Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, James Dickey, Deliverance, Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan 1897-1945, Fiona Mozley, Elmet, Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays, Richard Huscroft, Tales from the Long Twelfth Century: The Rise and Fall of the Angevin Empire, Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

Reread Foot's Bevan for the first time in 20 years, I think, and was surprised by how unsympathetic a character he was, despite Foot's hero-worship. It must be me that has changed, but he no longer comes across as a brave, principled crusader, but as an egotistical, destructive polemicist. I loved 'A Gentleman in Moscow, which centres around a Russian aristocrat caught up in the aftermath of the revolution and trying to make the best of things while under house arrest in a fading grand hotel for 40 years. A lovely, sweet story of a true gentleman coming to terms with a world profoundly different to that he was born into and had taken for granted. Was dreading a sad ending as he gets dragged away to a gulag, but the author contrived a beautiful, believable way for the Count to end up happy ever after

EL Doctorow, Ragtime, Glyn Parry, The Arch Conjuror of England: John Dee, Andrew Caldecott, Rotherweird, Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, Alan Johnson, Please Mister Postman: A Memoir

Snuck the latest Asterix in there somewhere, too. 'Ragtime' was the first of the '100 essential novels' that I've read in a long time that I either understood or enjoyed. Written as a knowing attempt to write the Great American Novel, what I liked about it was that unlike so many of the novels I have read on the list, it wasn't purely the east coast, wealthy intellectual elite with no real problems writing about themselves (Roth, deLillo, Updike. . .). Instead it was a more real vision of the American Dream - by the hard work and application of others, people born into riches can become even richer. Just when I think I'm back on top, along came Pynchon, which nonplussed me for 170-odd pages.

Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass, Steven Runciman The Fall of Constantinople 1453, William Faulkner, The Sound and The Fury, Gerard Reve, The Evenings, Tim Marshall, Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags, Philip Pullman, La Belle Sauvage

Loved the first book of the new 'equel' to His Dark Materials, although I did get a little lost as it became increasingly mystic and dreamlike as they journeyed down a flooded Thames Valley. Reminded me a lot of 'The Dark is Rising' for these very reasons - I also struggled to follow that at first as the deluge swept away the earthly world and replaced it with something stranger. Really glad I took the time to reread the first three books, and 'The Amber Spyglass' in particular made a lot more sense the second time round- not sure if I read it more closely, or whether I'm just more comfortable with metaphysics and theological debate now. In between, 'The Sound and the Fury' and 'The Evenings' passed me by; yet more classics I do not understand.

David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day, James Baldwin, Go Tell It On The Mountain, Douglas Murphy, Nincompoopolis: The Follies of Boris Johnson

I've decided to change the fiction/non-fiction strict rotation for a bit. The backlog of fiction has been growing and growing, so from now it will be fiction/non-fiction/100 essential novels fiction until the balance has been restored. Two easy reads bookended the protestant brimstone patriarchy of Go Tell It On The Mountain. Nincompoopolis was devoured; I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find the words to describe my loathing of Alexander Johnson.

John Le Carre, A Legacy Of Spies, John Bew, Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee, John O'Hara, Appointment in Samarra

Mixed reviews on Le Carre, with some saying it's a rehash and spying by numbers. You need to have read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to get the most out of it, but as with anything Le Carre, I loved it. Familiar characters reappearing for another adventure. The biog of Attlee is influenced by current events in the party, with Bew not a fan of Corbyn and the left. He goes out of his way to draw distinctions between Attlee's philosophy and that of Corbyn, and rubbishes Bevan at any opportunity he gets. I'm not saying these distinctions and criticisms don't have substance, but it got a bit too polemical and not enough historical sometimes.

Appointment in Samarra is from the 100 Essential Novels. Another NE (Pennsylvania) small town upper-middle class novel. Aaarrgghhhh.

Patrick Barkham, Coastlines: The Story of Our Shore

Some nice easy reading, an elegy to the National Trust's parts of our coastline. Nature writing is all the rage at the moment, and Barkham has a weekly column in The Guardian where his  brief appears to be to write whatever the hell  he wants.

This weekend we finally got a cat! Buzz has joined the family, he's about 8 months old and was found in a field in Binfield, the poor love. He's still getting used to our house (and our kids), but he's getting more confident and is happy to snuggle up already

JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent, John Julius Norwich, Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe, Graham Greene, The Heart Of The Matter, Tove Jansson, The Summer Book, Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs: 1613-1918, Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

Holiday reading in the Netherlands and Belgium. We had such a lovely time - cycling everywhere, theme park attached to the campsite, lots of geocaching. Libby's arm was still in a cast, but it didn't hold her back much. We had a waterproof cast cover so she could go in the water, and she was often the only one of us prepared to brave the North Sea. Freddie is getting much more independent now and was always off cycling round the site exploring . William was just excited by all the windmills - 'Baby Jake's House! Baby Jake's House! Dat one Baby Jake's House?'

