I’ve not got any  reading plans for 2015  and I’ve not set myself a target on the Goodreads 2015 Reading  Challenge as I find it annoying that it tells you whether you’re on target or how many books behind you are – as though you need prodding to make you read more. Reading should be a pleasure not a chore or a competition.

I finished reading eight books in January,  all fiction apart from Wilkie Collins, which is a biography. Three of them are crime fiction – marked with an asterisk*. Two are books I received for review – both from Love Reading. (The links are to my posts on the books)

1. The Book of Lost and Found by Lucy Foley (review book) – most enjoyable.  It’s the story of Tom and Alice beginning in 1928 in Hertfordshire and moving backwards and forwards in time and place to 1986, from Paris, to London, Corsica and New York.
2. Towards Zero* by Agatha Christie – now one of my favourite of her books. A murder is planned, events set in motion, people are brought together and murder ensues.
3. Wilkie Collins by Peter Ackroyd – very readable and a clear and concise account of Collins’ life and work.
4. Green Darkness by Anya Seton – better in parts than in others.
5. The Betrayal of Trust* by Susan Hill –  a rather dark and complex book highlighting the dilemma facing those with terminal and debilitating illnesses.
6. A Question of Identity* by Susan Hill – I preferred this book to the previous one. This is full of tension and suspense, revolving around the question of ‘identity’.
7. The Raven’s Head by Karen Maitland (review book) – her latest book, due to be published in March, a book that pushed me to the edge of my comfort zone in places with  some scenes of dark horror – more about that in a later post.
8. The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins  (post to follow) –  a well-plotted book, full of clues about the secret.

I have also been reading An Autobiography by Anthony Trollope for most of January. I’ll probably finish it tomorrow, so more about that later. And I’ve just started reading two books -Trollope’s Barchester Towers, his second book in the Barchester Chronicles, and The Burning by Jane Casey. Both books are looking good so far.

My favourite book is without doubt The Book of Lost and Found by

Lucy Foley. I don’t often read love stories so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this beautiful book. It is a book I shall re-read – a book for keeping.

Taking Part in Reading Challenges

I’ve  been wondering if I’ve committed to doing too many reading challenges and whether I should pull out of some as I don’t want to read to any set plan or timetable. But I’ve realised that for me these are not ‘challenges’ but are different ways of recording and analysing what I have read. So I’ve decided to stick with them.

The challenges I’ve joined are:

• Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – (an ongoing challenge). In January I read 1 book making the current total 63 books read (this includes short story collections)
• Mount TBR Challenge 2015 – this month I read 6 TBRs.
• Color Coded Challenge 2015 – 1 book
• What’s in a Name 2015 – 1 book
• Victorian Bingo Challenge 2015 – currently reading 1 book
• Read Scotland 2015 – 0 books
• TBR Pile Challenge 2015 – 0 books
• Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2015 – 1 book
• My Kind of Mystery Challenge – 3 books (current total is 56 – challenge ends 28 February)