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

[frogwoman]

Just read The Art of The Deal. I am even more baffled by Trump in some ways than I was before.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

Just read The Art of The Deal. I am even more baffled by Trump in some ways than I was before.

Is this going to be the surprise break-out most read book when I compile the end of year statistics? I didn’t see that coming
Edit..your year

 

[frogwoman]

Is this going to be the surprise break-out most read book when I compile the end of your statistics? I didn’t see that coming

Many people are saying it.

 

[imposs1904]

Just read The Art of The Deal. I am even more baffled by Trump in some ways than I was before.

Was it ever confirmed if Trump had read it?

 

[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
25/52 - Richard Chizmar - The Long Way Home
26/52 - Doug Johnstone - The Great Silence
27/52 - Maggie Shipstead - Great Circle
28/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Raging Storm
29/52 - Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery
30/52 - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Chronicle of a Death Foretold
31/52 - Doug Johnstone - Black Hearts
32/52 - Zadie Smith - The Fraud
33/52 - Claire Keegan - So Late in the Day
34/52 - Bonnie Garmus - Lessons in Chemistry
35/52 - John Irving - The Last Chairlift
36/52 - Doug Johnstone - The Opposite of Lonely
37/52 - Clare Chambers - The Editor's Wife
38/52 - Barbara Kingsolver - Prodigal Summer
39/52 - Peter James - They Thought I Was Dead
40/52 - Jacqueline O'Mahony - Sing, Wild Bird, Sing (BC)
41/52 - Elly Griffiths - The Outcast Dead
42/52 - Charles Dickens - David Copperfield (BC)
43/52 - Iain Banks - The Steep Approach to Garbadale (re-read)
44/52 - Elly Griffiths - The Ghost Fields
45/52 - James M Cain - The Embezzler

46/52 - Clare Chambers - Shy Creatures

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

1/19 Paul Murray - Skippy Dies
2/19 Charlie Allison - No Harmless Power
3/19 Andrew Kurkov - Grey Bees
4/19 Gail Honeyman - Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
5/19 Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent - A Short Ride in the Jungle
6/19 David Graeber - Pirate Enlightenment, or the real Libertalia
7/19 Barney Campbell - Rain
8/19 Sandra Newman - Julia
9/19 Ian Black - Enemies and Neighbours. Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel 1917-2017
10/19 Stephen Oppenheimer - The Origins of the British

 

[pseudonarcissus]

28/29 Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver

That was good. I’ll read David Copperfield soon…but maybe not this year.

27/29 The Housing Lark – Sam Selvon
26/29 Boys Alive - Pier Paolo Pasolini
25/29 Stubborn Archivist – Yara Rodrigues Fowler
24/29 Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse – Brontez Purnell
23/29 The Festival of Insignificance – Milan Kundera
22/29 Ways of Sunlight – Sam Selvon
21/29 Blessings - Chukwuebuka Ibeh
20/29 All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes – Maya Angelou
19/29 Leading Man – Justin Myers
18/29 Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus – Mary Shelley
17/29 100 Boyfriends - Brontez Purnell
16/29 Helena – Evelyn Waugh
15/29 Homo Deus – A Brief History of Tomorrow – Yuval Noah Harari
14/29 My Father and Myself – J. R. Ackerley
13/29 Family Meal – Bryan Washington
12/29 Mona of the Manor – Armistead Maupin
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

 

