At the end of this book, Dickie Arbiter says this was intended to be a professional memoir of a difficult period in the monarchy that he was on hand to witness, but gradually it became something more personal. That shines through during the whole book. It's about his job in the press room of Buckingham Palace during some very difficult times - the death of Princess Diana in particular.

I was perusing the Goodreads site for a while early today when I noticed their stats page. I haven't really delved into this side of things much, other than looking at the count of books I've read each year. What was I hyped up on in 2014 for goodness' sake? Today I spotted this graph of books by publication date by read date. Forgive me for this self indulgence, but …

I like how the story of this real life crime is pieced together, from obviously thorough research. Bits and pieces about the crime itself, the aftermath and the lives of all involved before the event took place are slotted into place like some kind of terrible jigsaw.

I loved this! It’s a bit of a surprise because whilst I know I like Meatloaf songs in isolation, I wasn’t sure about a whole album stacked with super long songs in that rock opera style. Don’t know what I was worrying about, it was brilliant! Curious to listen on to Part II now.

I didn’t realise the girls were getting the band back together, but out of nowhere came a self-titled album from TLC (or TC as they sadly should be now). It was a good album, sort of standard R&B with that quite notable TLC sound. Not sure any of it stands out for me but very, very listenable album.

Oh hi, yea, I'm a bass player now. It's not like I need another hobby at the moment, but this is the end result of a Friday night when you watch Glastonbury on iPlayer catchup with a glass of wine, and there just happens to be a seriously gorgeous bass guitar lying around the house. Of course after just a couple of days of this, I can't feel my fingers …

I knew this was going to be a kooky film but it was even more oddball than I'd expected. That's not to say it wasn't good though, or enjoyable. You sort of have to settle into the weirdness, and there's no way of connecting with these two super-bizarre characters, but once you're on board, it's actually great entertainment.

Oh my stars. Unlike Baywatch, where I had all the expectations in the world and was a bit disappointed by the trailer, for Jumanji, I had nothing. When I rewatched the original for Film Watch, it wasn't as good as I remembered, so why would this be any better? Well, the first trailer was released today and already, I am loving the look of this remake. I'm really hoping Karen …

This week, I just finished watching season four of Agents of Shield, and my word, it was an incredible ride. (Vague spoilers below, nothing major.) I’ve loved watching the trials and tribulations of these Shield agents since the show first began, but it has gradually been improving in quality to the point that this series was an absolute triumph. My affection for the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been wearing thin …

I was a big fan of McBain's cop series but read a few too many of them so that they grew a little stale. It was really nice and refreshing to read his writing in a different format, this time a lawyer helping to investigate the murder of a mother and two kids. A brutal crime, and not many suspects, but even fewer once someone confesses to the crime.

Only knew Don’t Dream It’s Over going into this one, and that is a stand out track of the album (although the Miley/Ariana version is better), but actually the rest of it was a lot of fun too. Good pop rock, interesting hooks, very listenable. Enjoyed it.

I’ve only just become aware of Dua Lipa, but her album was a surprise to me. It’s your standard pop fare, although I did think it was made up of well-produced, catchy songs, if not hugely memorable. Her voice is interesting though, deeper and more soulful than I’d expected.

I love Genova's writing. Usually, as in this case, her books are introducing me to conditions I've never even heard of, but even where conditions are more well known, there's an empathy and a realism about the writing that puts you right at the heart of the family involved.

I knew it had been a while since I last went on an Alphabet Adventure visit, but looking back now, I’m horrified to find it’s been over three years. Ridiculous. So, I stopped putting it off, and dashed to the Lake District to have a gander at that body of water known as Windermere. It’s famous, apparently, for being the longest lake in the UK, and it’s very pretty, but …

Considering the premise of this book is an autobiography of the great man himself, William Shakespeare, it's refreshing for author Bill Bryson to admit that we just don't know an awful lot about him. And it's also refreshing to realise that finding out just how little we do know about a subject can be just as interesting as a book filled with facts and statistics.

This year, in anticipation of their new album, I've become a fully paid up Haim fan. Somewhere along the line, these girls wormed their way into my heart. Whether it was listening to their album, or their radio show (currently on hiatus), or just following them on Twitter... I'm in love. Quirky and unique, with their own style and a comfort in their own skins, these ladies are also supremely …

I love that the three characters are strong and inspiring in their own unique ways. Katherine is so smart and eventually yells at her boss to get equal treatment. Mary is so determined she talks round a court judge to get the opportunity to learn. And my personal favourite Dorothy takes it upon herself to learn everything and prove to be indispensable, thus making the colour of her skin a non-issue. Her attitude towards the way technology changes the workplace was really interesting, and still applies to this day.

