Never mind the virus here's the 2022 reading challenge thread

[inva]

1/20 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
2/20 Gentleman Overboard by Herbert Clyde Lewis
3/20 The Colonel's Wife by Rosa Liksom
4/20 Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
5/20 Socialism and the Intelligentsia 1880-1914 edited by Carl Levy
6/20 Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
7/20 Rizzio by Denise Mina
8/20 Naming Names by Victor S. Navasky
9/20 Marx on Money by Suzanne de Brunhoff
10/20 Real World by Natsuo Kirino
11/20 For Another Europe: A Class Analysis of European Economic Integration by Guglielmo Carchedi
12/20 The Attempt by Magdaléna Platzová
13/20 Theories of Surplus Value Part 1 by Karl Marx (reread)
14/20 The Blue Lenses and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
15/20 Theories of Surplus Value Part 2 by Karl Marx

 

[marty21]

1/75. The Story of England - Michael Wood .
2/75 Broken Rails : How Privitisation Wrecked Britain's Railways - Christian Wolmar .
3/75 Black and British : A Forgotten History - David Olusoga.
4/75 Shackleton: A Biography - Ranulph Fiennes
5/75 The Secret Barrister: Stories of the law and how its broken - The Secret Barrister
6/75 The Nanny State Made Me : The Story of Britain & How to Save it. - Stuart Maconie
7/75 Conquistadors - Michael Wood.
8/75 Shadows Reel - CJ Box
9/75 Hope & Glory - Stuart Maconie
10/75 Killing Floor - Lee Child
11/75 Die Trying - Lee Child
12/75 Tripwire - Lee Child
13/75 The Visitor - Lee Child
14/75 Echo Burning - Lee Child
15/75 Without Fail - Lee Child
16/75 Persuader - Lee Child
17/75 The Enemy - Lee Child
18/75 One Shot - Lee Child
19/75 The Hard Way - Lee Child
20/75 Sing Backwards and Weep - Mark Lanegan
21/75 Bad Luck and Trouble - Lee Child
22/75 Nothing to Lose - Lee Child
23/75 Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child
24/75 61 Hours - Lee Child
25/75 Worth Dying For - Lee Child
26/75 The Affair - Lee Child
27/75 The Plantagenets : The Kings Who Made England - Dan Jones
28/75 A Wanted Man - Lee Child
29/75 Never Go Back - Lee Child
30/75 Look Here : On The Pleasures of Observing The City - Ana Kinsella.
31/75 Personal - Lee Child
32/75 The Vietnam War : An Initmate History - Geoffrey C Ward & Ken Burns.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

19/12 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

Thanks to another thread I listened to a Desert Island Discs episode, then Maya Angelou and Micheal Parkinson popped up as suggestion...anyway, this is a great book, only 6 volumes of autobiography left to go now..

18/12 You Made a Fool of Death with you Beauty - Akwaeke Emezi
17/12 Under the Net - Iris Murdoch.
16/12 The White Album - Joan Didion
15/12 Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl - Andrea Lawlor
14/12 Nothing but the Truth - The Secret Barrister
13/12 Under Western Eyes - Joseph Conrad
12/12 The fake Up - Justin Myers
11/12 The Magician - Colm Toiban
10/12 The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
9/12 The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
8/12 Harsh Times - Mario Vargas Llosa
7/12 Talking at the Gates, a Life of James Baldwin - James Campbell
6/12 Slouching Towards Bethlehem - Joan Didion
5/12 A Dutiful Boy: A memoir of secrets, lies and family love - Mohsin Zaidi
4/12 To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar Wilde - Rupert Everett
3/12 White on Black on White - Coleman Dowell
2/12 The Charterhouse of Parma - Stendhal
1/12 The Shortest History of Germany - James Hawes

 

[hitmouse]

14/29 Lauren Elkin - No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute

A small book of observations written in the notes app of an iPhone on buses in 2015. A year bookended by two tragedies in Paris and those on top of a tragedy to author faced herself. I liked it, she's a good observer. She makes the point that she only conceived of it as a book during the lockdown when commuting to work was much less of a thing for many of us. So there is an odd nostalgia attached to it now.