Mick Herron, Dead Lions

The second in the Jackson Lamb trilogy, which I started reading after a very good review on 'A Good Read'. Sub-Le Carre spy nonsense, but combined with a bunch of misfits to make a very enjoyable book with some good lines. I'm taking the staunchly not-tottenham Fred to his first game tomorrow, a friendly at Wembley against Juve. Let's see how he gets on. We're then off on holiday to the Netherlands and Belgium on Monday

Kapka Kassabova, Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, Noah Hawley, Before the Fall, Dorothy Carrington, Granite Island: Portrait of Corsica, Flann O'Brien At-Swim-Two-Birds, Ron Chernow, Hamilton, Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass, Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century

What a mixture. My occasional meanderings around Eastern Europe have reached the border of Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, and thus the divide between Muslim and Christian, Ottoman and Habsburg (ish), Communism and Western Democracy (ish) Slav, Greek and Turk. Another enjoyable read of bandits, mountains, superstition, and the intractability of conflict in the Balkans. Then Granite Island as a friend at work has just been to Corsica. Will make it there one day to smell the maquis and the cheese.  . .

Didn’t really get At-Swim-Two-Birds, another essential novel I don't understand. Hamilton was a book I should have read a long, long  time ago, about one of the greatest of the founding fathers. 'John Adams' is still on my shelf, although I've seen the miniseries starring Paul Giamatti at least.. .

The Golden Compass is a reread to prepare for Pullman's new book in September, which I'm very excited about. Fred's not yet at a reading level to enjoy Pullman, sadly. I worry that he is not going to be a book lover, but what can you do? The more I push him, the more he could grow to dislike reading

Libby broke her arm at the weekend. I'm so used to thinking of her as a tough little nut that I told her to shrug it off when she fell off the swing. It was only later when it started to swell up that we realised how serious it was. It took a while for her to get used to the plaster cast, it must be very frustrating for her. She seems to be adjusting now - we just pray the plaster comes off before our holiday.  

Willa Cather, Death Comes For The Archbishop, John Morris, The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles, Don DeLillo, White Noise, James Fearnley, Here Comes Everybody: The Story of the Pogues, Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier

Will have to go back to 'The Good Soldier', it could be a rewarding read if I put the effort in. The unreliable narrator leaves open so many questions and inferences. Yet another classic about idle people with no jobs or worries inventing problems for themselves. 'White Noise' was too introspective to me - an east coast novel about an individual's concerns over their own mortality and place in the world. James Fearnley's book couldn't fail to be interesting with Shane Macgowan the key character, but it was interesting to find out how very english and very middle-class The Pogues were. Mumford & Sons (who I have no time for whatsoever) get criticised for being a  bunch of public-school kids that are aping The Pogues but it turns out The Pogues themselves were all rather well-to-do. I remember the metaphorical kick in the gut I felt when I found out Shane had attended Westminster School. Up there with finding out the people's champion, John Peel, had been to Shrewsbury.

There's a lot of inverted snobbery going in the above paragraph - the Corbyn effect maybe? I've never been so thrilled by a loss. Bring on the next election - the revolution is just a t shirt away. . . .

Philip Roth, American Pastoral, Tom Blass, The Naked Shore: Of The North Sea, Iris Murdoch, Under The Net, Lynsey Hanley, Respectable: Crossing the Class Divide

Not sure what to make of 'Respectable'. I very much enjoyed Hanley's 'Estates', and I recognise the world she writes about and can draw a lot of parallels with my own background, even down to the chip on the shoulder. It's more of a memoir than a serious examination of class in Britain though. Under The Net was not what I was expecting,  the adventures of a bohemian ne'er-do-well in grimy London and Paris.  Again, not sure why this is considered an 'essential novel', I must be missing something.

Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage & Other Stories

Another from the scratch-off list of 100 essential novels, and the first novel to present a realistic view of warfare apparently (except War and Peace?), but it didn’t grab me and the formal Victorian language did not make for an easy read. I'd be hard put to tell you much of what happened as I skimmed through.

Teresa May has just called a General Election, which will entrench her majority and give her a mandate for hard BREXIT, grammar schools, NHS cuts and all manner of other awful things. Donald Trump is about to bomb Korea and it feels like the end of days with two trigger-happy 'strong men' in charge of the two military machines that could obliterate human life. What a horrible, horrible time.

