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

[marty21]

1/60 Silent Prey - John Sandford.
2/60 Sudden Prey - John Sandford
3/60 Easy Prey - John Sandford
4/60 Wolves of Winter - Dan Jones
5/60 Normandy '44 : D-Day And The Battle For France - James Holland
6/60 Bad Actors - Mick Herron
7/60 The Wings of Pegasus - The Story of The Glider Pilot Regiment - George Chatterton
8/60 This is Memorial Device - David Keenan
9/60 Sicily '43 : The First Assault on Fortress Europe - James Holland.
10/60 Salt Lane - William Shaw
11/60 Deadland - William Shaw
12/60 Under Occupation - Alan Furst

 

[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)
18/52 - Doug Johnstone - A Dark Matter
19/52 - Stephen King - Insomnia
20/52 - Doug Johnstone - The Big Chill
21/52 - Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride

22/52 - Peter James - Stop Them Dead

 

[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
15/30 The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
16/30 Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

17/30 Down River by John Hart Another tale of families and secrets, this one set in North Carolina. It has the same sort of arguments and misunderstandings as you get in British books, but being rural America, disagreements often end with someone getting shot. The writing was good and overall I quite enjoyed the book

18/30 Magic Seeds by VS Naipaul. Wtf has happened to him? It has the usual Naipaul themes of alienation and people being observers in their own lives, but in this he doesn't know what he's writing for. The first section, set in India is fine, but the last part in the UK loses its way. It also highlights how women aren't real characters in Naipaul's books, but just have specific narrow roles. I don't recommend this book

 

[frogwoman]

The Lost - Simon Beckett
Gripping in places but not as good as his David Hunter series and aspects were a bit repetitive and unbelievable.

 

[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
15/50 Hôtel Splendid by Marie Redonnet
16/50 Dandelions by Yasunari Kawabata
17/50 The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker
18/50 Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight by Aliette de Bodard
19/50 The Cracked Looking Glass by Katherine Anne Porter
20/50 Film Making in 1930s Britain by Rachael Low
21/50 Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
22/50 After the New Economy by Doug Henwood
I recently remembered Doug Henwood exists, I used to listen to his radio show occasionally so I had a look to see if he wrote any books and picked this one up. Interesting and funny reflection on the 90s tech/stock market bubble - he provides some truly bonkers quotes from the giddy peak before it all fell down. Henwood is a good writer and it turns out a lot more politically radical than I had realised, and I like his sense of humour.

 

[marty21]

1/60 Silent Prey - John Sandford.
2/60 Sudden Prey - John Sandford
3/60 Easy Prey - John Sandford
4/60 Wolves of Winter - Dan Jones
5/60 Normandy '44 : D-Day And The Battle For France - James Holland
6/60 Bad Actors - Mick Herron
7/60 The Wings of Pegasus - The Story of The Glider Pilot Regiment - George Chatterton
8/60 This is Memorial Device - David Keenan
9/60 Sicily '43 : The First Assault on Fortress Europe - James Holland.
10/60 Salt Lane - William Shaw
11/60 Deadland - William Shaw
12/60 Under Occupation - Alan Furst
13/60 A Hero in France - Alan Furst

 

[yield]

1. The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Good piece of sci-fi, I read in anticipation of the series. Found the first act set during the Cultural Revolution most interesting. The later characters felt flat. Maybe there was a problem with the censors and making a non-political novel, or difficulties with translation.

2. Grass by Sheri S. Tepper. An ecological sci-fi mystery. Succeeds in making something alien/other.

3. Not Thinking like a Liberal by Raymond Geuss. Biographical philosophy. They were taught by Hungarian priests who had fled to the USA after the uprising in 1956. I was expecting a Catholic apologia, anti-communist and anti-liberal, but it was a lot more.

4. Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson. Reread. Malazan Book of the Fallen series book 3. Epic fantasy, a comfort read, better second time round as I know more of what was going on. The plot is intricate.

5. Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals by Oliver Bullough. Great investigative journalism. Shows how Britain formed a second empire of finance after the Suez Crisis of 1956

 

[rich!]

1. The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. Good piece of sci-fi, I read in anticipation of the series. Found the first act set during the Cultural Revolution most interesting. The later characters felt flat. Maybe there was a problem with the censors and making a non-political novel, or difficulties with translation.