[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
43. Robert Morrison - The Regency Revolution: Jane Austen, Napoleon, Lord Byron and the Making of the Modern World
44. John Wagner, David Hine, Nick Percival - Dominion
45. David Mitchell - Unruly: a History of England's Kings and Queens [audiobook]
46. David Hine, Nick Percival - The Dark Judges: Deliverance
47. Terry Pratchett - The Last Continent
48. Bernard Cornwell - The Winter King
49. Pat Mills, Patrick Goddard - Savage: The Marze Murderer
50. Arthur Wyatt, Jake Lynch - Judge Dredd: The Red Queen Saga
51. Tom Tully, Vanyo - The Mind of Wolfie Smith
52. Maurice LeBlanc - The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
53. Everett True - Hey Ho Let's Go: The Story of the Ramones
54. Stuart Maconie - The Full English: a Journey in Search of a Country and its People [audiobook]
55. Chris Lowder, Gerry Finley Day, Dave Gibbons - Dan Dare: The 2000AD Years - vol 2
56. H G Wells - The Island of Doctor Moreau
57. Dan Abnett, Mark Harrison - The Out
58. Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum
59. T C Eglington, Simon Davis - Thistlebone
60. David Katz - Solid Foundation: an Oral History of Reggae
61. Torsten Bell - Great Britain? How We Get Our Future Back [audiobook]
62. Michael Morpurgo - War Horse
63. P G Wodehouse - School Stories
64. Michael Fleisher, Steve Dillon - The New Harlem Heroes vol 1
65. David Barnett - Withered Hill
66. John Wagner, Alan Grant, Carlos Ezquerra - Strontium Dog: the Starlord Years
67. Stuart Maconie - The Pie at Night: In Search of the North at Play
68. Michael Fleischer, Ron Smith - Rogue Trooper: Friday vol 1
69. HP Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness
70. Varaidzo - Manny and the Baby
71. Dan Abnett, Richard Elson - Feral and Foe
72. Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything [audiobook]
73. Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant

74. Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith - A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

 

[rich!]

74. Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith - A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

That was in the Hugo Award "related work" category, I read enough of it to vote and really enjoyed it! How did you find it?

 

[PursuedByBears]

I liked it, an interesting read. Although all the references to Elon Musk and his Mars colonisation plans read more ominously in light of recent events.

 

[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
22/45 Douglas Adams - Mostly Harmless
23/45 Detlef Singer - Garden Birds of Britain & Europe
24/45 Charles C. Mann - 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
25/45 Elizabeth Nelson - The British Counter-culture 1966-73: A Study of the Underground Press
26/45 Chester Himes - A Rage in Harlem
27/45 Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground
28/45 Ursula K. Le Guin - The Word for World Is Forest
29/45 Harsha Walia - Border and Rule
30/45 Elif Shafak - The Island of Missing Trees
31/45 Rosa Luxemburg - Reform or Revolution
32/45 Lauren Berlant - On the Inconvenience of Other People
33/45 Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim
34/45 Viktor Haynes & Olga Semyonova Ed. - Workers Against the Gulag
35/45 Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
36/45 Rachel Pollack - Unquenchable Fire
37/45 Andy Greenberg - Tracers in the Dark
38/45 Pyotr Kropotkin - The State: It's Historic Role
39/45 Barbara Kingsolver - Demon Copperhead
40/45 Lorraine Harrison - Latin for Gardeners
41/45 Molly Caldwell Crosby - Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic
42/45 Iain Banks - Complicity
43/45 Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass
44/45 Rachel Sussman - The Oldest Living Things in the Planet
45/45 Christopher Ruocchio - Empire of Silence

46/45 Abdul Salam Zaeef - My Life with the Taliban

Really good autobiography of a senior Taliban leader. From being orphaned, through the jihad against the Russian invasion, training from and betrayal by the ISI. His time as the Pakistan ambassador and his time in Gitmo. I'd say I have a much better understanding of the Taliban and Afghanistan from this book, than anything written from a western perspective.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

29/29 A Song Flung up to Heaven – Maya Angelou
Penultimate installment of an amazing life.