Who else briefly read this as Fozzie having set the oddly specific target of 92 books and having almost achieved it?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Who else briefly read this as Fozzie having set the oddly specific target of 92 books and having almost achieved it?

Ah! They are Parisian bus numbers I believe. It's a small book, so I reckon I could read 92 of them in year probably. I won't though.

 

[Threshers_Flail]

1. David Graeber and David Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything
2. Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker - The Many Headed Hydra
3. Cedric Robinson - Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition
4. Donna Tartt - The Little Friend
5. Gabor Mate - In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
6. Olga Tokarczuc - Books of Jacob (check me out )
7 . Azfar Shafi and Ilyas Nagdee - Race to the Bottom: Reclaiming Antiracism
8. Olufemi Taiwo - Elite Capture: How the Elite Took Over Identity Politics
9. Kazuo Ishiguro - Klara and the Sun
10. David Andress - The Terror
11. Ben Miller and Huw Lemmey - Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

 

[hitmouse]

1. David Graeber and David Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything
2. Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker - The Many Headed Hydra
3. Cedric Robinson - Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition
4. Donna Tartt - The Little Friend
5. Gabor Mate - In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
6. Olga Tokarczuc - Books of Jacob (check me out )
7 . Azfar Shafi and Ilyas Nagdee - Race to the Bottom: Reclaiming Antiracism
8. Olufemi Taiwo - Elite Capture: How the Elite Took Over Identity Politics
9. Kazuo Ishiguro - Klara and the Sun
10. David Andress - The Terror
11. Ben Miller and Huw Lemmey - Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

What do you make of it? That one's on my list.

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Glen Duncan - I, Lucifer
2. Bolu Babalola - Love In Colour
3. ed. Dan Coxon - Tales from the Shadow Booth vol.4.
4. Kerry Hadley-Pryce - The Black Country
5. S. A. Cosby - Blacktop Wasteland
6. Catriona Ward - The Last House on Needless Street
7. Peter Godfrey-Smith - Other Minds

8. Laini Taylor - Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Perfectly serviceable holiday fantasy romp.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

What do you make of it? That one's on my list.

looks interesting, but I might wait for the Kindle Edition to be less expensive than the paperback

 

[hitmouse]

looks interesting, but I might wait for the Kindle Edition to be less expensive than the paperback

I was going to say that they're doing a book tour if anyone's interested, but I think that's over now. Anyway, a page with videos from the book tour and links to extracts:

Book — Bad Gays

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, forthcoming June 2022 from Verso. Pre-order now!

badgayspod.com

 

[imposs1904]

1/52 In and Out by Mat Coward
2/52 And Away . . . by Bob Mortimer
3/52 In the Thick of It: The Private Diaries of a Minister by Alan Duncan
4/52 Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile by Adelle Stripe
5/52 My Ears Are Bent by Joseph Mitchell
6/52 One Step Ahead by Duncan McKenzie
7/52 May God Forgive by Alan Parks
8/52 1982 Brazil: The Glorious Failure by Stuart Horsfield
9/52 Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta
10/52 Scully by Alan Bleasdale (ReRead)
11/52 Fierce Genius: Cruyff’s Year at Feyenoord by Andy Bollen
12/52 The Pressures of Life: Four Television Plays edited by Michael Marland
13/52 A Man’s Head by Georges Simenon (ReRead)
14/52 Scully and Mooey by Alan Bleasdale (ReRead)
15/52 Cecile is Dead by Georges Simenon
16/52 Turbulent Priests by Colin Bateman
17/52 Shooting Sean by Colin Bateman
18/52 The Horse with My Name by Colin Bateman

19/52 Driving Big Davie by Colin Bateman (ReRead)

