Once more unto the book dear friends: 2024 reading challenge thread

[QueenOfGoths]

1. "Wrong Place Wrong Time" - Gillian McAllister.
2. "The Scarlet Papers" - Matthew Richardson
3. "The Year of the Locust" - Terry Hayes
4. "Kill for Me: Kill for You" - Steve Cavanagh
5"The One" - John Marrs
6. "Her Last Move" - John Marrs
7. "Rock, Paper, Scissors" -Alice Fenney
8. "Anna O" - Matthew Blake
9. 'My Name Is Nobody" - Matthew Richardson

10. "The Drift" - CJ Tudor. Very readable and very well plotted horror thriller

 

[rich!]

38. Hannah Mathewson, Wayward. Sequel to Witherward which I enjoyed. This one was also good but not as excellent. Feels like there will be a book 3 which I will read.

39. Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. Came recommended by the "Fate of Rome" book, fairly dense and amazingly well researched analysis which I found fascinating and want to make some use of. No idea how to make use of it.

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Leon Uris - Armageddon.
2. Julia Armfield - Our wives under the sea.

3. Philip Oltermann - The Stasi poetry circle.

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Leon Uris - Armageddon.
2. Julia Armfield - Our wives under the sea.
3. Philip Oltermann - The Stasi poetry circle.

4. Kiersten White - Mister Magic.

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Liz Nugent - Strange Sally Diamond
2/52 - Zadie Smith - NW
3/52 - Val McDermid - Past Lying
4/52 - S.A. Cosby - Blacktop Wasteland
5/52 - Doris Lessing - Martha Quest
6/52 - Elly Griffiths - A Room Full of Bones
7/52 - Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
8/52 - Jeanine Cummins - American Dirt (BC)
9/52 - Graham Norton - Holding
10/52 - Taylor Jenkins Reid - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
11/52 - Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
12/52 - Ann Patchett - Tom Lake
13/52 - Elly Griffiths - A Dying Fall
14/52 - Iain Banks - Stonemouth (re-read)
15/52 - Doris Lessing - A Perfect Marriage (Martha Quest 2)

16/52 - Clare Chambers - In a Good Light

 

[rich!]

39. Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. Came recommended by the "Fate of Rome" book, fairly dense and amazingly well researched analysis which I found fascinating and want to make some use of. No idea how to make use of it.

40. Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London. Recommended by a work colleague, must admit I read it very fast which is usually a good sign! Police procedural + magic. Might well read the others.

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/45 Karl Stock - Comic Book Punks: How a Generation of Brits Reinvented Pop Culture
2/45 John Wagner, Alan Grant - Judge Dredd: the Complete Case Files vol 07
3/45 Terry Pratchett - The Carpet People
4/45 Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory (reread)
5/45 Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby - Survival Geeks
6/45 Paul Baker - Fabulousa!: the Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language
7/45 Rachel Joyce - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
8/45 Louisa May Alcott - Little Women
9/45 Neil Gaiman - Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
10/45 Pat Mills, Gerry Finley-Day - Dan Dare: the 2000AD Years - vol 1
11/45 Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
12/45 Ian Edginton, Leigh Gallagher - Kingmaker
13/45 Iain Banks - Walking on Glass
14/45 David Lodge - Changing Places
15/45 Gerry Finley-Day, Alan Davis - Harry 20 on the High Rock
16/45 CLR James, Nik Watts, Sakina Karimjee - Toussaint Louverture: the Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History
17/45 David Lodge - Small World
18/45 David Lodge - Nice Work
19/45 Jah Wobble - Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer, the expanded edition
20/45 Alan McKenzie, John Ridgway - The Journal of Luke Kirby
21/45 Patrick Ness - A Monster Calls
22/45 Helene Lee - The First Rasta: Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism
23/45 Ryszard Kapuscinski - The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat [Haile Selassie I]
24/45 Alec Worsley, Ben Willsher - Durham Red: Born Bad
25/45 Edwin A Abbott - Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions
26/45 Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
27/45 Ian Mortimer - Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter
28/45 John Tomlinson, Simon Jacob - Armoured Gideon

29/45 Robin Hardy, Anthony Shaffer - The Wicker Man

 

[Fozzie Bear]

7/24 Mark Angelo Harrison - A Darker Electricity: The origins of the Spiral Tribe sound system.

A pretty great autobiography from one of the main spirals. Adventures in raving, squatting, free festivals. Engagingly positive with an occasional wry aside. The odd bit of hippy/druggy er "insights" doesn't detract from what is objectively and incredible story, well told. This covers 1989-1993 - the origins of the sound through to Castle Morton and the subsequent court case and escape to Europe. Apparently there may be a second installment...

