Sebastian Faulks, Devil May Care

It's a Bond novel, but very much Fleming's Bond rather than the Bond of the films. That suits me, although there was an element of Bond by Numbers about it; the descriptions of everything Bond eats and drinks, the competitive element sparked in a sporting contest with the main antagonist, and lots of gritty determination and injury to Bond. I love all that through, so really enjoyed it! Libby came in again last night, so her spending the night in her own bed may have been a one-off. . . 

EF Benson, Mapp & Lucia, Tristram Hunt, Ten Cities That Made An Empire.

It's still too dark to run at the moment and I'm missing it very much. I don’t really get the chance at the weekend as I tend to be looking after Fred & Libs. There's a Park Run in Woking that I'm keen to get along to, particularly as Freddie can take part too; it clashes with Libby's Ballet on Saturday morning though, unfortunately.  Lib is still insisting on me taking her to ballet, even though the door is locked for the duration and we can't see what is going on. On the other hand, she did stay in her bed the whole night last night for the first time in months, and I actually managed to get a decent night's sleep. Let's hope she keeps it up. Lots of praise required

Back in November, Fred and I ran a mile down at Guildford Athletics Track: I'm so proud of him for doing it. He didn’t stop once and was faster than many of the older kids. I ran round the track with him to encourage him and keep him moving. What a star. I don’t want to push him to much, but it's great exercise and something we can do together. As the Park Run is only 1K, hopefully it'll be ideal. Helen's talking about taking part too, but she'll have to work up to it.

Mapp & Lucia was lovely and a joy to read, and read at the same time as the BBC adaption over Christmas. Maybe not as funny as Wodehouse, although I've recently become aware of a male/female split over Wodehouse; women seem not to find him quite so funny as men. Tristram Hunt's book was a very interesting take on the British empire seen through the history of ten cities shaped by and that shaped the empire. Starting with  Boston, then to Bridgetown, Dublin, Cape Town and further east as the empire changes. He's a Labour MP now and the shadow education secretary, but he doesn't seem that inspiring in a field Labour should be wiping the floor with the Tories. Labour's in a state full stop though; to scared of offending the right wing media and the middle-of-the-road voter to offer anything genuinely radical. Rather than do something populust and left wing like bring the railways back under state control, they seem rather to be trying to talk tough on immigration to match UKIP. Embarrassing.

Peter Ackroyd, Tudors: A History of England Volume II (History of England Vol 2), Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Parker, The Empire Stops Here: A Journey along the Frontiers of the Roman World, PG Wodehouse, Lord Emsworth Acts For The Best

I'm full of snot and cold at the moment, and have been since Christmas Eve, which has affected the family enjoyment of the period. Poor Helen has had to cope with the kids as I've been useless and laid up in bed for large periods. The kids seem to have had a good time of it though, with Scalextric being Freddie's new obsession (will it overtake Lego in the long run though?). Libby is still a real handful, so physical and always jumping at me, climbing over me or generally launching herself. She does it to Bibs too, which is worrying, and I spend too much time telling her to be careful of her little brother. 

Karl Ove Knausgaard A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1, Patrick Leigh Fermor, The Broken Road:From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos, Paul Kingsnorth, The Wake, David Crystal, Spelling, John Updike, Rabbit Run, James Falkner, Marshal Vauban and the Defence of Louis XIV's France, Robert Merle, The Brethren, Roger Crowley, City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire, CJ Sansom, Dominion, Patrick Barkham, Badgerlands:The Twilight World of Britain's Most Enigmatic Animal, Agatha Christie The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, David Abulafia, The Great Sea: A Human History, Max Adams, King In The North: The Life & Times of Oswald of Northumbria, Georges Simenon, Pietr The Latvian

Ouch, far too long left again. Work has been very stressful and three kids are keeping us v busy. Nearly all the reading has been done on the exercise bike in the gym at work. None of the non-fiction stands out, but A Death in the Family, Dominion and The Wake were cracking reads. Was a bit worried that Knausgaard might be a bit emperor's new clothes, as he appears to be a writer beloved by writers rather than readers, but despite it being a Seinfeldesque 'book about nothing' it kept me reading. Dominion was set in an alternative world where Britain surrendered in WWII and is now led by a fascist government under (who else?) Beaverbrook.

