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

I expect to read this many books in 2022


  • Total voters
    54
23/29 Izumi Omura, Shunichi Kobo, Rolf Hecker and Valeriji Fomicev - Karl Marx is my Father: The documentation of Frederick Demuth’s parentage.

Mainly reprints of correspondence about Marx’s (or perhaps Engels’) alleged son with his housekeeper Helen Demuth. Expensive slim trilingual edition in English, German and Japanese. Does a good job though.
 
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
14/29 Acts of Service - Lillian Fishman
15/29 The Odyssey - Homer (tr. Emily Wilson)
16/29 Eminent Victorians - Lytton Strachey
17/29 The Bloomsbury Group - Frances Spalding
18/29 Philip Larkin: Art, Life and Love - James Booth
19/29 Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
20/29 Winter - Ali Smith

21/29 Like - AE Stallings

More poetry.
 
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
34/45 Gerald Durrell - Birds, Beasts and Relatives
35/45 Sam Selvon - The Lonely Londoners
36/45 Terry Pratchett - Reaper Man
37/45 David Olusoga - Black and British: A Forgotten History
38/45 Michelle Paver - Dark Matter: a ghost story
39/45 Allan Ginsberg - Howl, Kaddish and other poems
40/45 Alan Garner - Elidor
41/45 Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary
42/45 P Djeli Clark - Ring Shout
43/45 Arthur Conan Doyle - The Sign of Four
44/45 Frances Hardinge - Unraveller
45/45 Raymond Briggs - When the Wind Blows
46/45 Catriona Ward - The Last House on Needless Street
47/45 Yeva Skalietska - You Don't Know What War Is: the diary of a young girl from Ukraine
48/45 David Nutt - Drink? The new science of alcohol and your health
49/45 Terry Pratchett - Soul Music
50/45 Amanda Montell - Cultish: the language of fanaticism

51/45 Malcolm Devlin - And Then I Woke Up
 
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
8/24 - What We’re Told Not to Talk About - Nimko Ali
9/24 - Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
10/24 - West with Giraffes - Lynda Rutledge
11/24 - The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker
12/24 - October, October - Katya Balen
 
24/29 Test Dept - Total State Machine

Lavish coffee table book by and about the socialist metal bashing group. Came out a good few years back but I only found it for a reasonable price this year. Lots of great photos and personal accounts of their antics over the years, including the infamous team up with a choir of striking Welsh miners during the strike. Some exciting accounts of the difficulties the group faced, which are written with good humour. A welcome peak behind the curtain really - a lot of people thought Test Dept were too dour and worthy but this seems far from the case. Some of the highlights were the stories of wrangling with authority figures and blagging odd locations for performances. Heroic and very funny. Unfortunately the publishers of the book are a couple of academic Laibach fans who have crowbarred in some pretty poor intros and commentaries, but maybe that was a sacrifice worth making to get this published in such a satisfying format.
 
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
14/29 Acts of Service - Lillian Fishman
15/29 The Odyssey - Homer (tr. Emily Wilson)
16/29 Eminent Victorians - Lytton Strachey
17/29 The Bloomsbury Group - Frances Spalding
18/29 Philip Larkin: Art, Life and Love - James Booth
19/29 Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
20/29 Winter - Ali Smith
21/29 Like - AE Stallings

22/29 Absolute Beginners - Colin MacInnes

Interesting read - clearly influenced by the Beat authors and by Salinger. I liked the London scenes and the characterisation but some of the language was very dated.
 
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
34/45 Gerald Durrell - Birds, Beasts and Relatives
35/45 Sam Selvon - The Lonely Londoners
36/45 Terry Pratchett - Reaper Man
37/45 David Olusoga - Black and British: A Forgotten History
38/45 Michelle Paver - Dark Matter: a ghost story
39/45 Allan Ginsberg - Howl, Kaddish and other poems
40/45 Alan Garner - Elidor
41/45 Andy Weir - Project Hail Mary
42/45 P Djeli Clark - Ring Shout
43/45 Arthur Conan Doyle - The Sign of Four
44/45 Frances Hardinge - Unraveller
45/45 Raymond Briggs - When the Wind Blows
46/45 Catriona Ward - The Last House on Needless Street
47/45 Yeva Skalietska - You Don't Know What War Is: the diary of a young girl from Ukraine
48/45 David Nutt - Drink? The new science of alcohol and your health
49/45 Terry Pratchett - Soul Music
50/45 Amanda Montell - Cultish: the language of fanaticism
51/45 Malcolm Devlin - And Then I Woke Up

52/45 Iain Banks - Complicity

And I think that's it for the year!
 