 

[shifting gears]

1/30 - Philip K. Dick - Valis
2/30 - Robert Louis Stevenson - Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
3/30 - Franz Kafka - The Trial
4/30 - Dan Charnas - Dilla Time
The Life and Afterlife of the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm
5/30 - Douglas Adams - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
6/30 - Kim Stanley Robinson - Red Mars

7/30 - William S. Burroughs - Junky

 

[inva]

1/50 The State of Capitalism by Costas Lapavitsas and the EReNSEP Writing Collective
2/50 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
3/50 The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson
4/50 Army of Lovers by K.M. Soehnlein
5/50 Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü
6/50 Sanditon by Jane Austen
7/50 Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake
8/50 Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman
9/50 A Long Time Dead by Samara Berger
10/50 Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Volume 1: South Korean Social Movements in the 20th Century by George Katsiaficas
11/50 Maigret at Picratt’s by Georges Simenon
12/50 Matrix by Lauren Groff
13/50 Persuasion by Jane Austen
Took a while to get into this one, weirdly plotted and feels like there's too many captains. Got there in the end though.

 

[frogwoman]

Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang (audiobook). Bloody hell

 

[rich!]

40. Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London. Recommended by a work colleague, must admit I read it very fast which is usually a good sign! Police procedural + magic. Might well read the others.

41. Moon Over Soho
42. Whispers Underground
Looks like I am reading the rest of the series!

 

[rich!]

Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang (audiobook). Bloody hell

that's my other "got stuck because of foreshadowing" of the year!

 

[frogwoman]

that's my other "got stuck because of foreshadowing" of the year!

Did you not finish it? I'm finding it gripping so far

 

[rich!]

Did you not finish it? I'm finding it gripping so far

There was a bit where all the foreshadowing and "oh my god cringe" got too strong and I just closed it and walked away. Maybe I'll try it again one day - I've enjoyed everything else she's written...

 

[rich!]

41. Moon Over Soho
42. Whispers Underground
Looks like I am reading the rest of the series!

43. Broken Homes.

I probably should stop reading the rest of the series and get something else done!!

 

[pseudonarcissus]

12/29 Mona of the Manor – Armistead Maupin
10th book in the Tales of the City series. It was nice comfort reading.

11/29 The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon (reread)
10/29 Hard Rain Falling – Don Carpenter
9/29 Possession – AS Byatt
8/29 User - Bruce Benderson
7/29 Crush – Richard Siken
6/29 And Then He Sang a Lullaby – Ani Kayode Somtochukwu
5/29 Iracema – José de Alencar
4/29 The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
3/29 Where I Was From – Joan Didion
2/29 The Whale Tattoo – Jon Ransom
1/29 There Are More Things – Yara Rodrigues Fowler

 

[nogojones]

1/45 Connie Willis - The Best of...
2/45 Margaret Atwood - The Edible Woman
3/45 Tony Horwitz - Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
4/45 Abbie Hoffman - Steal This Urine Test
5/45 Susanna Clarke - Piranesi
6/45 K.J. Parker - How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It
7/45 Naomi Klein - Doppelganger
8/45 John Williams (Ed.) - Wales Half Welsh
9/45 Issac Asimov - Nightfall and Other Stories
10/45 Norman Wybron - The Chartists of Blaenau Gwent
11/45 Deborah Madison - Vegetable Literacy
12/45 Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon
13/45 Devon Price - Laziness Does Not Exist
14/45 Alice Walker - The Colour Purple
15/45 Emma Goldman - Anarchism and Other Essays
16/45 Octavia E. Butler - Parable of the Sower
17/45 Andy Greenberg - Sandworm
18/45 Octavia E. Butler - Parable of the Talents
19/45 Joanna Nadin - The Queen of Bloody Everything
20/45 Lucy Inglis - Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium

21/45 Frank Kitson - Low Intensity Operations

 

[rubbershoes]

1/30 David Peace - The Damned Utd
2/30 I, Partridge We need to talk about Alan by Alan Partridge
3/30 No Way Down by Graham Bowley.
4/30 Kennedy 35 by Charles Cumming
5/30 Every second counts by Lance Armstrong
6/30 The Dead House by Harry Bingham
7/30 Underground Airline by Ben Winters
8/30 Who they was by Gabriel Krause
9/30 The Last - Hanna Jameson
10/30 The Night Visitors by Carol Goodman.
11/30 The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
12/30 The Unfolding by AM Homes
13/30 Clothes, music, boys by Viv Albertine

14/30 Misery by Stephen King. I've been disappointed by previous Stephen King books. Certainly he can weave a good tale, but by god he needs an editor to step in and cut his books down to size . Maybe that happened this time, as this one doesn't drag. Now I've read it, I'll watch the film

 

[Biddlybee]

1/30 - 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World - Elif Shafak
2/30 - Leonard and Hungry Paul - Rónán Hession
3/30 - The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
4/30 - Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
5/30 - A Kind of Spark - Ellie McNicoll
6/30 - Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng

 

[zedr]

1/24 Radicalized - Cory Doctorow
2/24 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe (audio book)
3/24 Ray Bradbury - We'll Always Have Paris (audio book)
4/24 The Three Body Problem - Liu Cixin (reread, audio book)
5/24 Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
6/24 Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie (audio book)

7/24 Dogs of War - Adrian Tchaikovsky (audiobook)
started this on a whim a few days ago as a pal had met him at book signing and i enjoyed his big spider book last year. really enjoyed this one too, don't know much about his other stuff, but enjoy his explorations of culture and morality around bioengineering and sentience. now just need to get back to my physical book stack...

