MEDIEVAL WOMEN'S THINGS

Looking back to 2025, I did a quick analysis of my books read into three categories:

1) Library/Non-library
40.5 library, 41.5 non-library.  (49.5%/50.5%)  The half book is because I started off borrowing one from the library, realised it would take me a very long time to read it, so bought a cheap second hand copy and read it over nine months.  I'm definitely pleased that half my reading was library books, which is an increase on 2024.

2) Crime/Other Fiction/Non-fiction
38 crime, 35 other fiction, 9 non-fiction.  (46%/43%/9%)  Which will be no surprise at all to most of my friends.  The proportion of crime novels has dropped to below half of my reading, which I'm pleased about, as I am keen to broaden my reading.

3) Male/Female authors
43 male, 39 female.  (52.5%/47.5%)  Not very much in it.  For anthologies I count half each.


As usual for 2026 I have split my reading into 6 lists, with the aim being to read at least one book from each list each month.  They are:
A) Library - initial list of 16 books, which allows for returning one or two unfinished
B) Library - 15 Maigret books, all the Maigret's in the library which I haven't read
C) Book shelf - 15 books, 12 last year's purchases plus 3 crime anthologies
D) Mixed Bag - 12 books, split as follows: 4 odd purchases from years ago; 3 Sister Joan mysteries; 3 Yarn Retreat mysteries; 2 Christmas presents from Son 
E) Book Club - aiming for 1 per month, from Shedunnit, an online group I join occasionally, read Christie etc
F) New Books - purchased new releases or new books in the library
I have signed up for a Goodreads goal of 75 books again.  I realise there are more on my lists, but there's bound to be the odd DNF and I'd rather exceed by a few books than struggle to make it.


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Today's thefridayfive quesitons

1. Do you mostly drink tap, filtered, or bottled water?
Tap water at home - I drink at least a litre a day.  If we're out for a meal I'll also ask for tap water.  When travelling, especially abroad, I'll drink bottled water.

2. Is it safe/recommended to drink tap water where you live? If not, why?
Definitely.  And it saves plastic waste.

3. What does the tap water taste/smell like where you live?
I don't think it has a particular taste, and definitely no smell.  Someone else might notice a slight taste if it was different from their own tap water.

4. Do you collect rainwater? If so, what do you use it for?
Yes.  Watering the garden plants, water bowls for the birds, rinsing out waste bins.

5. Do you/have you ever had restrictions on water use where you live? What did you have to change about your lifestyle?
We sometimes have a hosepipe ban during a long, hot summer, but as we don't have a hosepipe, this doesn't make a lot of difference.

My total words for December was just over 10K, bringing my final total for the year to 121K, which means I reached my goal, but with only 2 days to spare!

One celebration is that for the end of 2025 I have 1,500 works posted to AO3, which is rather clever - totally unplanned.

Once more there isn't much to link to.  Yuletide is still anonymous of course.  So here are my two main works:

Firstly, my yearly offering of Marylebone Monthly Illustrated Christmas Anthology 

And secondly Twelve More Days of Christmas has the first six in the series.  The other six are all written and will be posted daily until January 6th.

Final list of the year.  8 books finished this month, bringing my total for the year to 82 - 7 above my goal.

Firstly, I continued to read for the Goodreads Challenges.  Here my intention is simply to broaden my reading, but only choose something which specifically interests me, so I'm never going to complete all the sections within a challenge.  For the Fall Challenge I achieved 5 out of 12, the first three being simply to read books over the months.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Short books category.  I'm really glad I read this - it crops up every so often.  The correspondence between the young American lady and the English bookseller is great and very entertaining.  Thoroughly recommended to anyone looking for a short read.

The Cat who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa
Cosies category, cat sub-section.  I do like a good cat book and for me this worked better than some of the others I've read this year.  While the human characters have the main part, the cat has their own role to play.  This is the second in the series and the first is now on my list for next year.


After which came all my Christmas reads:

Murder in Wintertime: Classic Crime Stories edited by Cecily Gayford
The last few books in this series haven't been as good, but this year I really enjoyed the selection.

Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan
Written in 1948, I found this disappointing.  Normally when reading a mystery I will speed up towards the end, but this time I didn't.  And to me the solution was poor and unconvincing.

The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights edited by Bridget Collins
I'm not always a fan of spooky stories, but these I really enjoyed.  Our library has the book from the previous year, so that's also on my list.

Murder for Christmas edited by Thomas Godfrey
Lots of classic short stories.  Some of which I'd read at least a couple of times before (good ones) and several I didn't know.  An excellent collection.

Death Comes at Christmas edited by C.L. Taylor
A modern collection of short stories which on the whole I enjoyed. Published last year, so worth looking out for.

Death in Ambush by Susan Gilruth
This year's British Library Crime Classics Christmas mystery.  I normally treat myself to this for Christmas, but wasn't impressed.  Too many boring domestic details, a narrator too sure of herself (think early Hastings) and bizarre behaviour from the police detective.

For completeness, I'm also including the two audiobooks I've recently finished:

The Murder of Mr Ma by SJ Rozan and John Shen Yen Nee read by Daniel York Loh
Set in 1920s London amongst the Chinese community, I eventually enjoyed the book.  It will not surprise regular readers of my posts that Lao, the narrator, annoyed me considerably.

The Four Deadly Seasons by David Hewson read by Richard Armitage
The third book in Hewson's Venetian Mysteries series.  The premise is that there's an until now undiscovered autobiography by Vivaldi.  The ramifications are both convoluted and deadly.  I've stopped listening to a number of books Armitage narrates, since I haven't been enjoying them, but this is one series I do enjoy and get caught up in the story.