I’ll have a lot to get through in my books of the year / state of the TBR post on Saturday and/or Sunday, and although I’ve read two books since I last posted, they are two out of the five “The Dark is Rising” novels by Susan Cooper and I want to review all of them together, so I thought I could share my lovely Christmas book pile today.

First off, I have three very on-Liz-brand books from my Birmingham BookCrossing Not So Secret Santa, Catherine: June Sarpong – “Diversify”, which is about all forms of (also intersectional) diversity and why it’s good for businesses and society, Angie Cruz – “Let It Rain Coffee”, a novel about people from the Dominican Republic living in New York, and Paul Theroux – “On the Plain of Snakes”, his most recent travel book, this one on Mexico.

Then on Christmas Day I opened John Grindrod’s “Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain” from Gill, all about Brutalist and other post-war architecture; Dan Rhodes’ satire on the modern literary industry, “Sour Grapes” and “Sally-Ann” by Susan Scarlett aka Noel Streatfeild (published by Dean Street Press) from Emma; and Dorothy Whipple’s memoir, “The Other Day” and John Moore’s novel, “The Waters Under the Earth”, both Persephone books, from Ali.

I also, naturally, have many book tokens and a The Heath Bookshop voucher from lovely Jen, Sian, Laura, Gill and Meg, which I will be spending at the Bookshop in February (giving them and me a boost). I hope all my booky blog friends had lovely book piles to open and will look at all your posts as soon as I can.