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.