The January blahs have well and truly arrived. The last few months of 2023 (December in particular) were too full: I had so much going on that I was always rushing from one thing to the next and worrying I didn’t have the time to adequately appreciate any of it. Now my problem is the opposite: very little to do, work or otherwise; not much on the calendar to look forward to; and the weather and house so cold I struggle to get up each morning and push past the brain fog to settle to any task. As I kept thinking to myself all autumn, there has to be a middle ground between manic busyness and boredom. That’s the head space where I’d like to be living, instead of having to choose between hibernation and having no time to myself.
At least these frigid January days are good for being buried in books. Unusually for me, I’m in the middle of seven doorstoppers, including King by Jonathan Eig (perfect timing as Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day), Wellness by Nathan Hill, and Babel by R.F. Kuang (a nominal buddy read with my husband).
Another is Carol Shields’s Collected Short Stories for a buddy rereading project with Marcie of Buried in Print. We’re partway through the first volume, Various Miracles, after a hiccup when we realized my UK edition had a different story order and, in fact, different contents – it must have been released as a best-of. We’ll read one volume per month in January–March. I also plan to join Heaven Ali in reading at least one Margaret Drabble book this year. I have The Waterfall lined up, and her Arnold Bennett biography lurking. Meanwhile, the Read Indies challenge, hosted by Karen and Lizzy in February, will be a great excuse to catch up on some review books from independent publishers.
Literary prize season will be heating up soon. I put all of the Women’s Prize (fiction and nonfiction!) dates on my calendar and I have a running list, in a file on my desktop, of all the novels I’ve come across that would be eligible for this year’s race. I’m currently reading two memoirs from the Nero Book Awards nonfiction shortlist. Last year it looked like the Folio Prize was set to replace the Costa Awards, giving category prizes and choosing an overall winner. But then another coffee chain, Caffè Nero, came along and picked up the mantle.
This year the Folio has been rebranded as The Writers’ Prize, again with three categories, which don’t quite overlap with the Costa/Nero ones. The Writers’ Prize shortlists just came out on Tuesday. I happen to have read one of the poetry nominees (Chan) and one of the fiction (Enright). I’m going to have a go at reading the others that I can source via the library. I’ll even try The Bee Sting given it’s on both the Nero and Writers’ shortlists (ditto the Booker) and I have a newfound tolerance of doorstoppers.
As for my own literary prize involvement, my McKitterick Prize manuscript longlist is due on the 31st. I think I have it finalized. Out of 80 manuscripts, I’ve chosen 5. The first 3 stood out by a mile, but deciding on the other 2 was really tricky. We judges are meeting up online next week.
I’m listening to my second-ever audiobook, an Audible book I was sent as a birthday gift: There Plant Eyes by M. Leona Godin. My routine is to find a relatively mindless data entry task to do and put on a chapter at a time.
There are a handful of authors I follow on Substack to keep up with what they’re doing in between books: Susan Cain, Jean Hannah Edelstein, Catherine Newman, Anne Boyd Rioux, Nell Stevens (who seems to have gone dormant?), Emma Straub and Molly Wizenberg. So far I haven’t gone for the paid option on any of the subscriptions, so sometimes I don’t get to read the whole post, or can only see selected posts. But it’s still so nice to ‘hear’ these women’s voices occasionally, right in my inbox.
My current earworms are from Belle and Sebastian’s Late Developers album, which I was given for Christmas. These lyrics from the title track – saved, refreshingly, for last; it’s a great strategy to end on a peppy song (an uplifting anthem with gospel choir and horn section!) instead of tailing off – feel particularly apt:
Live inside your head
Get out of your bed
Brush the cobwebs off
I feel most awake and alive when I’m on my daily walk by the canal. It’s such a joy to hear the birdsong and see whatever is out there to be seen. The other day there was a red kite zooming up from a field and over the houses, the sun turning his tail into a burnished chestnut. And on the opposite bank, a cuboid rump that turned out to belong to a muntjac deer. Poetry fragments from two of my bedside books resonated with me.