28/29 Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
27/29 The Housing Lark – Sam Selvon
26/29 Boys Alive - Pier Paolo Pasolini
25/29 Stubborn Archivist – Yara Rodrigues Fowler
24/29 Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse – Brontez Purnell
23/29 The Festival of Insignificance – Milan Kundera
22/29 Ways of Sunlight – Sam Selvon
21/29 Blessings - Chukwuebuka Ibeh
20/29 All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes – Maya Angelou
19/29 Leading Man – Justin Myers
18/29 Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus – Mary Shelley
17/29 100 Boyfriends - Brontez Purnell
16/29 Helena – Evelyn Waugh
15/29 Homo Deus – A Brief History of Tomorrow – Yuval Noah Harari
14/29 My Father and Myself – J. R. Ackerley
13/29 Family Meal – Bryan Washington
12/29 Mona of the Manor – Armistead Maupin
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

 

[CNT36]

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
22/45 Douglas Adams - Mostly Harmless
23/45 Detlef Singer - Garden Birds of Britain & Europe
24/45 Charles C. Mann - 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
25/45 Elizabeth Nelson - The British Counter-culture 1966-73: A Study of the Underground Press
26/45 Chester Himes - A Rage in Harlem
27/45 Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground
28/45 Ursula K. Le Guin - The Word for World Is Forest
29/45 Harsha Walia - Border and Rule
30/45 Elif Shafak - The Island of Missing Trees
31/45 Rosa Luxemburg - Reform or Revolution
32/45 Lauren Berlant - On the Inconvenience of Other People
33/45 Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim
34/45 Viktor Haynes & Olga Semyonova Ed. - Workers Against the Gulag
35/45 Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose
36/45 Rachel Pollack - Unquenchable Fire
37/45 Andy Greenberg - Tracers in the Dark
38/45 Pyotr Kropotkin - The State: It's Historic Role
39/45 Barbara Kingsolver - Demon Copperhead
40/45 Lorraine Harrison - Latin for Gardeners
41/45 Molly Caldwell Crosby - Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic
42/45 Iain Banks - Complicity
43/45 Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass
44/45 Rachel Sussman - The Oldest Living Things in the Planet
45/45 Christopher Ruocchio - Empire of Silence

46/45 Abdul Salam Zaeef - My Life with the Taliban

Really good autobiography of a senior Taliban leader. From being orphaned, through the jihad against the Russian invasion, training from and betrayal by the ISI. His time as the Pakistan ambasador and his ime in Gitmo. I'd say I have a much better uderstanding of the Taliban and Afghanistan from this book, than anything written from a western perspective.

There is a Storyville called Hollywoodgate you might find interesting. Someone following a Taliban commander and his team around with a camera though with a lot of restrictions of what can be filmed. A lot of them just hanging around chatting.

 

[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
25/52 - Richard Chizmar - The Long Way Home
26/52 - Doug Johnstone - The Great Silence
27/52 - Maggie Shipstead - Great Circle
28/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Raging Storm
29/52 - Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery
30/52 - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Chronicle of a Death Foretold
31/52 - Doug Johnstone - Black Hearts
32/52 - Zadie Smith - The Fraud
33/52 - Claire Keegan - So Late in the Day
34/52 - Bonnie Garmus - Lessons in Chemistry
35/52 - John Irving - The Last Chairlift
36/52 - Doug Johnstone - The Opposite of Lonely
37/52 - Clare Chambers - The Editor's Wife
38/52 - Barbara Kingsolver - Prodigal Summer
39/52 - Peter James - They Thought I Was Dead
40/52 - Jacqueline O'Mahony - Sing, Wild Bird, Sing (BC)
41/52 - Elly Griffiths - The Outcast Dead
42/52 - Charles Dickens - David Copperfield (BC)
43/52 - Iain Banks - The Steep Approach to Garbadale (re-read)
44/52 - Elly Griffiths - The Ghost Fields
45/52 - James M Cain - The Embezzler
46/52 - Clare Chambers - Shy Creatures

47/52 - Stephen King - Everything's Eventual

 

[rubbershoes]

