The Books I have Read So Far in 2026

I always intend to keep a record of the books I have read and never do. The arrival of the first day of March and meteorological spring has inspired me to give it a go. So here…drumroll…are the books I have read, re-read or started to read since the beginning of the year.

Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not offering insightful reviews as they take far too long to write. It’s just a list with a few comments. But now I’ve shown you mine, want to share yours? I love getting recommendations (and warnings).

FINISHED

Confinement by Jessica Cox
The history of pregnancy and childbirth in 19th century Britain
The History Press 2023

Verdict
A compelling, authoritative read, written with humanity. I strongly recommend it if you are interested in social history, women’s history or women. It is genuinely shocking. It hurts to read about the early days of forceps use. Women died in childbirth at an appallingly high rate, but we don’t often hear about the mothers who suffered life-changing injuries.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Sceptre (2009 edition but originally published in 1994)

Verdict
I am interested in creative non fiction at the moment and this was recommended to me. I was vaguely aware of its existence but have never picked up a copy or seen the film. (Have you? Is it worth watching and where can I do that?)

Loved it from the first page. Berendt was a journalist who spent a year or more in Savannah. He was clearly captivated by the southern city, but was even more interested in the people he met: the powerful elite and the just-about-surviving underclass, the respectable middle class who seem to be more small town 1950s than big city 1990s and the individuals who defy labels and would have lit up any room anywhere, anytime.

The strap line on the front covers proclaims it is a ‘bestselling true crime classic’, a fact that passed me by because there was no crime until a third of the way in. Berendt would have produced an absorbing book without it, but as a journalist he was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time and to have already become acquainted with the principal actors and witnesses before the crime took place.

Thoroughly recommend it. By the way, isn’t it the best title? I can’t think of a better one.

Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
Pan 2025 (but originally published in 1978)

Verdict
My very first Follett and it happened to be his first novel to become a bestseller.

According to the foreword, this was his 11th published book and I wonder if a publisher today would have allowed an author to learn his craft when he was producing less than spectacular sales. They were right to do it, however, because he is now one of the world’s most popular thriller writers. That probably sounds as though I am condemning him with faint praise, and that is not my intention. It takes enormous skill to be such a good story teller, but the characters were on the wooden side and at times the action improbable. But I was swept along by the pace and drama of this World War II story, read it quickly and would read more in a heartbeat.

Which Follett should I read next?

The Echoes by Evie Wyld
Penguin 2025

Just about the best opening sentence.

I do not believe in ghosts, which, since my death, has become a bit of a problem.

How could you not read on?

It’s a ghost story, a complicated love story, because people are complicated, and a story about the way the past can cling on and impact the present.

It feels like a close, intimate portrait but in fact the story covers generations and thousands of miles. The characters are living, breathing, real – especially the women. And Max, the ghost? He’s all right, which I would probably have said about him when he was alive (and if he were real).

RE-READ

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
The untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper
Penguin 2019

Verdict
I first read it last year, but I returned to it in January because I am so impressed by the detailed research. Women, especially working class women, get lost in history. They don’t leave much of a paper trail. And these five women were buried beneath the celebrity status of their murderer and the careless, inaccurate labels pinned to their names by the police, the press and numerous commentators in the 130 years since their savage deaths.

Rubenhold is angry at the way they have been treated, you can feel it in her writing and in her determination to tell their story, and she has put right an injustice by giving back Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary Jane their dignity.

DIPPED INTO

The Fields Beneath by Gillian Tindall
Paladin 1980 (originally published 1977 and has I think been re-released.)

I have been teaching a short course on Writing History and needed to refresh myself with the best example of local history I have ever read. It’s subject is Kentish Town in north London, but if you want to know how to bring the past to life while being meticulous about research get hold of a copy.

Here’s a tiny sample I selected for my class (that included local historians) to show why I enjoy it so much.

We traditionally associate smoke and its consequent grime with the Victorian era, as if the standard black garb of the Victorian clerk was simply a form of protective clothing and his ‘stove-pipe’ hat a symbol of the cause of it all. But in fact smoke was no new thing to London… (what follows is a well-argued page and a half of research supporting the contention)

She could have written Pollution in London was a problem prior to the 19th century. Instead we have an un-clichéd image that makes the point more memorably.

Love it.

What have you been reading?