Sunday Salon | 2 February

It’s that time of year again – here is a gift book haul and other celebratory stuff. Although THEY organised Brexit for my birthday I was not deterred and had a really lovely day. Book stuff first, as always 😀

The Book God got me:

• A Surfeit of Suspects by George Bellairs
• A Life in Death by Richard Venables
• The Cassandra by Sharma Shields
• The Final Winter by Iain Rob Wright
• The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs
• The Pandora Room by Christopher Golden

My brother gave me a gift voucher and I spent some time deciding whether to buy a couple of more expensive books or a pile of Kindle editions. (You can take the girl out of procurement etc. so of course I went for the latter!)

This is what I ended up with:

• Pine by Francine Toon
• The Dark Side of the Mind by Kerry Danes
• Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
• Stratton’s War by Laura Wilson
• Tide of Stone by Kaaron Warren
• The Warehouse by Rob Hart
• The Girls of Murder City by Douglas Perry
• Sefira and Other Betrayals by John Langan

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We had a really lovely lunch the day before my birthday in a super Viennese restaurant in Marylebone, but before that, we popped into Daunts and I treated myself to a couple of books

• Our Friends in Berlin by Anthony Quinn
• Memories of the Future by Siri Hustvedt

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The big event of my birthday was a trip to the theatre to see Endgame and Rough Theatre II by Samuel Beckett. I’ve never really been a Beckett admirer but this production starred two of my favourite actors, Alan Cumming and Daniel Radcliffe. Really excellent evening out.

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January has been a really good reading month, and I’m hoping that February will continue that streak. How is your reading going so far this year?