did like how long the timeframe of the book was and how we saw them grow and change over about a decade. It made the ending feel emotional when we got to it

Guess who‘s off work with a sinus infection 😰 I‘m so busy at the moment and I love this time of year, but it seems like my body would rather have me lie in a heap instead.

I‘m trying to make progress on Dune but I‘m finding the writing style very difficult. It‘s not so much that it‘s complicated, it‘s just so repetitive and I feel like I‘m getting told every single thing three or four times. Maybe I‘ll take a break and read a romance instead

I can imagine this dividing opinions based on how people feel about true crime, but as someone who‘s had a lot of conversations about whether I‘m incurable bizarre for listening to My Favourite Murder I really appreciated it. I liked this humorous deep dive into the psychology behind being obsessed with true crime.

Here‘s some of my winter games tbr collection on my kindle for #wintergames2021 #mistletoemaniacs! I‘m so excited to get started

+26 early bird points
@Clwojick

I sent in my form for this the first minute I could and I am so excited! One of my all time fave Litsy events, bring on the new year and I can‘t wait to see who I‘m matched with 🥰

Thank you so much as always for your hard work putting this together @monalyisha

#nywd22 #newyearwhodis

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1. Dozens and dozens of places, but off the top of my head, the forest of Arden from as you like it and any of Neil Gaiman‘s worlds from his books, but particularly Sandman and stardust.

2. The opportunity to go to the theatre with my mum! We went so much when I was younger, and tonight was our first post-pandemic trip. It‘s one of my favourite things that I do with her, and it‘s wonderful to bring the tradition back.

Just home from seeing this adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s novel in the west end. The acting was amazing but the real star here was the design - the twisted up psychic fantasy world and an incredibly talented ensemble doing breathtaking puppetry wirh an eerie stranger things synth soundtrack.

I really recommend if you get the chance to go! Also Neil Gaiman is my king and I will love him forever.

So I‘m loving the text of this book but wondering if anyone else had big issues with the audible narrator? One of my biggest pet peeves is when a performer insists on doing it as a one man show rather than a reading of a text and injects all sorts of very noticeable creative decisions into how they pronounce things, pause and drag words out. It makes it feel a million miles from reading the book on paper

Also (see comment)

A #wintercosy readathon is exactly what I needed this Christmas. Thanks so much @PuddleJumper for hosting!

I‘ll keep my goals chill and just say I want to read as much as I can and enjoy as many gorgeous cosy reading sessions this winter as I can

Hello friends!

Looking back on 2021 I‘ve had a hard time motivating myself to read this year. Partly pandemic related, partly being busy, partly just some meh feelings overall. But I‘ve found I‘ve felt most motivated and got the most reading done when I‘m taking part in challenges so I‘d love to do more next year! I‘m already hyped for #booked2021 and I‘d love to learn about any other year long challenges that are running!

I think I‘m just gonna give up on Kae Tempest. I think this was the opposite of their intention, but this felt like a collection of overgeneralised platitudes about ‘art is this‘ and ‘creativity is that‘ and I felt judged for doing any errands or activities that aren‘t building symbolic creative fires in the wilderness, and that having a soul is incompatible with having Spotify and all media is bourgeois and hollow. Just exhausting to read.

Thank you so much for the tag @AmyK1 🥰

1. Reading tagged book on kindle and listening to the book of form and emptiness on audio - finishing the chunksters before the beginning of #wintergames2021

2. GR pretty much, I always tell myself I‘ll learn to do bullet journals and it never happens

3. Nigel Slater‘s new book I think? I really want it but it‘s so expensive 😥

#weekendreads @rachelsbrittain

Consider yourself tagged @moll

I enjoyed the parts that celebrated and romanticised Christmas and winter. Beth Kempton is great at describing simple things in beautiful ways.

I less liked the ‘self help‘ parts which came across quite privileged and ‘just be less stressed‘. As a person with chronic pain, being told that enjoying Christmas will be easier for me if I journal and do yoga every morning doesn‘t help a lot when my condition makes those specific things very painful.

