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

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

~

Put one foot in front of the other, and she would get to the other side. Now she knew there was no other side to grief, no other place to get to. You never got through it, not in the way you might get through an illness or a wild storm or an examination. It never went away. Instead, it became a part of you.

The Lost Château by Dinah Jefferies (2026)

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You can’t win when you’re fighting someone who doesn’t know there is a fight.

The Rose and the Yew Tree by Mary Westmacott (1948)

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If Ares saw this, I think, if he were made to confront the consequences of his wars, would it stir any flicker of regret in his iron soul? He can fly away from the carnage, his chariot pulled by fire-breathing, bronze-hooved horses, and never have to think about it. It’s goddesses who hear the prayers of the grieving, just as Demeter said. Never the gods.

This Immortal Heart by Jennifer Saint (2026)

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‘Love is a precious thing and needs nurturing. The love you have is a good basis for the future, but sometimes you must work to keep it alive’.

The Boleyn Secret by Alison Weir (2026)

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This was the time when the rush for the spoils filled a corner of the forest with the yelping of hounds, the cracking of whips, the flaring of torches. The appetites let loose were satisfied at last, shamelessly, amid the sound of crumbling neighbourhoods and fortunes made in six months. The city had become an orgy of gold and women.

The Kill by Émile Zola (1872)

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“One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.”

The Persian Boy by Mary Renault (1972)

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Because the truth makes a kind of deep sense, even when it appears fantastic. Truth weaves the world together. Lies shatter things and the truth restores.

The Forever Summer by Lulu Taylor (2026)

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For no story is truly lost, as long as there’s someone willing to tell it. And someone willing to listen.

No Fair Maidens by Kim Willis (2026)

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They’d worked together, just like Bill taught them, and when else did women like them ever get the chance to do that? When the only thing you’re expected to achieve in life is a decent marriage, every other woman is your competition, not your collaborator.

The Scandalous Ladies Football Club by Frances Quinn (2026)

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Favourite books read in July:

The Rose and the Yew Tree, The Scandalous Ladies Football Club and The Forever Summer

Authors read for the first time in July:

Lulu Taylor and Kim Willis

Places visited in my July reading:

France, England, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Persia, India, Wales, Scotland

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Reading notes: After a slow June reading-wise, July was a better month for me. It was also quite a busy month – I was away for a week visiting family in Lincolnshire, bought a new car and went to see The Odyssey, but still managed to find plenty of time for reading. I’ve now read 14 of my 20 Books of Summer and I’m sure I’ll be able to read the rest in August, especially as I’ve already started two of them. Fitting in all the reviews could be a problem as I still have some outstanding from this month as well, as you can see above, but I’ll do my best! August is also Women in Translation Month and I have at least one book lined up for that.

How was your July? Do you have any plans for August?

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

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

~

‘When you think about it, everyone’s life’s a prison – of days, sort of. The trick is to get comfortable in it, I reckon. Find your freedom inside whatever your prison is.’

A Far-flung Life by ML Stedman (2026)

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‘It wasn’t only a little she-cat I bought. It was the nobility of all cats, their infinite disinterestedness, their knowledge of how to live, their affinities with the highest type of humans.’

Gigi and The Cat by Colette (1933/1944)

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Anne said, “Common sense is an unkind master.”

The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden (2026)

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Just as a novel must contain ideas, so must a painting. A novel devoid of thought was mere entertainment and a painting bereft of ideas no better than caricature.

She Walks at Night by Seishi Yokomizo (1948)

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The loss of the mother and sisters became internalized as a kind of empty space or wound that required filling with near-endless lands, people, and tall tales. The stories must go on forever and crowd out dark gaps. Charlotte wrote of herself, but this could be from Emily, too: “I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.”

This Dark Night by Deborah Lutz (2026)

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Favourite book read in June:

A Far-flung Life

Places visited in my June reading:

Australia, France, Japan, England, Brittany

Authors read for the first time in June:

Colette, Deborah Lutz

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Reading notes: June wasn’t a great reading month for me, for various reasons, and I’m already behind with 20 Books of Summer. I didn’t manage to read my Classics Club Spin book (The Persian Boy by Mary Renault) by the spin deadline either, although I’m more than halfway through and will finish it soon. The good thing is, I enjoyed everything I read, which is more important than the number of books, I think!

