I know I buy far too many books but I like to think that lining the walls of my house with them wards off evil in some deeply important way.
Note from my notebook (2016). Nothing has changed.
#6: Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. Actually quite embarrassed I hadn’t read this one already. The story is terrifying and increasingly believable. The writing is…different, in a good way. Think I’ll be having nightmares about mechanical dog assassins for a few days 😢
#5: The Confessions, Paul Bradly Carr. This was fun, takes you along on a good ride, and kept me guessing until the last minute. Somewhere between a crime novel and a dystopian warning. Easy to read and enjoy.
#4: The Ancients, John Larison. I couldn’t work out if this was in the future of a parallel world. I enjoyed the matriarchy in it.
#3: Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine, Gail Honeyman. Local Scottish book club read. I think I enjoyed it but I’m not sure she is completely fine to be quite honest.
#2: Endling, Maria Reva. Snails, Ukraine, Women, War, Desperation and Hope. And Yurts and a mobile laboratory. Odd and not an entirely easy read, but glad to have stuck to the end. Worth it. My brain will need a break now.
Books of 2026:
#1: Orbital, Samantha Harvey. Beautifully written contrasts. Space, the Earth, unity, loneliness, hopelessness, hope…
Read mostly in a windy bothy to see in the new year, with the final part at home.
Exquisite 🌎
#21: The Grace Year, Kim Liggett.
Yes.Yes!
The Hound and I are living our best Sunday evening life, sprawling on the sofa, snoozing and generally being lazy.
Loving the glorious pedestrianism of my days at the moment.
#20: Maurice and Maralyn, Sophie Elmhirst. Had to get this wild story of survival after hearing about this couple on a podcast. What an absolute adventure of a life to have lived. The story is worth it, if you’re into survival against the odds.
#19: Kill them with Kindness, Will Carver. From my dystopian book club. I read it to completion, but probably only as it was an easy read. Had it required more effort the juice would not have been worth the squeeze.
I hate to leave a bad review, but just not for me.
#18: All the White Spaces, Ally Wilkes.
A glorious mix of the Antarctic and Horror. Thoroughly enjoyed. Could picture the eeriness of it all exactly. 10/10
First time this silly pup has seen sheep 🥰
….im old aren’t I?
This week I have been surviving my night shifts on a regime consisting of Nutella on cheap white and 6 cups of black coffee daily.
Genuinely baffles me how I used to be able to brunch, run and wash the dishes in between nights in the past 😂
#16: Do these count? Keeping my little croissant happy 🙃 🐕
#15: The Family Experiment, John Marrs. This was dystopia without the beauty of The Horses. Entertainment, but didn’t feel as deep. Or maybe I just need a break from the bleak future novels.
#14: The Tomorrow Project, H Crithlow. Another parallel universe that felt all too close.
#13: The Horses, Janina Matthewson. I really enjoyed this Scottish island lost in a possible near future. Made me long for remote island life again, despite the dystopian theme.
#12: ☺️
#11: The Mars House, Natasha Pulley. Thoroughly entertaining dystopian sci fi read. Enjoyed the interweaving of language, meaning, and multilingualism.
Would recommend.
Photo taken from the top of a Scottish Munro. Hills in the distance, valley in the midground. Figure standing atop the Munro looking at the view.
Went Out out.
#dayoff
The penguins in the wall, Glasgow.
Love the cold seabirds 🩵
Adore my little urban chaos garden.
#10: Owls of the Eastern Ice, Jonathan C Slaght. Absolute delight reading this wild account of the monitoring of this unique species. Filled with mad characters and bonkers events whilst striving to understand this elusive bird in the cold harsh north. Feels like it should be fiction- loved it!
#9: Cold Earth, Sarah Moss.
A scientific team forgotten in the cold as Covid takes over the world.
“Plague has swallowed you all up in the night and we are the last people on earth”.
…lots of familiar feelings in this one, given my location 2019-21 maybe a little too close to home.
*shiver*
#8: God is an Octopus, Ben Goldsmith.
We only have one world and we love and we experience loss.
Some nice rewilding.
Enough grief reading for a while though.
#7: Thin Air, Michelle Paver.
A ghost story read before steeping out on a long walk in a polar night.
Conclusion: we are all animals.
