Now I have a scapegoat, I read less.

Not good with stuff, me. Like keeping an up-to-date blog. Hard enough reading any books bar Brown Bear, Brown Bear now I have a tiny, sparkly-eyed, raisin-scoffing imp, let alone remembering what I’ve just read.

Let alone writing about it.

Like other enthusiastic new(ish) parents, I now account for time in months. It’s been 27 since my last post. The sparkly-eyed raisin-scoffing imp is only 18. It’s wonderful to finally have a scapegoat.

In the interests of brevity, here’s my top five from my 27-month blog sabbatical (full list in a separate post, in case anyone’s interested – that’s probably just you, Mum).

1. A Tale of Two Cities 

Charles Dickens 

Best of books, definitely. Move over Count of Monte Cristo, there’s a new, old, page-turner in town. Set in London and Paris during the French Revolution with a rip-roaring plot and the kind of twists and coincidence that only Shakespeare and Dickens can really pull off. Main characters Darnay and Lucie are a bit wet (requited love is naff – at least in fiction) but Lucie’s spurned lover Sydney Carton is très cool and the vengeful Madame Defarge, stitching up both garments and the Revolution’s enemies (their names woven into the pattern of her knitting) has to be one of the most frightening villains of all time.

Extra for experts: some keen and crafty types have set up What Would Madame Defarge Knit with patterns and the like. Revolutionary!

2. Life After Life 

Kate Atkinson 

Set during World War II, a period I often, callously, find a bit trying in novels, Life After Life is exceptional (thanks book club peeps for showing me the way). It's a novel that gives new meaning to Vera Lynn's 1939 tearjerking anthem 'We'll meet again'. Reincarnated into different versions of her own life, again and again, Ursula Todd begins to feel she may have an overriding purpose. Intriguing and, after the repetition of the first few chapters, enthralling. The Blitz chapters are gripping stuff.

3. The Luminaries 

Eleanor Catton 

It would have been unpatriotic not to read the first Kiwi book to win the Man Booker prize since Keri Hulme's The Bone People. I can’t pretend to understand the astrological theme (light years over my head) but I very much enjoyed the whodunit. Opiates, gold, vendettas, the South Island’s West Coast… all that good stuff. And conveniently a list of characters in the first few pages. With hindsight, it might have been one for the Kindle. At 832 pages, the physical book is the kind of hefty tome that leaves you with tennis elbow and upper back problems.

4. The People of Paper 

Salvador Plascencia 

If Love in the time of Cholera and Sophie’s World had a baby this would be it. Magical realism, author interaction with the characters… crazy but clever. While sometimes hard to read, it’s magical for the most part and certainly the most unusual book (including the picture flat we now own where a sheep gets a turkey to eat poo) I’ve read in the last 27 months.

5. Benediction 

Kent Haruf 

Quiet and very moving. Reminded me a little of A Good House and Gilead – it’s about loss and ordinary people in small-town America. I know I’ve already said quiet – but it is – quiet yet mesmerising with beautifully drawn characters.