This month, Emma of Words and Peace is hosting Paris in July, a celebration of all things French! I have a review ready to post for that and hope to have time to read another suitable book as well. After missing the Read Christie challenge monthly read in June, I’m planning to join in again this month and read The Rose and the Yew Tree. Otherwise, I’ll be concentrating on my 20 Books of Summer list.

How was June for you? Do you have any plans for your July reading?

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

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

~

A certain freedom of action was required in any relationship, even if caring deeply for a person you love also brought a type of freedom in itself.

24 Hours in Shogun’s Japan by Mark Hudson (2026)

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Aren’t memories like cats, either impossible to put out, or resistant to all attempts to call them to you?

Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd (2026)

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As one Polish architect put it to me, “Daylight is free. If something is free, people kind of neglect the importance of it.”

The Inner Clock by Lynne Peeples (2024)

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‘I’d rather die,’ Bridget said. On occasion she could be as melodramatic as Rose. ‘I will only marry a man if he has a good library.’

The Fourth Queen by Nicola Cornick (2026)

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Don’t tell me that’s of no importance. You’d be mistaken. You’d be like those rich people who like to claim that money doesn’t matter. That’s because they have it, damn it! But what about when you don’t? Have you ever known what it’s like not to have any?

Letter to My Judge by Georges Simenon (1947)

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Yet now, seeing her vulnerable, human side, Yvette realised how easy it was to judge people by the armour they wore. She considered how often one didn’t know what people had gone through and what suffering they carried within them.

The Lost Orphans of Lyon by Helen Parusel (2026)

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Mila nodded her agreement. She thought how, in a way, summer days did last forever. It was only the people who changed; the younger generation constantly replacing the old.

The Sea Sisters by Louise Douglas (2026)

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Because war is still war, perhaps less artful, less effective, less heroic than the bards sing it, but still deadly, still widow-making and orphan-fathering, still tragic. On the canvas of the Trojan War, it is the depth of the colour that counts, not the exactitude of the lines.

Son of Nobody by Yann Martel (2026)

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I pass over the spectacle of Poirot on a camel. He started by groans and lamentations and ended by shrieks, gesticulations and invocations to the Virgin Mary and every Saint in the calendar. In the end, he descended ignominiously and finished the journey on a diminutive donkey. I must admit that a trotting camel is no joke for the amateur. I was stiff for several days.

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie (1924)

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He forgot that love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever, and a delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and very imperfectly understood by everyone except the individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures.

Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1862)

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The solitude and his own company suited him and days like this, when everything was white and the trees were skeletal, didn’t bother him. It just made the Northumbrian countryside more stunning. Yet it also made you realise what a tiny part of the world you inhabited as a human being.

And that was the part that, if you dwelt on it too much, could freak you out.

The Witch’s Stone by Kirsty Ferry (2026)

~

Favourite books read in May:

The Lost Orphans of Lyon and Lady Audley’s Secret

Authors read for the first time in May:

Mark Hudson, Helen Parusel, Lynne Peeples and Kirsty Ferry

Places visited in my May reading:

England, Japan, France, Egypt, USA, Canada

~

Reading notes: May has been a good month of reading and I was particularly pleased to finish two nonfiction books, as reading more nonfiction was one of my resolutions for the year. Lady Audley’s Secret was a re-read for me (another of my resolutions was to do some re-reading!) and I’ll be reviewing it tomorrow for FictionFan’s review-along. Otherwise, my other outstanding reviews will appear eventually!

This year’s 20 Books of Summer challenge begins tomorrow. I posted my plans last week and although there are some books I’m definitely hoping to get to this summer, I’m also going to allow myself plenty of flexibility, particularly as I’ll be away for a week in June and a week in July. There are some other reading events taking place this summer as well, beginning with Mallika’s cat-themed Reading the Meow event, which runs from 15-21 June, and I have at least one book lined up for that.

Have you read any good books this month? What are you hoping to read in June?

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

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

~

But it was only in epic tragedies that gloom was unrelieved. In real life, tragedy and comedy were so intermingled that when one was most wretched ridiculous things happened to make one laugh in spite of oneself.

