Annie Gray, The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker: A History of the High Street

 A  fun, informal social history of the 'High Street' in Britain, how it has evolved from marketplaces and chophouses to arcades, and then on to shopping centres - and now appears to be dying. Fred seems to be enjoying it up in Manchester, he was disassembling PCs yesterday, got on well with everyone in the office and was going to play darts last night. Really hope he enjoys it.

Olgar Tokarczuk, The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story

 A combination of The Magic Mountain and The Wicker Man, with the benefit of being nowhere near as impenetrable as The Magic Mountain, while also conjuring up its beguiling world or pre-war mitteleuropean luxury and spa life where time has no meaning.  for me though, the very dreamlike and unreal air meant that the horror of the villagers sacrificing the occasional sanatorium patient was diluted. When you are not sure what is real and what is a dream, it's difficult to feel the chill of an impending death. Today is the first day of Freddie's work experience. He's travelled up to Lancashire to stay with Duncan and Louise and work for IT Brains for the week. It's a big adventure for him, he went up on the train by himself and was very worried about it. I certainly miss him, and I daren't go and look at his room as I'm worried I'll well up when I see his empty bed. He very thoughtfully sent a message this morning to say it had been great so far, I hope he means it. It'll be good for him to get away from home for a bit, and also maybe hanging around with Alex and his friends will help him come out of his shell a bit. 

Simon Kuper, Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century

 Kuper's book 'Football Against The Enemy' had a big impact on me when I read it in the early '90s - it combined two things that I was interested in - football and geopolitics - making connections that I had never thought of before. A wonderful journalist and writer, and he can only be a few years older than me. Since then, he's published a few books and worked at the FT, and now has his own column where he can write what he wants, and this book fits into that category - his own experiences of living in Paris in the 21st century since he accidentally moved there. Very readable, enjoyable, full of insights and made me want to live in Paris (as long as it's inside the periperique). I've been learning French and Spanish on Duolingo for a few years now, but I'm not sure how i would cope in a real life situation. I'm pretty good at understanding simple sentences, but constructing my own is very hard, Duolingo is limited in that respect. Libby is learning Welsh that way too, as she has become rather pro-Celt and wants to go to Uni in Wales. Good for her.

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

 I feel ashamed of my own inadequacy, but I slogged through that, skimming large sections, falling asleep with the pages open and not really taking it in. the premise and the milieu appealed: a young man visits a pre-war mitteleuropean spa and gets seduced in to its luxurious, regulated and languid lifestyle, gradually becoming a patient who stays for 7 years. Time and reality seem to alter and take on new shapes and meaning. 700 pages of this though was too much for me. In an endpiece Thomas Mann suggests readers read it twice (to be fair, he does say if you didn't enjoy it the first time, don't reread), which caused me to say pffft. 

Florian Illies, 1913: The Year Before The Storm

 He must have had so much fun writing that, and I'm not sure what the brief was, but Illies has decided to concentrate on what was happening to a handful of Teutonic intellectuals and notable  in 1913 - Freud, Mann, Kafka, the Habsburg royal family  and loads of others I've not heard of or who I'm not clear of why they are well-known. So not quite the bird's eye end-of-an-era overview of the world (or even Europe) I was expecting, but still lots of trivia and vignettes. 

Margery Allingham, The Tiger in the Smoke

 Not what I was expecting from an inspector Campion mystery, which shows my ignorance. I thought it would be  twee, polite and murder at the vicarage, but it was a lot darker, set post-war and not a whodunnit at all - but rather a clash between good and evil personified by a priest and an escaped convict. So not the cosy crime caper I expected, and at the time it must have been a shocker, but it seems dated now when we are so used to the darkness of Scandi Noir and its many cousins. January seems to be going on forever, I can't wait for Spring. i had my first 'well man' check up last week as I am getting on now. Waiting for the results of some tests still, but generally they seems happy with my health and fitness and reassured me about my hips and any chance of developing dementia, so it was worth it for peace of mind.  

Catherine Fletcher: The Roads to Rome: A History

 A lovely eclectic read, but it's a pig to categorise. Its not about roads during the Roman empire, it's not a travelogue along Roman roads, and it's not a history of Rome or Europe, but it’s a mix of all of these , taking events in the last 2,500 years of European and Mediterranean history that have occurred on or near the Roman road network - Belisarius' conquest of Italy, Charlemagne visiting Rome to be crowned, The Crusades crossing the Balkans, the Grand Tour, Mussolini's march on Rome, the Allied invasion of Italy and more. Full of interesting information by a personable writer full of enthusiasm for her subject. I haven't a clue where to put it in the bookshelf though. It's got Rome in the name though so History of the Roman Empire it is.