Henning Mankell, the Troubled Man, Tom Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword, Naomi Alderman, Liars' Gospel, Marc Morris, The Norman Conquest, Keith Ridgway, Hawthorn & Child

Have left it far too long, there's definitely books missing from the above list. My 'to read' bookshelf is now overflowing with goodies, but I just can't stop buying books. I was online yesterday debating whether the £20 it would cost to get a copy of The British General Election of 1983 from New Zealand was worth it, or whether it would be better spent on the biography of Philip Snowden that is unaccountably in Arkansas. It was very sad to read the final Wallander book, and Mankell's uncompromising last pages when Wallander's descent into loneliness and Alzheimers are starkly set out will stay with me for a long time; Helen felt the same.

Marc Morris' book had enough in it to make me buy his 'Castle' book, obviously the sandcastle influence. In the meantime, we've been to Brittany and Normandy on holiday which feels like it will go down in our memories as a golden holiday; Fred learnt to ride and to swim without armbands! So proud of the little fella; on the first day he was saying he couldn't ride at all, and by the end of the holiday he was tearing around the campsite and along the corniche. He's riding to school every day now too.

Dad bought us a lawnmower as a moving-in present following on from the lawn care service, and mowing the lawn has become mildly addictive. I've bought Tom Fort's 'The Grass is Greener' to reread. My gardening is still limited to the destructive elements; mowing, weeding and the like, but I'm trying to expand my repertoire. The garden just looks and smells so lovely. It really is different every day. The Sextons obviously knew what they were doing, although they'd be horrified if they saw our levels of incompetence! Next up is trimming the hedge. . .

Libby is still somewhere between a viking berserker and a Tasmanian Devil, albeit one with pretty dresses and beautiful flowing hair. At the weekend I heard Helen shout 'No Freddie! Don't give Libby anything she could use as a weapon!' Fred had naively given her a spoon, an instrument that Libby could kill a Rhino with. Yesterday she ran headlong into a trolley at Morrison's, and the trolley definitely came off worst. Libby just stood there for a moment, and like Sean Fitzpatrick against Ireland in 1992, took her metaphorical gumshield out, spat out the blood and gore from her gob and then just scrummed down again.

John Lanchester, Capital, David Salsburg, The Lady Tasting Tea; How Statistics Revolutionised Science in the Twentieth Century, Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm, David Niven, Bring On The Empty Horses, Erskine Childers, The Riddle Of The Sands, Nate Silver, The Signal & The Noise

Two stats books, although neither was a patch on David Luff. Nate Silver is a bit of a liberal hero at the moment for calling the results of the Obama election and upsetting Fox News with his insistence on using data, but he's not doing anything spectacular. Fox are just upset that facts appear to have a liberal bias. Since the last entry, Fred and I have been sailing the Solent through snowstorms and freezing temperatures, and summer has arrived. Fred coped very well with sailing, although him and the other kids spent much of the time below decks, and it's persuaded Helen to go camping next weekend - we're going to spend a night in the New Forest to see how we get on. . .  .

Cold Comfort Farm and Riddle of the Sands were rereads, and just as brill as ever. RotS obviously inspired by sailing. Next up maybe the 39 Steps. .. .

Bernard Donoughue & GW Jones, Herbert Morrison; Portrait of a Politician, Dodie Smith, I Capture The Castle, Philip Mansel, Constantinople: City of the World's Desire 1453-1924, Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond, William Dalrymple, Return of a King; The Battle For Afghanistan

Leaving aside the first book, there's been some themes running through recent reading. 'I Capture The Castle' and 'The Towers of Trebizond' are written by authors with similar backgrounds writing at similar times about fictionalised younger versions of themselves. Both were wonderful, both were so funny and so arch. There's something very romantic about the remnants of the english ruling class in poverty/in search of a role after the Great War upset the natural order of things. How wonderfully quixotic to live in a castle with absolutely no income or means of providing for one selves other than relying on the goodwill of faithful retainers (I Capture The Castle) or attempting to convert the Turk to Anglicanism as the British Empire collapses and Ataturk's secular society is modernising Anatolia (Towers of Trebizond). The latter links in neatly with Mansel's History of Ottoman Constantinople, the most eye-opening part of the narrative being his convincing distinction between 'Ottoman' and 'Turk', both meaning very different things rather than the synonyms we often take them to be. 'Ottoman' meaning above nationality, multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan but very much Islamic, with 'Turk' as a national term, heterogeneous, defined as against Greek, Albanian, Kurd, Armenian,etc and suspicious of Constantinople as un-Turkish, unlike Ankara and Anatolia. This was particularly true with the ascent of Ataturk and the moving of the capital. Mansel also wrote 'Levant' which I read recently, and both read as laments for the lost, cosmopolitan, multilingual, tolerant societies of the Near East. Surely it can’t have been as wonderful as he suggests, and certainly the ethnic, religious and linguistic tensions have always been simmering away in the Levant.

Dalrymple's book on Afghanistan concentrates on the First Afghan War, rather than events since, and it's hard to read without picturing good old Flashman. It's probably fair to sum the whole thing up with that cracking line from The Princess Bride 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia.'

Since the last update Libby has had her 2nd birthday and now owns a scooter too. She loves it and insists on travelling on it everywhere, despite being unable to steer or stop. The long trip home has become even more interesting as a result. Fred is very good and patiently waits, but he's such a proficient scooterer now he glides through town looking very elegant, and there's always the worry he'll scoot off out of sight while I'm trying to wrestle Libby into the buggy, or juggle her, her scooter, the bags, the buggy and the food shopping.