51 The Long-Legged Fly : James Sallis
52 The Eye of the Tiger : Wilbur Smith
53 Barbarian Days : William Finnegan
54 Eye of the Needle: Ken Follett
55 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Q Tarantino
56 The Passenger: Cormac McCarthy
57 Mutiny on Board H.M.S. Bounty: William Bligh
58 The Queen of Bedlam: Robert R. McCammon
59 The Gift of Rain: Tan Twan Eng

And at 60, Stella Maris By: Cormac McCarthy
 
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
13. Coogan and co - Alan Partridge: Nomad
14. Ann Patchett - Commonwealth
15. Joe R Lansdale - Vanilla Ride
16. Stephen Graham Jones - My Heart is a Chainsaw
17. Susanna Clarke - Piranesi
18. Autism and Asperger Syndrome in Adults - Dr Luke Beardon
19. Mieko Kawakami - Breasts and Eggs

20. Adam Buxton - Ramble Book. A pleasant, easy read.
 
1/10 - Fighting for Space: Two Pilots and Their Historic Battle for Female Spaceflight - Amy Shira Teitel
2/10 - The Stone Sky - N. K. Jemisin
3/10 - Letters from London - C. L. R. James
4/10 - Sons of Night - Antoine Gimenez's Memories of the War in Spain
5/10 - First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time - Emma Chapman
6/10 - Revenge - S. L. Lim
7/10 - Simple Chess - Michael Stean
8/10 - The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, & Dreams Deferred - Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
9/10 - Real Differences - S. L. Lim
10/10 - Return to the Source: Selected Speeches of Amilcar Cabral
11/10 - The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists
12/10 - The Conquest of Bread - Peter Kropotkin (re-read)
13/10 - Takeaway: Stories from a childhood behind the counter - Angela Hui
14/10 - Abolish the Family - Sophie Lewis

15/10 - Medieval Europe, 395-1270 - Charles Bémont & Gabriel Monod
 
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
41/52 - Lisa McInerney - The Rules of Revelation
42/52 - Val McDermid - 1979
43/52 - Patricia Highsmith - Strangers on a Train
44/52 - Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
45/52 - Maggie Shipstead - Seating Arrangements
46/52 - Joe R. Lansdale - Savage Season: Hap and Leonard Book 1
47/52 - Laura Bates - Men Who Hate Women
48/52 - Celeste Ng - Everything I Never Told You
49/52 - Paula Hawkins - A Slow Fire Burning
50/52 - Elly Griffiths - The Janus Stone
51/52 - Ian McEwan - Amsterdam
52/52 - Frank Bill - Crimes in Southern Indiana
53 - Daphne du Maurier - Jamaica Inn
54 - Anne Tyler - Clock Dance
55 - Graham Greene - The End of The Affair
56 - Stephen King - Fairy Tale
57 - Frankie Boyle - Meantime
58 - Richard Osman - The Bullet That Missed
59 - Ann Patchett - State of Wonder
60 - Denise Mina - Confidence

61 - Irvine Welsh - The Long Knives
62 - Val McDermid - Christmas is Murder
 
The Transgender Issue - Shon Faye
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Home by Marilyn Robinson
I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman
The Beauty of Your Face - Sahar Mustafah
Beautiful world, where are you? - Sally Rooney
Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro
Love- Roddy Doyle
Crossroads - Jonathan Franzen
Bewilderment - Richard Powers
Red Moon - Kim Stanley Robinson
House of Suns - Alistair Reynolds
Sea of tranquillity- Emily st. John Mandel
Bluebird, bluebird- Attica Locke
Heaven, My Home - Attica Locke
Excession - Ian m Banks
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - Elif Shafak
Regeneration - Pat Barker
Accelerando - Charles Stress
Hinterland: America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict - Phil A. Neel
The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum
The Eye In the Door- Pat Barker
The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
War of the maps - Paul McCauley
Entangled Life - Merlin Sheldrake
Rivers of London - Ben Aaranovich
The Actual Star - Monica Byrne
Children of Memory - Adrian Tchaikovsky
King Leopold's Ghost - Adam Hochschild
 
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
22/52 Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids?: An Indie Odyssey by Nige Tassell
23/52 The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
24/52 Fire and Brimstone by Colin Bateman
25/52 The Guts by Roddy Doyle (ReRead)
26/52 Life Without Children by Roddy Doyle
27/52 Mystery Man by Colin Bateman (ReRead)
28/52 The Day of the Jack Russell by Colin Bateman (ReRead)
29/52 Dr. Yes by Colin Bateman (ReRead)
30/52 A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
31/52 Remainders of the Day: More Diaries from The Bookshop, Wigtown by Shaun Bythell
32/52 Be Stiff: The Stiff Records Story by Richard Balls
33/52 Hooked: Addiction and the Long Road to Recovery by Paul Merson with Rob Bagchi
34/52 The Prisoner of Brenda by Colin Bateman (ReRead)
35/52 The Fugitive Pigeon by Donald E. Westlake
36/52 Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake
37/52 Jimmy the Kid by Donald E. Westlake
38/52 Nobody’s Perfect by Donald E. Westlake
39/52 Why Me? by Donald E. Westlake
40/52 Fingers Crossed : How Music Saved Me from Success by Miki Berenyi
41/52 Fergie Rises: How Britain's Greatest Football Manager Was Made At Aberdeen by Michael Grant
42/52 On Days Like These: My Life in Football by Martin O'Neill

43/52 No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working-Class Reader by Mark Hodkinson
 
Did not read much last year. Started a few books which I put aside and will finish this year though.