A very well written, detailed but easy to read book about social mobility in Britain and particularly how it relates to the education system. A lot of data is covered in a readable way with a lot of academic citations to follow the data. Strongly recommend if you‘re interested in issues in the British education system (which is admittedly my job but others might also be interested!)

I seriously need the rest of London to catch up with me and my #almostchristmas spirit. Just discovered M&S isn‘t doing my favourite cranberry sausage roll this year and I don‘t know how I‘ll cope with this at all.

The good news though! If you have access to the audible plus catalogue I found this edition of A Christmas Carol read by Hugh Grant that‘s included for free. I‘m so excited to ring in December listening to this

#wintergames2021

I‘m always that person who starts Christmas far earlier than everyone and I think ppl irl is bored already!

For #wintergames2021 prep I thought I‘d start sharing things others might be interested and start a hashtag #almostchristmas for collecting recommendations and sharing tips and ideas - starting with this gorgeous, calming podcast.

If anyone else wants to use the hashtag and share recs I‘d love that!

@Clwojick @StayCurious

A really heartwarming romance with some surprisingly hard hitting moments. It all came together to make me NEED this couple together in my bones. One of the healthiest relationships I think I‘ve read in a novel which made me a little teary at times - 2 people in difficult situations helping, respecting and entertaining each other in whatever circumstances. My favourite part which is actually making me cry rn in the comments with a spoiler warning

1. I got this book for Christmas as a kid and have the fondest memories of reading it curled up in the cold, very happy memories

2. I like to read in a cosy cafe where I can see the weather outside, but any weather will do. Rain, storms, sunshine with any temperature, it‘s all good

3. I‘ve started my Christmas planning and I love it so much. The run up to Christmas makes me very happy

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

I waited until November 1 to start rewatching dash and lily because I‘m an incurable Christmas goblin. I wish I was a delightfully pretentious New York teen spending Christmas in strand books writing riddles and I cannot wait til December to start being this type of incurable aesthetic romantic again

So excited to sign up for #jolabokaflodswap this year! This is the one swap I‘m letting myself pay for this year, and I love how small scale and accessible it is. It‘s one of the things I look forward to most about the run up to Christmas and as always very grateful to @MaleficentBookDragon for organising!

Thank you so much @Jadams1776 for tagging me in #averymerrybingo for this year! I‘ve spent part of the evening plugging some of my holiday reads into the bingo board to try and get some of my #wintergames2021 reading planned out. I don‘t think I‘ll be able to resist starting my Christmas books til December, I‘m so excited 🧑‍🎄🎄

Here‘s my final total for #teamslaughter and #scarathlon2021! 24,559 spooky spooky points, many of which are just me relistening to most of My Favourite Murder. I had such a blast thank you so much to the hosts! Already deep in planning for the #wintergames2021

@Clwojick

When I‘m done being a Halloween goblin I will of course become a Christmas elf. I couldn‘t be more excited for the #wintergames2021 - my bf is a total grinch so I‘ll be sharing all my winter rom com enthusiasm with you lot.

Speaking of which, does anyone wanna drop any holiday romance recs for me??? I‘m getting my books together early this year!

@Clwojick @StayCurious

Not my favourite by Junji Ito but I could never dislike anything by him. I loved the cosmic horror and the strangeness, and I felt like it was less gross than some of his other ones. Quite a short, straightforward story.

#scarathlon2021 #teamslaughter @Clwojick +6

Very excited to round out october and #scarathlon2021 with another #20in4 readathon! I‘m going to aim for 20 hours between 28 and 31 Oct - doubt I‘ll manage it but we‘ll see!

@Andrew65

This was a really lovely cosy romance. I don‘t read a lot of romance but have been getting into it recently. I liked the setting and I liked seeing a career minded heroine who didn‘t have to change or become less ambitious to have character growth and fall in love. I now want to move to an Icelandic lodge where a gorgeous man will cook for me and help me catch escaped sheep.

