At the start of 2017 I made a resolution improve on last year's 53 books, setting the target at 65. For most of the year I seemed to be ahead of target, but the last few months have been quite tough for a number of reasons and I really didn't think I'd make it. However, a late sprint during the Christmas holidays has seen me cross the line.

As last year, here are some highlights:

Most interesting: John Wright A Natural History of the Hedgerow (Profile Books 2016)
I had never really stopped to think about how hedgerows were constructed and was surprised to discover that there is such variety in methods and to understand how a hedge is laid by partially cutting through the stems and pushing the young plants over. I think a good non-fiction book is one that opens my eyes to see the world in a new, more detailed way. A little while ago I read Blockley's Bridges (OUP 2010) and that had the same effect - I can't now pass a bridge without trying to work out how it works and why that design was chosen for the situation.

Saddest to finish: Herbert Uncommon Law
A colleague had lent (and eventually gave me) this wonderful compendium of stories highlighting the absurdity of the law. I read one story (there are 66) each day whilst eating lunch at work and they were such a joy.

Most thrilling: Graves  I, Claudius (Penguin)
I read quite a lot of thrillers, but I found re-reading this very sleep-depriving because I just couldn't put it down. Whilst Robert Harris's Cicero trilogy are also very gripping there's something about Graves's writing that makes it even more compelling.

Most heavy going: Hofstadter Goedel, Escher, Bach and eternal golden braid (Basic Books, 1999)
I have to admit that I really found this hard and nearly abandoned it several times. I'm not sure I really got to grips with the incompleteness theorem but I enjoyed the parallels with Escher and Bach and it has inspired me to study The Art of Fugue. I've been lucky enough to receive both a recording (the Radio 3 building a library recommendation to add to the two I have already - one orchestral, one organ) and a score for Christmas, so that's definitely a project for 2018.


My target for 2018 is going to stick at 65, but I want to read two quite hefty volumes in amongst that. The first is Press and Siever's Earth - a book I used to dip into when I was a sixth former, but have never read cover to cover. I was so pleased to find this on Amazon for a not too eye-watering price as I thought it was out-of-print and difficult to obtain. When I started teaching back at my old school I was devastated that the librarian had weeded it out whilst I was up at Oxford and have been looking for it ever since. The second is Eliel's magisterial Stereochemistry of Organic Compounds. This was one that I used to borrow from the Hooke library in Oxford and again dip into. It was also the volume that finally exasperated me with Blackwell's in Oxford, their "expert" telling me the book didn't exist and was therefore unobtainable, not 20 minutes after I'd returned my library copy! Eliel's prose style is beautifully readable but it's not really a book that you can keep on a bedside table!