Bye 2019! Hello 2020!

Hello Loves!

I can’t believe it’s New Years Eve. I think I say this every single year but I’ve no idea where the time has gone. I’m sure as I’m getting older, time is going quicker. Is that just me?

Besides, I’m not really a fan of New Year. I’m not really sure why either. It’s always been an evening well spent with family and a glass of fizz. I guess one thing I’m not such a fan of is the fact that New Year seems to be a time when people tend to make bold statements about how they’re going to change and they usually fail by the second week of January. For me, I wanted to try and read 100 books again this year. Amazingly, I succeeded! I read a total of 105 books.📚

My 2019 reading list:

Abrahamson, Emmy: How To Fall In Love With a Man Who Lives in a Bush
Ahern, Cecelia: Postscript
Alderton, Dolly: Everything I Know About Love
Anderson, Sophie: The House with Chicken Legs
Beckerman, Hannah: If Only I Could Tell You
Blake, Sarah: The Postmistress
Brahmachari, Sita: Where the River Runs Gold
Braithwaite, Oyinkan: My Sister, The Serial Killer
Buchan, Elizabeth: The Museum of Broken Promises
Bythell, Shaun: Confessions of a Bookseller
Campbell, Jen: Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops
Campbell, Jen: The Bookshop Book
Candlish, Louise: Our House
Candlish, Louise: Those People
Child, Lee: The Midnight Line
Child, Lee: Gone Tomorrow
Chirovici, E.O.: The Book of Mirrors
Clanchy, Kate: Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me
Coelho, Paulo: Manuscript Found in Accra
Coleman, Alistair: Angry People in Local Newspapers
Cooper, Roxie: The Day We Met
Cormier, Robert: Heroes
Coules, Bert: Flowers for Algernon
Cumming, Laura: On Chapel Sands
Dashner, James: The 13th Reality Journal of Curious Letters
Dickens, Charles: A Christmas Carol
Didierlaurent, Jean-Paul: The Reader on the 6.27
Eliot, T.S.: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
Fargher, Anna: The Umbrella Mouse
Feret-Fleury, Christine: The Girl Who Reads on the Metro
Fforde, Katie: A French Affair
Fletcher, Carrie Hope: All That She Can See
French, Kat: A Summer Scandal
French, Nicci: The Lying Room
George, Nina: The Book of Dreams
Greene, Jayson: Once More We Saw Stars
Greer, Andrew Sean: Less
Griffin, Anne: When All is Said
Griffin, Kate: Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders
Gustafson, Michael & Uberti, Oliver: Notes from a Public Typewriter
Han, Jenny: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Han, Jenny: P.S. I Still Love You
Han, Jenny: Always and Forever, Lara Jean
Hanks, Tom: Uncommon Type
Harris, Anstey: The Truths and Triumps of Grace Atherton
Hazard, Leah: Hard Pushed: A Midwife’s Story
Hislop, Victoria: The Return
Hislop, Victoria: The Island
Hislop, Victoria: The Sunrise
Hislop, Victoria: Those Who Are Loved
Jakobse, Mette: The Vanishing Act
Johns, Ana: The Woman in the White Kimono
Kawaguchi, Toshikazu: Before The Coffee Gets Cold
Kay, Adam: Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas – read twice – October when published and December.
Kerr, Judith: The Tiger Who Came to Tea
Kinney, Jeff: Diary of a Wimpy Kid The Getaway
Kinsella, Sophie: I’ve Got Your Number
Kinsella, Sophie: I Owe You One
Kinsella, Sophie: Christmas Shopaholic
Kirby, Carolyn: The Conviction of Cora Burns
Koch, Emily: If I Die Before I Wake
Lane, Andrew: Young Sherlock: Death Cloud
Mackesy, Charlie: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
Maguire, Gregory : Wicked
Meehan, Thomas: Annie
Mercer, Jeremy: Books, Baguettes & Bedbugs
Morpurgo, Michael: Pinocchio by Pinocchio
Murata, Sayaka: Convenience Store Woman
Noble, Elizabeth: Letters to Iris
Norton, Graham: A Keeper
Parry, Ambrose: The Way of all Flesh
Pentland, Louise: Wilde Women
Priestley, J.B: An Inspector Calls
Rauf, Onjali Q: The Boy at the Back of the Class
Rauf, Onjali Q: The Star Outside My Window
Roper, Richard: Something to Live For
Rowling, J.K, Tiffany, John & Thorne, Jack: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
RuPaul: Guru
Salisbury, Martin: The Illustrated Dust Jacket 1920-1970
Samader, Rhik: I Never Said I Love You
Shaw, Dale: Painfully British Haikus
Shepherd, Andy: The Boy Who Grew Dragons
Sims, Gill: Why Mummy Doesn’t Give a F***
Smith, Alex T: How Winston Delivered Christmas
Sorosiak, Carlie: I, Cosmo
Steadman, Catherine: Something in the Water
Stempel, John Lewis: Still Water: The Deep Life of the Pond
Stempel, John Lewis: The Glorious Life of the Oak
Stempel, John Lewis: Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field
Tate, June: Born to Dance
Thomas, Angie: The Hate You Give
Tyce, Harriet: Blood Orange
Valentino, Serena: The Beast Within
Walliams, David: Fing
Walliams, David: Bad Dad
Walliams, David: The Boy in the Dress
Walliams, David: The World’s Worst Teachers
Walsh, Rosie: The Man Who Didn’t Call
Watson, Christie: The Language of Kindness – A Nurses Story
Wilkinson, Sheena: Star by Star
Williams, Beatriz: A Hundred Summers
Williams, Laura Jane: Our Stop
Wood, Laura: Under a Dancing Star
Zouroudi, Anne: The Messenger of Athens

Looking back, this list brings me so much joy. I started the year with The Language of Kindness and I ended the year with rereading Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas, both of which are about the NHS. I have such amazing memories of my holiday reads from my summer break in Cyprus, Hislop being a firm favourite of mine.

Another thing I’m really pleased about is the mixture of fiction and non fiction. Surprisingly, non fiction has been something I’ve read more of over the past two years so I’d like to keep that going into the next decade. Finally, there’s a few titles here that are Children’s Literature. I’m really proud of the fact that 2019 was the year I set up and successfully ran the Accelerated Reader Programme in my school. Getting boys into reading is so important so there’s some titles here, namely Walliams, that make me smile because of the conversations I’ve had with various students about it.

So, what is on the agenda for 2020? Post more! (Hopefully…) Another 100 books – or try to! I’m going to make sure I jot down what I read in each month too so I remember the journey rather than just one big list. I did try and complete another reading challenge this year, picking one of the titles from the Waterstones Book of the Month list but I missed a couple of months. I’d like to complete another reading challenge but I need to research more. Any ideas? I’ll keep you posted on this! The current pile looks like this:

Also, personally, 2020 brings me a promotion at work to Head of Department which I’m super excited about. AND, after a lot of hard work and time at the gym, 3 stone lighter. Let’s hope I can keep this up.

Lastly, just a shout out to you all, my faithful blogging friends. Thank you for being there every step of the way, for sending me messages when I’ve vanished off the face of the year and checking I’m alright. I wish you all a Happy New Year and a peaceful 2020. Let’s do this!

Big love xx