Well, I started the year well enough on the blog, I guess. But there was a long period, about six months (if I’m being generous to myself) when my idea of keeping the rhythm going here and posting something every couple of weeks didn’t really work out. But better in 2020! Onwards and upwards! Less meat, more water!

I read 216 books in 2019. This is a slightly skewed number, because I had the great good fortune to be awarded the opportunity to go and write for almost a month at Hawthornden Castle in Midlothian, between mid-March and mid-April. My (then) new job was extremely flexible, and let me take the time off, and I spent a wonderful month doing nothing apart from eating and writing and reading. I discovered lots of people I didn’t know about, such as the great American poet Sandra Alcosser, and reread lots of people…