Literature: January Books

Instead of writing individual reviews for all the books I have read, I am just going to condense them into what I have read each month.

So this is a new year and I have set myself the task on Goodreads to read 120 books this year, so I need to read a lot each month and in January I managed to make a good start and read 14 books.

I love reading across genres, and this month the genres I have read are:

• Children’s
• Short Story
• True Story
• Contemporary Fiction
• Crime
• Christian

The 14 books I have read in January are:

1. Toro! Toro! By Michael Morpurgo
2. Shine by Jodi Picoult
3. The Girl with the Lost Smile by Miranda Hart
4. Farm Boy by Michael Morpurgo
5. Aesop’s Fables by Aesop
6. A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley
7. Invest Your Suffering by Paul Mallard
8. Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist
9. The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
10. Kaspar: Prince of Cats by Michael Morpurgo
11. In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart by Ruth Graham
12. Someday, Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham
13. Longstone by L.J Ross
14. No Way Back by M.J Aldridge

So what genre fits what book?   Well one of them fits two genres as No Way Back by M.J Aldridge is a short crime story which tells the story of Detective Inspector Helen Grace. Aldridge has written seven novels about Helen Grace – I have read number one which is called Eeny Meeny and I loved it, so looking forward to reading the next six.

Also under the genre of crime fiction, I read Longstone which is book nine in the DCI Ryan series by LJ Ross. I love this series and the characters are great as well.

As you may see I like Michael Morpurgo books, having previously read two in December, this month I managed to read three – Toro! Toro! Farm Boy and Kaspar: Prince of Cats. My favourite out of those three was Kaspar: Prince of Cats – it was just such a sweet story of friendship.  

Two of these books were written by people who are better known as a comedienne (Miranda Hart) and actress Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls fame who wrote Someday, Someday Maybe. To be honest, although their books were good I think I prefer them as a comedienne and an actress.

The best book I read this month was A Long Way Home which is a true story of Saroo Brierley and how he got lost in his home country of India after being separated from his brother and after not being able to find his way home to his family due to not knowing exactly where he lived, he ended up being adopted by an Australian couple. This is a brilliant book and the movie Lion which was inspired by this book is a fantastic movie as well.