2. Grass by Sheri S. Tepper. An ecological sci-fi mystery. Succeeds in making something alien/other.

3. Not Thinking like a Liberal by Raymond Geuss. Biographical philosophy. They were taught by Hungarian priests who had fled to the USA after the uprising in 1956. I was expecting a Catholic apologia, anti-communist and anti-liberal, but it was a lot more.

4. Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson. Reread. Malazan Book of the Fallen series book 3. Epic fantasy, a comfort read, better second time round as I know more of what was going on. The plot is intricate.

5. Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals by Oliver Bullough. Great investigative journalism. Shows how Britain formed a second empire of finance after the Suez Crisis of 1956

Malazan as comfort reading took me a moment and then I got it. Once you get past the mass deaths and other atrocities it is a cozy tale of the Paran family, a couple of deities, a squad and the odd genius and/or barbarian.

Erikson's perspective as an anthropologist that the barbarian is always more civilised is cute, too.

 

[imposs1904]

22/50 After the New Economy by Doug Henwood
I recently remembered Doug Henwood exists, I used to listen to his radio show occasionally so I had a look to see if he wrote any books and picked this one up. Interesting and funny reflection on the 90s tech/stock market bubble - he provides some truly bonkers quotes from the giddy peak before it all fell down. Henwood is a good writer and it turns out a lot more politically radical than I had realised, and I like his sense of humour.

He's very much a DSA guy.

 

[rich!]

Binge-reading the Valdemar books (a lot of travel). All Mercedes Lackey:
58. Arrows Flight
59. Arrows Fall
60. Magic's Pawn
61. Magic's Promise
62. Magic's Price
63. By The Sword
64. Winds of Fate
Probably going to finish the Winds trilogy and then it's time for the Hugo Voter Packet 2024 which has to be finished by 20 July (voting deadline) but there's a batch of novels in there...

65. Winds of Change
66. Winds of Fury.

Definitely putting the Valdemar on hold for a bit.

 

[surreybrowncap]

1/39 "Goodbye Again - The Definitive Peter Cook and Dudley Moore" - Edited by William Cook
2/39 " Me Cheeta" - James Lever **
3/39 "I, Fatty" - Jerry Stahl **
4/39 "Every Man for Himself and God Against All - A Memoir" - Werner Herzog
5/39 "Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett" - Simon Louvish **
6/39 "Stoner" - John Williams
7/39 "Steeple Chasing - Around Britain by Church" - Peter Ross
8/39 "Erotic Vagrancy - Everything about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor" - Roger Lewis
9/39 "Our Story - A Memoir of Love & Life in China" - Rao Pingru
10/39 "Seasonal Suicide Notes" - Roger Lewis
11/39 "What Am I still Doing Here?" - Roger Lewis
12/39 "A Tomb With A View" - Peter Ross
13/39 "At Swim - Two Birds" - Flann O'Brien **
14/39 "Cleopatra and the Undoing of Hollywood" - Patrick Humphries
15/39 "The Accidental Footballer" - Pat Nevin
16/39 "A Moveable Feast" - Ernest Hemingway **
17/39 "The Third Policeman" - Flann O'Brien **
18/39 "Apropos of Nothing" - Woody Allen
19/39 "Ginger Geezer - The Life of Vivian Stanshall" - Lucian Randell & Chris Welsh **

** Re-Read

 

[inva]

He's very much a DSA guy.

I don't really know anything about the DSA, are they basically Sanders supporters?

 

[imposs1904]

I don't really know anything about the DSA, are they basically Sanders supporters?

They experienced massive growth as a result of Sanders campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. At one point they were claiming a membership of 50,000 members but they're currently experiencing a crisis of sorts both economically and politically. Economically, 'cos they overstretched themselves financially in their dash for growth and politically 'cos they didn't have a Sanders campaign to organize around this current Presidential season so they've been infighting at leisure. There are a lot of factions - they call them caucuses - within the DSA tearing lumps out of each other.

 

[belboid]

1/30 - Lexie Conyngham - Tomb for an Eagle
2/30 - Michael Eaton - B*llocks -A Word on Trial
3/30 - Paul Simpson - Revolutionary Spirit
4/30 - Joe Thomas - Red Menace
5/30 - Daniel Clowes - Monica
6/30 - Will Sergeant - Echoes
7/30 - Wu Ming - 54

8/30 - Kathleen Hanna - Rebel Girl, my life as a feminist punk

Very entertaining (tho thats not quite the right word considering some of the ways she was treated) autobiography of the Bikini Kill/Le Tigre star. Lots of little vignettes that vary between the funny, sweet and deeply sad. Fortunately she seems in a pretty good place now.

