Michael Wood, In Search of the Dark Ages: A History of Anglo-Saxon England

Two books in a row that I've been able to follow, enjoy, and not doze off whilst reading. Not doze off too often, anyway. This was an update of a classic, and I may not have read the original but can see how it had changed. The original was built around chapters on 'great men' - Athelstan, Ethelread, William The Conqueror partly I guess because that's the best you can do with the sources we have and partly 'cause that was the mindset once. The updated book takes advantage of new archaeology and scholarship and also brings in other characters, notable women and non-white men from the period who weren't on the radar before.

Daniel Mason, North Woods

 Loved it. A series of connected stories taking place in the same smallholding somewhere in Western Massachusetts. A couple of times at the end of chapters I let out a 'no!' I had become so invested. Helen's Uncle and Aunt must be aware of this given where they live, but I'll have to check as it is so good. I'll badger Helen to read it too. At home, everyone seems to be over the sickness bug now and I've turned a corner with Grogu. He didn't seem to want to go out with me, but I took Friday off work, we went out for a long walk and since then we've been out each day and he seems to be increasingly happy in my company - and me with him. Long may it continue, although in the house he still gets a bit bitey as he's teething, the poor guy. Almost ready for Christmas, although I need to get something for Helen from me that isn't a bin.

Simon Kuper, Good Chaps: How Corrupt Politicans Broke our Law and Institutions - And What We Can Do About It

 An entirely unsurprising polemic. So unsurprising it got me wondering why it was written in such a revelatory fashion when all of these facts were known. An astonishing quote from Alastair Campbell on the blurb, 'I got angrier and angrier and angrier and angrier as I read it'. As if Campbell of all people didn't know exactly what was going on, he was at the heart of it. It makes him sound like Captain Renault in Casblanca claiming to be shocked at gambling occurring as he collects his winnings. Read this while very very ill with a sickness bug. I'm over it now, but Helen and William have gone down with it. Hopefully all better soon.

Hakan Nesser, The Inspector and Silence

 Been a while since I've read a Van Veeteren novel, but I've always enjoyed his rainy, miserable north European Maardam, with its mixed up elements of the Netherlands, Scandinavia and even Finland and Poland. I struggled to follow this though. The only character I could identify was VV, and I couldn't follow the plot and who had been murdered and when. I struggle more and more with reading and i do worry that it is a sign of my brain decaying! It seems to happen more with  fiction than non-fiction, and maybe i just need to spend quality time with uninterrupted reading rather than snatches when I'm thinking about other things

Lewis Baston, Borderlines: a history of Europe, told from the edges

Loved it. Was a bit sceptical at first as there are a few books around about borderlands, but this hit the spot for me. Lewis Baston is particularly interested in Central Europe and the Habsburg territories (and what has become of them), so straight away this is tailor-made for me. He travels around Mitteleuropa full of curiosity, logs what he sees and the tragedies that nationalism, fascism and communism have inflicted on people, and covers new ground (for me anyway), looking at the Czech-Polish border for example rather than more well known areas of dispute like Croatia-Serbia.

Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac

Bought this quite recently, but can't remember where it was recommended. A Booker prize winner from the '80s, but in many ways it could have been set in any period from the 19th century to the 1990s, and with it's theme of a woman who has had an affair and jilted her fiance being 'sent away' to a hotel in the Alps feels much earlier morally than the 1980s. I enjoyed it, and wouldn't mind seeing the film with Anna Massey and Denholm Elliott. It was witty and short, but hasn't left me hungry to read any more by Anita Brookner.

Sam Leith, The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading

 A book for anyone who caught the reading bug as a child. I've so grateful to the wonderful Puffin Book Club and Hillingdon Borough Libraries for giving me that love of books. There's some arrested development on my part though, as children's fiction still appeals, particularly as there is so much I missed out on - the Famous Five, The Wind in The Willows, Alan Garner, Nicholas Fisk. . . I've given up hope now that any of our kids will be bibliophiles, but they need to be their own people. Kevin's son Jack seems to be a keen reader, and I've lent him lots of Tintin and Asterix. He's just turned 10 so I bought him The Dark is Rising, which was my favourite book when I was his age. I still love it of course, and will be reading it on Midwinter's Day.