Forget mushrooms and hot pants, the non-trend trend is the trendiest trend

And so we find ourselves again at the Christmas perineum - the time between the end of the yuletide celebrations and before the new year shenanigans begin, and a phrase so awful I have felt compelled to use it as often as possible since the dark day I learned it about five years ago.

- Lucy Mangan

Monday
Sorry.

Anyway. Despite its name it is my favourite time of year. I never refuse a pause in any activity if it's offered. Plus this one is generally when people take to social media to give round-ups of their favourite reads and I never refuse a chance to do that either, so here's mine: Marigold and Rose by Louise Glück, which will take you between one hour and 47 days to read, depending on how long you want to linger over each beautiful, endlessly freighted sentence; The House of Mirrors, because Erin Kelly is a thriller writer of genius; How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto, which pummels your brain while providing huge fun; The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson and Connie Willis's Doomsday Book.

Both of the latter are about time travelling to the middle ages but otherwise as different as can be, which is what I love most about authors and reading and books and words and people's brains and clevernesses in putting them down in orders that conjure essentially magical visions for me, and hurrah for all of it, is what I'm saying. I am several perineal Baileys to the good.

Tuesday

Breaking news: those new year shenanigans we spoke of? They're off. Largely. Edinburgh's Hogmanay festival has been called off in the face of a looming 36 hours of high winds and rain. Other weather warnings have put the kibosh on firework displays and outdoor events from Blackpool to Bangor.