A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer (1961)

~

For that matter, why would anyone bother to read a mystery novel if they had any doubts about the man who was leading them to a solution? It’s a simple rule. Detectives have to be infallible. If not, readers will never trust them again.

A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz (2026)

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‘Danger, yes, always,’ the goddess says. ‘Danger and doom and death, but also victory. It might be hard to tell the four apart, from where you stand. An ant caught on a thread cannot discern the loom’s grander design – yet it can change the pattern with its presence.’

Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou (2026)

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“One’s prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognise your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.”

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961)

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The idea of the inexplicable meant nothing to them; they did not need it. So much that was inexplicable – for example, the phases of the moon – lay around them that they simply accepted it as part of their lives.

Tales from Watership Down by Richard Adams (1996)

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A surge of joy flows through me. I realise how much I’ve wanted someone else to know. Love feels real with a witness.

Pixie by Jill Dawson (2026)

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Only the tone of his voice had remained distinct and clear within her…and a voice is to the blind what artificial light is to other people: it is sufficient to detach in a certain manner the shadows and the reliefs of an individual’s soul.

The Blind Woman of Sorrento by Francesco Mastriani (1852)

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“I asked you to solve my problem for me,” said Maria-Pia, slowly. “That was a foolish thing to do. Nobody can solve problems for other people.”

Dead Men Don’t Ski by Patricia Moyes (1959)

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Human happiness is rarely in the best of circumstances without shadows, and an almost pure happiness can be a terror to itself.

The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch (1973)

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Favourite books read in April:

A Deadly Episode, The Blind Woman of Sorrento and Pixie

Authors read for the first time in April:

Muriel Spark, Danai Christopoulou, Francesco Mastriani, Patricia Moyes

Places visited in my April reading:

England, Scotland, US, Jamaica, Italy

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Reading notes: I started the month with two books for 1961 Club – I enjoyed the Heyer and although I didn’t love my first experience with Muriel Spark, I do intend to try more of her books. The rest of my April reading consisted of some NetGalley review copies, a lost Italian classic, a sequel to a childhood favourite and the Iris Murdoch novel I had started to read in March! In May (can you believe it’s May already?) I’ll be joining in with the Read Christie challenge which I’ve neglected for the last few months, but otherwise I don’t have many plans.

How was your April? What will you be reading in May?

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.

~

“One of the difficulties of mankind is that they have the vice of inventiveness. It would be an easier world for dragons if this were not so, or if it could be kept within bounds, used for the better working of gold, setting of jewels, or such trading activities as bringing treasure from far countries within reach of dragons.”

Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison (1952)

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For a moment, standing beneath the wide skies and the vista of fields and ancient hedgerows exactly the same as they had been centuries before, she had no longer been in the present day, instead caught up in the turmoil her ancestors had lived through. Love longed for, and love lost. With her feet placed firmly in both times, Paige was able to feel the heartache and anger in both.

The Alchemist’s Secret by Clare Marchant (2026)

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‘Everyone is an artist deep down inside; people are creative by their very nature. That’s something Lionel hates to admit because he likes to think he’s special, but I think if we can open up art to everyone that can only be a good thing.’

The Strawberry House by Rachel Burton (2026)

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You had so many ways of deciding which way to live your life. It made his head spin to think of them. It hurt his heart to think that he had decided on the wrong way.

A thing seemed important until there was something more important.

West by Carys Davies (2018)

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‘To be able to love is a luxury,’ he said. ‘That’s why it is always balanced exactly with loss. It is another of life’s great justices.’

The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski (2026)

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‘You know as well as I do that the world is in a mess and floundering deeper every day. We have only a precarious hold on the forces we do liberate – and problems that we ought to be trying to solve, we neglect.’

Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham (1960)

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‘I think Miss Juniper would acknowledge we do these young women a better service by forewarning them of what awaits them in the world they will soon set out in than by leaving them ignorant of it and allowing them to be guided only by novels. There is a class of people amongst whom they will move that do not always face the justice they should, and it is important they understand that.’

The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona MacLean (2026)

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Yes, she thought, going to war had solved so much, it had left things in abeyance, it had meant that all discussion had been postponed, it had made compromise impossible, but in solving what it did, it had solved too much. It had solved everything so there was nothing left.