This is the earnest work. Each of us is given
only so many mornings to do it—
to look around and love
the oily fur of our lives,
the hoof and the grass-stained muzzle.
Days I don’t do this
I feel the terror of idleness
like a red thirst.
That is from “The Deer,” from Mary Oliver’s House of Light, and reminds me that it’s always worthwhile to get outside and just look. Even if what you’re looking at doesn’t seem to be extraordinary in any way…
Importance leaves me cold,
as does all the information that is classed as ‘news’.
I like those events that the centre ignores:
small branches falling, the slow decay
of wood into humus, how a puddle’s eye
silts up slowly, till, eventually,
the birds can’t bathe there. I admire the edge;
the sides of roads where the ragwort blooms
low but exotic in the traffic fumes;
the scruffy ponies in a scrubland field
like bits of a jigsaw you can’t complete;
the colour of rubbish in a stagnant leat.
There are rarest enjoyments, for connoisseurs
of blankness, an acquired taste,
once recognised, it’s impossible to shake,
this thirst for the lovely commonplace.
(from “Six Poems on Nothing,” III by Gwyneth Lewis, in Parables & Faxes)
This was basically a placeholder post because who knows when I’ll next finish any books and write about them … probably not until later in the month. But I hope you’ve found at least one interesting nugget!
What ‘lovely commonplace’ things are keeping you going this month?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
Gosh, you seem to be doing a lot of reading, anyway. Sometimes when I am reading a doorstopper (although I usually only read one at a time), I take a break by picking out a short, light book to read. That usually gets me unstuck. It is very cold here, too, right now. We’re having historic lows.
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For sure, I’m always reading a ton. I worked back up from 5 books at a time over the holidays to my more usual 25. I will definitely want to balance out these doorstoppers with some novellas and poetry collections. Do you get much snow where you are?
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We got about three or four inches on Tuesday and Wednesday and another two inches or so on Saturday. This morning I need to see if I can get out of our driveway to take my dog to the vet. People have been up and down our road, so if I can get down the driveway, which is steep and unshoveled, I should be okay. How about you?
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We’ve only had flurries in the air so far, but February is often when snow comes (if at all).
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I remember the sudden change of pace from pre- to post-Christmas when I was a bookseller, longing for calm then not knowing what to do with it. It does sound like you have some excellent books to retreat into.
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I’m sure my equilibrium will gradually return. I could do with my workload picking back up.
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I know exactly what you mean Rebecca – December was so busy, and January seems so quiet. I keep thinking of all the things I hadn’t time to do before Christmas, and which I do now have lots of time for, yet I still don’t seem to be getting down to any of them.
I too am kept going by my walks, especially my as-daily-as-possible visits to the river. Unfortunately we have had a LOT of ice, and although I once would have faced it and hoped for the best, I’m now much more cautious and just stay home till it melts. Two of my friends have had quite bad injuries over the past year, and although neither of their falls was due to ice, they both found they took so much longer to heal than they would’ve done 20 years ago, so I’m not taking any risks.
Today was a good day, very cold but brilliant sunshine, and I have just come back from a walk round the fields and down to the river, where I witnessed a spectacular sunset. It does so lift the spirits. When I lived in Edinburgh I never really noticed the winter – not that the city doesn’t have one, it most certainly does, but living in a built up area meant I tended to go from work to the bus stop to the house, and maybe to the shops, cinema, gallery, etc without seeing anything but buildings.
I now live on Deeside, with beautiful countryside on my doorstep, and I find myself longing for spring and the return of longer days and less hazardous walking.
Last night we watched Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse’s Hogmanay Gone Fishing programme. I’d never seen this series before – it was brilliant, I’ll certainly watch more (and I know nothing nor have any interest in the actual fishing, it’s the interaction between the two men that is so engaging.) For this episode they were up here in NE Scotland, part of the programme was filmed just a couple of miles from our house, The Dee was looking absolutely spectacular – I’m quite sure it was NOT filmed in December! But it did remind me of how lovely this area can be, and how lucky I am to live here.
