A Year in First Lines

Lots of people have been doing this and so I thought I would, too. The idea is to take the first line of the first blog post of each month and put them all in one post. Because my actual first post of the month is always a State of the TBR one, I’ve included that for the picture of my waxing and waning (OK, waxing) TBR and then the first sentence of my first review post. So the month name links to the blog post and you get a photo of the TBR for that month (watch that big Kynaston book move up the list as the months wear on …).

January

Two in the “popular non-fiction” genre to start the year off – both started last year, which was a bit untidy, but never mind.

February

Two sets of rather contrasting books today – and also two from last month and two from this.

March

Two books for two challenges today, although I will admit here that I heard about Reading Ireland Month, thought I didn’t have anything on the TBR for it, then looked down at the book I was reading at the time and caught the word “Waterford” and thought, “Oh, yes!”

April

Well, it’s Mary Hocking Reading Week, hosted as usual by Heaven-Ali, and of course this year we have the excitement of the fact that Bello Books have been busy reissuing Hocking’s novels, half in February and out already and half to come in July (read more about that here).

May

Two very unlike books today, I’m afraid – wanted to get the Woolf reviewed as near to the end of Heaven-Ali’s #Woolfalong Phase 2: Beginnings and Endings project as I could, and then I picked a tiny one off the beginning of the shelf to read in scraps of time.

June

Two books, one about books, one about the alphabet – you can’t get more booky or a more appropriate start for me for my #20BooksofSummer project, can you?

July

I seem to have been working, eating, sleeping and running and not really reading very much – argh!

August

Today I’m thrilled to review an excellent new novel by Katharine d’Souza.

September

On Saturday, I had a lovely trip to Astley Book Farm, near Bedworth, with three booky friends.

October

This book was kindly sent to me by the publisher in return for an honest review.

November

Well, a novel and a book about novels – I’m already feeling twitchy enough about leaving my last October book hanging around until this far into November.

December

Well, I have finished Dorothy Richardson’s “Pilgrimage” sequence and right on time, too. The 13 volumes have taken me 13 months to read, and I could not have done it without having the other lovely bloggers and LibraryThing Virago Group members to see me through.

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I’m not sure how wholly illuminating this is, but it does show the TBR in all its glory and encapsulates the Woolfalong, 20 Books of Summer and Dorothy Richardson challenges I’ve been doing, plus the fact that sometimes people kindly send me books and sometimes I go on book-buying trips.

If you’ve done one of these posts or plan to, do link to it in the comments below: it does give quite a good snapshot, doesn’t it!