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Sarah Waters - Fingersmith
2/52 - Claire Keegan - Small Things Like These
3/52 - Richard Osman - The Man Who Died Twice
4/52 - Truman Capote - Breakfast at Tiffany's
5/52 - Matt Haig - The Midnight Library
6/52 - Patricia Highsmith - A Dog's Ransom
7/52 - Claire Douglas - The Couple at No. 9
8/52 - Daniel Mason - The Piano Tuner
9/52 - Zadie Smith - On Beauty
10/52 - Stephen King & Richard Chizmar - Gwendy's Button Box (reread)
11/52 - Minette Walters - The Cellar
12/52 - Barbara Vine - The Chimney Sweeper's Boy (reread)
13/52 - Margaret Atwood - The Edible Woman
14/52 - Peter Swanson - Rules for Perfect Murders
15/52 - Patricia Lockwood - No One is Talking About This
16/52 - Sally Rooney - Beautiful World, Where Are You?
17/52 - Toni Morrison - Beloved
18/52 - Denise Mina - The Less Dead
19/52 - Richard Chizmar - Gwendy's Magic Feather
20/52 - Sarah Waters - The Night Watch
21/52 - Chibundu Onuzo - Sankofa
22/52 - Stephen King and Richard Chizmar - Gwendy's Final Task
23/52 - A A Milne - The Red House Mystery
24/52 - A M Homes - May We Be Forgiven
25/52 - Andrew Michael Hurley - Devil's Day
26/52 - Anne Tyler - Breathing Lessons
27/52 - Stephen King - Skeleton Crew
28/52 - Ruth Rendell - Portobello (reread)
29/52 - Willy Valutin - The Night Always Comes
30/52 - Stephen King - The Langoliers (reread)
31/52 - Elly Griffiths - The Crossing Places
32/53 - Stephen King - Secret Window, Secret Garden
33/52 - Elizabeth Strout - Oh William!
34/52 - Annie Proulx - Wyoming Stories (reread)
35/52 - Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley (reread)
36/52 - Peter Swanson - Nine Lives
37/52 - Johnathan Franzen - Crossroads
38/52 - Ruth Rendell - The Bridesmaid

39/52 - Joanna Cannon - A Tidy Ending

 

[marty21]

1/75. The Story of England - Michael Wood .
2/75 Broken Rails : How Privitisation Wrecked Britain's Railways - Christian Wolmar .
3/75 Black and British : A Forgotten History - David Olusoga.
4/75 Shackleton: A Biography - Ranulph Fiennes
5/75 The Secret Barrister: Stories of the law and how its broken - The Secret Barrister
6/75 The Nanny State Made Me : The Story of Britain & How to Save it. - Stuart Maconie
7/75 Conquistadors - Michael Wood.
8/75 Shadows Reel - CJ Box
9/75 Hope & Glory - Stuart Maconie
10/75 Killing Floor - Lee Child
11/75 Die Trying - Lee Child
12/75 Tripwire - Lee Child
13/75 The Visitor - Lee Child
14/75 Echo Burning - Lee Child
15/75 Without Fail - Lee Child
16/75 Persuader - Lee Child
17/75 The Enemy - Lee Child
18/75 One Shot - Lee Child
19/75 The Hard Way - Lee Child
20/75 Sing Backwards and Weep - Mark Lanegan
21/75 Bad Luck and Trouble - Lee Child
22/75 Nothing to Lose - Lee Child
23/75 Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child
24/75 61 Hours - Lee Child
25/75 Worth Dying For - Lee Child
26/75 The Affair - Lee Child
27/75 The Plantagenets : The Kings Who Made England - Dan Jones
28/75 A Wanted Man - Lee Child
29/75 Never Go Back - Lee Child
30/75 Look Here : On The Pleasures of Observing The City - Ana Kinsella.
31/75 Personal - Lee Child
32/75 The Vietnam War : An Initmate History - Geoffrey C Ward & Ken Burns.
33/75 Make Me - Lee Child

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Glen Duncan - I, Lucifer
2. Bolu Babalola - Love In Colour
3. ed. Dan Coxon - Tales from the Shadow Booth vol.4.
4. Kerry Hadley-Pryce - The Black Country
5. S. A. Cosby - Blacktop Wasteland
6. Catriona Ward - The Last House on Needless Street
7. Peter Godfrey-Smith - Other Minds
8. Laini Taylor - Daughter of Smoke and Bone

9. Oyinkan Braithwaite - My Sister, the Serial Killer. Entertaining crime romp with a deadpan tone that put me in mind of Martin Millar.