1/30 The Damned Utd by David Peace
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
20/30 The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
21/30 The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945–1957 by Frank Dikötter
22/30 The Devil's Playground by Stav Sherez
23/30 The Ticket Collector from Belarus by Mike Anderson & Neil Hanson
24/30 Countdown City by Ben Winters
25/30 The Seventh Victim by Michael Wood
26/30 A death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger
27/30 Vacant Possession by Hilary Mantel
28/30 Spies by Michael Frayn.
29/30 All quiet on the Western front by Erich Maria Remarque
30/30 When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
31/30 The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (and other stories) by Alan Sillitoe
32/30 Alone on the Ice by David Robert
33/30 The only story by Julian Barnes
34/30 An experiment in love by Hilary Mantel
35/30 Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
36/30 Exit by Belinda Bauer
37/30 I, Partridge: We need to talk about Alan by Alan Partridge (again). I read the book and/or listen to the audiobook a couple of times a year
38/30 History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
39/30 Jeeves and the feudal spirit by PG Wodehouse
40/30 On The Road Bike: The Search For A Nation’s Cycling Soul by Ned Boulting
41/30 The Crow Road by Iain Banks
42/30 The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch
43/30 The last days of Mussolini by FW Deakin
44/30 Travels with my aunt by Graham Greene

45/30 Promise me by Harlan Coben. Crikey, this was terrible. I didn't know it was by him most of the way through- I found the audiobook on my hard drive and it didn't list the author. He comes up with a decent idea - some crime or event , introduces a host of characters, but doesn't know what to do after that. The plot begins to twist and turn and becomes absurd; the characters lack depth , and the whole thing just collapses in on itself. The first third was ok, quite intriguing in places, the next third was a a slide in disappointment , and the last bit was just a slog to get to the end. Just don't.

 

[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
9/24 The Last Days of New Paris - China Miéville
10/24 Watchmen - Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons (reread)
11/24 - For Those Who Are About To - Joanna Russ
12/24 - The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

13/24 Shadow of the Sun - Ryszard Kapuscinski
One of partner zedr's favourite books so I've been meaning to read it for a while! Lots of short vignettes of life in various African nations whilst they wrench themselves away from European colonialism. He has a beautiful and playfully exaggerated way of describing scenarios and events. Also instructive to read a westerner in the 50's pointing out the sheer bigotry, idiocy and cruelty of Europe towards Africa.

been a long time coming this one.

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
9/24 The Last Days of New Paris - China Miéville
10/24 Watchmen - Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons (reread)
11/24 For Those Who Are About To - Joanna Russ
12/24 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
13/24 Shadow of the Sun - Ryszard Kapuscinski

14/24 Ammonite - Nicola Griffith
Loved this. Really enjoyable exploration of gender, culture and colonisation on a distant planet.

15/24 Sea of Tranquility - Emily St John Mandel
Seemed quite plodding to start, and I didn't love the writing style, but it slowly all fell into place and was very satisfying by the end.

16/24 The Lion Will Slaughter The Lamb - Margret Killjoy
A fun little squatter/ folk punk myth.

17/24 Galatea - Madeline Miller
A brief, feminist reading of the myth of Pygmalion

18/24 The Drowned World - JG Ballard
Felt like a pretty bleak and apocalyptic look at the world submerged by rising tides. Felt slightly dated with some of the descriptions of people/races/genders tho which took away from my enjoyment.

19/24 Babel - RF Kuang
A speculative fiction about some scholars at Oxford in the 1830s as they learn about colonialism. Felt a bit preachy and basic in places, like a decolonial Harry Potter. I enjoyed the research into literary and translation history which redeemed it.

20/24 Post Internet Far Right - Sam Moore & Alex Roberts
A good, if slightly wordy, analysis of recent developments in the far right in the UK and USA. Enjoyed it, but fucking hell they didn't half make a meal of some of the ideas. Felt like it could either have been half as long and easier to parse, or twice as long with a proper exploration of all the ideas.

 

[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
7/30 - Slow Horses - Mick Herron
8/30 - Lily - Rose Tremain
9/30 - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
10/30 - The Bee Sting - Paul Murray
11/30 - In Memoriam - Alice Winn
12/30 - So Late in the Day - Claire Keegan
13/30 - The Memory Police - Yōko Ogawa

Might just reach the halfway point.