9/30 - Aldous Huxley - The Devils of Loudon

The book upon which Ken Russel's The Devils was based. It's described as a non-fiction novel, but it isn't really. A mix of a very well told history of the case and its causes with a big chunk of theology thrown in as well. Dont let that put you off though, it's a fascinating, thought provoking and rip-roaring read.

10/30 - Volodomyr Ishchenko - Towards the Abyss: Ukraine from Maidan to War

Excellent introduction to Ukrainian politics leading up to the invasion and then on the nature of the war itself that rejects both the simplistic western and Russian accounts of it. Only 160 pages, well worth the read.

 

[PursuedByBears]

1. Karl Stock - Comic Book Punks: How a Generation of Brits Reinvented Pop Culture
2. John Wagner, Alan Grant - Judge Dredd: the Complete Case Files vol 07
3. Terry Pratchett - The Carpet People
4. Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory (reread)
5. Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby - Survival Geeks
6. Paul Baker - Fabulousa!: the Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language
7. Rachel Joyce - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
8. Louisa May Alcott - Little Women
9. Neil Gaiman - Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
10. Pat Mills, Gerry Finley-Day - Dan Dare: the 2000AD Years - vol 1
11. Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
12. Ian Edginton, Leigh Gallagher - Kingmaker
13. Iain Banks - Walking on Glass
14. David Lodge - Changing Places
15. Gerry Finley-Day, Alan Davis - Harry 20 on the High Rock
16. CLR James, Nik Watts, Sakina Karimjee - Toussaint Louverture: the Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History
17. David Lodge - Small World
18. David Lodge - Nice Work
19. Jah Wobble - Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer, the expanded edition
20. Alan McKenzie, John Ridgway - The Journal of Luke Kirby
21. Patrick Ness - A Monster Calls
22. Helene Lee - The First Rasta: Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism
23. Ryszard Kapuscinski - The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat [Haile Selassie I]
24. Alec Worsley, Ben Willsher - Durham Red: Born Bad
25. Edwin A Abbott - Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions
26. Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
27. Ian Mortimer - Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter
28. John Tomlinson, Simon Jacob - Armoured Gideon
29. Robin Hardy, Anthony Shaffer - The Wicker Man
30. Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram - Head North: a Rallying Cry for a More Equal Britain
31. Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones & the Six
32. Dan Abnett, Phil Winslade - Lawless: Breaking Badrock
33. Terry Pratchett - Jingo
34. Huey Morgan - Rebel Heroes: The Renegades of Music and Why We Still Need Them (audiobook)
35. Andrew White - Lancaster: a history
36. Ian Edgington, D'Israeli - Scarlet Traces vol 2
37. Mark Millar, Richard Eldon, Al Ewing, Chris Weston - The Best of Tharg's Terror Tales
38. Katja Hoyer - Beyond the Wall: East Germany 1949-1990
39. Randall Munro [xkcd comics] - What If? 2: Additional Serious Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
40. Alan Grant, Emma Beeby, Maura McHugh - Anderson, Psi-Division: NWO

41. Guy Adams, Jimmy Broxton - Hope

 

[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)
18/52 - Doug Johnstone - A Dark Matter
19/52 - Stephen King - Insomnia
20/52 - Doug Johnstone - The Big Chill
21/52 - Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride
22/52 - Peter James - Stop Them Dead

23/52 - Ruth Rendell - The Secret House of Death

 

[rich!]

65. Winds of Change
66. Winds of Fury.

Definitely putting the Valdemar on hold for a bit.

67. Deena Mohamed - Shubeik Lubeik - graphic novel about a world where wishes in bottles are a normal thing and regularised, and a kiosk owner trying to sell some old stock off. Straight through in one sitting.

 

[rich!]

67. Deena Mohamed - Shubeik Lubeik - graphic novel about a world where wishes in bottles are a normal thing and regularised, and a kiosk owner trying to sell some old stock off. Straight through in one sitting.

68. Martha Wells - Witch King. Opens with the lead character in a hole, and expands out into another complex fantasy world with politics and a quest. Enjoyed it.