 

[nogojones]

1/45 Maya Angelou - Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas
2/45 Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch
3/45 Julia Buxton - The Political Economy of Narcotics
4/45 Sally Rooney - Beautiful World, Where Are You
5/45 Becky Chambers - Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
6/45 Cindy Milstein - Taking Sides
7/45 Phillip K. Dick - The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
8/45 Jim Thompson - Recoil
9/45 Joseph Conrad - The Secret Agent
10/45 Ellen Meisksins Wood - Empire of Capital
11/45 Bernard Schweizer - Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism
12/45 Donna Tartt - The Little Friend
13/45 Arkady Martine - A Memory Called Empire
14/45 Joan Didion - Slouching Towards Bethlehem
15/45 Tayyib Salih - Season of Migration to the North
16/45 Arkady Martine - A Desolation Called Peace
17/45 Stacey M. Floyd (Ed.) - Liberation Theologies in the United States
18/45 Hew Lemmey - Red Tory: My Corbyn Chemsex Hell
19/45 Roldolfo Walsh - Operation Massacre
20/45 Joan Didion - The White Album
21/45 Brian Manning - Aristocrats, Plebeians and Revolution in England 1640-1660
22/45 Noel Ignatiev - Acceptable Men
23/45 Toni Morrison - Home

24/45 Yuliya Yurchenko - Ukraine and the Empire of Capital

25/45 Philip K. Dick - Ubik

I'm getting a bit bored of PKD now.

26/45 Joan Didion - Salvador

A snapshot of some of the darkest days in El-Salvador

 

[marty21]

1/75. The Story of England - Michael Wood .
2/75 Broken Rails : How Privitisation Wrecked Britain's Railways - Christian Wolmar .
3/75 Black and British : A Forgotten History - David Olusoga.
4/75 Shackleton: A Biography - Ranulph Fiennes
5/75 The Secret Barrister: Stories of the law and how its broken - The Secret Barrister
6/75 The Nanny State Made Me : The Story of Britain & How to Save it. - Stuart Maconie
7/75 Conquistadors - Michael Wood.
8/75 Shadows Reel - CJ Box
9/75 Hope & Glory - Stuart Maconie
10/75 Killing Floor - Lee Child
11/75 Die Trying - Lee Child
12/75 Tripwire - Lee Child
13/75 The Visitor - Lee Child
14/75 Echo Burning - Lee Child
15/75 Without Fail - Lee Child
16/75 Persuader - Lee Child
17/75 The Enemy - Lee Child
18/75 One Shot - Lee Child
19/75 The Hard Way - Lee Child
20/75 Sing Backwards and Weep - Mark Lanegan
21/75 Bad Luck and Trouble - Lee Child
22/75 Nothing to Lose - Lee Child
23/75 Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child
24/75 61 Hours - Lee Child
25/75 Worth Dying For - Lee Child
26/75 The Affair - Lee Child
27/75 The Plantagenets : The Kings Who Made England - Dan Jones
28/75 A Wanted Man - Lee Child
29/75 Never Go Back - Lee Child
30/75 Look Here : On The Pleasures of Observing The City - Ana Kinsella.
31/75 Personal - Lee Child
32/75 The Vietnam War : An Initmate History - Geoffrey C Ward & Ken Burns.
33/75 Make Me - Lee Child
34/75 Night School - Lee Child

 

[shifting gears]

1/26 - Michael Moorcock - The Whispering Swarm
2/26 - Albert Camus - The Outsider
3/26 - Douglas Stuart - Shuggie Bain
4/26 - Edna O’Brien - Girl
5/26 - The Secret DJ - Book Two
6/26 - David Keenan - Xstabeth
7/26 - Wendy Erskine - Sweet Home
8/26 - Walter Greenwood - Love on the Dole
9/26 - Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous with Rama
10/26 - Edna O’Brien - Saints and Sinners
11/26 - William McIlvanney - The Papers of Tony Veitch
12/26 - Wendy Erskine - Dance Move
13/26 - Kevin Barry - Beatlebone
14/26 - DBC Pierre - Breakfast with the Borgias
15/26 - William McIlvanney - Strange Loyalties
16/26 - Edna O’Brien - The Little Red Chairs
17/26 - Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly

18/26 - Ted Chiang - Stories of Your Life and Others

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Glen Duncan - I, Lucifer
2. Bolu Babalola - Love In Colour
3. ed. Dan Coxon - Tales from the Shadow Booth vol.4.
4. Kerry Hadley-Pryce - The Black Country
5. S. A. Cosby - Blacktop Wasteland
6. Catriona Ward - The Last House on Needless Street
7. Peter Godfrey-Smith - Other Minds
8. Laini Taylor - Daughter of Smoke and Bone
9. Oyinkan Braithwaite - My Sister, the Serial Killer