 

[CNT36]

1/19 Yanis Varoufakis - Technofeudalism: What killed capitalism?
2/19 Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
3/19 Gary Russell - Doctor Who: The Star Beast
4/19 Maz Evans - Oh Maya God's.
5/19 Storm Dunlop and Will Tirion - Night Sky Almanac: A stargazers guide to 2024
6/19 Thomas S Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
7/19 Isaac Asimov - Foundation
8/19 Robert Dallek - Nixon and Kissinger
9/19 Tristan Gooley - How to read water.
10/19 Sybille Steinbacher - Auschwitz: A history
11/19 Hannah Arendt- Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the Banality of Evil
12/19 George Mann - Doctor Who: Engines of War
13/19 David Graeber - Pirate Enlightenment, or the real Libertalia
14/19 Dale Smith - Doctor Who: The Many Hands
15/19 Chris van Tulleken - Ultra Processsed People: Why do we all eat stuff that isn't food... and why can't we stop?
16/19 Paul Cornell - Doctor Who: Goth Opera
17/19 Jon Shonk - Introducing Meterology: A guide to weather
18/19 M Testa - Militant Anti-Facism: A hundred years of resistance.
19/19 Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Empire
20/19 Serhii Plokhy - Chernobyl Roulette: A War Story
21/19 Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Company
22/19 Isaac Asimov- Second Foundation
More of the same. Enjoyable enough. He had a few decades break after writing this before doing another Foundation story. I might do the same.

 

[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
25/52 - Richard Chizmar - The Long Way Home
26/52 - Doug Johnstone - The Great Silence
27/52 - Maggie Shipstead - Great Circle
28/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Raging Storm
29/52 - Patricia Highsmith - The Tremor of Forgery
30/52 - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Chronicle of a Death Foretold
31/52 - Doug Johnstone - Black Hearts
32/52 - Zadie Smith - The Fraud
33/52 - Claire Keegan - So Late in the Day
34/52 - Bonnie Garmus - Lessons in Chemistry
35/52 - John Irving - The Last Chairlift
36/52 - Doug Johnstone - The Opposite of Lonely
37/52 - Clare Chambers - The Editor's Wife
38/52 - Barbara Kingsolver - Prodigal Summer
39/52 - Peter James - They Thought I Was Dead
40/52 - Jacqueline O'Mahony - Sing, Wild Bird, Sing (BC)
41/52 - Elly Griffiths - The Outcast Dead
42/52 - Charles Dickens - David Copperfield (BC)
43/52 - Iain Banks - The Steep Approach to Garbadale (re-read)
44/52 - Elly Griffiths - The Ghost Fields
45/52 - James M Cain - The Embezzler
46/52 - Clare Chambers - Shy Creatures
47/52 - Stephen King - Everything's Eventual

48/52 - Doug Johnstone - Living is a Problem

 

[rubbershoes]

1/30 The Damned Utd by David Peace
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
20/30 The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
21/30 The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945–1957 by Frank Dikötter
22/30 The Devil's Playground by Stav Sherez
23/30 The Ticket Collector from Belarus by Mike Anderson & Neil Hanson
24/30 Countdown City by Ben Winters
25/30 The Seventh Victim by Michael Wood
26/30 A death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger
27/30 Vacant Possession by Hilary Mantel
28/30 Spies by Michael Frayn.
29/30 All quiet on the Western front by Erich Maria Remarque
30/30 When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
31/30 The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (and other stories) by Alan Sillitoe
32/30 Alone on the Ice by David Robert
33/30 The only story by Julian Barnes
34/30 An experiment in love by Hilary Mantel
35/30 Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
36/30 Exit by Belinda Bauer
37/30 I, Partridge: We need to talk about Alan by Alan Partridge (again). I read the book and/or listen to the audiobook a couple of times a year
38/30 History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
39/30 Jeeves and the feudal spirit by PG Wodehouse
40/30 On The Road Bike: The Search For A Nation’s Cycling Soul by Ned Boulting
41/30 The Crow Road by Iain Banks
42/30 The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch
43/30 The last days of Mussolini by FW Deakin
44/30 Travels with my aunt by Graham Greene
45/30 Promise me by Harlan Coben

46/30 Tree of Hands by Ruth Rendell. Well done crime book set in north London. The coppers in it have minimal roles and come across as useless arses

 

[pseudonarcissus]

It's bad weather here and my helicopter flight home has bee cancelled...I'm quite enjoying the enforced reading time.

