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

[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

 

[smmudge]

4/9 Destiny disrupted - a history of the world through Islamic eyes.

 

[marty21]

1. The Story of England - Michael Wood .
2. Broken Rails : How Privitisation Wrecked Britain's Railways - Christian Wolmar .
3. Black and British : A Forgotten History - David Olusoga.
4. Shackleton: A Biography - Ranulph Fiennes
5. The Secret Barrister: Stories of the law and how its broken - The Secret Barrister
6. The Nanny State Made Me : The Story of Britain & How to Save it. - Stuart Maconie

 

[pseudonarcissus]

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

 

[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

 

[Saffy]

1/20 Black Eyed Susans - Julia Heaberlin.
2/20 Dave Grohl - The Storyteller
3/20 The Sleeping and the Dead - Ann Cleeves.

4/20 Child A - Abigail Dean

I'm slowing down and need to pull my socks up.

 

[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

Third part of PKDs erm.. "spiritual quest". Don't do speed kids.

 

[hitmouse]

I really rate some Milstein.

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)

For a first novel, Murdoch was off to a great start with that one. All the classic stuff you want, a massive cast of characters, stupidly fast-moving and convoluted plot, ridiculous protagonists buffeted around by vast feelings they barely understand, etc. Turned out a friend of mine was reading it at the same time, we were discussing how comforting it is sometimes to be able to think of your stupid little life as being a confusing Murdoch plot.
Right now I'm reading this thing of arty poetry and stuff pamphlets called Four Letter Word - Heat/Rent/Grub/Coin. I can't say I'm wildly in love with them but all the money goes to Autonomous Centre Edinburgh, Living Rent and similar so don't really resent it either. Likely to start Joan Didion - South and West next, or maybe Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing.

 

[Me76]

1/40 Just Like You, Nick Hornby
2/40 A Place Called Winter, Patrick Gale
3/40 Blood Men, Paul Cleave,
4/40 The Middlesteins, Jami Attenberg-
5/40 the Midnight Library, Matt Haig
6/40 Born Lippy, Jo Brand
7/40 All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
8/40 The Secretary, Zoe Lea
9/40 The Flatshare, Beth O'Leary

10/40 Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I've read her feminist essay (which I found hard work) and I've read Purple Hibiscus, which was good but a bit of a hard read. I found this so amazingly accessible. It's basically a love story, while also sharing culture and issues around race. Fucking excellent and should be on the curriculum as far as I am concerned.

11/40 Gwendy's Button Box, Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
This was a reread cos I found out there's two other after so I'm reading them now.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

4/29 Mike Makin-Waite - On Burnley Road: Class, Race and Politics in a Northern English Town

The author worked for Burnely council in the late 90s and early noughties - a period which included the infamous riots and the rise of the British National Party as a force on the council. It's a great book - he comes from a broadly socialist CPBG background as a youth and has some of his positions challenged considerably by events, and also through being forced to work with BNP councillors and their supporters in a "non-political" role. The roots of Burnley's difficulties are traced back to a number of factors including colonialism, deindustrialisation, the composition of local government, the complacency of the Labour party and the defection of a number of Labour councillors to an indepedent group that laid a lot of the groundwork the BNP would capitalise on.

There's some very good material on engaging with BNP voters - he's on the same page as a few people on here. For example pointing out that by the time the leader of the BNP group on the council is a woman best known for running a local and popular corner shop, the tactic of outsiders coming and call her a Nazi is unhelpful to say the least. Some good bits also on some conflict resolution people from Northern Ireland who are employed to try and bring the different communities together and develop some understanding and shared perspectives. There are also some wry asides about the usual frustrations that might resonate with people who work in similar situations.

 

[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

 

[BoatieBird]

11/40 Gwendy's Button Box, Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
This was a reread cos I found out there's two other after so I'm reading them now.

Good call. I was about to start on the second in the series, but I think I'll reread Button Box first.

 

[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

Not a re-read, I got this one intending to read it in the Deep South in I think 2019 and then didn't go, and then also didn't go in 2020 or 2021 either, so only got around to it now. Previously unpublished (well, up to 2017 anyway) notebooks for stories that didn't get written, but a lot of writers would give their right arms to be able to write something this good as a final product. I do get the impression that a big part of being Didion's editor must have been going "Joan, you cannot put something about scary snakes on every single page", though. Probably time to start Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing next, I think.

 

[marty21]

1. The Story of England - Michael Wood .
2. Broken Rails : How Privitisation Wrecked Britain's Railways - Christian Wolmar .
3. Black and British : A Forgotten History - David Olusoga.
4. Shackleton: A Biography - Ranulph Fiennes
5. The Secret Barrister: Stories of the law and how its broken - The Secret Barrister
6. The Nanny State Made Me : The Story of Britain & How to Save it. - Stuart Maconie
7. Conquistadors - Michael Wood.

 

[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. Not sure what to make of this, it wasn't what t I expected and I don't think I really got into it

 

[Sue]

1/29 Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart.
2/29 The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan

Re-read:
3/29 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
4/29 Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Before reading:
5/29 The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

(((Thomas Cromwell)))

 

[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

 

[pseudonarcissus]

8/12 Harsh Times - Mario Vargas Llosa

About American anti-democratic involvement in Guatemala..maybe not one of his best, but interesting


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

 

[Winot]

1/29 Bright Travellers - Fiona Benson

2/29 The Emigrants - WG Sebald

Really liked The Rings of Saturn (a few years ago) and Austerlitz (last year) and read this earlier work prompted by a Sebald-themed walk in East London. Didn't think it was quite so successful as the other two but still worthwhile. Infused with similar themes of Jewish culture, the Holocaust and loss.

 

[Signal 11]

3/10 - Letters from London - C. L. R. James

 

[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

 

[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. Hm sounds nice, I'm sure being ship wrecked would be so simple. Lost me by the wolves though.

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Glen Duncan - I, Lucifer

2. Bolu Babalola - Love In Colour. Sweet and readable collection of romantic reworkings of ancient myths.

 

[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

 

[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
Interesting to read a non crime historical novel from her and I enjoyed this a lot. Tense and tightly written.

 

[marty21]

1. The Story of England - Michael Wood .
2. Broken Rails : How Privitisation Wrecked Britain's Railways - Christian Wolmar .
3. Black and British : A Forgotten History - David Olusoga.
4. Shackleton: A Biography - Ranulph Fiennes
5. The Secret Barrister: Stories of the law and how its broken - The Secret Barrister
6. The Nanny State Made Me : The Story of Britain & How to Save it. - Stuart Maconie
7. Conquistadors - Michael Wood.

8/75 Shadows Reel - CJ Box

 

[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. Formulaic but enjoyable thriller

 

[Fozzie Bear]

5/29 Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett - The Tyranny of Lost Things

A twenty something woman rents a room in a house in Kentish Town in the late noughties. She doesn't tell her flatmates that she had grown up there as a child, when it was a commune. She's returned to try and make sense of her life and the gaps in it. I enjoyed it - the, ah, intensity of youth is drawn well. The commune is based on the squatting scene on Prince of Wales Crescent and I think the research has been done adequately, but there are a couple of details that are maybe a bit off (like kids listening to jungle in 1991 and some slightly overdone extemporisations on the 1970s counter culture). It resonates well with conversations I've had with adults that grew up in squats or unconventional situations and their very mixed feelings about it. The author is a Guardain columnist and is therefore probably quite annoying, but this was good.

 

[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 - painful read this one, about a young woman going through a load of shit. But getting through it.