10. Andrew Michael Hurley - Starve Acre. An effectively creepy slice of folk horror, although the ending seemed a bit rushed.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1. "The Thursday Murder Club" - Richard Osman.
2. "The Woman in the Window" - A. J. Finn.
3. "Snow" by John Banville
4. "The Lies You Told" - Harriet Tyce
5. "A Gift for the Dying" - MJ Arlidge
6. "One by One" - Ruth Ware
7. "The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways" - a British Library publication edited by Mike Ashley.
8. "The House of Ashes" - Stuart Neville
9. "Lies" - TM Logan.
10. "The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill" - C. S. Robertson.
11. "I See You" - Clare Mackintosh
12. "The Seance" - John Harwood
13. "The Couple Next Door" - Shari Lapena
14. "American Dirt" -Jeanine Cummins
15. "Their Little Secret" - Mark Billingham
16. "The Murder List" - Jackie Kabler
17. "Twelve Secrets" - Robert Gold
18. "It Ends at Midnight" - Harriet Tyce

19. "Thirteen Storeys" - genuinely unsettling horror/supernatural novel. I found the episodic nature meant the story didn't flow as smoothly as I'd like but I did really enjoy it.

 

[StanleyBlack]

1/20? Dreiser, Theodore (1900); Pizer, Donald, Editor. Sister Carrie: an authoritative text backgrounds and sources criticism. Second edition c1991. New York: WW Norton & Company (0393960420) Finished January 2022.
2/20? Dalrymple, Theodore. Life at the bottom: the worldview that makes the underclass. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, c2001 (1566635055) Finished February 2022.
3/20? Gissing, George (1886); Coustillas, Pierre, Editor. Demos, a story of English socialism. Hardback of 1897 reprinted edition published in 1972 as No. 10 in the series, Society and the Victorians. Hassocks, nr. Brighton: The Harvester Press Limited. (0901759201) Finished March 2022
4/20? Serrailler, Ian (1956) The silver sword. Paperback reprint published in 1971. Harmondsworth: A Puffin Book, published by Penguin Books (140301461) Finished March 2022
5/20? Zindel, Paul (1968) The pigman. Hardback reprint published in the New Windmill Series 1973. London: Heinemann Educational Books (0435121596) Finished April 2022
6/20? Gissing, George (1893); introduced by Frank Swinnerton. The odd women. Hardback c1968 published as no. 10 of The Doughty Library. London: Anthony Blond (218515081) Finished 29 April 2022

Playing catch up again with my list. To those who questioned whether The Silver Sword is a YA book, fair enough, I've no idea really other than it is a good read!

7/20? Mitchell, Alex (1984) Behind the crisis in British Stalinism. Paperback June 1984. London: New Park Publications (086151033X) Finished 29 May 2022
This seems an odd book to read now. To say the world has moved on is a massive understatement. I found most of the information on the CPGB interesting and all of Mitchell's WRP hyperbole less so. I think we're better off without either of them.

8/20? Lee, Carol Ann (2021) A passion for poison: the deadly crimes of Graham Young: poisoner, serial killer, psychopath. Paperback edition published 2022. London: Bonnier Books (9781789464344) Finished 15 July 2022
I'm less of a true crime hound these days but will still read the odd book if I'm interested in the case (I'm mostly interested in post-war British criminals). This is a very thorough study of Young's case that explores some of the legal changes that were made after he was 'freed to kill again'!

9/20? Ying, Esther Cheo (1980) Black Country Girl in Red China. First hardback edition. London: Hutchinson (009139080X) Finished 4 August 2022
This is reread but I last read it about ten years ago. It's quite an easy, none 'political', read but enjoyable none the less. Reading it again I noticed the lack of detail a bit more, where in the Black Country did she live? A 'mining town in Staffordshire in the 1940s' doesn't really narrow it down. The time lines are also slightly confusing and it's not always clear when she's referring to. Related trivia, the author is David Gilmour's, from the pop group Pink Floyd, mother-in-law.

