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

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

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You never knew in advance if a decision was the right one. All you could do was try to imagine the future and use that to help you make up your mind in a difficult situation, and if you couldn’t imagine the future, well, you had to make up your mind anyway.

Clear by Carys Davies (2024)

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Fiction, if it is worth anything at all, is about life but it is not life.

The Game is Murder by Hazell Ward (2025)

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Grief marks a person as fire marks a house. You can paint over the soot and repair the boards, but the rooms will be haunted always by the scent of ashes.

Love, Sex & Frankenstein by Caroline Lea (2025)

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The last winter days went by like weary brokedown soldiers at the end of a war.

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (2024)

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One does not have to leave the old world to find a new one. A new one can be built by changing the old one for the better, one act of love at a time, seeding new memories among the old, so that both can bloom together.

The Darkening Globe by Naomi Kelsey (2025)

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Women who adore chocolate to the same degree enjoy a friendship that can’t be shaken.

The Versailles Formula by Nancy Bilyeau (2025)

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What survives our mortal death is our ideas, transcribed in art and words and stone, they are the piece of us that remains. But if that can disappear in a single night, consumed by flame? What then for immortality?

Cleopatra by Natasha Solomons (2025)

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As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws.

Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner (1898)

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The lesson, said he, be this – we tell tales of what lurks out in the dark so that we need not acknowledge the truth within.

What truth?

That, oftentymes, the fiend be our fault. Do you understand?

Mother Naked by Glen James Brown (2024)

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Finally, Annie looked at Emily. ‘You’re right. We must all follow our hearts, even when it scares us, because the most frightening thing of all is to not do the thing we are meant to.’

Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor (2025)

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Trials, like life, always go on to some sort of ultimate conclusion, however shockingly they unfold along the way.

A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith (2025)

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As individuals, none of us matters much. Our joint effort matters, though, when we work together.

Secrets of the Bees by Jane Johnson (2025)

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Favourite books read in March:

A Case of Life and Limb, Love, Sex & Frankenstein, Mother Naked and The Versailles Formula

Authors read for the first time in March:

Carys Davies, Hazell Ward, Kevin Barry, Naomi Kelsey, John Meade Falkner, Glen James Brown

Countries visited in my March reading:

Scotland, England, USA, Egypt, Switzerland, France

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Reading notes: I was pleased to be able to take part in both the Reading Ireland and Reading Wales events this month (and read new-to-me authors for both – Kevin Barry and Carys Davies respectively). I also made some progress with my Classics Club list and the Walter Scott Prize longlist, as well as reading some of my upcoming releases from NetGalley. I’ve only posted reviews for a few of these books so far, but the rest will follow, I promise!

In April, I’m looking forward to 1952 Club, which will be hosted by Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Stuck in a Book. I’m already halfway through my first book for that and have some others I’m also hoping to get to. 21-27 April, if you want to join in.

What did you read in March? Do you have any plans for April?