New Year's Reading List 2015

It's been five years since I last shared my Christmas Reading List (it doesn't seem like I've been blogging for that long!).  So Peter and I thought we would share what delightful texts we are looking forward to reading this year...

David's Choices

This book, a birthday present from my mother, has been on my to read list for the past couple of years. Now that we are starting to get some harvest from the orchard, vineyard, and elderflower hedge,  we are looking at recipes for turning the harvest into a nice tipple.

This book was given to me by a colleague who said he found it in a bookshop when he was browsing and couldn't put it down. He thought it might be my sort of book, and it is. Any lover of English literature will find this delightful.

Appealing to both the gardener and the dipsomaniac in me, this book takes a whimsical look at the botany behind some of the world's most popular drinks.

A fan of Debretts guides, this book was given to me as a gift after preaching at a London church one Sunday. I have enjoyed flicking through it's pages over the years, but have decided to dust it off and read it again cover to cover.

As a big fan of the Tottering-by-Gently strips from Country Life, when Annie Tempest released  a commemorative book of the first 20 years of her cartoon strips I happily snapped one up. The sort of book great for a coffee table or killing a little bit of time.

Peter's Choices

Peter and I are both fans of Alan Bennett. It was Peter who introduced his work to me. Peter saw the stage show of The History Boys when it was on in the West End, but I have only seen the movie, which was very good. Peter has decided he wants to go back and read the book again.

He also wants to re-read some of Auden's poetry. I discovered Auden after seeing Four Weddings and a Funeral with John Hannah's tear-jerking rendition of "Stop all the clocks" at Gareth's funeral. It is still one of my favourite poems. I also love this rhyming couplet from Auden's poem "The more loving one":

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

Peter recently saw the film adaptation of The Hundred-Foot Journey and so wants to read the novel. There are strong themes in the work which resound deeply with Peter's background growing up in a Guest House.

Susan Hill is a prolific writer, and her novel In the Springtime of the Year is one that Peter remembers reading as a student. It was considered to be one of the set texts for pastoral studies by one of his tutors, Bishop Jack Nicholls.

Fit for a Bishop is a jolly romp, which Peter was given to read many years ago by a parishioner, Connie. It contains extravagant recipes, and an introduction which delightfully describes the gardening antics of a priest's house keeper.

My Christmas Reading List...

Before the end of the year I plan to re-read some of my old favourites, all of which I would recommend. These include:

A typical Bennett work, and very well done. If you have not read his works before, this would be a fine example to start with (and his monologues "Talking Heads" are great fun).

'A book for book-lovers' is the only way to put it. I was not familiar with Fadiman's work before this book, but found it delightful. The chapters stand on their own and are good ways to kill small aliquots of time without feeling like you're committing to too much.

Long before speaking and writing correctly became popular (and then suddenly became unfashionable again), there were those of us who thought that it simply behoved one to make the effort to speak well. For such people, this is a good book. For others, this ought to be the book.

If you feel like a victim of the educational wasteland of Generation-Y and wish to start to acquiring the classical education which you so desperately lack, then Harry Mount's foray into making Latin accessible might be for you. Keenly witty and never patronising, this book is another one whose short chapters provide the means to enlightenment as well as escape for brief periods of one's day.

This book had me in stitches. It is a tongue in cheek look at the art of graceful living, and parodies such tomes as Debrett's Etiquette, and Emily Post's forsaken treatise. A good gift for someone who needs cheering up this Christmas. There is also a Pinch of Posh website.

From satire to serious, John Morgan's edition of Debrett's Modern Manners is a real gem. It combines traditional etiquette with a dash of wit, bringing the perceivably archaic into the 21st century. A reference book for every library.

Schott's Miscellanies (above) - of which there are several, and Brewer's (below) are also indispensable to the well-stocked library of the bibliophile. They provide answers to those paining questions on the origins of words and phrases which have come into common parlance by the obscurest of routes. To use them without knowing from whence they came would indeed be a grave solecism, but these books will take care of the problem and entertain you simultaneously.