The News from Dublin by Colm Tóibín (2026)

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‘There is no one right way to do things,’ she said seriously. ‘Life looks different for everybody and just because something you want hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it won’t. There are a thousand different stories waiting in your life, Thea, and you still have time to tell whichever one you want. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.’

A Remedy for Fate by MA Kuzniar (2026)

~

My favourite books read in March:

The Strawberry House and West

Authors read for the first time in March:

Rachel Burton, Naomi Mitchison, Clare Marchant, Angela Tomaski

Places visited in my March reading:

England, France, US, Ireland, Spain, Argentina, Czech Republic, Scotland

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Reading notes: In March I managed to take part in both Reading Ireland and Reading Wales, with books by Colm Tóibín and Carys Davies respectively. I also completed my Classics Club Spin book, Trouble with Lichen, ahead of the deadline. More importantly, I enjoyed most of the books I read in March, although the Angela Tomaski took me a while to get into, and I had mixed feelings about the Shona MacLean as well.

In April I’m looking forward to 1961 Club which will be hosted by Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon of Stuck in a Book. I also have some NetGalley books to catch up with, so it will be another busy month.

How was March for you? Do you have any plans for your April reading?

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

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

~

And I was alone, but I wasn’t really alone. Can a bookworm ever really call herself alone when she’s surrounded by books?

The Astral Library by Kate Quinn (2026)

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Mrs Oliver cast a glance over the Penguin display.

‘The Affair of the Second Goldfish,’ she mused, ‘that’s quite a good one. The Cat it was Who Died – that’s where I made a blowpipe a foot long and it’s really six feet. Ridiculous that a blowpipe should be that size, but someone wrote from a museum to tell me so. Sometimes I think there are people who only read books in the hope of finding mistakes in them…’

Mrs McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie (1952)

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‘I want to find out her story. Not just the story about a king who ruled well even though the play said he didn’t, but the true story of a woman who’s never been named. Who was portrayed as a hag, but who was sweet and lovely and treated really badly.’ She felt the injustice sweep through her. ‘It’s important.’

The Three Witches by Elena Collins (2026)

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“Misfortune never comes alone. Sometimes, coincidence creates the impossible,” I said slowly. I truly believed it.

The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (1988)

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“One of the problems with real life,” I responded, “is that it seldom allows one to learn the complete outcome of a story. Novels have the advantage, as do movies, of being able to explain everything in the final chapter.”

The Final Problem by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (2023)

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She preferred the field to the archives, to inhabit bodily the places people had been before. That way she felt she could learn far more than studying an isolated specimen in a museum.

The Night Hag by Hester Musson (2026)

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People like us, on the lower rungs of the ladder, we are always standing on the edge of a precipice. Disaster is far easier to come by than fortune, but it is so much easier to ignore that truth. How can any of us live if we acknowledge the cheapness of our lives?

The House of Fallen Sisters by Louise Hare (2026)

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‘Old stories,’ he said. ‘People tell stories about places, and when those people are gone, the stories are all you have left.’

Murder Like Clockwork by Nicola Whyte (2026)

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She had allowed herself to be carried by feeling, to live and love more freely than she had dared to in a decade. It had been easier to take each step while she was not looking at the path ahead.

The Wandering Queen by Claire Heywood (2026)

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One’s life, viewed as a whole, is always the answer to the most important questions. Along the way, does it matter what one says, what words and principles one chooses to justify oneself? At the very end, one’s answers to the questions the world has posed with such relentlessness are to be found in the facts of one’s life.

Embers by Sándor Márai (1942)

~

Favourite books read in February:

The Wandering Queen and Murder Like Clockwork

Authors read for the first time in February:

Claire Heywood, Louise Hare, Sándor Márai, Elena Collins, Nicola Whyte

Places visited in my February reading:

Japan, England, US, Scotland, Greece, Austria, Ancient Tyre and Carthage

~

Reading notes: February was a good month of reading for me. I was pleased to be able to contribute three reviews for Read Indies Month and one for Hungarian Lit Month, as well as taking part in the Read Christie challenge. As you can see, I haven’t reviewed everything I read in February yet, but I’m hoping to catch up soon.

