Dedication's what you need: the 2025 reading challenge thread

[rubbershoes]

3/22 - Ethics and Professional Conduct by Jacqueline Kempton.

Not the most riveting read, I have to admit. Surprisingly, I found myself agreeing with the SRA's encouragement to snitch. Dodgy and inept solicitors should be taken out, imo. Whilst initially I was excited to learn that Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal published judgements online, my enthusiasm was premature - turns out, solicitors are boring criminals who just lie and appropriate money. In that respect, barrister disciplinary proceedings are much more entertaining.

But the problem is that the SRA are on a massive power trip whilst being completely blind to their own failings. Every week they fine solicitors tens of thousands of pounds for breaching a rule years ago (usually AML), when the breach caused no harm to anyone. And at the same time the SRA refuse to think about the massive cock up they made over Axiom that has cost the profession more than £60m.

How does that fit with outcome focused regulation? Probably not a discussion for this thread

 

[furluxor]

But the problem is that the SRA are on a massive power trip whilst being completely blind to their own failings. Every week they fine solicitors tens of thousands of pounds for breaching a rule years ago (usually AML), when the breach caused no harm to anyone. And at the same time the SRA refuse to think about the massive cock up they made over Axiom that has cost the profession more than £60m.

How does that fit with outcome focused regulation? Probably not a discussion for this thread

I can't say I know much about what SRA are up to but I understand the purpose of AML regs and in a country rotted by financial corruption, the strict approach might be a good idea. Whilst I don't know what cases you're referring to (the ones that caused no harm), fines might be justified for the purpose of deterrence. So...dunno? I'd love to see regulators improve but we are where we are. They fall short of expectations but at least they're there.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

1/34 Glory – NoViolet Bulawayo

It’s been a slow start to the year, but I’ve finished Glory at last. It’s good. I'll try for the same as last year, 34.

 

[PTK]

I had a conversation a while back with someone who said she'd never really read any science fiction but wanted to try some, and I wanted to recommend Sea of Tranquility but couldn't remember who wrote it, so I accidentally managed to recommend Edna St Vincent Millay, who I've never read and definitely did not write Sea of Tranquility. Tbf I think if you call your child Emily St John Mandel, there must be a part of you that deliberately wants people to get her mixed up with Edna St Vincent Millay.

I would not recommend Sea of Tranquility. I think that it is deeply flawed. However, Station Eleven by the same author is something that I would recommend. A short SF story that "blew my mind" (as I believe the "cool dudes" say today) was "Expedition to Earth" by Arthur C Clarke. I was about 11 when I read it, so it may not have such an impact on an adult.

 

[PTK]

1. Legacy by Nathan Hystad (last book in a series of pretty mediocre space opera I started churning through before Christmas).
2. Fortunate Son by Caimh McDonnell (book 8 of his Dublin Trilogy). He's always a fun read.
3. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. I last read it over 40 years ago. I think it's possibly his best book. I already read Triffids again last year (I first read that in 1976) and I'm tempted to read loads more Wyndham this year.
4. Collected Stories Vol 1 by Arthur C. Clarke. Early short stories from the 1930s to the 1960s.
5. The Expert System's Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky. More a novella. Very good. Love Tchaikovsky's output.
6. Origin Story: a Big History of Everything by David Christian. I enjoyed this attempt to give a secular, scientific and accessible "origin story" of how the universe came about, how life developed, how humanity got to where it is and where things seem to be going.
7. The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham. The story is okay but the characters are terribly middle class and I see where Brian Aldiss was coming from when he criticised Wyndham for his "cosy catastrophes". It's flawed in many ways and not a patch on The Chrysalids or Triffids. I'd not read Kraken before. I doubt I'll revisit it.
8. Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham. Bougie nonsense, though again, interesting premise. That's enough Wyndham for now.

"Consider Her Ways" by Wyndham is worth reading, I would say, as it has some interesting things to say about the position of women in our society.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1. "Midnight and Blue" - Ian Rankin
2. "The Blackbird" - Tim Weaver
3. "In a Place of Darkness" - Stuart MacBride

4. "Yellowface" - Rebecca F. Kuang. Compelling at times, uncomfortable at times but also a little repetitive at times

 

[Serge Forward]

"Consider Her Ways" by Wyndham is worth reading, I would say, as it has some interesting things to say about the position of women in our society.

