Happy New Year 2016

It’s the 1^st of January and, since 1752, that means it’s New Year’s Day (it was March 25^th in 1751, apparently – take a look on Wikipedia if you don’t believe me!). And as it’s New Year’s Day, people are waking up after they desperately tried to stay awake for a clock to go bong or their balls to drop or whatever their local tradition was  and  after countless cities across the world blew a fair chunk of their annual budgets on a fireworks display. And what could be better to wake up to, but my New Year blog post for 2016.

If you’re new to the blog, why not check out last year’s post that detailed all sorts of bits and pieces about me and my ramblings? But in the meantime, here’s a few bits and bobs about my plans for 2016…

January’s going to be a busy month for the Doc On The Box strand of the blog, as Sherlock, Midsomer Murders, Death In Paradise, Endeavour and Silent Witness (if that’s your sort of thing) are all back in the same week! For goodness sake, schedulers, space them out a bit! I’ll also be doing my first ever proper interview for the blog with L C Tyler, as his latest book, A Masterpiece Of Corruption, is out in January.

Then it’ll be more of the usual – a mixture of old books, new books and new releases of old books. I’ll try and get the Ellery Queen bibliography up and running again and I should get round to finishing the Miss Marple section of the Agatha Christie bibliography as well. More from Margery Allingham and Dorothy L Sayers, as in June – June 11^th to be precise – it’s the second Bodies From The Library conference. A large number of returning speakers – David Brawn, John Curran, Martin Edwards, Dolores Gordon-Smith, Jake Kerridge, B A Pike and L C Tyler, plus one of the authors (female) of one of the CWA Top 100 Crime Novels Of All Time. Probably a bit more Mitchell and Marsh as well to help with my case for unseating Dame Ngaio from her Queen Of Crime throne…

But I’ve promised a mildly shocking New Year’s Resolution. Not the one about giving up crisps – although that is one too – it’s about giving up buying books.

Not giving up the blog – let’s not be silly. But a while back, I posted about my TBR pile – my ridiculously large TBR pile – and it’s about time I made some progress into it.

So, I’m going to try and not buy any books for the foreseeable future, but let’s be realistic. I’m going to make an exception for Past Offences’ Crimes Of The Century, although one book per month. I’m also going to make an exception for a couple of new books if I can’t wangle a review copy – for example, the new Poirot novel, whenever it comes out (remember the slogan, Puzzle Doctor – Reading Books So That You Don’t Have To (possibly)). So, I’m going to give myself an allowance for the year of six new books. Everything else will be review copies and anything from my ridiculously large TBR pile – which, by the way, has got even bigger since I wrote about it.

As for challenges, then I’ll keep up with Crimes Of The Century – despite having read some utter clunkers last year entirely due to it – but other than that, it’ll be same old, same old. Possibly a few more historical mysteries in addition to more from Michael Jecks and Paul Doherty (new Athelstan AND Corbett this year), more Golden Age books, especially authors who are new to me, and other than that… who knows? Oh, and more Three Investigators as I bought a load of them cheap after the last review…

So, to all my readers, I hope you have a Happy New Year full of happiness and lots and lots of books. Now, how do I delete online bookshops from my Internet history…