 

[Biddlybee]

1/24 - Hope Not Fear - Hassan Akkad
2/24 - Revenge - Yoko Ogawa
3/24 - Men Who Hate Women - Laura Bates
4/24 - The Mad Women's Ball - Victoria Mas
5/24 - Open Water - Caleb Azumah Nelson
6/24 - The Shortest History of Germany - James Hawes
7/24 - Panenka - Rónán Hession

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/45 David Katz - People Funny Boy: the genius of Lee Scratch Perry
2/45 Onjali Q Rauf - The Star Outside My Window
3/45 Joe Abercrombie - The Trouble with Peace
4/45 P G Wodehouse - Something New
5/45 Thomas Harding - White Debt: the Demerara Uprising and Britain's legacy of slavery
6/45 Terry Pratchett - Men At Arms
7/45 Art Spiegelman - Maus
8/45 Andrea Levy - Small Island
9/45 Bex Hogan - Viper
10/45 Robert Jordan - Crossroads of Twilight
11/45 Katherine Applegate -The One and Only Ivan
12/45 Andrew Marr - A History of Modern Britain
13/45 Alan Moore & David Lloyd - V for Vendetta
14/45 Evan Ross Katz - Into Every Generation a Slayer is Born: how Buffy staked our hearts
15/45 Pete Brown - Man Walks into a Pub: a sociable history of beer
16/45 Brian Groom - Northerners: a history, from the ice age to the present day
17/45 Ellis Peters - A Morbid Taste for Bones (Cadfael #1)
18/45 Joe Abercrombie - The Wisdom of Crowds
19/45 Laurie Lee - Cider with Rosie
20/45 Laurie Lee - As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
21/45 Laurie Lee - A Moment of War
22/45 Laurie Lee - A Rose for Winter
23/45 Mark Lawrence - Prince of Thorns
24/45 Mark Lawrence - King of Thorns
25/45 T C Eglington & Simon Davis - Thistlebone
26/45 JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit
27/45 Andrew Marr - A History of the World
28/45 Edgar Mittelholzer - My Bones and My Flute

29/45 Richard Atkinson - Mr Atkinson's Rum Contract: the story of a tangled inheritance

 

[pseudonarcissus]

20/12 Murphy - Samuel Beckett

19/12 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
18/12 You Made a Fool of Death with you Beauty - Akwaeke Emezi
17/12 Under the Net - Iris Murdoch.
16/12 The White Album - Joan Didion
15/12 Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl - Andrea Lawlor
14/12 Nothing but the Truth - The Secret Barrister
13/12 Under Western Eyes - Joseph Conrad
12/12 The fake Up - Justin Myers
11/12 The Magician - Colm Toiban
10/12 The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
9/12 The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
8/12 Harsh Times - Mario Vargas Llosa
7/12 Talking at the Gates, a Life of James Baldwin - James Campbell
6/12 Slouching Towards Bethlehem - Joan Didion
5/12 A Dutiful Boy: A memoir of secrets, lies and family love - Mohsin Zaidi
4/12 To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar Wilde - Rupert Everett
3/12 White on Black on White - Coleman Dowell
2/12 The Charterhouse of Parma - Stendhal
1/12 The Shortest History of Germany - James Hawes

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/45 David Katz - People Funny Boy: the genius of Lee Scratch Perry
2/45 Onjali Q Rauf - The Star Outside My Window
3/45 Joe Abercrombie - The Trouble with Peace
4/45 P G Wodehouse - Something New
5/45 Thomas Harding - White Debt: the Demerara Uprising and Britain's legacy of slavery
6/45 Terry Pratchett - Men At Arms
7/45 Art Spiegelman - Maus
8/45 Andrea Levy - Small Island
9/45 Bex Hogan - Viper
10/45 Robert Jordan - Crossroads of Twilight
11/45 Katherine Applegate -The One and Only Ivan
12/45 Andrew Marr - A History of Modern Britain
13/45 Alan Moore & David Lloyd - V for Vendetta
14/45 Evan Ross Katz - Into Every Generation a Slayer is Born: how Buffy staked our hearts
15/45 Pete Brown - Man Walks into a Pub: a sociable history of beer
16/45 Brian Groom - Northerners: a history, from the ice age to the present day
17/45 Ellis Peters - A Morbid Taste for Bones (Cadfael #1)
18/45 Joe Abercrombie - The Wisdom of Crowds
19/45 Laurie Lee - Cider with Rosie
20/45 Laurie Lee - As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
21/45 Laurie Lee - A Moment of War
22/45 Laurie Lee - A Rose for Winter
23/45 Mark Lawrence - Prince of Thorns
24/45 Mark Lawrence - King of Thorns
25/45 T C Eglington & Simon Davis - Thistlebone
26/45 JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit
27/45 Andrew Marr - A History of the World
28/45 Edgar Mittelholzer - My Bones and My Flute
29/45 Richard Atkinson - Mr Atkinson's Rum Contract: the story of a tangled inheritance