March is another month with plenty of events taking place in the book blogging world: there’s Reading Wales and Reading Ireland, both of which I’m hoping to join in with. Chris of Calmgrove Books is also hosting March Magics, celebrating the work of Diana Wynne Jones and Terry Pratchett. And with an end of March target for finishing our Classics Club Spin books, I have The Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham lined up to start soon.

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

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.

~

I love the cycle of it, the repetition. Whatever changes in life, wherever I end up, the patterns of the garden will always be the same.

A Slow and Secret Poison by Carmella Lowkis (2026)

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Round and round they run in that long-ago, and in the now Angie realizes her face is wet with tears, tears as silent as the space between her and that other life. Nostalgia is nothing more than a trick of the mind, she tells herself. A way to turn plain memories into great ones.

Penitence by Kristin Koval (2025)

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They both loved the excitement of the chase, learning to ride with hawks on their wrists and greyhounds at their heels. Otherwise, the two boys were finding that they had little in common, even apart from the suspicions Richard had already begun to harbour about the political intentions of Henry’s father. On both sides, greater familiarity bred, if not contempt, then at least a profoundly wary distance.

The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor (2024)

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‘I wish only to paint well. To please those who employ me, and to create something beautiful to offset the darkness in the world.’

The House of Barbary by Isabelle Schuler (2025)

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The obvious tactic would be to make a good impression in the courtroom. If she’s deliberately doing the opposite, I think that must be because she really is sure of her innocence. After all, the defendant knows better than anyone else whether they committed the crime.

Suspicion by Seichō Matsumoto (1982)

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“And though he was not much given to thinking about love, did not much care for the word, thought it had been worn to a kind of uselessness, gutted by the advertising men and the crooners, and even by politicians, some of whom seemed, recently, to have discovered it, it struck him that in the end it might just mean a willingness to imagine another’s life. To do that. To make the effort.”

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (2024)

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Is it that they reinforce each other’s strengths and compensate for each other’s weaknesses? Or is it the reluctance to be alone that bonds them? It doesn’t apply only to romantic couples either, but to friends, relatives, colleagues. How many good things, and how many crimes, have been the work of a bonded pair?

The Killer Question by Janice Hallett (2025)

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His profession was strangely intimate: selling an apartment or a house was a big deal. It was selling a piece of your life, a piece of your memories – sometimes even a whole life. It was closing a door that you would never open again.

An Astronomer in Love by Antoine Laurain (2023)

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But it is an easy thing to be angry with someone you do not care about. To be angry with one you love, that has weight to it.

Brigid by Kim Curran (2026)

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What makes you sad about the thought of dying? had been one of the questions. The team had debated whether to ask it. But they had posed the question and none of the interviewees had seemed to mind. She remembered the most poignant of the answers: ‘There will always be unread books.’

Room 706 by Ellie Levenson (2026)

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That night I really grasped the fact that most of the time we have no notion of what we really want, or we lose sight of it. And the even more important fact that what we really want, just doesn’t fit in with life as a whole, or very seldom. Most folk learn slowly, and never altogether learn at all. I seemed to learn all at once.

All the Fear of the Fair by various authors (2025) – quote from The Swords by Robert Aickman

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My favourite books read in January:

The Killer Question

Authors read for the first time in January:

Kristin Koval, Seichō Matsumoto, Antoine Laurain, Ellie Levenson, Eleanor Smith, L.P. Hartley, Tod Robbins, W.L. George, Charles Birkin, Robert Silverberg, Richard Middleton, Charles Davy, J.D. Beresford, Gerald Kersh

Places visited in my January reading:

England, US, Switzerland, Japan, Ireland, France, India, Madagascar, Isle de France (Mauritius)

~

Reading notes: January was a good month for me in terms of reading. You’ll have noticed that I tried lots of new authors, which I’m pleased about, although most of them appeared in the short story collection All the Fear of the Fair, a book I’m hoping to review soon. I read Seichō Matsumoto’s Suspicion for the Japanese Literature Challenge and as that particular challenge continues to run throughout February, I’ll see if I can fit in something by another Japanese author as well.

Also in February, Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings is hosting another #ReadIndies month, highlighting books published by independent publishers, and I’m sure I’ll have at least a few reviews to post that will count towards that event. I didn’t take part in the Read Christie challenge in January because I’d already read all of the suggested titles, but I’m planning to join in with Mrs McGinty’s Dead in February.

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