“I wish I had a river I could skate away on” (Joni Mitchell)

Hello lovely bookish blogosphere,

I haven’t been around much in 2020 and the end of the year even less so, despite my best intentions. My reading has taken such a hit and sadly I’ve fallen behind with your blogs too, when they have been a beacon of sanity and light in this horrible year.

So I just wanted to pop in and wish you all a very

even if that Christmas is looking very different to how you hoped. I know things won’t change overnight but here’s hoping 2021 is better all round.

(I originally titled this post ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’ and then I thought, what on earth am I doing? It looks nothing like Christmas for most people. I think my brain has had enough…)

A weird and unforeseen side-effect of this year has been that I have picked up a genre I rarely, if ever, look at: celebrity autobiography. For some reason I can’t manage fiction but I can manage a life story. So although I won’t be blogging on them, just a note to say I can recommend No Shame by Tom Allen; Maggie and Me by Damian Barr; Fathomless Riches by Rev. Richard Coles; Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming and Vanished Years by Rupert Everett. If this symptom carries on into next year I’ll try and add some women to the list – Patti Smith, Colette and Joan Didion are all languishing in the TBR…

Having said that, I just started yesterday The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, which I bought my Dad for his birthday in October and which he has now read and gifted back to me, as he knew how much willpower it took not to read it before I wrapped it 😃 I’m enjoying it a lot, so hopefully more fiction is on the horizon for me.

Anyway, that’s me for now, but I hope to be in your company a lot more next year. I wish you all a bookish and peaceful festive period.

Mme B xxx

P.S Just so this post isn’t completely out of my usual style, here’s a horrific 80s tune to finish on, which helped me win the work Christmas quiz this year (I often win and its always my knowledge of appalling 20th century Christmas pop songs that helps me secure victory – listen and learn, kids 😉)