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

Basically given up tracking the manga I read.
I could probably go back through my browser history but I don't I'm not sure if it is worth it.

 

[frogwoman]

Reading Truth or Dare by Mj Arlidge picked it at a free library over a year ago, only got around to reading it now. It's quite gripping but I don't know how plausible it is

 

[zedr]

Basically given up tracking the manga I read.
I could probably go back through my browser history but I don't I'm not sure if it is worth it.

I'd be interested to read about it if you found the time to!

 

[Me76]

hc - hard copy
dl - dens library
k - kindle
g - google


1/50 Face, Benjamin Zephaniah- hc
2/50 My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Otessa Moshfegh - dl
3/50 Tin Toys Trilogy, Ursula Holden - g
4/50 Famished, Meghan O'Flynn - g
5/50 Mystery Girl, Kenneth Rosenberg - k
6/50 The Last Single Girl, Bria Quinlan - k
7/50 White Fang, Jack London - dl
8/50 One Last Step, Sarah Sutton- k
9/50 The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa
10/50 The Humans, Matt Haig - dl
11/50 Luckiest Girl Alive, Jessica Knoll- dl
12/50 See Jane Run, Joy Fielding - dl
13/50 Panic, Jeff Abbot - hc
14/50 Anatomy of a Soldier, Harry Parker - g

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Liz Nugent - Strange Sally Diamond
2/52 - Zadie Smith - NW
3/52 - Val McDermid - Past Lying
4/52 - S.A. Cosby - Blacktop Wasteland
5/52 - Doris Lessing - Martha Quest
6/52 - Elly Griffiths - A Room Full of Bones
7/52 - Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible
8/52 - Jeanine Cummins - American Dirt (BC)
9/52 - Graham Norton - Holding
10/52 - Taylor Jenkins Reid - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
11/52 - Jeanette Winterson - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
12/52 - Ann Patchett - Tom Lake
13/52 - Elly Griffiths - A Dying Fall
14/52 - Iain Banks - Stonemouth (re-read)
15/52 - Doris Lessing - A Perfect Marriage (Martha Quest 2)
16/52 - Clare Chambers - In a Good Light

17/52 - Stephen King - Hearts in Atlantis (re-read)

 

[zedr]

1/24 Radicalized - Cory Doctorow
2/24 The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe (audio book)
3/24 Ray Bradbury - We'll Always Have Paris (audio book)
4/24 The Three Body Problem - Liu Cixin (reread, audio book)
5/24 Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
6/24 Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie (audio book)
7/24 Dogs of War - Adrian Tchaikovsky (audiobook)

8/24 Less is More, How Degrowth Will Save the World - Jason Hickel
An interesting overview of the economics and ethics behind Degrowth. Split into two halves, the first a pretty compelling section about why capitalism (or growthism) is bad; the second, a very loose set of solutions. As is often the case, I wanted a bit more of a plan about how to make change, rather than a selection of nice potential possibilities which we have to wait for national governments or large corporations to enact.

 

[rich!]

21/45 Frank Kitson - Low Intensity Operations

It's so long since I read that I can't remember if it's worth finding a copy and re reading! What did you think?

 

[nogojones]

It's so long since I read that I can't remember if it's worth finding a copy and re reading! What did you think?

I didn't get much from it, if I'm being honest. A how to manual for killing uppity locals, and although some of my neighbours are a bit annoying, Kitson offers somewhat extreme solutions.

 

[inva]

1/50 The State of Capitalism by Costas Lapavitsas and the EReNSEP Writing Collective
2/50 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
3/50 The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson
4/50 Army of Lovers by K.M. Soehnlein
5/50 Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü
6/50 Sanditon by Jane Austen
7/50 Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake
8/50 Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman
9/50 A Long Time Dead by Samara Berger
10/50 Asia’s Unknown Uprisings Volume 1: South Korean Social Movements in the 20th Century by George Katsiaficas
11/50 Maigret at Picratt’s by Georges Simenon
12/50 Matrix by Lauren Groff
13/50 Persuasion by Jane Austen
14/50 The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger
Only heard good things about this and was not disappointed. Brilliant suspense thriller about a Nazi war criminal on the run in 60s London.
15/50 Hôtel Splendid by Marie Redonnet
Three sisters living and dying in a decaying hotel being swallowed up by a swamp. Could have been a bit too relentless but it's balanced out by an almost dreamy and bleakly funny tone. Really good.
16/50 Dandelions by Yasunari Kawabata
Unfinished and slightly rambling meditation on love, memory and mental illness mostly in the form of a conversation between a woman's mother and fiance after they leave her at a psychiatric clinic. Found myself losing interest quite often even though it's short.