Literature: January 2021 Books

So it is a new year, it's 2021, but we are still in lockdown which means more months of staying inside and staying away from others which also means more time to read.

As I managed 152 books in 2020, I thought would up the ante and go for 155 in 2021. In January I managed to get a good start to that target as I read 21 books. . Not sure I will be able to do that every month though.

So what were those 21 books?

Short Stories

• A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
• Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
• How Much Land Does a Man Need by Leo Tolstoy

Crime

• Nothing Ventured by Jeffrey Archer
• Hidden in Plain Sight by Jeffrey Archer
• Dead Simple by Peter James
• Looking Good Dead by Peter James
• Haunted by James Patterson
• Ambush by James Patterson
• Blindside by James Patterson

Children’s

• A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond
• Paddington Helps Out by Michael Bond
• Lost on the Amazon by R.A Montgomery

Christian

• Be Equipped by Warren Wiersbe
• Be Strong by Warren Wiersbe
• I Thought There Would be Cake by Katharine Welby-Roberts
• Genesis: Salvation Begins by Andrew Reid
• Judges for You by Timothy Keller
• Ruth for You by Tony Merida

Fiction

• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Real Life

• War Doctor by David Nott

Books in a Series

As you can see I have been reading a few books by the same authors which are parts of a series. ‘Nothing ventured’ and ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ are the first two books in the William Warwick series by Jeffrey Archer. I really enjoyed these books and am looking forward to the next installment which comes out in April 2021.

‘Dead Simple’ and ‘Looking Good Dead’ are the first two books in the DS Roy Grace series by Peter James.  Currently, there are 15 books in this series so I have a few to go to complete the series but I am already on the third one of the series so am heading in the right direction.

‘Haunted’, ‘Ambush’ and ‘Blindside’ are part of the Detective Michael Bennett series by James Patterson. They are currently 13 books in this series and these are number 10, 11 & 12.  Looking forward to reading the last one but I am waiting until it comes down in price!

Recommended Books

I would recommend all the books I have read as I enjoyed them all, well apart from ‘I thought there would be cake’ as I just struggled so much with it. However, there are two outstanding books this month and these are ‘The Midnight Library’ and ‘War Doctor’.

‘The Midnight Library’ is a fiction book and I loved it from the moment I started it until the moment I finished. It centres on Nora who is in the space between life and death and finds herself in a place called the Midnight Library and within this library, the bookshelves go on forever. Every book provides Nora to try another life she could have lived and see how life would have turned out for her if she had made a different choice.

It is a novel that really brings you into the story and it really gets you thinking about things, especially how you live your own life.

And the second book ‘War Doctor’ is a non-fiction book that centres on the life and work of Dr David Nott who is a Consultant Surgeon who for the past twenty years has taken unpaid leave from his job working in the NHS to go and work as a trauma surgeon in some of the most dangerous war zones including Sarajevo, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza, and Syria.

From this book, you can tell that Dr. Nott is driven by his desire to help others. However, he doesn’t always just help others, he also teachers local doctors to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims.  It is an extraordinary story that saw Dr. Nott live through some very harrowing events within the countries he went to serve.  

Literature: December 2020 Books

So it is the end of the year, the end of 2020, and what a year it has been – a year of staying inside and away from others. So during this time of having to stay inside, what else do you do but read – which is exactly what I have done.

My target at the beginning of the year was to read 60 books and by April I hit that target so I decided to up the target to 100 and I hit that in July. I did not increase my target, just decided to read for fun. And now at the end of December, at the end of the year, I have read 152.

During the first few months of lockdown, I read 10 books a month, but as restrictions lifted and I could go out and about, I was getting an average of 7 books a month. In December I managed to read 15 books – the most books in any month of 2020.

So what are these 15 books I have read in December?

 

Biography

 Once Upon a Tyne by Ant & Dec

Little Big Things by Henry Fraser

Christian

Be Counted by Warren Wiersbe

Ephesians for You by Richard Coekin

Praying for Your Missionary by Eddie Byun

Fiction

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Crime

Forgive me by Joy Ellis

Hysteria by L.J Ross

Cuthbert’s Way by L.J Ross

The Seagull by Ann Cleeves

Anthologies

Dear NHS by Adam Kay

Last Christmas by Greg Wise & Emma Thompson

My favourite book this month was Little Big Things by Henry Fraser. This is a very honest biography of a 29 year old guy who went on holiday to Portugal as a healthy sport-loving 17-year-old, but came home as a tetraplegic after a five into the sea went wrong.  Henry talks about the days after the accident and the weeks he spent in the hospital both in Portugal and in England and his finding his way to who he was now and coming to terms with the fact that life would be very different as he would be spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Like everyone else Henry has low times in his life, but for the most of it his outlook is positive, and with the help and support of his family and friends Henry has embraced his life and accepted his life now, and as someone who lives with a chronic illness this really spoke to me and made me assess my attitude to my life and to focus on now what I can’t do but what I can do.