This month in books:

• The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I read it years ago, and wanted to re-read it and implement it again now that we’ve moved in.  Very useful.

• Read This if you Want to Take Great Photographs of Places.  My brother-in-law Henry is learning about photography, so when I visited him in London, I read this to learn more about place photography.  It wasn’t as good as the other books, but it wasn’t terrible, either; I’m sure I got some good ideas out of it (like many of these photos).

• The Game.  Another book that I’ve read before; I got a copy from a charity shop for my workmate, Colin, and flipped it open to read a paragraph.  Ten pages later, I realized I wanted to read it again; what an incredible story, and a fun way to spend a few hours.

• What every BODY is Saying.  This has been on my reading list for a while, but only recently did it drop in price dramatically on Kindle.  Well worth the time – whether you use it to read other peoples’ body language or to adjust your own for your own purposes.

• Lullaby.  I found this in a charity shop, too; it was on my radar, but not my reading list.  I bought it on a Saturday afternoon, and was almost done on Sunday evening.  The second best book I’ve read this year after The Lover by Marguerite Duras; there is, apparently, something about French women’s writing that I can’t get enough of.  Absolutely remarkable.

The days are getting long here; the sun rises before we do, and sets around nine now.  The fields are green; little lambs are bounding around their parents, flowers are coming out, trees are budding.  Spring is always my favourite month of the year, and while it’s still cold here, it is absolutely stunning.

I also had the realization today: I get an unbelievable amount of enjoyment out of reading and cooking.  Those two things – if 80% of enjoyment comes from 20% of activities, those are definitely in my 20%.  So now, the requirement is to increase the amount of time I spend doing both.