I really like the simplicity of the idea behind Three Good Things, an app that does one thing well. You are tasked with logging three good things for each day, with the aim of stringing together streaks of days and generally making your world a little bit of a happier place. The things don’t have to be life-changing, and they don’t have to be complex. You’re only given 100 characters …

Adore this album, lots of great songs and I like the blend of Paul and Jacqui’s voices, and the way they work together and apart. The singles are great, but I particularly love Little Blue, a real favourite. My only complaint is with Liar’s Bar, as the gravelly voice drills way into my ears and makes my eyes want to fall out.

Quirky and well crafted, this is a concise and compact album that feels like a lot of effort has gone into every single song. I worry some of it has meanings that go beyond me, but if I just settle back and listen then it’s a great selection of songs, ideas and lyrics bundled together brilliantly.

Very mixed feelings about this one. It took me a long time to get fully engaged with it, because, let's face it: Scarlett is not a very nice character, is she? Many of the characters are pretty unlikeable really, by the end I was only fond of Melanie. It's good to have flawed characters, that makes them interesting, and I did like some of Scarlett's more fiery ambitions: no kids, money and power, to heck with what other people think. But there needs to be some scruples, doesn't there?

Loved this. A story told in the form of communications between Rosie and her friends and extended family, this chronicles almost fifty years of love, loss, drama, tears and tantrums. It draws you in from the very beginning, and even though some of the letters or emails are a bit clunky (they have to be to get the story across in a less than natural form), it's all very believable and readable.

Another hit and miss album. Like a couple of the songs but much of it is just a bit too experimental and lacking in actual tune-age for my tastes. Really like Pounding, There Goes the Fear is okay, the rest I can take or leave… and probably leave, if I’m honest.

Was super excited about this album arriving and thankfully not disappointed. It’s a superb pop journey stacked with great beats, intriguing concepts and thoughtful lyrics. There does seem to be more of a political or philosophical edge than previous efforts, but I think it all works really well.

About eighteen months ago, I talked briefly of my obsession with Asphalt 8 on the Apple TV, a game that combined third party controllers with Apple TV accessibility to make a brilliant and captivating racing game. For a few months, this game was everything – I wanted to get all the stars for all the events in all the seasons, I wanted to upgrade all the cars and collect as …

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. This is another one of those supremely disappointing films because it had the potential to be so good, but just missed on pretty much every level. The one thing it had going for it was the four leads, they all did a great job, had believable reactions to the situations they were in, and really propelled everything along. Asa was a real highlight, and I liked the chemistry between the two of them.

I’m trying to up my theatre game this year, so was glad to get a chance to see The Play That Goes Wrong. I’d seen a snippet on some variety show on TV and became quickly entranced with the idea of seeing the full thing on stage. It’s such a brilliant show, starting simply but gradually building in terms of farce, disaster and hysteria. What’s clever about it though is …

This is so good. If you're a fan of Luther, you'll love this prequel to the first TV series. Written by the same author, it shows the events leading up to Luther's first appearance on screen, and thus goes some way to explain his actions in that first series.

Read this after watching the film adaptation of this story. The book reminded me very much of Chris Hadfield's memoir, as they both had quite similar starts to a flying career, and also similar methodical and logical outlooks on life.

It’s clear this is a work of art, something that many hours of love and attention have gone in to. I like the songs, but the school classroom stuff didn’t really add anything to my listening experience. Nevertheless, Hill has such a fantastic voice and her talent shines through from start to finish.

Not one of my favourites, but a good job by Harry. Nice to have something completely different from his One Direction antics, but I’m not sure the faux seventies style really does it for me. They seem like good songs, well crafted, and the album works well as a whole, but it’s not really to my taste.

Okay, so I have definitely seen this before, probably more than once, and yet watching it this time, I couldn't remember much above and beyond the eye stuff (shudder!) and the awesome cars. In terms of the actual story, I didn't know who was behind it or why, which just goes to show how well I paid attention to films in previous years.

This was more of a page-turning thriller than the more sedate whodunit's I'm used to from Christie, but it was still quite interesting in its own way. The introduction suggested it was a satire, which did come across in the text, but I must admit most of what it was sending up went over my head - I guess that's just a lack of knowledge of the period, really.