30/45 Amos Tutuola - The Palm-Wine Drinkard

 

[marty21]

1/75. The Story of England - Michael Wood .
2/75 Broken Rails : How Privitisation Wrecked Britain's Railways - Christian Wolmar .
3/75 Black and British : A Forgotten History - David Olusoga.
4/75 Shackleton: A Biography - Ranulph Fiennes
5/75 The Secret Barrister: Stories of the law and how its broken - The Secret Barrister
6/75 The Nanny State Made Me : The Story of Britain & How to Save it. - Stuart Maconie
7/75 Conquistadors - Michael Wood.
8/75 Shadows Reel - CJ Box
9/75 Hope & Glory - Stuart Maconie
10/75 Killing Floor - Lee Child
11/75 Die Trying - Lee Child
12/75 Tripwire - Lee Child
13/75 The Visitor - Lee Child
14/75 Echo Burning - Lee Child
15/75 Without Fail - Lee Child
16/75 Persuader - Lee Child
17/75 The Enemy - Lee Child
18/75 One Shot - Lee Child
19/75 The Hard Way - Lee Child
20/75 Sing Backwards and Weep - Mark Lanegan
21/75 Bad Luck and Trouble - Lee Child
22/75 Nothing to Lose - Lee Child
23/75 Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child
24/75 61 Hours - Lee Child
25/75 Worth Dying For - Lee Child
26/75 The Affair - Lee Child
27/75 The Plantagenets : The Kings Who Made England - Dan Jones
28/75 A Wanted Man - Lee Child
29/75 Never Go Back - Lee Child
30/75 Look Here : On The Pleasures of Observing The City - Ana Kinsella.
31/75 Personal - Lee Child
32/75 The Vietnam War : An Initmate History - Geoffrey C Ward & Ken Burns.
33/75 Make Me - Lee Child
34/75 Night School - Lee Child
35/75 The Midnight Line - Lee Child

 

[Fozzie Bear]

15/29 Albert Meltzer - I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels: Sixty years of commonplace life and anarchist agitation

This is all online at Libcom so I had read bits of it over the years but figured I should do the whole thing. Albert was a mainstay of class struggle and syndicalist anarchism and is probably best known for being involved with Black Flag magazine, the Anarchist Black Cross prisoner support organisation and for being close to Stuart Christie who was imprisoned for an assassination attempt on Franco in the 1960s. This was an interesting life and there are lots of amusing anecdotes about people and events. Unfortunately several anecdotes appear twice in the book, so it could have done with a good edit. There are also some slightly odd turns of phrase and Meltzer confesses himself that he isn't the best writer. Nevertheless there are a lot of wry asides and this is a valuable document of a much misunderstood movement...

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Glen Duncan - I, Lucifer
2. Bolu Babalola - Love In Colour
3. ed. Dan Coxon - Tales from the Shadow Booth vol.4.
4. Kerry Hadley-Pryce - The Black Country
5. S. A. Cosby - Blacktop Wasteland
6. Catriona Ward - The Last House on Needless Street
7. Peter Godfrey-Smith - Other Minds
8. Laini Taylor - Daughter of Smoke and Bone
9. Oyinkan Braithwaite - My Sister, the Serial Killer
10. Andrew Michael Hurley - Starve Acre

11. Belinda Bauer - Snap. Another effective thriller from Bauer, not markedly different from any of her others tbh, but the template works.

