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?'