Mr C was under the impression that this was another weak entry in the Lethal Weapon franchise - the sequel that effectively killed off the series. Thankfully, that wasn't the case, and from the looks of the way it ended, this was always anticipated to be the final outing for Riggs and Murtaugh.

Hmm, not sure about this. The good songs are incredible. Everybody Wants to Rule the World is up there with the proper classics. Head Over Heels, very good. But there are also some real low points. It’s a totally mixed bag.

Really love this album! It’s fun, upbeat and a wonderful eclectic mix of styles and languages. It’s standard Shakira, but there are lots of influences in there and you can tell she was just having fun with the whole thing. Great job.

I loved this wonderfully, quirky film. It's clearly just a vehicle for Sally Field to show how brilliant she is, but it did that perfectly. She was brilliant! And it was nice to see a flawed character going on a journey that doesn't necessarily end happily but certainly winds up better than it started!

I'm glad we finally got round to watching it, the film is really, very good. The story is the most interesting part of the whole thing - a tale about outsiders moving in and taking over, where indigenous people are left to fight for their rightful homes. Moving and, of course, quite relevant.

This is a really lovely piece of work, with a great structure that leads you through what turns out to be a fascinating friendship dynamic. Poppy's mother wrote her ten letters for the next ten birthdays before she passed away, and we get to check in with Poppy each year to see what she is up to and how the letter affects her.

One of Ken Follett's standalone thrillers, I really enjoyed this book. It had an unusual premise, and the crime itself was inventive and really quite terrifying as a concept! I liked the internal politics that was wrapping the FBI up in knots and it was good to have the hero come out on top, both in terms of solving the crime and also getting the upper hand in the office.

We are rapidly heading towards the point of the year where Wimbledon takes over UK TV screens. Currently, the WTA and ATP tours are finishing up their stints on the orange clay, with the French Open still to come, but attention has already turned to the highlight of the grass court season (and arguably the entire tennis-related year). This year, there are no less than three women with everything to …

A tough read this one. This is Jaycee's story, told in her own words, of how she was abducted at age eleven, kept captive for many, many years, had two children, and eventually re-emerged to join the outside world. It's a confusing jumble of notes and lists and stories, and as the author herself admits, the confusion is an accurate portrayal of how she felt going through it.

The format of visiting a subject through a certain number of tangential objects has been done a few times, but I’ve found this recent iteration from the BBC fascinating. Tim Harford, one of the Beeb’s resident economists, covers fifty things that have, in some way, shaped the economy that we know and live with today. If you had to list some things, you’d probably say credit cards, interest rates, banks, …

I can't believe it's taken me so long to read this book, it's great. A passionate plea for the survival of punctuation whilst at the same time embracing the fact that language and prose is constantly changing and we're better off not being elitist about it all.

Aw, lovely Kylie’s first effort is a poptastic celebration. It’s all very Hit Factory, which is no bad thing as long as you know what you’ve signed up for. The classics are, of course, fantastic, and the rest of it fills in the gaps nicely.

I like the odd Linkin Park song or two so was interested to see what they’ve come up with this time. It veered a lot more towards pop than I’d anticipated, there wasn’t the rage and angst there used to be, which is interesting. Good album but nothing really stood out.

For the longest time, I’ve been wanting to buy Buffy the Vampire Slayer on iTunes, but I’ve held off because it’s not in HD. Plenty of older content is being converted into HD, but I understood that Buffy was a particularly tricky one to convert, what with it being all special effects and kick-ass movement. I hadn’t realised that the conversion had already been attempted a couple of years ago, …

Loved the first Lethal Weapon, whilst the second was a bit of a disappointment, but thankfully this third installment was perhaps the best of the lot. It doesn't take long to be right back in the thick of things, with our heroes setting off a bomb within ten minutes of arriving on screen.

I've been looking forward to this one since I saw the trailer. Okay, yes, it's probably a bit childish and not at all groundbreaking (so like Zootopia, it's kinda painful) but also it's animals singing. Bunnies doing Nikki Minaj, a German pig with sass, what else do you need?

Ah, Bridget, always able to cause a catastrophe no matter what she does. This is the story of how Bridget's first child came into the world and the crazy antics that surround trying to figure out who the father is and also navigate the worrying nine months of pregnancy.