 

[Winot]

1/29 Bright Travellers - Fiona Benson
2/29 The Emigrants - WG Sebald
3/29 Inside Story - Martin Amis
4/29 Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters; Seymour - an Introduction - JD Salinger (reread)
5/29 Art Can Help - Robert Adams
6/29 The Right to Sex - Amia Srinivasan
7/29 Boyle: Between God and Science - Michael Hunter
8/29 Autumn - Ali Smith
9/29 The Latecomers - Anita Brookner
10/29 Manhattan 45 - Jan Morris
11/29 Olives - AE Stallings

12/29 Why Believe? - John Cottingham

Very readable little book on the philosophy of religion.

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Sarah Waters - Fingersmith
2/52 - Claire Keegan - Small Things Like These
3/52 - Richard Osman - The Man Who Died Twice
4/52 - Truman Capote - Breakfast at Tiffany's
5/52 - Matt Haig - The Midnight Library
6/52 - Patricia Highsmith - A Dog's Ransom
7/52 - Claire Douglas - The Couple at No. 9
8/52 - Daniel Mason - The Piano Tuner
9/52 - Zadie Smith - On Beauty
10/52 - Stephen King & Richard Chizmar - Gwendy's Button Box (reread)
11/52 - Minette Walters - The Cellar
12/52 - Barbara Vine - The Chimney Sweeper's Boy (reread)
13/52 - Margaret Atwood - The Edible Woman
14/52 - Peter Swanson - Rules for Perfect Murders
15/52 - Patricia Lockwood - No One is Talking About This
16/52 - Sally Rooney - Beautiful World, Where Are You?
17/52 - Toni Morrison - Beloved
18/52 - Denise Mina - The Less Dead
19/52 - Richard Chizmar - Gwendy's Magic Feather
20/52 - Sarah Waters - The Night Watch
21/52 - Chibundu Onuzo - Sankofa
22/52 - Stephen King and Richard Chizmar - Gwendy's Final Task
23/52 - A A Milne - The Red House Mystery
24/52 - A M Homes - May We Be Forgiven
25/52 - Andrew Michael Hurley - Devil's Day
26/52 - Anne Tyler - Breathing Lessons
27/52 - Stephen King - Skeleton Crew
28/52 - Ruth Rendell - Portobello (reread)
29/52 - Willy Valutin - The Night Always Comes
30/52 - Stephen King - The Langoliers (reread)
31/52 - Elly Griffiths - The Crossing Places
32/53 - Stephen King - Secret Window, Secret Garden
33/52 - Elizabeth Strout - Oh William!
34/52 - Annie Proulx - Wyoming Stories (reread)
35/52 - Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley (reread)
36/52 - Peter Swanson - Nine Lives
37/52 - Johnathan Franzen - Crossroads
38/52 - Ruth Rendell - The Bridesmaid
39/52 - Joanna Cannon - A Tidy Ending

40/52 - Catriona Ward - The Last House on Needless Street

I read this on the strength of your one line review May Kasahara, and thoroughly enjoyed it

 

[imposs1904]

1/52 In and Out by Mat Coward
2/52 And Away . . . by Bob Mortimer
3/52 In the Thick of It: The Private Diaries of a Minister by Alan Duncan
4/52 Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile by Adelle Stripe
5/52 My Ears Are Bent by Joseph Mitchell
6/52 One Step Ahead by Duncan McKenzie
7/52 May God Forgive by Alan Parks
8/52 1982 Brazil: The Glorious Failure by Stuart Horsfield
9/52 Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta
10/52 Scully by Alan Bleasdale (ReRead)
11/52 Fierce Genius: Cruyff’s Year at Feyenoord by Andy Bollen
12/52 The Pressures of Life: Four Television Plays edited by Michael Marland
13/52 A Man’s Head by Georges Simenon (ReRead)
14/52 Scully and Mooey by Alan Bleasdale (ReRead)
15/52 Cecile is Dead by Georges Simenon
16/52 Turbulent Priests by Colin Bateman
17/52 Shooting Sean by Colin Bateman
18/52 The Horse with My Name by Colin Bateman
19/52 Driving Big Davie by Colin Bateman (ReRead)

20/52 Belfast Confidential by Colin Bateman

There's something to be said about binge-reading the same series of books one after the other. It's cosy and familiar. Sometimes that's a good thing if you're struggling with your reading mojo.