This year for Christmas I asked for books. I went mad for books. I got a stack of books. There were lots of books.

I often ask for and receive books as presents. There's a whole world waiting for you in a book. And the best thing is, you can revisit that world whenever you want. It's always waiting for you. Oh and I just thought of another thing - you can take it with you wherever you go and it never runs out of batteries! 

Mostly I ask for fiction and devour it in days. There's nothing like a good story to lift the spirits. This year, however, I mostly went for non-fiction. There's just so much I want to learn! Now what usually happens when I buy non-fiction is it sits around in the lounge for a bit, I look at the cover and read the blurb, flick through a page or two and then I put it on the shelf and never look at it again. This is terrible. All that knowledge trapped between the pages with no-one to set it free.

I decided that this year was going to be different so I've left the books on my desk in a most inconvenient place and I'm not allowed to tidy them away until I've read them. And it's worked. So far I've read Bindi by Kirli Saunders, Just My Type by Simon Garfield, and Songlines by Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly. I've started Shady Characters by Keith Houston and I've been dipping into Guwaya- For All Times: A Collection of First Nations Poems from Red Room Poetry. I'm working my way through the excellent How to Grow your Own Poem by Kate Clanchy. Of course, HollowPox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend and The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst: A Kingdom and Empires Book by Jaclyn Moriarty were finished long ago. They're ripping yarns, that's why!

Once I've got through all those I'll still have Arelhekenhe Angkentye Women's Talk: Poems of Lyapirtneme from Arrente Women in Central Australia, Welcome To Country by Marcia Langton, Loving Country by Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukuroglou and Yornadaiyn Woolagoodja to read.

As well as Book Cover Designs by Matthew Goodman, The Illustrated Dust Jacket by Martin Salisbury and The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time by Keith Houston and for a little light reading Selected Poems from T.S. Ellliot's. I'm a sucker for good design and this series of hardcover poetry books by famous poets is simply gorgeous. 

What do you devour? Fiction or non-fiction?