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. . . .