Well Readers, I don’t know about you, but I generally have at least two, and sometimes three books on the go, so that whatever mood I’m in I have something to match. First up is ‘Vermeer – A Life Lost and Found’ by that bloke off of the telly, Andrew Graham-Dixon. What a pleasure this book is! I’ve learned so much about the history of the Low Countries, the Thirty Years War, and the growth of religious tolerance in what is now the Netherlands. Graham Dixon manages to make all of this interesting rather than dry, and at the heart of it is the mystery of why most of Vermeer’s paintings were bought by just one couple. I have always loved Vermeer – there’s something of the transcendence of the every day in his paintings, a moment captured and somehow shot through with a divine light. I am loving Graham-Dixon’s insights into the paintings themselves as well. This is a hefty book, though, and so it’s for bedtime reading rather than for lugging around in my backpack.

What I’m lugging about in the aforementioned backpack is this rather brilliant book about the conservation of the Amur tiger in remote north-eastern Russia. The author, Jonathan C. Slaght, has already brought this region to life in his book about Blakiston’s Fish Owl, “Owls of the Eastern Ice‘, and as in his previous book Slaght has a gift for conjuring up not just the animals, but also the people involved in the conservation effort and the whole sense of walking in the forest. When I last picked the book up a 300 kg brown bear had been caught in a tiger snare, and the resultant carnage left two scientists up a tree. Way too exciting for night time reading, I’m sure you’ll agree.

And then there are those books that you’ve forgotten you’ve ordered, and which turn up out of the blue. I’ve read most of existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom’s work, including his previous book which he co-wrote with his wife of 65 years who was dying. I put the other two books down to read this one: Yalom is 93 years old, and his memory is failing, but he has spent the past few years during and since Covid giving one hour, one-off sessions to people, and then referring them on to other psychotherapists who he thinks can help them.I have always been fascinated by therapy (and have been in therapy myself for almost ten years – to me, it is to my psyche what pilates and walking are to my body), but I wondered what good could come of one intense hour of connection. The answer is ‘quite a lot’.

So, Readers, any recommendations/thoughts? What are you hoping that Santa will put in. your Christmas stocking? Do share!