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century England (Penguin History), Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy, Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Peter Furtado (ed) Histories of Nations: How Their Identities Were Forged, Margaret Attwood, The Handmaid's Tale, Simon Bradley, The Railways: Nation, Network and People

Have left this too long again, I can hardly remember reading 'Religion and the Decline of Magic.'  Three more 'classics' in the list for me to scratch off on my wall chart. 'The Handmaid's Tale' was chilling, and with Trump in charge it's becoming a more possible future. It's even more worrying when you realise (late in the day if you’re a slow learner like me) that a world where women are subjugated and not free to make their own decisions isn't a dystopian vision, it's true of most of the world historically and geographically. Still. Tottenham are second in the table and the wisteria is about to bloom, so we might as well enjoy the small things before the impending apocalypse.

Peter Ackroyd, Revolution: A History of England Volume IV (The History of England) , Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Robert Byron, The Road To Oxiana, Alan Partridge, Nomad, Cary Elwes, As You Wish, Jo Nesbo, Phantom

I just didn't understand why 'To The Lighthouse' is considered such as classic. Nothing about it stood out to me, other than the tale of an over-privileged family who can't even be bothered to learn their servants name. It's a tragic sign of my own lack of empathy, insight and critical ability, but I'm going to have to do some research to understand more. To be fair, I felt very similarly the first time I read The Awakening, and it was only after consideration, re-reading and discussion with brighter minds that I understood it. More effort needed, Sawyer.

Norse Mythology was as entertaining as expected, Neil Gaiman had a lot of fun with the meatheaded Thor and the mischievous Loki. The Road to Oxiana, another classic, was another of those wonderful early 20th century travel books (Bell, West, Leigh Fermor) where a ridiculously clever upper-class Brit travels the world armed only with massive self-confidence and an incredible network of contacts in the local ruling classes. It's a bewitching world, was it really like that once?

Loved Nomad and Phantom, some nice easy reading, and in between As You Wish was a sweet memoir of the filming of The Princess Bride. That's 3 soft reads in a row though, need to up my game with the next pick. .  . .

Else Roesdahl, The Vikings, Graeme Macrae Burnet, His Bloody Project, Karl Ove Knausgaard and Fredrik Ekelund, Home and Away: Writing the Beautiful Game, Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things, Fraser MacAlpine, Stuff Brits Like, Johan Cruyff, My Turn, Francis Spufford, Golden Hill

Ahh, a nice simple standard history of the Viking age to ease myself into the new year, and then a work of fiction based in the Highlands that has been shortlisted for the Booker.

Halfway through this clot of books, I received a scratch-off wall chart of '100 Essential Novels'. It came from New York, so has a very American bent, so I'd only read 24 of the books and there were about a third I'd never heard of - Pale Fire? Under The Volcano? Wittgenstein's Mistress? There's a list to complete though, so I'm on it. God of Small Things read (didn’t really understand it, kept getting it confused with Midnight's Children as I'm not very bright), and To The Lighthouse and The Handmaid's Tale on order from Woking Library.

James Morrow, The Last Witchfinder, Bill Bryson, The Road to Little Dribbling, Hilary Mantel, The Giant O'Brien. Neil Hegarty, The Story of Ireland: In Search of a New National Memory, Kate Atkinson, A God In Ruins, Eric Foner, Reconstruction, Paula Hawkins, The Girl On The Train, Peter Ackroyd, Civil War, Karl-Ove Knausgaard, Some Rain Must Fall, John Julius Norwich(ed) The Great Cities in History, Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children, Neil Forsyth, Delete This At Your Peril,??, Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, Melvyn Bragg, Now Is the Time

3 months without an update, although so much has happened, the election of Donald J Trump as President in particular. I can hardly remember some of these books, and there is at least one work of fiction between 'Delete This At Your Peril' and 'White Trash' where I can't even remember the name. I do worry about my short-term memory, I struggle to remember so much. We played Scattergories over Christmas and my mind went blank under pressure. I still do ok on the crossword though, so hopefully I'm not deteriorating too much.

My running is though, I hardly did any in 2016 and am struggling on Park Run now - my current times are comparable with when Freddie first did it two years ago, and his friend Abel is about 5 minutes faster than me now. Not sure what has happened, it could be psychological, it could be that I'm playing Pokemon Go as I run round now rather than using Runkeeper. . .

Today is the first day back at work after the Christmas Break. Work has been good in 2016, although my role has changed completely and now its basically admin work. The pay is good, the day goes quickly and I get out of work on time though, so I've no motivation to move to a more challenging role. There's so much uncertainty about Vodafone Group with Brexit coming up, so who knows what could happen. Were living relatively frugally and paying off the mortgage, so hopefully we'll be ok.