My New Year’s Resolution for 2015:  I will read every unread book on my bookcase.  It was a challenge easily set and accepted, but at the time I did not realise that this would involve 250 books, nor that Father Christmas had already ordered me another 10ish to add to the list. So, here are some of the potential highlights and lowlights we have coming up this year, and some of the main themes our bookshelves cover.

History

I confess it: I am a history geek.  Studying history is the closest I ever get to achieving my childhood dream of time travel, so I should warn you now there are a lot of history books to come.  One I am most looking forward to is  How the Irish Saved Civilisation.  It is bold claim and I look forward to hearing it backed up.   I am also determined to read The Hanging Tree from cover to cover.  It is one of the few books I remember being utterly fascinating at university and I can’t wait to read it to the end.   On the other end of the spectrum, The Story of Mining in Cornwall was bought in a fit of enthusiasm in our last Cornish adventure and I’ve never quite been able to bring myself to begin it.  Once I’ve made it through that, I am afraid I will have to hold E responsible for the presence of Wonderwoman – the Complete History on our shelves.

Fiction

A big subset of this will be historical fiction, and also fiction set in places I would like to visit on holiday. Ranging from Charlotte Bronte to PD James, Truman Capote and Forster, a number of these are books I feel that I ought to have read but never quite got around to. Thank God I got rid of Wuthering Heights a few years ago so I don’t have to try wading through that turgid monstrosity again.

Real-life

There will also be a useful section of real life books to get us through.  We will be learning how to protect our backs with Sarah Key’s Back Suffers Bible, and how to survive in the wilds with How to Shit in the Woods.  Quite what we will learn from The Eurovision Song Contest 2006 Athens Handbook, only E knows because, yet again, she is responsible for that one.

Geology books

While I love history, E was a geologist at university.  Alongside our history section then, our shelves are burdened with such weighty tomes as Sedimentology and Field guide: Fossils and  Cornwall’s Geology and Scenery (a relic of the same Cornish adventure as the history of mining book).  I may have to tackle this section with a stiff gin in hand.

Books about London

E and I are confirmed Londoners.  I look forward to some gems, nuggets and stories from our four unread London books, especially the one called I never knew that about London.

Sci-Fi

E is a huge Sci-Fi fan, so we have books about Xena Warrior Princess, Babylon 5, and the X-files to look forward to. But that is nothing compared to the 35 (yes, thirty five) Star Trek books to be endured.

The eclectic end of the bookshelf

Finally, at the more eclectic end of the bookshelf we have some books just brimming full of promise starting with The best dance moves in the world…Ever!, then my favourite National Geographic book called, simply Hats and building up to Bernard Shaw’s The intelligent woman’s guide to socialism and capitalism.

So, time to get cracking!