In the meantime I am having a go at the 52 Book Club 2024 Challenge. I am such a book nerd that I enjoy trying to find titles to fit each prompt, and I’m already on the 4th read from my list, which is SONIC YOUTH SLEPT ON MY FLOOR by Dave Haslam (it is for the prompt ‘set in a city beginning with the letter ‘M’ ‘ – in this case Manchester.)
I’ve also read WINTER SOLSTICE by Rosamunde Pilcher, which could fit several of the prompts (eg ‘ a grieving character’, ‘published by Hachette’, ‘At least four different POV.’ I enjoyed it. It’s definitely a doorstopper
Far less enjoyable were Lucy Foley’s THE HUNTING PARTY (‘a locked room mystery’), which I know many people love, but I thought it was pretty awful, and KNIT ONE, KILL TWO my Maggie Sefton (‘a title beginning with the letter ‘K’), which was as dreadful as you might guess (though it is the first in a series of sixteen, so again I may well be in a minority here…)
I am hoping to weave whichever book(s) I read for the #1937Club in April into my list somehow, and also to use a few review copies, as I am way overdue with some of those.
Good luck with all your reading – spring will come!
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Thank you for your lovely comment, Rosemary! It went to Spam and I’m not sure why, but I’ve rescued it now. I love living at the edge of some countryside (though mine is very much a suburban area) and watching the seasons change along the canal. My husband and I dream about running away to Scotland, even somewhere remote like the Orkneys or Hebrides, but then think about how isolated we could feel, and how bleak it could be in the depths of winter, and how much we value the community and services we have here. So we’re not sure if that Scottish getaway will ever happen.
I’ve not heard of that set of book challenges, but it sounds like good fun and would be a perfect excuse for me to dig through my shelves. I’ve not read any Pilcher but have seen her books at the library. Those cosy mystery series with a theme (cats, or recipes, or crafts) do seem popular! My mother read from several of them.
I’m also looking forward to 1937 Club and have identified six possibilities from my shelves plus another easily gotten from the library.
Good luck to you, too! My book club friend who broke her collarbone in a fall last year at 49 has had an awful time of recovery, so I don’t blame you for being cautious. Enjoy your walks and reading as the days lengthen and warm up 🙂
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I’ve signed up for loads of blog tours, and luckily so far all the books have been good, so my New Year reading is going OK! I’d like to fit in more TBR books though… Read Indies beckons.
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Read Indies is a great excuse to scan my set-aside shelf and pick out all the non-Penguin stuff.
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I love this post, thank you – especially the last poem… really beautiful and now I’m going to be looking up Gwyneth Lewis. Are you enjoying Babel? I read it about this time last year so it feels very January to me! Good luck with all your other reading too.
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I really love Gwyneth Lewis’s poetry. She’s a Welsh author and has also written a memoir about depression.
I’m halfway through Babel now (which, for me, is racing through!) and it’s fantastic. I love all the nerdy etymology and translation references.
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What lovely poetry. I especially like the final poem. The commonplace things.
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Isn’t it beautiful? I think we need those reminders to appreciate the things we see everyday.
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January does suck. Reading helps, but only so much. It’s kind of reassuring to know that others get the blahs, too.
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Your Facebook post was very apt. I don’t know if it’s SAD, but it’s definitely worse here in the UK and as I get older — maybe because in the US I was cushioned by luxury and convenience.
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I replied but my reply got eaten by WordPress 😦 Anyway, this is a charmingly gentle way of saying “it’s easier to do winter when you’re not BLOODY FREEZING 24/7 in your house, on public transport, or on foot”. Widespread car use and efficiently insulated housing stock make an enormous difference.
