Looking back at 2022 , it has been a bumper year for my reading pile. Books are booming and TBR lists are groaning, so to add to the literary abundance here are my best and most favourite reads of 2022, almost like doing a yearly tax return, but for books. These are the books that have stayed with me, taught me, enchanted me and resonated deeply.  We are now beginning February, another month of cruel winter beauty, where lying low, recuperating and reading seem like some of the most sensible activities a bookworm can do. So join me and make like a hibernating dormouse, but with a drier nest and an excellent selection of books both old and new.  The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim.  Originally published in 1922 making it an unbelievable 100 years old, this engaging novel starts in dreary London, where it is raining and fish suppers are being eaten on the same dull day every week, and wives are expected to be good, and a ‘nest egg’ of savings is never to be spent, a...

The puddles outside collect on the tarmac as the nights start grow darker. Lights come on outside and shoppers hurry along the pavement in winds, running from sudden showers. Time for cups of steaming tea, fogged up windows and bookish adventures with three wild women who will help you curl up, lick your wounds and stray into new lands without ever turning off your electric throw.  Epic adventures Have you ever fancied walking the Pacific Crest Trail in America? It spans 2,650 miles which is a ridiculously epic journey considering it takes a standard human person about a week of walking every day to walk even 100 miles. How about doing this alone, as a 26 year old woman, in America where there are bears. Oh, and you have no money, a burgeoning issue with grief, walking boots that are too small and a problematic new relationship. Luckily you don’t have to as Cheryl Strayed has done it first and written about it in this classic struggling woman meets nature memoir. Wild - Cheryl Stra...