So does Lichen, which has a fairly "feminist" themes to it... only the upshot is that it's an ultra bourgeois feminism with an overtly technocratic/"homo superior" bent

Wyndham is off the menu for now.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

1. Eleven Numbers - Lee Child - free short story maths spy thing.
2. When the cat spells war (the house witch) - Delemhatch - cozy fantasy stuff
3. My name is John too - David Fate - short comic sequal to my name is john.
4. To be taught if fortunate - Becky Chambers - story about exobiology and the ethics and purpose of space travel.
5. A morbid taste for bones - Cadfael 1 - Ellis Peters
6. One corpse too many - Cadfael 2 - Ellis Peters
7. Monk's hood - Cadfael 3 - Ellis Peters
8. St Peter's fair - Cadfael 4 - Ellis Peters
9. The leper of St Giles - Cadfael 5 - Ellis Peters

No prizes for guessing what I'm currently reading.
Nearly all rereads so far this year.

 

[BoatieBird]

1/60 - Susie Dent - Guilty by Definition
2/60 - Emily St. John Mandel - Sea of Tranquillity (BC)
3/60 - Sally Rooney - Intermezzo
4/60 - Jo Walton - Ha'penny
5/60 - Jo Walton - Half a Crown
6/60 - Wally Lamb - The Hour I First Believed

7/60 - Claire Keegan - Antarctica

 

[maomao]

Finally finished one of four books I have on the go. A curse of my job is that I'm always reading bits of books and not finishing them.

1/24 With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B.Sledge.

 

[Biddlybee]

1/60 - Susie Dent - Guilty by Definition
2/60 - Emily St. John Mandel - Sea of Tranquillity (BC)
3/60 - Sally Rooney - Intermezzo
4/60 - Jo Walton - Ha'penny
5/60 - Jo Walton - Half a Crown
6/60 - Wally Lamb - The Hour I First Believed

7/60 - Claire Keegan - Antarctica

Are the other two Jo Walton books worth a read?

 

[Biddlybee]

1/24 - Farthing - Jo Walton

Couple of things annoyed me in the last few pages, but still enjoyed it.

 

[youbeauty]

I'm trying for one a month and I've finished my first one.
1/12 Kairos - Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann. "A devastating story of the path of two lovers – a man in his fifties and a 19-year-old woman – through the ruins of a relationship, set against the tumult of East Berlin in the 1980s" according to the blurb. I found it interesting in parts, loved the detail about East Berlin but wasn't sure about the dynamic of the two lovers. He seemed a bit of a shit tbh.

 

[BoatieBird]

Are the other two Jo Walton books worth a read?

Yes, I really enjoyed them!

 

[CNT36]

1/19 Simon Ings - Stalin and the Scientists: A history of Triumph and Tragedy
2/19 John Cottingham - Descartes
3/19 Colin Darch - Nestor Machno and rural Anarchism in Ukraine 1917 - 1921

 

[hitmouse]

1/45 The Free Association - Moments of Excess
2/45 Baynard Woods & Brandon Soderberg - I Got A Monster

3/45 Andrew Holleran - Dancer from the Dance

Big gay 1970s New York disco novel, a quote on the back compared it to Great Gatsby, which I can see. Interesting how pre-AIDS gay New York is kind of mythologised as a golden age in retrospect, but a book written at the time... well, maybe you could write a novel that was just "everyone took loads of drugs and did loads of shagging and it was all wonderful", but that's not what Holleran does, it's a very melancholy book about searching for love and meaning against a backdrop of drugs, hedonism and shagging. Quite racist, or at least the characters are, but that's a book about American men in the 1970s for you. Really well-written and generally recommended.

Spoiler: pointless personal aside, and also mild plot spoilers

I'm currently going through a bit of a crush on someone, and then one of the protagonists gets into a relationship with someone who has the same name as my crush and there's a section of the book that's just a rhapsodical description of how happy he is being in a relationship with the person who has this name, which felt a bit oddly targeted. But then, being the sort of book it is, they're only happy for about ten pages before it all goes to shit.

Now starting on

4/45 Thomas Ligotti - Grimscribe and Songs of a Dead Dreamer (re-read)

Can't remember why I thought to myself "I should really re-read Ligotti", but I did think it at some time relatively recently, and now I'm getting around to it.