30/29 Grow Where They Fall – Michael Donkor

29/29 A Song Flung up to Heaven – Maya Angelou
28/29 Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
27/29 The Housing Lark – Sam Selvon
26/29 Boys Alive - Pier Paolo Pasolini
25/29 Stubborn Archivist – Yara Rodrigues Fowler
24/29 Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse – Brontez Purnell
23/29 The Festival of Insignificance – Milan Kundera
22/29 Ways of Sunlight – Sam Selvon
21/29 Blessings - Chukwuebuka Ibeh
20/29 All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes – Maya Angelou
19/29 Leading Man – Justin Myers
18/29 Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus – Mary Shelley
17/29 100 Boyfriends - Brontez Purnell
16/29 Helena – Evelyn Waugh
15/29 Homo Deus – A Brief History of Tomorrow – Yuval Noah Harari
14/29 My Father and Myself – J. R. Ackerley
13/29 Family Meal – Bryan Washington
12/29 Mona of the Manor – Armistead Maupin
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

 

[rich!]

135. John le Carre, The Tailor of Panama. Spooks trying to prepare for the US leaving Panama in the dying years of the 20th century. Compelling reading as ever (basically read it in one go) but the characters are fascinating but unpleasant at some level. Has another one of those "just stops" endings that I am always puzzled by in his books.

(I've also read a few more Grimes books but I'll pop those in in a block)

 

[Signal 11]

8/10 - The Female Man - Joanna Russ

 

[colbhoy]

1/9 - Ring Around the Bases: The Complete Baseball Stories of Ring Lardner by Ring Lardner
2/9 - The Fear Index by Robert Harris
3/9 - Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
4/9 - The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci
5/9 - Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith
6/9 - The Broker by John Grisham
7/9 - Worst Case by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
8/9 - Copycat by Alex Lake
9/9 - The Payback by Simon Kernick
10/9 - The Beach House by James Patterson and Peter De Jonge
11/9 - The Black Ice by Michael Connelly
12/9 - The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

 

[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
43. Robert Morrison - The Regency Revolution: Jane Austen, Napoleon, Lord Byron and the Making of the Modern World
44. John Wagner, David Hine, Nick Percival - Dominion
45. David Mitchell - Unruly: a History of England's Kings and Queens [audiobook]
46. David Hine, Nick Percival - The Dark Judges: Deliverance
47. Terry Pratchett - The Last Continent
48. Bernard Cornwell - The Winter King
49. Pat Mills, Patrick Goddard - Savage: The Marze Murderer
50. Arthur Wyatt, Jake Lynch - Judge Dredd: The Red Queen Saga
51. Tom Tully, Vanyo - The Mind of Wolfie Smith
52. Maurice LeBlanc - The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
53. Everett True - Hey Ho Let's Go: The Story of the Ramones
54. Stuart Maconie - The Full English: a Journey in Search of a Country and its People [audiobook]
55. Chris Lowder, Gerry Finley Day, Dave Gibbons - Dan Dare: The 2000AD Years - vol 2
56. H G Wells - The Island of Doctor Moreau
57. Dan Abnett, Mark Harrison - The Out
58. Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum
59. T C Eglington, Simon Davis - Thistlebone
60. David Katz - Solid Foundation: an Oral History of Reggae
61. Torsten Bell - Great Britain? How We Get Our Future Back [audiobook]
62. Michael Morpurgo - War Horse
63. P G Wodehouse - School Stories
64. Michael Fleisher, Steve Dillon - The New Harlem Heroes vol 1
65. David Barnett - Withered Hill
66. John Wagner, Alan Grant, Carlos Ezquerra - Strontium Dog: the Starlord Years
67. Stuart Maconie - The Pie at Night: In Search of the North at Play
68. Michael Fleischer, Ron Smith - Rogue Trooper: Friday vol 1
69. HP Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness
70. Varaidzo - Manny and the Baby
71. Dan Abnett, Richard Elson - Feral and Foe
72. Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything [audiobook]
73. Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant
74. Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith - A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

