As well as my professional goals for 2013, I have vowed to spend more time reading this year. Last year I just didn’t seem to pick up enough books. Actually, that’s a lie. I picked ’em up, as my groaning bookshelves will attest, but didn’t get around to read enough of my purchases – a shocking admission for a writer. After spending a day bashing out words on a computer, it’s all to easy to flop in front of the telly. While I love a good TV show, I love reading more so will try to get the balance back in 2013.
The Christmas and New Year holiday saw me reading Paul Magrs‘ 666 Charing Cross Road. Published in 2011, this paranormal romp with its vicious nosferatu, uncanny effigies, blood-soaked grimoires and geriatric vampire slayers is a standalone novel, although in true Magrs style, you’ll find a few nods and winks that (possibly) link the fiendish events in Manhattan to his series of gothic Whitby adventures.
It was just what I needed for Christmas – a cosy horror with a bit of bite plus lashings of Paul’s wit and larger-than-life characters. Best of all, when I started the book I had no idea it was set at Christmas itself. Absolutely perfect timing.
So what next to read? Well, I have a novella to review for Doctor Who Magazine and then it’s back to the to-read pile. At the top of the list is Judgement on Delchev by Eric Ambler. Ambler was recommended to me via twitter by spy author Jeremy Duns and I’m looking forward to delving into a murky world of espionage.
What books have you got on your January reading list? Leave a comment below…
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