Welcome to Books On The Go!

Introducing myself and some of the bookish themes you can expect on my Substack - reading recommendations and handy lists for travel or 'best of' other genres.

Welcome to my first post! Here is where you'll find my reading updates, book recommendations and a go-to for books set in different places or my 'best of' other themes or genres. I host a books podcast, Books On The Go, where we read and discuss a book each week. I also do intermittent videos on YouTube with book hauls and current reads. I’m aiming to do these more regularly and perhaps post them here on Substack (is that a thing?) but let’s see - that could be the enthusiasm of January talking!

Books On The Go started as a blog to talk about books I had ‘on the go’ (reading) and also reading while travelling as back then I was living between Adelaide and Hong Kong.

This year I’d like to go back to our roots and ‘read around the world’ so at the end of each month I’ll have a list of ‘books set in …’. We’ll start with London in February and move onto Russia, then perhaps do Aussie April.

I love travelling and try to read books set in the country I’m visiting. In some cases it’s purely armchair *adds to wishlist* travel (Japan, Korea, Ireland … the list goes on). In others it’s travelling back in time (hello Dickensian London) or learning more about a country that intrigues me (Russia, China, USA).

My reading is a mix of fiction, non-fiction and books for my book clubs - my Adelaide ‘irl’ Book Club (we have just turned 20!), and the Adelaide Writers’ Week donors’ book club - and the podcast.

Last year I read the books on my TBR shelf so I didn’t buy many new releases (for more on this take a listen to the podcast episode by the fabulous Book Club Review ‘Shelf Discipline - Surviving a Book Buying Ban and Tackling the TBR with Anna Baillie-Karas’). It’s been fun to start again with some book shopping over the holidays.

Here is a little book haul from January:

I bought these from one of my favourite bookstores South Seas Books down on the coast, an hour from Adelaide.

How do I choose which books to read? Sometimes it’s a favourite author but often I’m guided by recommendations from trusted reviewers or bookstagrammers. Here is a sample:

MATERIAL WORLD: recommended by Rory Stewart on the Rest Is Politics podcast. I’m currently reading this - it’s brilliant and approachable, but don’t test me on the science when I’ve finished!

THE HUSBANDS - I heard about this through the Shit No-One Tells You About Writing podcast and it was also recommended by author Holly Seddon. A fun premise and I’m loving it so far. I’m interviewing Holly Gramazio for the podcast, can’t wait.

TOM LAKE - everyone seems to have loved this and Ann Patchett is usually a winner.

SMALL RAIN - I discovered Garth Greenwell through Matthew Sciarappa and loved the honesty and intimacy of his earlier books. This one is about illness which is not often the subject of fiction (a potential subject for a ‘books about …’ list?).

And here is my most recent read - WHITE NIGHTS by Fyodor Dostoyevsky translated by Ronald Meyer. Coming up on the podcast with Geoff Griffith, inspired by the recent craze for this book.

I love how tiny it is!

So many books, so little time (hence my love of short books ;)). What are you reading this week?

Do you have any suggestions for a ‘books set in …’ or ‘books about …’ list? Please feel free to send them my way!