75. Pat Mills - M.A.C.H.-1 vol 1
76. Natalie Whittle - Crunch: an Ode to Crisps

 

[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
24/50 The Small Back Room by Nigel Balchin
25/50 Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawakami
26/50 In the Long Run We Are All Dead by Geoff Mann
27/50 Madame de by Louise de Vilmorin
28/50 Realizing Capital: Financial and Psychic Economies in Victorian Form by Anna Kornbluh
29/50 We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian
30/50 Falling Hour by Geoffrey D. Morrison
31/50 BFFs by Anahit Behrooz
32/50 My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen
33/50 Go Back at Once by Robert Aickman
34/50 The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
35/50 The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor
36/50 All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami
37/50 Chuǎng 1: Dead Generations by Chuǎng
38/50 Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
39/50 The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill
40/50 The Covert Captain by Jeanelle M. Ferreria
41/50 Orbital by Samantha Harvey
42/50 The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin
43/50 Child of Fortune by Yūko Tsushima
44/50 Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach
45/50 The Tell Tale by Clare Ashton
46/50 My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather
47/50 The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard
48/50 Britain in Revolution by Austin Woolrych
49/50 Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
50/50 Company of Liars by Karen Maitland
51/50 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
52/50 The World Beneath by Cate Kennedy
53/50 Second Chances in New Port Stephen by TJ Alexander
54/50 Stick Together by Sophie Hénaff
Crime novel and sequel to The Awkward Squad which I read ages ago, this was a bit wackier than I remember that being and generally not as good. Still just about ok though.
55/50 1649: The Crisis of the English Revolution by Brian Manning
This must be the kind of history Austin Woolrych was constantly sniping at in Britain in Revolution as it examines the question of class in the civil war and argues for its significance. The case Manning presents is far more persuasive than Woolrych who barely bothers to present one at all. The bit on the formation of the middle class was very interesting, it'd be good to read a whole book on that if I can find one.

 

[CNT36]

1/19 Yanis Varoufakis - Technofeudalism: What killed capitalism?
2/19 Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
3/19 Gary Russell - Doctor Who: The Star Beast
4/19 Maz Evans - Oh Maya God's.
5/19 Storm Dunlop and Will Tirion - Night Sky Almanac: A stargazers guide to 2024
6/19 Thomas S Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
7/19 Isaac Asimov - Foundation
8/19 Robert Dallek - Nixon and Kissinger
9/19 Tristan Gooley - How to read water.
10/19 Sybille Steinbacher - Auschwitz: A history
11/19 Hannah Arendt- Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the Banality of Evil
12/19 George Mann - Doctor Who: Engines of War
13/19 David Graeber - Pirate Enlightenment, or the real Libertalia
14/19 Dale Smith - Doctor Who: The Many Hands
15/19 Chris van Tulleken - Ultra Processsed People: Why do we all eat stuff that isn't food... and why can't we stop?
16/19 Paul Cornell - Doctor Who: Goth Opera
17/19 Jon Shonk - Introducing Meterology: A guide to weather
18/19 M Testa - Militant Anti-Facism: A hundred years of resistance.
19/19 Isaac Asimov - Foundation and Empire
20/19 Serhii Plokhy - Chernobyl Roulette: A War Story
21/19 Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Company
22/19 Isaac Asimov- Second Foundation
23/19 Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud - Pegasus: The inside story of the world's most dangerous spy warehouse

It is actually more the inside story of the investigation into some spyware. Interesting in places and some of the stories of the individuals targeted are both inspiring and terrifying.

 

[hitmouse]

(I've also read a few more Grimes books but I'll pop those in in a block)

Every time you mention one of these I keep reading it as being about the 2010s synthpop artist fighting aliens.

