I set myself a couple of reading and writing goals for 2023. Nope, they weren’t New Year’s resolutions because I gave up on those a very long time ago; they’re just goals for the year.

Among them were to read 200 books and attempt to write reviews for every book I have read, to read more non-fiction, poetry, short stories, anthologies and perhaps a play or two and to read books by authors whose surnames start with each letter of the alphabet – last year I failed to read an author whose surname starts with either Q or U.

As it’s February 1, 2023 I thought I would have a little round up of January.

Reading 200 books in 2023 necessitates an average of 16.6 books per month. In January I read 21 books. That means my average for the next 11 months drops to 16.3. I am grateful for small mercies.

Of those books, I read two collections of poetry; Collected Poems Volume One by Henry Normal and Michael Rosen’s A to Z an anthology of children’s poems by various poets.

In addition Miscellany One by Dylan Thomas included short stories, poetry and radio broadcast scripts.

Other anthologies included Demos Rising, an anthology of poems and short stories about protest in which a friend of mine was featured, An Anthology of English Folk Tales and Nottinghamshire Folk Tales, retold by Pete Castle.

When it comes to non-fiction, I’m not doing brilliantly. In fact the only non-fiction books I have read so far is Red Sky at Night by Jane Struthers. I am, however, midway through several others including a travel book by Colin Thubron, an anthology of diaries, and Kate Mosse’s Warrior Queens and Quiet Revolutionaries, which is brilliant so far. But I can’t include them on my list because I haven’t finished them yet.

I made a point of reading a book by prolific children’s author Robert Quackenbush (I absolutely love that name) so I could tick off the letter Q in my alphabet of authors. Other children’s books this month were Adventures in Moominland by Tove Jansson and The Wombles by Elizabeth Beresford.

The rest of my reading for January comprised general fiction and my favourite of those was the absolutely brilliant Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (pictured).

So far I have authors against 15 letters of the alphabet on my 2023 reading list. Only another 11 to go.

The reason for the three blog posts today was just so I could say here that I had reviewed every book I have read in January, which I now have. Sorry for the overload.

I’m quite pleased with the progress for January. I have already completed the first book for February… but that can wait until tomorrow.