This year I set myself the 52 Books a Year challenge: reading a different book every week. I actually read many more than that, but each week had an “official” book which I’ve listed below.

The books I read ranged from classic literature to contemporary romance, from children’s stories to non-fiction. I finally found a book about quantum mechanics that I could understand! J B Priestley’s Lost Empires is probably my Book of the Year, a haunting, nostalgic, moving tribute to a lost era of theatre. It has made me plan to re-read his equally amazing The Good Companions in 2025.

I chose the books in random and often serendipitous ways. Some were old favourites that I wanted to re-read. Others were recommended to me, or were books I’d always meant to read, or were ones I stumbled across in Street Libraries or book stores.

It’s hard to pick a “best” book since they’re all so different, but here are some of my award winners:

• Book of the year – Lost Empires by J B Priestley
• Best “old favourite” non-romance – Mike & Psmith by PG Wodehouse
• Best “old favourite” romance – Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Best new author discovery – A Visit to Highbury by Joan Austen-Leigh
• Best children’s book – The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
• Best non-fiction – The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures by Sarah Clegg

I highly recommend trying the 52 books a year reading challenge – or if that’s too much, try a book a fortnight or even a month. You can give yourself a break in busy weeks by choosing a shorter novel, such as a children’s book. The point is to enjoy yourself, and discover and re-discover wonderful reading material.

Books read in 2024

1. Then She Fled Me by Sara Seale
2. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
3. SPQR by Mary Beard
4. The Romance Fiction of Mills & Boon, 1909-1990s by Jay Dixon
5. Mike & Psmith by PG Wodehouse
6. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
7. The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks
8. A Visit to Highbury by Joan Austen-Leigh
9. De Rerum Natura by Lucretius
10. Ward to Andrew by Constance M. Evans
11. Death Comes to Pemberley by P D James
12. The Career of Katherine Bush by Elinor Glyn
13. Learning to Swim by Clare Chambers
14. The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
15. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
16. Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym
17. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
18. Lost Empires by J B Priestley
19. Life Skills by Katie Fforde
20. Love on a Branch Line by John Hadfield
21. Star over Bethlehem by Agatha Christie
22. Stuck Up & Stupid by Kate Rice and Angourie Rice
23. The Clocks by Agatha Christie
24. Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis
25. The Black Opal by Victoria Holt
26. Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson
27. The Jeeves Omnibus Volume 1 by PG Wodehouse
28. Ladybird book of Quantum Mechanics by Jim Al-Khalili
29. The Chewing Gum Rescue and Other Stories by Margaret Mahy
30. Rivals by Jilly Cooper
31. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
32. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
33. Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh
34. Le Fantôme de l’Opéra by Gaston Leroux
35. Fairy Tales by Alison Uttley
36. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
37. Rumpole à la Carte by John Mortimer
38. Agatha Christie’s Marple: Expert on Wickedness by Mark Aldridge
39. Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy
40. The Mystery That Never Was by Enid Blyton
41. Victorian Ghost Stories by Sheridan Le Fanu and other authors
42. The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow
43. The Green Man by Kingsley Amis
44. Carbonel: The King of the Cats by Barbara Sleigh
45. Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer
46. The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures by Sarah Clegg
47. The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
48. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
49. Tied up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh
50. An English Murder by Cyril Hare
51. Janice Gentle Gets Sexy by Mavis Cheek
52. The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield