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

[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
36/75 Past Tense - Lee Child.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

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
36/75 Past Tense - Lee Child.

what are you going to do in the Autumn? Wikipedia suggests Lee Child has written 27 novels, and you appear to have read 24 so far this year...

 

[marty21]

what are you going to do in the Autumn? Wikipedia suggests Lee Child has written 27 novels, and you appear to have read 24 so far this year...

I know , I'll finish the last 3 fairly soon . Might take a break from that sort of stuff , read more history , I have a History of The IRA on the kindle app so that will be read .

 

[imposs1904]

I know , I'll finish the last 3 fairly soon . Might take a break from that sort of stuff , read more history , I have a History of The IRA on the kindle app so that will be read .

There are 10 books in Colin Bateman's Dan Starkey series. That's your September sorted.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

1/39 - Mark Andrews: Paint My Name in Black and Gold
2/39 - Allan Glenn: Stuart Adamson: Through a Big Country
3/39 - Len McCluskey: Why You Should be a Trade Unionist
4/39 - Dick Hebidge: Subculture: The meaning of style
5/39 - Walter Benjamin: Illuminations
6/39 - Jeremy Seabrook: What Went Wrong
7/39 - Raymond Williams: People of the Black Mountains
8/39 - Michael Lind - The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite
9/39 - McKenzie Wark - Capital is Dead: Is this something worse?
10/39 - Raymond Williams - Second Generation
11/39 - Joel Kotkin: The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class
12/39 - Paolo Gerbaudo: The Great Recoil: Politics after Populism and Pandemic
13/39 - Tom Nairn: The Left Against Europe

Fascinating book (originally a long essay in the NLR) which I picked up for £1 in a charity shop. Nairn queries why the elite and right wing in Britain was pro a free trade marketised EU while the left was opposed. The book is very much of its time and focuses on the key issues raised around the 1975 referendum but there are some useful points made but Nairn's declinist narrative helps to explain his latter drift away from marxism.

 

[marty21]

There are 10 books in Colin Bateman's Dan Starkey series. That's your September sorted.

ffs

 

[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

31/45 E R Braithwaite - To Sir, With Love

 

[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
36/75 Past Tense - Lee Child.
37/75 Blue Moon - Lee Child

 

[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 - Jonathan Sims

20. "The Twyford Code" - Janice Hallett Brilliant and unusual crime thriller, I loved it

 

[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

13/29 Hapax- AE Stallings

Another poetry collection.

 

[Me76]

1/40 Just Like You, Nick Hornby - dl
2/40 A Place Called Winter, Patrick Gale
3/40 Blood Men, Paul Cleave,
4/40 The Middlesteins, Jami Attenberg- dl
5/40 the Midnight Library, Matt Haig
6/40 Born Lippy, Jo Brand
7/40 All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr- dl
8/40 The Secretary, Zoe Lea
9/40 The Flatshare, Beth O'Leary
10/40 Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
11/40 Gwendy's Button Box, Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
12/40 Gwendy's Magic Feather, Richard Chizmar
13/40 Gwendy's Final Task, Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
14/40, Find the Girl, Nic Roberts
15/40, Queenie, Candice Carty Williams
16/40 The Madness of Grief, Panayotis, Cacoyannis
17/40 The Advocate's Labyrinth, Tessa Burell
18/40 Solomon Vs Lord, Paul Levine
19/40 Tuesday's Child, Anya Mora
20/40 Sleep Donation, Karen Russell
21/40 All Grown Up, Jami Attenberg
22/40 More Than This, Patrick Ness
23/40 The Deep Blue Alibi, Paul Levine
24/40 The Man by the Sea, Jack Benton
25/40 Should We Stay or Should We Go, Lionel Shriver
26/40 Two Steps Forward, Graeme Simison and Anne Buist
27/40 Fanny Bower Puts Herself Out There, Julia Ariss
28/40 Cold Bath Lane, Lorna Dounaeva
29/40 Spin, KJ Farnham
30/40 The Three Body Problem, Liu Cixin
31/40 The Silent Ones, Linda Coles
32/40 The World Beneath, Rebecca Cantrell
33/40 Confessions of the Fox, Jordy Rosenberg
34/40 Bad Blood, John Carreyrou
35/40 All That Was Left Unsaid, Jacquie Underdone
36/40 left for Dead, Paul J Teague
37/40 The Roadrunner Cafe, Jamie Zerndt
38/40 Blindness, José Saramago
39/40 A History of Loneliness, John Boyne

 

[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

21/52 Nine Inches by Colin Bateman

 

[Threshers_Flail]

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

I really enjoyed it! Never listened to the podcast mind

 

[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
31/45 E R Braithwaite - To Sir, With Love

32/45 Joan Lindsay - Picnic at Hanging Rock

 

[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
26/45 Joan Didion - Salvador

27/45 Peter Carey - True History of the Kelly Gang

Not sure about this. It was OK, but I think Careys attempt to talk like a 150 year outlaw fell a bit flat.

28/45 Hermann Hess - Siddhartha

Just fucking awful, Proto-hippy drivel. At least it was short.

29/45 Var eds. - The Ukrainian Review, II 1984

Anglo-Ukrainian journal from the height of the cold war. Expected it to be pretty poor and biased, and whilst it did have biases that stood out more from what wasn't discussed, rather then what was included, there were some standout articles. For example a very good inclusion of a bit of samizdat on the Novocherkas'k strike and massacre of 1962.

 

[smmudge]

1/9 Pain & Prejudice, Gabrielle Jackson
2/9 A brief history of humankind, Harari
3/9 Pride & Prejudice
4/9 Destiny disrupted - a history of the world through Islamic eyes, Tamsin Ansary
5/9 Robinson Crusoe
6/9 Putin's People, Catherine Belton
7/9 Paradise Lost

8/9 Financial Services, Regulation & Ethics. Does that count? It's still a book, and it was long and boring. Totally convinced now that financial services are well regulated and ethical of course.

 

[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
31/45 E R Braithwaite - To Sir, With Love
32/45 Joan Lindsay - Picnic at Hanging Rock

33/45 Ian Serraillier - The Silver Sword

 

[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

12. Joe R Lansdale - Honky Tonk Samurai. Another superb outing for Hap and Leonard, I love everything I read of Lansdale and this didn't disappoint.

 

[May Kasahara]

8/9 Financial Services, Regulation & Ethics. Does that count? It's still a book, and it was long and boring. Totally convinced now that financial services are well regulated and ethical of course.

Jesus smmudge, my condolences. The bits of this sort of thing that I have to skim are bad enough.

 

[marty21]

33/45 Ian Serraillier - The Silver Sword

My fave book as a kid - read it loads of times !

 

[geminisnake]

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
36/75 Past Tense - Lee Child.

that's a fair amount of Lee Child, I have to leave months in between his books or they all seem too much the same. If you like noir have you tried Denzil Meyrick, DI Daley series, and Stuart McBride, DS MacRae series?

I read at least one book a week but I haven't kept a list, I alternate between crime and 'happy' books, with some Terry Pratchett thrown in

 

[BoatieBird]

12. Joe R Lansdale - Honky Tonk Samurai. Another superb outing for Hap and Leonard, I love everything I read of Lansdale and this didn't disappoint.

Another author to add to the (ever growing) list, thanks May Kasahara

 

[smmudge]

Jesus smmudge, my condolences. The bits of this sort of thing that I have to skim are bad enough.

It's my own fault, every time I read a long boring book for work they give me a whole day off to do a 2 hour exam, and £70 if I pass.. Can't help myself!

 

[marty21]

that's a fair amount of Lee Child, I have to leave months in between his books or they all seem too much the same. If you like noir have you tried Denzil Meyrick, DI Daley series, and Stuart McBride, DS MacRae series?

I read at least one book a week but I haven't kept a list, I alternate between crime and 'happy' books, with some Terry Pratchett thrown in

Jack Reacher books are very formulaic , I'll take a rest before finishing the last 3 - just setting off on some Viking Saga books

 

[hitmouse]

1/30 Taylor Jenkins Reid - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
2/30 Joan Didion - The White Album (re-read)
3/30 Saidiya Hartman - Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
4/30 Joan Didion - After Henry (another re-read, first published in UK as Sentimental Journeys)
5/30 Flannery O'Connor - The Violent Bear It Away
6/30 Joan Didion - Play It As It Lays (re-read)
7/30 Iris Murdoch - Under the Net (re-read)
8/30 Joan Didion - South and West
9/30 Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing
10/30 Koshka Duff (ed) - Abolishing the Police
11/30 Jane Holgate - Arise
12/30 F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby (re-read)
13/30 12 Rules for What/Sam Moore and Alex Roberts - Post-Internet Far Right
14/30 Brad Logan & John Gentile - Architects of Self-Destruction: The Oral History of Leftover Crack
15/30 Emily Nagoski - Come As You Are
16/30 Barney Farmer - Park by the River
17/30 Nina Power - What Do Men Want?
18/30 Jean-Paul Sartre - Intimacy (re-read)
19/30 Agustín Guillamón - Insurrection: The Bloody Events of May 1937
20/30 Shirley Jackson - The Bird's Nest
21/30 James Baldwin - Giovanni's Room
22/30 Raymond Carver - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
23/30 HP Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories (re-read)
24/30 Chris Whitaker - Tall Oaks
25/30 Jen Calleja - I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For
26/30 Hanif Abdurraqib - They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us
27/30 Joe Burns - Class Struggle Unionism
28/30 Colson Whitehead - Apex Hides The Hurt
29/30 Sheila Rowbotham - Daring to Hope: My Life in the 1970s
30/30 Adam Zmith - Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures

31/30 Raymond Williams - Keywords

Interesting read. Lots to think about in terms of what words he'd have to include now that wouldn't have been included then (for instance, he includes "underprivileged" rather than just "privilege") and what words would have to have a big update in terms of the shifts they've been through since it was written (I think poor "creative" would still have been just an adjective rather than a noun when it was written). Definitely does its job in terms of making you think deeply about language and words and that, anyway.

32/30 Tyneside Anarchist Archive - Anarchism in North East England 1882-1992

Does what it says on the tin, think the draw of this book probably depends on how much interest you have in the subject matter, but if you're open to reading a book about the history of anarchism in North East England, this is a good 'un. Could really use an editor and an index, and really there's enough material there for them to split it into two reasonably-sized books covering 1882-1980 and 1980-1992, since the last twelve years take up about half the book. Having said that, I did get stuck on a coach this week that got in about two hours late, which made me glad to have packed a massive brick of a book. Certainly a triumph of history from below and a useful resource for people wanting to research all kinds of related subjects (although it'd be more useful for that purpose if it had an index).

Currently on
33/30 Lauren Oyler - Fake Accounts

I'm really liking this one. I think something I'm learning is that if people slag off a novel for having an unbearably self-absorbed protagonist, I'm likely to think that their protagonist has exactly the right amount of self-absorption, the level that I assume everyone's probably operating at?

 

[imposs1904]

