A selection of quotes and pictures to represent January’s reading:

commonplace book
noun
a book into which notable extracts from other works are copied for personal use.

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Or is it, perhaps, the case that the weeks, and the months, and the years are all the time adding, by stealth, and little by little, every bit as much to a memory as they take away? Until, at last, the things that didn’t happen have grown like moss over the things that did; a soft green cushion on which the mind can rest at last?

The Long Shadow by Celia Fremlin (1975)

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Man is a strange being. He always has a feeling somewhere in his heart that whatever the danger he will pull through. It’s just like when on a rainy day you imagine the faint rays of the sun shining on a distant hill.

Silence by Shūsaku Endō (1966)

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‘My last mistress, sir, said that if you give your attention to something beautiful, it will tell you a secret. I think if you’re used to seeing something and know what it is, you might forget that it’s beautiful – not see it at all.’

The Beholders by Hester Musson (2024)

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Like a weaver sorting through threads, she groups the colours: moss green, pale lichen green, the flash of yellow flowers high up on the hills, the inky waters and silver reflections, the blue of the sky – bright blue. A painter’s blue. The colour of spring. She remembers the pink sky the morning they arrived at Lochleven, the castle a dark silhouette reflected on the loch’s surface, like an underwater fortress.

The Tower by Flora Carr (2024)

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Men don’t want to be brothers – they may someday, but they don’t now. My belief in the brotherhood of man died the day I arrived in London last week, when I observed the people standing in a Tube train resolutely refuse to move up and make room for those who entered. You won’t turn people into angels by appealing to their better natures just yet awhile – but by judicious force you can coerce them into behaving more or less decently to one another to go on with.

The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie (1925)

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‘There are moments in history when entire empires, whole branches of the future, rest precariously on the words of a single person. Usually, they’re not even aware of it. They don’t have time to plan, or consider. They simply open their mouths and speak, and the universe takes on a new pattern.’

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton (2024)

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‘In the absence of an explanation, suspicion festers and people find that they need someone to blame.’

The Spendthrift and the Swallow by Ambrose Parry (2023)

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We must tell the stories of our time so that tomorrow’s children receive them, then pass them on like scrolls in bottles sent down the river.

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers (2023)

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It’s when you least expect it that sorrow returns, like a thief who steals joy.

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo (2024)

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Women have always been the same throughout the Ages, when every girl becomes, in her turn, the modern girl. Her conduct is not dependent on any period, but on her disposition. It is only the popular definition of morality, and the general acceptance or rejection of any breach, which is topical.

Fear Stalks the Village by Ethel Lina White (1932)

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Favourite books read in January:

The Long Shadow and Silence

Authors read for the first time in January:

Shūsaku Endō, Hester Musson, Flora Carr, Benjamin Myers

Places visited in my January reading:

England, Japan, Scotland, Greece, China

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January reading notes: My reading for 2024 got off to a good start in January; I’m particularly pleased that I managed to fit in a book for the Japanese Literature Challenge (Silence), as reading more books in translation is one of my resolutions for this year. In February I need to read my book for the recent Classics Club Spin, which is Thomas Hardy’s The Trumpet Major, and I’m also hoping to join in with #ReadIndies, hosted by Karen and Lizzy.

How was your January? Do you have any plans for your February reading?