A list of the books read by me during 2012.

The Wild Places
by Robert MacFarlane
Author seeks the remaining wild places of Britain and Ireland.

The War Against Cliché
by Martin Amis
Lit-Crit as it ought to be writ.

How to be a Bad Birdwatcher
by Simon Barnes
Birdwatcher, not Birder.

Granta 117: Horror
by John Freeman (ed.).
Rather ho-hum.

Wild Hares and Hummingbirds
by Stephen Moss.
The Natural History of an English Village.

Granta 118: Exit Strategies
by John Freeman (ed.).
Too much fiction (yet again).

On the Natural History of Destruction
by W.G. Sebald.
An extended essay on the ‘scandalous deficiency’ of texts about the Allied bombing of Germany.

The English Village
by Martin Wainwright.
An enjoyable short history of what made England England.

The Elizabethans
by A.N. Wilson.
Tales from the reign of Good Queen Bess.

Aftermath
by Ronald Blythe.
Selected writings from the veteran author.

The Trial
by Franz Kafka.
Don’t bother.

Austerlitz
by W.G. Sebald.
Re-reading the indescribable.

Wildwood
by Roger Deakin.
Just as good the second time round.