A few people on here have done a #BooksRead2019 thread. I love hearing about what people are reading, so I thought I might do the same >

1. A Murder For Christmas. Lovely old-school whodunit, not very demanding and not enormously inventive but just the job for a bit of light Christmas holiday reading. The ending is a bit weak but the clueing is OK.

(It's by Francis Duncan btw)

2. Berlin Game, Len Deighton. Gripping, twisty spy thriller w/ echoes of Le Carre. Pacier & more action-focused than JLC, but lacks some of the depth & slow-burn tension-building. First of a 9-part series about Bernie Samson, a character w/ whom I'd be v happy to spend more time.

3. England & The Aeroplane, David Edgerton. Sparky revisionist history challenging both the "Two Cultures" view of a technologically inept and uninterested ruling class, & the declinist view that Britain has made consistently poor decisions about military aviation. A great read.

4. Small Island By Little Train, Chris Arnot. Charming little book detailing one man's meander around some of the nation's narrow-gauge heritage railways, plus walks on a couple of now-dismantled lines. Gently funny & whimsical a la Bill Bryson, but none the worse for that.

5. Borodino & The War of 1812, Christopher Duffy. Excellent clear account of a battle that the French won, but which also probably ended any chance of the invasion of Russia succeeding. Also a good brief intro to the background to the war & to the French retreat from Moscow.

This is the story so far.