01/20: Mr Putin - Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy
02/20: The Freeze Frame Revolution - Peter Watts
03/20: The This - Adam Roberts
04/20: Putin's People - Catherine Belton
05/20: Purgatory Mount - Adam Roberts
06/20: Everything is Iluminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
07/20: Shards of Earth - Adrian Tchaikovsky
08/20: Complicity - Iain Banks
09/20: The Men Who Stare at Goats - Jon Ronson
10/20: The Psycopath Test - Jon Ronson
11/20: Transission - Iain Banks
12/20: Inhibiter Phase - Alastair Reynolds
13/20: Weaponised - Neal Asher
14/20: Martin Martin and the Death Express - Sebastian Sullivan
15/20: The Simulated Multiverse - Rizwan Virk
16:20 Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
 
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
32/30 Tyneside Anarchist Archive - Anarchism in North East England 1882-1992
33/30 Lauren Oyler - Fake Accounts
34/30 Thomas Ligotti - Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe (two books collected in one volume)
35/30 Jean-Patrick Manchette - Three to Kill
36/30 Yassin al-Haj Saleh - The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy
37/30 Joan Didion - Democracy
38/30 Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust
39/30 Ian Allinson - Workers Can Win: A Guide to Organising at Work
40/30 Bonnie Garmus - Lessons in Chemistry
41/30 Mark Fisher - Ghosts of my Life (re-read)
42/30 Nick Heath - The Idea
43/30 Matthew Collins - The Walk In
44/30 Kristian Williams - Gang Politics
45/30 Mike Davis - City of Quartz (re-read)

46/30 Angry Workers and Anarchist Communist Group (eds) - Sick of it All

After taking about a month to get halfway through the EP Thompson I realised the giant bastard's too big to get through in one go, so I'm taking breaks and mixing it up with other stuff. Slightly disappointed by this one, a bit too much "big theory" and not quite enough of the actual workers' inquiry side compared to what I was expecting, but still worth reading and will be interested to hear what health workers think of it. And that's my lot for 2022.
 
Update of the last year list

1/19 Dead Man's Time - Peter James
2/19 2Stoned - Andrew Loog Oldham
3/19 Small Island - Andrea Levy
4/19 The Magic Labyrinth - Philip Jose Farmer
5/19 The Witch Elm - Tana French
6/19 Consider Phlebas - Iain M Banks
7/19 The Player of Games - Iain M Banks
8/19 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
9/19 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
10/19 The Black Echo - Michael Connelly
11/19 Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police violence and resistance in the United States - various authors
12/19 5 Ho Chi Minh Trails - Dang Phong. Often fascinating (if a wee bit dry and academic - lots and lots names and numbers) read about the conflict and great victory from a North Vietnamese perspective.

13/19 Use of Weapons -Iain M Banks
14/19 Heritage Hikes - David Marlborough
15/19 Ten Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe
16/19 Buddhism : All You Need to Start Your Journey - Richard Johnson. More of a pamphlet, really. A much needed refresher course on the meditation aspect and woo free. Needed after/during tough few years.
17/19 Fortunes of War - The Balkan Trilogy - Olivia Manning. Belfast writer brings depth to the experiences of Britsh expats and royal loafers during the last war.
18/19 Haunted - James Herbert. Mostly awful page turner.
19/19 Braywatch - Paul Howard. Not as good as previous instalments of the spoilt southsider, but still some laugh out loud moments.
20/19 Last Train to Memphis - Peter Guralnick. Absolute fire and a nice counterpointto the garish (but fun) Elvis biopic.
21/19 Waiting for Sunrise - William Boyd
 
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
7/20? Mitchell, Alex (1984). Behind the crisis in British Stalinism. Paperback June 1984. London: New Park Publications (086151033X) Finished 29 May 2022
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
9/20? Ying, Esther Cheo (1980). Black Country Girl in Red China. First hardback edition. London: Hutchinson, 1980 (009139080X) Finished 4 August 2022

10/20? Gissing, George (1891); with an introduction by John Goss. New Grub Street. London: The Bodley Head, 1967 (hardback) Finished 7 October 2022 - Reread
11/20? Orwell, George (1936). Keep the Aspidistra Flying. London: Secker & Warburg, 1978 (Reprint) (436350068/Hardback) Finished 1 November 2022 - Reread


Well, as we're five months into 2023 I thought I'd better finish off 2022. I failed again to read 20 books but I did learn that I really like George Gissing, especially, New Grub Street (really, you should all read it!). Reading, as an act, in a sustained way, gets increasingly difficult as I get older but I haven't completely given up :).
 
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