A year (and a bit) of reading
While I’ve never been one of those voracious readers who always has a book on the go, I’ve read steadily since before I started primary school. While at school and then college, the long holidays were great to do some serious reading, but even once I started work I found evenings, weekends, paid vacation, bank holidays and, for many years, a train commute into London of 25–45 minutes gave me plenty of opportunity to read – though to be honest, I did often prefer to doze or daydream on the train or tube!
Becoming a freelancer nearly 11 years ago (yikes!) put paid to that. I had the newly self-employed’s fear of missing out on work if I wasn’t available, and moreover found that slipping away from the chain of the 9–5 office meant my daily rhythms changed: I could embrace being a quite extreme night owl, and having a nap in the day/evening. It gave me flexibility about when I could go to the doctor, dentist or hairdresser, or just take a random afternoon off to meet a friend, or have a lie in after a late night out.
But that flexibility works both ways: I no longer have a clear delineation between ‘work’ and ‘non-work’ time. I nearly always take a 24-hour chunk off at the weekend to spend with my partner, but otherwise I will often work for a few hours over the weekend, and I regularly work between 6pm and 2/3am. Moreover, I often still work on paper, and if I’ve been doing this for most of a day, reading a book is less appealing (I will never get an e-reader – it has to be a physical book for me). I’ve made the effort occasionally, for example when the latest Philip Pullman came out (I’ve belatedly just ordered The Rose Field), but otherwise reading for pleasure seriously fell by the wayside.
After a serious case of tsundoku had developed, in the autumn of 2024 I decided to act, and began reading novels (and the odd non-fiction book) again, usually in bed last thing at night, even if it was just for 5–10 minutes. In the past year, I’ve managed to get through 13, pictured in no particular order below (and am about 20% of the way through All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker – so far, so good):
I tried to mix up ‘lighter’ and ‘heavier’ reads. Progress slowed down significantly in the middle of this year when I really, really struggled with the first half of The Mill on the Floss: thankfully, I found the second half easier to get through. On the other hand, by far from being an original opinion, I know, but surely Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy has to be one of the best pieces of writing this century? Knowing how things will turn out all along somehow makes it even more powerful.
Two others deserve comment: as someone who grew up in Yorkshire in the 70s/80s (albeit the other side to where it is set), Jennie Godfrey’s The List of Suspicious Things was a wonderfully evocative, nostalgic trip back to arguably simpler days, or at least pre-mobile phone ones! And I absolutely adored Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet. It’s such a clever idea, so richly articulated, and while so many books have limp or disappointing endings, this one’s is so unexpectedly poignant and deeply moving: I can’t wait to see the film in the new year.
Fingers crossed, I will manage to keep it up in 2026 as I still have at least as many again waiting for my attention…