December is wrapping up. It was a busy month but mostly fun, having Christmas and end-of-the-semester in there plus a great trip to New Orleans. (More to come on that trip.)

The reading was pretty good as well:

• All-American Murder: The Aaron Hernandez Story – Alex Patterson (NF Sports). I know – a book about American football and me? But strangely interesting…
• London and the South-East – David Szalay (F) Random pick of library shelves. Not bad…
• Home-Fires: The Story of the WI in WW2 – Julie Summers (NF/History) Very good history of the Women’s Institute in England…
• New Orleans: DK Guide. Travel guide.
• Catchphrase, Slogan and Cliche – History – Judy Parkinson (NF/history)
• Paddington Goes to Town – Michael Bond (F) Really needed something fairly easy and straightforward to read immediately post-semester!
• The Snowman – Raymond Briggs (F/GN). See above.
• English Country House Murders: an Anthology – Thomas Godfrey (F). See above.
• Friday Black – Nana Kwame Adjej-Brenyah (F-Short stories). Challenging but in a good way.

• Total books read:  9
• Total pages read:   2511 pp. (av. 279 pp.)
• NF: 4 (44% of monthly total)      
• F: 5 (56% of monthly total)
• TBR: 8 (89% of monthly total read). Go me.
• Total % TBR for year to date: 64%. (Happy with this number.)
• Library: 1  
• POC author/topic(s): 2 (22% of monthly total). Will. Do. Better.
• Male to Female: 5 males + 2 females + 2 of mixed genders.
• DNFs: 0
• Oldest title: 1969 (Paddington Goes to Town/Michael Bond…) . 
• Longest title (re: page count): 533 pp. 
• Shortest title (re: page count) (excluding DNFs): 32 pp.

And – strangely enough, no relevant book review posts either. (There were some other posts but not about the actual books, which is weird for a book blog, yes?) I can only attribute this aberration to running out of time and energy at the end of the semester, but trust you’ll forgive me. 🙂

There was a lovely visit with my mum and, naturally, we completed a jigsaw or two, the large one was only completed with super-human effort by us both in an effort to finish it before she left early the next day. Completely fun and very worth it.

Moving into the new year, I don’t really have any complicated reading plans. I’m definitely going to partake in the Non-Fiction November when it comes around, but apart from that, I’ll take it as it comes. I might do Simon and Kaggsy’s Year Project but again, pretty open-ended on that right now.

I’m collecting info for the Best-of-Year blog post, but might skip the Best-of-Decade post that is traveling around the blogosphere right now. Depends on time…

Whatever your plans, wherever you may be – here’s to a year of peace and plenty for you. (Oh, and some good reads as well.) 🙂