 

[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
11. "The Other People" - C.J. Tudor

12. "The Marriage Act" - John Marrs. Okay but a bit heavy handed allegory

 

[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)
18/52 - Doug Johnstone - A Dark Matter
19/52 - Stephen King - Insomnia
20/52 - Doug Johnstone - The Big Chill
21/52 - Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride
22/52 - Peter James - Stop Them Dead
23/52 - Ruth Rendell - The Secret House of Death

24/52 - Ann Patchett - The Dutch House

 

[PursuedByBears]

1. Karl Stock - Comic Book Punks: How a Generation of Brits Reinvented Pop Culture
2. John Wagner, Alan Grant - Judge Dredd: the Complete Case Files vol 07
3. Terry Pratchett - The Carpet People
4. Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory (reread)
5. Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby - Survival Geeks
6. Paul Baker - Fabulousa!: the Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language
7. Rachel Joyce - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
8. Louisa May Alcott - Little Women
9. Neil Gaiman - Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
10. Pat Mills, Gerry Finley-Day - Dan Dare: the 2000AD Years - vol 1
11. Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
12. Ian Edginton, Leigh Gallagher - Kingmaker
13. Iain Banks - Walking on Glass
14. David Lodge - Changing Places
15. Gerry Finley-Day, Alan Davis - Harry 20 on the High Rock
16. CLR James, Nik Watts, Sakina Karimjee - Toussaint Louverture: the Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History
17. David Lodge - Small World
18. David Lodge - Nice Work
19. Jah Wobble - Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer, the expanded edition
20. Alan McKenzie, John Ridgway - The Journal of Luke Kirby
21. Patrick Ness - A Monster Calls
22. Helene Lee - The First Rasta: Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism
23. Ryszard Kapuscinski - The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat [Haile Selassie I]
24. Alec Worsley, Ben Willsher - Durham Red: Born Bad
25. Edwin A Abbott - Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions
26. Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
27. Ian Mortimer - Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter
28. John Tomlinson, Simon Jacob - Armoured Gideon
29. Robin Hardy, Anthony Shaffer - The Wicker Man
30. Andy Burnham, Steve Rotheram - Head North: a Rallying Cry for a More Equal Britain
31. Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones & the Six
32. Dan Abnett, Phil Winslade - Lawless: Breaking Badrock
33. Terry Pratchett - Jingo
34. Huey Morgan - Rebel Heroes: The Renegades of Music and Why We Still Need Them (audiobook)
35. Andrew White - Lancaster: a history
36. Ian Edgington, D'Israeli - Scarlet Traces vol 2
37. Mark Millar, Richard Eldon, Al Ewing, Chris Weston - The Best of Tharg's Terror Tales
38. Katja Hoyer - Beyond the Wall: East Germany 1949-1990
39. Randall Munro [xkcd comics] - What If? 2: Additional Serious Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
40. Alan Grant, Emma Beeby, Maura McHugh - Anderson, Psi-Division: NWO
41. Guy Adams, Jimmy Broxton - Hope

42. Arthur Conan Doyle - A Study in Scarlet

 

[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
15/30 The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
16/30 Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
17/30 Down River by John Hart
18/30 Magic Seeds by VS Naipaul

19/30 In our mad and furious city by Guy Gunaratne - It follows three young Londoners over a highly charged weekend. It's energetic and direct. Well worth a read

 

[frogwoman]

Just read Uninvited by Jocelyn Dexter. Unputdownable other than a few editing issues.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

8/24 Miles Davis - Miles: The Autobiography

Almost certainly the book I have read with the most “motherfucker”s in.

Broadly a great read and useful insights into the jazz scene and black American life in the 40s-70s abound.

The last hundred pages are a bit of a trudge. Drugs, health, being rich and some discomforting “insights” into women and whether they can treat a man “right”.

Amused that slow traffic into London one day was a big factor in Miles not recording with Hendrix.

 

[hitmouse]

1/3 Mario Tronti - Workers and Capital (First Hypotheses)
1/45 John Fowles - The Collector
2/3 Mario Tronti - Workers and Capital (Marx, Labour-Power, Working Class)
2/45 Claire Dederer - Monsters
3/3-3/45 Mario Tronti - Workers and Capital (Postscript and Appendix)
4/45 Josh Davidson and Eric King (eds) - Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners
5/45 Charlie Squire - Slouching: A Field Guide to Art and (Un-) Belonging in Europe
6/45 Alasdair Gray - 1982, Janine
7/45 Isaac Rose - The Rentier City
8/45 Gemma Fairclough - Bear Season
9/45 PG Wodehouse - Carry On, Jeeves
10/45 Barbara Kingsolver - Demon Copperhead
11/45 Willa Cather - My Antonia
12/45 Anne Boyer - Garments Against Women
13/45 Richard Wright - Native Son
14/45 Saul Bellow - Humboldt's Gift
15/45 John Berger and Jean Mohr - Another Way of Telling

16/45 Tao Lin - Leave Society

Bought this one on a whim, can't really say I'd recommend it. But at least now I suppose I've read an anti-vax novel, which I don't think is something I'd done before. It did have some charming/interesting moments, but between the very flat prose style and the big chunks of the book which are just telling you about someone DOING THEIR OWN RESEARCH there's a lot I didn't really love about it. Still, if you want a few hundred pages of advice about healthy living from a man who seems to use LSD on a daily basis, this is the book for you.