 

[hitmouse]

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
17/45 Miranda July - All Fours
18/45 Meg Mason - Sorrow and Bliss
19/45 Hilary White - Holes
20/45 Jane Bowles - Two Serious Ladies
21/45 Jane Huffman - Public Abstract
22/45 Alexander Billet - Shake the City
23/45 Patricia Lockwood - Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals
24/45 George Katsiaficas - The Subversion of Politics
25/45 Torrey Peters - Detransition, Baby
26/45 Joan Didion - Let Me Tell You What I Mean
27/45 James Ellroy - Perfidia
28/45 Don DeLillo - White Noise
29/45 Colson Whitehead - Zone One
30/45 Dickhead Bidge - Bakunin Brand Vodka: Anarchism in Early Punk, 1976-1980
31/45 Thomas M Disch - Camp Concentration
32/45 RF Kuang - Babel
33/45 Jen Calleja - Goblinhood

34/45 Albert Meltzer - I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels

Had been meaning to get around to reading this one for ages, definitely worth the read. Could do with a little bit of editing, an index and so on, but given the kind of book that it is makes sense for it to not have the slickest presentation in the world. Definitely inspirational. Started reading just around the time of the US election and it's tempting to say some cliche about how it shows you can get through really dark periods of history while staying committed and keeping a constructive attitude, but it sort of more shows that you can live through the rise of fascism while being really grumpy and talking lots of shit about everyone. Can't help wondering what he would've made of me, as someone who at least aspires to uphold the traditions that he represented, but at the same time I'm definitely an inheritor of a lot of stuff he hated as well. At first I thought that there was no mention of platformism in the book at all, but then there is a paragraph or two where he's incredibly catty about the ORA. Oh, and at no point does he explain what the title actually means.

Now about to start (and then quickly finish, cos it's very short) Nell Osborne - Thank You For Everything. Another on the border of zine/book, but it's got an ISBN and the publishers claim to be book publishers so it counts. Very much looking forward to this one.

 

[zedr]

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
17/45 Miranda July - All Fours
18/45 Meg Mason - Sorrow and Bliss
19/45 Hilary White - Holes
20/45 Jane Bowles - Two Serious Ladies
21/45 Jane Huffman - Public Abstract
22/45 Alexander Billet - Shake the City
23/45 Patricia Lockwood - Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals
24/45 George Katsiaficas - The Subversion of Politics
25/45 Torrey Peters - Detransition, Baby
26/45 Joan Didion - Let Me Tell You What I Mean
27/45 James Ellroy - Perfidia
28/45 Don DeLillo - White Noise
29/45 Colson Whitehead - Zone One
30/45 Dickhead Bidge - Bakunin Brand Vodka: Anarchism in Early Punk, 1976-1980
31/45 Thomas M Disch - Camp Concentration

32/45 RF Kuang - Babel

Harry Potter and the Wretched of the Earth.
Extremely mixed feelings about this one. Tempting to say it's a good book about language and a bad book about empire. She really needs an editor who would ruthlessly trim out a lot of the footnotes and it totally fails as a historical novel because all the goodies just seem to have acceptable 21st century lefty opinions and even the baddies often sound like they've been reading contemporary literary criticism. But a lot of the language and translation stuff is really good and once it hits its stride in the last 150 pages or so it's hard not to get a bit drawn in to the attempt to imagine a revolution in England. There is a lot to consider about the relationship between Kuang and her protagonist as well, like what does it mean if you go to Oxford, graduate and then go on to write a novel about how the only ethical thing an Oxford student can do is to drop out and dedicate themselves to violent insurrection?
Now starting (and halfway though) Jen Calleja - Goblinhood. Not much in the way of mixed feelings about this one, it's just a bonkers delight.

LMAO didn't see this before. Think this perfectly encapsulates how I felt about it. Felt a bit mean describing to to pals as an decolonial harry potter but it does go a bit hard on the fetishisation of Oxford. I also found the note at the start warning you that you might not understand everything because of all the 1830s slang which was about to be used very unnecessary. They all chatted like modern tweens.