Since that last paragraph, a further 3 books have been read with no commentary, one largely on a flight to and from Dusseldorf for work

George Eliot, Middlemarch, Simon Winder, Danubia:A Personal History of Habsburg Europe; Francesca Simon, The Lost Gods, Graham Robb, The Ancient Paths: Discovering the Lost Map of Celtic Europe, Alan Beechey, This Private Plot, Alan Johnson, This Boy, Hakan Nesser, Woman With Birthmark

Middlemarch took forever to read, shamefully. Billy, or 'Bibs' (as Libby accidentally called him and which seems to be sticking) is taking up most of Helen's time with feeding and comforting, so I don’t have much time for reading left after looking after F&L and trying to keep the house tidy. The rest were read on holiday in Harcombe Bottom, when I rediscovered an appetite for reading. It has slowed right down since returning as have fallen back into the old routine. The up side of this is that I'm getting exercise again following two weeks of cream teas and cider.

Incredible to think that the last time I wrote the World Cup hadn't even started and Bibs was only 4 weeks old. That seems like a lifetime ago now. Helen saw a newborn yesterday and Bibs looked like a monster baby capable of devouring it whole. There has to be a limit to baby-led weaning though.  The World Cup seems to have sparked an interest in football from Fred, and he spends his waking hours in either his Woking shirt or his Tottenham shirt, The last couple of nights I've come home to find he's drawn Tottenham badges, one including a monster representing Arsenal. We often play 'Name 5', for example 'Name 5 islands' or 'Name 5 types of tree'. He doesn’t seem to like naming 5 Tottenham players though. He always gets Hugo Lloris, and sometimes Andros Townsend and then 'Eric. . . Eric'. Which could be Lamela, Dier or even Christian Eriksen

Libby absolutely has me wrapped around her finger. I'm still in the spare room as Bibs is in with Helen, and Libby wakes up in the middle of the night and hammers on the door to be let in. She then  climbs into bed and twists, turns and rotates until wake-up time. Just like her Mum, there is often a punch to my eye or a haymaker to my neck, or a kick in the ribs too. And then she tells me she loves me and gives a big hug and all is forgiven. She's so confident too. All holiday she was going up to strangers with her standard bellowed greeting 'I LIBBY!  WHAT YOU CALLED?' WHAT YOUR DOG CALLED?'

Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, Phillip Parker, Northmen's Fury: A History of The Viking World.

Billy's 4 weeks old now, and hasn't stopped feeding for about 4 days, poor Helen. I've been looking after F&L when not working, and we've been having a wonderful time of it. Lots of cycle rides, football and lego. Libby has developed a tendency to tell anyone she encounters that her friend Lauren has a trampoline, and Fred managed to cycle all the way over to Guildford on Saturday, which makes me very proud. I bribed him with £1 for every mile he cycled!

The World cup kicks off in a few weeks, and Fred and I have been collecting stickers. Kev & Jo have been too, and we've just sent off for the last few. An old colleague at work has also been collecting, but was worried that he'd be found out if we were spotted swapping at work, so we’ve been having clandestine lunchtime meetings in his jag in the car park to rummage through each others' swap pile. Pride and dignity is no match for an elusive sticker of Thibaut Courtois or the Uruguayan Team.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' is one of the books I bought recently that I should have read. Next up is Middlemarch, and Midnight's Children, Portnoy's Complaint and Rabbit, Run are all now sat on my 'Books In' shelf waiting to be read. I loved it. Atticus Finch is a wonderful, idealised man, although much more conservative (or realistic?) than I realised.

Charlotte Higgins, Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain, Joseph O'Neill, Netherland, Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary 1945-51

Was reading the last in the list when William Robert Sawyer was born! Not at the actual point of birth of course, as that would show a casual indifference to the birth of our third child, but the book was in the hospital with me, and I did sneak a few pages between contractions. Helen set a precedent by picking up her copy of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's 'Good Omens', so I felt it was ok for me to follow suit. So Volume III of Bullock's Bevin joins Marina Lewycka's  'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' and Trevor Dean's 'Crime in Medieval Europe: 1200-1550' in a very special trinity of books.

Young Billy is doing well, feeding ok and giving Helen just about enough sleep. We were quite shocked that the grandparents weren't at all keen on the name though; they're perfectly happy with William, but my Dad and Helen's Mum in particular were dead set against Billy or Bill.  Freddie's friend Luke has just had a little brother called Ben, and when his mum suggested that the new arrivals were 'Bill and Ben', Helen's mum was very quick to correct it to 'WILL and Ben'.  If Bill had been a girl he would probably have been a Matilda, which also turned out to be anathema to all four grandparents and Helen's brother. 

Freddie & Libby have been very good with their new baby brother. Well, to be fair, Libby has been very good and taken an interest (she’s perhaps slightly over-possessive – MY BABY! GIVE HIM ME!); Freddie is just vaguely aware there is another presence in the house. It’s possible that until young Billy can kick a ball or discuss Star Wars he’ll remain off Fred’s radar completely.