#scarathlon2021 #teamslaughter @Clwojick +6

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1. Tagged book on audio, the northern lights lodge (such a cute romance!) on kindle and a very dense book about food security issues for work.

2. My boyfriend and I were both busy on our anniversary so we‘ve rescheduled it to Saturday and will be celebrating seven years together! Then spooky D&D on Sunday

3. Someone is finally fixing my bathroom door so I‘ll actually be able to close it for the first time in a month!

This was a sweet, good natured crime novel with enough turns in the plot to keep me interested. The Cornish setting was lovely and the attitude to mental health was compassionate. Not breaking the mould but not bad either. I could have done without the narrators appalling Irish accent though

#scarathlon2021 #teamslaughter @Clwojick +16

@TheSpineView #twofortuesday

1. I reread Pumpkinheads after reading it for the first time last year and I loved it so much, I see myself rereading it a lot more years!

2. I‘ve never lived somewhere where trick or treaters came before but it‘d be cute if they did now I‘ve moved! I‘ll probably buy some chocolate and then feed it to my friends if no one comes by. A lot of kids seem to live on my street and there‘s a nursery school so maybe?

Hi pals! I‘ve never really been into romance before, but recently I‘ve found they appeal to me and I have no idea what to read so I thought I‘d appeal for recommendations!

I‘m looking for sweet cosy things, good prose, with some humour and maybe interesting settings, and I‘m not offended by sex scenes at all but I‘m also not really looking for a lot of spice. Don‘t mind what genders or sexualities anyone is. Any authors I should check out??

Anyone else catch the new Halloween movie? It was… not what I expected?? Some very nice bits, and Judy Greer and Jamie Lee Curtis are my queens forever, but I found the violence overblown and gross which Halloween is normally better than. It also felt a lot like it was trying to make a lot of points then I was never sure what the points were?

#scarathlon2021 #teamslaughter @Clwojick +6

This was very long winded, and while there could be an interesting book about this murder case I don‘t think this was that book. It went into detail about aspects I didn‘t care about (including, literally, where the jury members got their lunch on different days) and very little on what the reasons behind any of this were. Very well researched and clearly working hard to give justice to the victim and be accurate but not rewarding to read.

Two not-very-scarathlon books I‘ve been ploughing through for work recently - a new project involved having detailed opinions about the content of graduate courses in global & planetary health and ecology which is… a long way from my degree. These were readable and helpful and I feel like I‘ve learned a tiny bit of what I need to know. What would I do without very short introductions?

#scarathlon2021 #teamslaughter @Clwojick +11

Do you ever have those days where everything just feels very on top of you? Work is very packed with new things I‘m not very trained yet on how to do and I haven‘t had time for my own projects in ages between that and moving flats. I can‘t even remember the last time I exercised which isn‘t ideal :/ Managed to slip out to Starbucks for a few mins at lunchtime for a muffin and some reading.

#scarathlon2021 #teamslaughter @Clwojick +1

Do you ever have those days where everything just feels very on top of you? Work is very packed with new things I‘m not very trained yet on how to do and I haven‘t had time for my own projects in ages between that and moving flats. I can‘t even remember the last time I exercised which isn‘t ideal :/ Managed to slip out to Starbucks for a few mins at lunchtime for a muffin and some reading.

#scarathlon2021 #teamslaughter @Clwojick +1

A slightly slower week for #scarathlon2021 for me but a couple hundred more points for #teamslaughter! I can‘t believe we‘re heading into the final week 😨 where did all that time go??

@Clwojick +1

A rare reread for me, I remembered reading this as a preteen and loving it and suddenly felt I needed to read it again. This was just as good as I remembered, so acidic and funny, and Julian Fellowes makes the aristocracy come across just the right amount of relatable and bizarre.

#scarathlon2021 #teamslaughter @Clwojick +6