1/30 Taylor Jenkins Reid - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
2/30 Joan Didion - The White Album (re-read)
3/30 Saidiya Hartman - Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
4/30 Joan Didion - After Henry (another re-read, first published in UK as Sentimental Journeys)
5/30 Flannery O'Connor - The Violent Bear It Away
6/30 Joan Didion - Play It As It Lays (re-read)
7/30 Iris Murdoch - Under the Net (re-read)
8/30 Joan Didion - South and West
9/30 Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing
10/30 Koshka Duff (ed) - Abolishing the Police
11/30 Jane Holgate - Arise
12/30 F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby (re-read)
13/30 12 Rules for What/Sam Moore and Alex Roberts - Post-Internet Far Right
14/30 Brad Logan & John Gentile - Architects of Self-Destruction: The Oral History of Leftover Crack
15/30 Emily Nagoski - Come As You Are
16/30 Barney Farmer - Park by the River
17/30 Nina Power - What Do Men Want?
18/30 Jean-Paul Sartre - Intimacy (re-read)
19/30 Agustín Guillamón - Insurrection: The Bloody Events of May 1937
20/30 Shirley Jackson - The Bird's Nest
21/30 James Baldwin - Giovanni's Room
22/30 Raymond Carver - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
23/30 HP Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories (re-read)
24/30 Chris Whitaker - Tall Oaks
25/30 Jen Calleja - I'm Afraid That's All We've Got Time For
26/30 Hanif Abdurraqib - They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us
27/30 Joe Burns - Class Struggle Unionism
28/30 Colson Whitehead - Apex Hides The Hurt
29/30 Sheila Rowbotham - Daring to Hope: My Life in the 1970s
30/30 Adam Zmith - Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures

31/30 Raymond Williams - Keywords

Interesting read. Lots to think about in terms of what words he'd have to include now that wouldn't have been included then (for instance, he includes "underprivileged" rather than just "privilege") and what words would have to have a big update in terms of the shifts they've been through since it was written (I think poor "creative" would still have been just an adjective rather than a noun when it was written). Definitely does its job in terms of making you think deeply about language and words and that, anyway.

32/30 Tyneside Anarchist Archive - Anarchism in North East England 1882-1992

Does what it says on the tin, think the draw of this book probably depends on how much interest you have in the subject matter, but if you're open to reading a book about the history of anarchism in North East England, this is a good 'un. Could really use an editor and an index, and really there's enough material there for them to split it into two reasonably-sized books covering 1882-1980 and 1980-1992, since the last twelve years take up about half the book. Having said that, I did get stuck on a coach this week that got in about two hours late, which made me glad to have packed a massive brick of a book. Certainly a triumph of history from below and a useful resource for people wanting to research all kinds of related subjects (although it'd be more useful for that purpose if it had an index).

Currently on
33/30 Lauren Oyler - Fake Accounts

I'm really liking this one. I think something I'm learning is that if people slag off a novel for having an unbearably self-absorbed protagonist, I'm likely to think that their protagonist has exactly the right amount of self-absorption, the level that I assume everyone's probably operating at?

I read Lauren Oyler as Laurens Otter and thought, 'Fake Accounts is an apt title for his autobiography.'

 

[hitmouse]

I read Lauren Oyler as Laurens Otter and thought, 'Fake Accounts is an apt title for his autobiography.'

Not got around to the History of Anarchism in Wrekin, 1882-1992 yet, but sounds like you might be the person to write it?

 

[imposs1904]

Not got around to the History of Anarchism in Wrekin, 1882-1992 yet, but sounds like you might be the person to write it?

He liked his tall stories, did Laurens.

 

[hitmouse]

Anyway, I feel like getting Laurens Otter and Lauren Oyler mixed up truly might be an "only on urban" kind of confusion.

 

[seventh bullet]

1. A Sacred Space is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism - Victoria Smolkin

2. The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War: The Untold History - Monica Kim

3. Target: The World; Communist Propaganda Activities in 1955 - Evron Maurice Kirkpatrick (Ed.)

4. Red Blueprint for the Conquest of America - Joseph H. Wherry

5. Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It - J. Edgar Hoover

6. The Coming Defeat of Communism - James Burnham

7. A Cold War State of Mind: Brainwashing and Postwar American Society - Matthew W. Dunne

8. The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space - Evgeny Dobrenko & Eric Naiman

9. Revolutionary Acts: Amateur Theater and the Soviet State, 1917-1938 - Lynn Mally

10. Mao's Cultural Army: Drama Troupes in China's Rural Revolution - Brian James DeMare

11. Communism in India: Events, Processes and Ideologies - Bidyut Chakrabarty

12. Late Stalinism: The Aesthetics of Politics - Evgeny Dobrenko

13. How Life Writes the Book: Real Socialism and Socialist Realism in Stalin's Russia - Thomas Lahusen