Now starting:

17/45 Miranda July - All Fours

Similar to Leave Society in that the protagonist is a painfully obvious stand-in for the author, but dissimilar in that it's Miranda July. Only a few chapters in and I'm already really enjoying it. Fun, weirdly horny, clever, weird.

 

[marty21]

1/60 Silent Prey - John Sandford.
2/60 Sudden Prey - John Sandford
3/60 Easy Prey - John Sandford
4/60 Wolves of Winter - Dan Jones
5/60 Normandy '44 : D-Day And The Battle For France - James Holland
6/60 Bad Actors - Mick Herron
7/60 The Wings of Pegasus - The Story of The Glider Pilot Regiment - George Chatterton
8/60 This is Memorial Device - David Keenan
9/60 Sicily '43 : The First Assault on Fortress Europe - James Holland.
10/60 Salt Lane - William Shaw
11/60 Deadland - William Shaw
12/60 Under Occupation - Alan Furst
13/60 A Hero in France - Alan Furst
14/60 Grave's End - William Shaw

 

[Fozzie Bear]

8/24 Miles Davis - Miles: The Autobiography

Almost certainly the book I have read with the most “motherfucker”s in.

On reflection- the second most.

 

[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
15/50 Hôtel Splendid by Marie Redonnet
16/50 Dandelions by Yasunari Kawabata
17/50 The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker
18/50 Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight by Aliette de Bodard
19/50 The Cracked Looking Glass by Katherine Anne Porter
20/50 Film Making in 1930s Britain by Rachael Low
21/50 Revenge by Yoko Ogawa
22/50 After the New Economy by Doug Henwood
23/50 The Teachers’ Room by Lydia Stryk
A little bit similar to Army of Lovers by K.M. Soehnlein which I read early in the year in trying to capture a particular kind of scene of 20th century LGBT life, though where that was about urban gay activists in the 80s The Teachers’ Room is about lesbian teachers in a small town in the 60s. So ultimately this gives it a very different feel, much more focused on the pressure cooker of secrecy which I thought it portrayed well. Enjoyed this.

 

[belboid]

1/30 - Lexie Conyngham - Tomb for an Eagle
2/30 - Michael Eaton - B*llocks -A Word on Trial
3/30 - Paul Simpson - Revolutionary Spirit
4/30 - Joe Thomas - Red Menace
5/30 - Daniel Clowes - Monica
6/30 - Will Sergeant - Echoes
7/30 - Wu Ming - 54
8/30 - Kathleen Hanna - Rebel Girl, my life as a feminist pun
9/30 - Aldous Huxley - The Devils of Loudon
10/30 - Volodomyr Ishchenko - Towards the Abyss: Ukraine from Maidan to War

11/30 - Dan Kavanagh - Duffy

A solid thriller from 1980 about a bisexual ex-cop on the trail of a vicious cat killer (and all round bad guy). Very good, decidedly odd in places, with an ending that seemed a bit rushed considering hang on, what just happened??? I am slightly annoyed that I have been tricked by my brother (who bought it for me) as DK is a pseudonym for Julian Barnes, who I had said I just wasn't interested in reading.

12/30 - Samantha Schweblin - Little Eyes

Another somewhat peculiar novel, set in a world where overgrown Tamagotchi type things are sold - with the difference being that they are actually controlled by some other random person and it is a one link up only deal. And the controller can't directly communicate with the owner. So some forty year old bloke in Antigua may be controlling a teenage girls machine in Hong Kong. All sorts of things might go wrong and we see a fair few that do, along with some charmingly empathetic behaviour highlighting loneliness in a global world.

 

[rich!]

68. Martha Wells - Witch King. Opens with the lead character in a hole, and expands out into another complex fantasy world with politics and a quest. Enjoyed it.

69. The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera
70. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty
Both of these were good, the Adventures was excellent