Peter H Wilson, Europe's Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years War, Peter Høeg, Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow

Bookcases installed and filled!  Downstairs there are three full Liatorps and a half Liatorp, plus a corner Hemnes. I've spent most of my spare time recategorising and moving things about to get the right balance between similarity, aesthetics and practicality (different shelf heights). Life at the moment revolves around children's parties; I haven't managed a run since the Great South in October, and I have a half-marathon in a few weeks. In the week we have a new pick-up routine which seems to be working; I head down to nursery to pick up Libby first. Normally this is walking, but I had Fred's scooter last week and almost killed myself and several bystanders by scooting far too fast down White Rose Lane and attempting to stop by jumping off. What an idiot. After picking up Lib, who is so chatty at the moment and has new words all the time, mostly related to food, violence or the assertion of possession, we take the buggy up the hill, singing 'Wheels on the Bus' on the way. Lib does the 'Gangnam Style' horsey ride dance when I sing 'The Freddies on the bus go 'Gangnam Style!''. Then we pick up Fred from Gemma's, which always turns into an event with their wonderful whirling sofa that spins round. Luke and Fred seem to get on so well. They had a playdate on Sunday and then a party; Freddie seems to be turning into a real little boy, with a little gang  running round causing chaos.

Freddie's favourite game at the moment is 'wrap and sandwich' which involved him and Lib pretending to be cheese and salami and getting wrapped up in a blanket and then lying on top of a pillow, having another pillow put on top, then Libby, then another pillow. I've been writing a joke for him every day too to encourage his reading. A Sample is 'What flies and wobbles? A Jellycopter!'

After pick up from Gemma's we have a scooter race back through the town centre. Normally this involves stopping at the ice cream parlour, Starbuck's, the Library, the cookie shop or similar. He's getting really quick now, I have to really run to keep up. He's been out on his bike a few times too with me holding the handle.

I struggled with the history of the Thirty Years War, 800 pages of battles and politicking. At the end of it I couldn’t tell you the first thing about that messy period. Miss Smilla was the book that kickstarted the Nordic noir genre in the UK. It seems very familiar now with the dark brooding atmosphere, but must have seemed very new at the time. The early part on the book is set in Copenhagen, and after The Killing and Borgen it eas like reading about an old friend. When the action switched to a ship and then later Greenland I got disoriented; outside the comfort zone. . .

Ben Aaronovitch, Moon over Soho, Peter Ackroyd, Foundation: The History of England Volume One, Andrea Camilleri, The Shape of Water

The tent has arrived, the house is starting to take shape and the Christmas tree is now up. So happy in the new house, although until the books are recategorised I won't be able to sleep properly. All my shelves have been requesitioned for the kids' playroom, so there's going to need to be a trip to IKEA soon to get some more book storage.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography, Peter Dennis, Pieter Plunker The Flying Tailor, Benerson Little, Pirate Hunting: The Fight Against Pirates, Privateers, and Sea Raiders from Antiquity to the Present, AS Byatt, Ragnarok, New Scientist, Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Questions, JRR Tolkein, The Hobbit, David Reynolds, America: Empire of Liberty, a New History

It's been a while, but we've been busy moving into the new place and although I've managed to find time for reading, I've not found time for writing about reading. We moved in five days ago, and everything is still in boxes. I had yesterday off to unpack, and by 14:00 had managed to unpack about half of the kitchen stuff; I'm going to be busy for a while yet.

I've just received a 5 man tent as a gift for 15 years' loyal service at CWW, and am very tempted to put it up in the Living Room before Helen gets home. The kids would love it, but she would kick my arse for not getting on with the unpacking. She sent a text this morning asking 'Where are the nappies?????'  They're in the bottom of a box, under a dozen other boxes, somewhere in the garage. Probably. Or maybe in the play room. . . .

Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class and Håkan Nesser, Borkmann's Point

The horrible pejorative title put me off reading 'Chavs' for a while, but it was a fantastic polemic about the demonisation of the working class from the '80s onwards, and how those who have suffered most are being blamed for society's problems. Scornful of both Conservatives and New Labour for not addressing the needs of those at the bottom. Almost a rallying-call too for what Labour needs to do to reconnect, although of course that would be going against the prevailing wisdom of tacking to the centre and appealing to the Daily Mail readers of Surbiton (and Woking) in order to win elections.

It's shameful that in all those years of New Labour so few council houses were built and that the gap between rich and poor widened. I know I'm biased, but surely a platform based on building more houses and public facilities would be a vote winner? We don’t have to betray any principles for that and it's a good idea - boost for construction industry, houses for people, bring house prices down by increasing supply. . . Even those with houses will have children that they can see being pricef out. And punitive taxation on wealth and second homes in particular too. Oh, for a left wing alternative. . .

'Borkmann's Point' didn't really grab me, despite Colin Dexter's praise. Maybe I've just read too much Scandinavian detective fiction recently. It's not technically set in Scandinavia, of course, it's in an unnamed northern European country which most resembles the Netherlands or Frisia, but has elements in common with anywhere from the Hanseatic League. I'll read a few more, mind.

I went on Freddie's school trip to The Lookout in Bracknell on Monday and had a whale of a time. Had so much fun looking after the kids and they really enjoyed themselves. Fred's teacher Mrs Taylor is my new hero; she seems to effortlessly control the class, keep them engaged, remains cheery and upbeat and does so much. The organisation was really impressive, and today I've been into Fred's class for an open day; each pupil has a book full of their work and pictures showing everything they've done; the effort involved must be huge. Well done to teachers and teaching assistants everywhere.