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Ha ha, your sweary comment got blocked by my spam filter 😉 Anyway, I agree. Although I don’t think the American way of life is ‘good’, in the end — the whole planet can’t live that way or we’d need three Earths or more — it is rather civilized to just set a thermostat to 68F and then get on with life. We have put so much mental energy into trying to insulate and draught-proof our house over the past year and a half … and it’s still bloody freezing.
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Oh gosh! Hahahaha. Good thing I toned it down a little bit the second time around XD
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I’ve started a yearlong project of reading and doing the exercises from the book One Year to a Writing Life by Susan Tiberghien — the first chapter is about journaling and it is very much in line with the poems you share at the end, seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. I ended up writing a piece about my empty oatmeal bowl!
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Imagine the excitement of the sequel…The Filled Oatmeal Bowl!
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We have to find excitement where we can in January.
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It sounds a bit like The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and the “morning pages” journaling. I read that back in 2018 and half-heartedly joined in the exercises, but never fully stuck to it.
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I don’t like Cameron’s insistence that you have to do it her way. This book is more open ended.
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It has been a little harder to get up in the dark post-holiday. But of course reading plans do help and good poems like these. I’m really enjoying the occasional Substack feed, too, but I need to make more of an effort to build up my list there; I know I’m missing key people and so enjoy the ones I’ve found that I must look harder. It’s true, “hearing” from these writers when we don’t have any books from them is like being part of an ongoing conversation. For the past two years, for different reasons, I’ve completely missed the Women’s Fiction Prize, so I am very keen to return to it this year. If you are thinking of reading through them in any kind of organised fashion, do keep me in mind! (But of course we always have different availability issues, being on opposite sides of the pond.) The Shields’s story rereading has been great so far: I’m looking forward to more. And I’m sure we’ll “find” some other co-reads along the way too.
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Have you paid to subscribe to any feeds? I suppose that would be the logical next step for me.
This year the Women’s Prize is also launching a nonfiction prize, so my attention will be split and I imagine I’m likely to pick up just whatever interests me from both rather than trying to be thorough. But we’ll see. And of course there’s the Shields Prize at about the same time. Often I can’t access many titles from that list, though.
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I haven’t yet paid to subscribe either. For awhile I was diligently sharing / promoting the content I was accessing as a “free subscriber” which I felt was a fair exchange (with lesser-known, small/indie press writers particularly) but I’ve fallen off from that recently too. Once I feel like I’ve got my magazine project tidied up and manageable, maybe I will add some other subscriptions (in addition to, or in exchange for).
It’s hard to believe we are heading for the end of January already; I’m starting to wonder whether I actually WILL be more diligent with the prizelists I’ve missed recently. Heheh
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Seven doorstoppers is rather amazing! Post-holiday blues are a thing for me so I’m trying just to get exercise and listen to music and notice the minutes of daylight returning in the evening… it all helps. I rather like “placeholder” posts so feel free to post more anytime! 🙂
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That’s true, the days are getting longer even if it doesn’t feel like it! It’s when the mornings are pitch-dark that I really struggle. Music and getting outside are big mood-boosters for me, too.
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Will be interested to see what you choose for ReadIndies! 😀
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I have a ton to choose from! Some Carcanet poetry for sure.
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I have to admit I like January because it’s my birthday month, however I have had a big blog lull as only carried one over and wanted its Shiny review to go out first. I can schedule that now, though. And I have a great double serendipity coming up …
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A family birthday would certainly lighten the mood. (My sister’s birthday is the day after yours, but I haven’t had a chance to celebrate it with her since 2016.)
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Looking forward to hearing what you think of the Nathan Hill. I loved his last one, but he does write a long-ass book! I’ve been getting out for quite a lot of walks with my dog; he’s loving this cold spell, and I don’t mind it, if it means we get a little snow, which we do have right now.
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I envy you the snow! It’s been at freezing temp all week here, but all we have is ice. We saw flurries in the air one day. Getting out in the sun — when there is some — helps, but I’m really struggling in general this month.
I’m just over halfway in Wellness and loving it.
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Wish I could send you some snow. Agreed, without it, January can feel so gloomy. Take care!
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