Our January Reading Group followed our now annual tradition of inviting our readers to tell us about their Christmas reads, the books they gave or received over the festive period, or books they’d like to recommend. Take a look through our list and you may just find yourself adding a few new titles to your To Be Read list, I know I did!
First up a recommendation for a romantic Christmas read, One Christmas Eve by Shari Low. Our reader described it as a soppy, nice and easy read, perfect for getting into the Christmas spirit. We discussed how sometimes all you want is the book equivalent of a Hallmark Christmas movie, where you know you’ll get a happy ending and you might shed a little tear along the way.
For a change of pace our next recommendation was a biography of the late great Pogue singer Shane MacGowan, A Furious Devotion: The life of Shane MacGowan by Richard Balls. Our reader was a fan, and loved the book, telling us about his interesting life and that there was much more to the man than you might imagine.
Our Shane MacGowan fan also wanted to recommend a book they read with our sister SWFT reading group- Olive, Mabel and Me: Life and adventures with two very good dogs by Andrew Cotter- as a wonderful read. You can read the review of the book by the SWFT reading group here. They also wanted to give a warning to potential readers as the book is now cited as the tipping point for acquiring a dog! Brian the greyhound is an honourary member of our book groups. His owner also told us about a lovely book she’d had for Christmas called Where’s Brian, a take on Where’s Wally, personalised just for her with lots of hidden Brians to find.
Another musician’s life story was highlighted next with Karma: My autobiography by Boy George. Apart from a fantastically colourful cover (what else would you expect!), this prompted discussion of a fantastic episode of the BBC TV programme Who Do You Think You Are featuring George. A must read for 80s fans.
The way the day breaks, by David Roberts was a recent read set in the 1980s in Yorkshire. A novel about family conversations and growing up with mental illness, this was a firm recommendation.
Our next reader admitted that finding time to read could be tricky, and was keen to tell us about her almanacs. A keen gardener, she found The Almanac: A seasonal guide to 2024 by Lia Leendertz great for dipping in and out of, with information on planting times, phases of the moon, cultural information, and much more. Such a gorgeous cover too! Her notes on it include “the night sky, nature, gardening by the moon, recipes (looking forward to Haggis pakoras), cultural notes. Helps you appreciate the seasons more – even January!”
In an attempt to rekindle her reading habits the same reader had been bought a Literary Almanac, which is a seasonal reading list for the year, with snippets, quotes and lovely images too. The Literary Almanac: A year of seasonal reading is by Francesca Beauman.
Our sculpting reader was delighted with a Christmas gift of Figure sculpting Vol.2- Gesture and drapery techniques in clay by Philippe Faraut. What a fabulous gift to receive! We’re looking forward to seeing what our talented colleague makes.
We always get a book that’s currently a TV series in some form, and this year we had a couple. First Peter James title- Dead Tomorrow. Centred around organ trafficking in Brighton and Hove, it’s a trip through medicine and ethics and a good page turner to boot. It’s the 5th in the DS Roy Grace series, as seen on TV!
A couple of us had also read the latest in the Heartstopper series by Alice Oseman. Volume 5 of this graphic novel series continues the love story of teenagers Charlie and Nick. It’s a quick and uplifting read and ties in really well to the TV series.
The Full English by DJ and presenter Stuart Maconie has made several best seller lists and is a Top 10 Waterstones travel book of the year 2023. Travelling England in the footsteps of J.B.Priestley’s classic English travelogue, this book looks at the English identity whilst traveling the length and breadth of England.
Another non-fiction book, Dr Lucy Pollock’s The book about getting older: The essential comforting guide to ageing with wise advice for the highs and lows was recommended to those of us feeling our age, and to those with ageing parents, friends and family. It gives an insight into lots of aspects of getting older- living wills, powers of attorney and more- and how to start what can be difficult conversations.
The same reader (not a fiction fan) talked about wanting to read the other sides of stories and debates, to get the full picture, even when the books in question can be controversial. They’d been reading Nadine Dorries’ The Plot: The political assassination of Boris Johnson, and Trans: gender and the new battle for women’s rights by Helen Joyce.
Finally, back to some fiction, and a recommendation to read whatever you enjoy even if it isn’t in your age group or recommended on BookTok. Impossible creatures by Katherine Rundell is a fantasy book for children that our reader adored. Reminiscent of Tolkien, or Phillip Pullman, or C.S. Lewis, it’s the story of the place where all the magical creatures live (an archipelago in the North Sea) and how a boy and a girl have to save them, and us.
So that’s us for another year of festive recommendations. We hope there’s something in here that catches your eye, and don’t forget we’re always happy to see new faces at our reading groups. Reading more could be your 2024 new year’s resolution that sticks!
And just to brighten your day we’ll finish with a photo of the gorgeous Brian, adopted by our lovely reading group member Maud and an honourary reading group member himself.
Find out more about our reading groups here
Take a look at the blog posts for our previous reads here.
One thought on “GEH Wellbeing reading group book reviews and recommendations 2024 edition!”
Comments are closed.