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

[rich!]

It's been a while since I did the challenge. I'm going to count books finished after 31 December but not abuse that to get a long list.

The epic web serial I'm reading (Wandering Inn) may pop into the list occasionally because a typical chapter is thin paperback size.

1. Glass and Gardens. A Solarpunk Anthology.
2. Made to Order - Robots and Revolution.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

3/29 Where I Was From – Joan Didion

2/29 The Whale Tattoo – Jon Ransom
1/29 There Are More Things – Yara Rodrigues Fowler

 

[hitmouse]

3/29 Where I Was From – Joan Didion

2/29 The Whale Tattoo – Jon Ransom
1/29 There Are More Things – Yara Rodrigues Fowler

Been a while since I read that one, but remember it being great.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

Been a while since I read that one, but remember it being great.

it was, her slightly melancholic tone was perfect as she describes the rise and fall of the California dream.

I think it's time I joined the Margaret Atwood club now.

 

[Me76]

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


1/50 Face, Benjamin Zephaniah - hc

 

[baldrick]

I don't think I've ever joined this challenge so I will put my marker down for 10-19 and try and read a book instead of doom scrolling in the evenings...she said sitting in bed doom scrolling (it's been a tiring day ok!)

 

[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

 

[Mattym]

1/10 Paul Lynch- Prophet Song

 

[braindancer]

1/20 - The Book of Koli - M.R.Carey

 

[Pickman's model]

It's been a while since I did the challenge. I'm going to count books finished after 31 December but not abuse that to get a long list.

The epic web serial I'm reading (Wandering Inn) may pop into the list occasionally because a typical chapter is thin paperback size.

1. Glass and Gardens. A Solarpunk Anthology.
2. Made to Order - Robots and Revolution.

Anything you finished after 0000.01 on 1 January you should count in this year's thread. Doesn't matter if you had 50 books you just had to read the last paragraph of. Just make sure you only put them in one of the years - anything finished before 2359.59 on 31 Dec 23 should go in the 2023 thread

 

[Biddlybee]

1/30 - 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World - Elif Shafak

 

[Steel Icarus]

1. The Lost Album of The Beatles: What if the Beatles hadn't split up? - Daniel Rachel
2. House of Suns - Alistair Reynolds

 

[CNT36]

1/19 Yanis Varoufakis - Technofeudalism: What killed capitalism?
Varoufakis argues that rather than capitalism being replaced by socialism it has instead been replaced by a type of Technofeudalism that extracts rents in various forms turning people into cloud serfs and cloud proles. People working for free to create content for some platforms (Instagram, YouTube etc) while on others the market is consigned to the dustbin of history (Amazon). I'm not sure it holds together completely but worth some thought and maybe useful as a tool for analysis. Instead of writing as if to his daughter this time he's writing to his dead father.

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Liz Nugent - Strange Sally Diamond

2/52 - Zadie Smith - NW

 

[ruffneck23]

All books count

Not trying to be a twat, but even graphic novels?

If so Ive already done 4, and I reckon it will be shitloads by the end of year, as just got 20 random ones for 35 quid from Zavvi..

But it doesnt feel right..

 

[rubbershoes]

1/30 David Peace - The Damned Utd

 

[Pickman's model]

Not tryimg to be a twat, but even graphic novels?

If so Ive already done 4, and I reckon it will be shitloads by the end of year, as just got 20 random ones for 35 quid from Zavvi..

But it doesnt feel right..

yes, even graphic novels count if you want them to. this is about the number of books individuals feel they have read. you can count anything published between covers if you want to. or you can only count eg penguin classics. many graphic novels have isbns and so are widely recognised as books, eg grandville, maus etc. i'd count the likes of camelot 3000 and the collections of conan comics and so on. but it's up to you, i won't hold it against you if you do count them or if you don't. individual issues of comics be it the dandy or conan - no, they're periodicals - but the beano or dandy annual, yes.

 

[ruffneck23]

Individual issues of comics be it the dandy or conan - no, they're periodicals - but the beano or dandy annual, yes..

Nice

 

[ruffneck23]

and to be fair some of my collections are actual tomes, ie

 

[hitmouse]

and to be fair some of my collections are actual tomes, ie

View attachment 407513

I think there's a case for counting that as ten books!

 

[hitmouse]

1/3 Mario Tronti - Workers and Capital (First Hypotheses)
1/45 John Fowles - The Collector

Really really good, would strongly recommend. Made me think a bit of Patricia Highsmith and Patrick Hamilton, but then there's a huge shift halfway through when it switches to the captive's perspective rather than the kidnapper's, I suppose it's far from the only novel to have more than one first-person narrators but he really does do both voices very well. Also more in common with the Baudelaire Fractal than you might expect, since both are sort of books about young women who love art. Next up going to try
2/3 Mario Tronti - Workers and Capital (Marx, Labour-Power, Working Class)

But suspect it might be hard work. Also got Levelling the Score issue 1 to get through, which feels like it could count as a book.

 

[rich!]

1. Glass and Gardens. A Solarpunk Anthology.
2. Made to Order - Robots and Revolution.

3. Frames of Mind - Howard Gardner.
Tenth anniversary edition. God he does like three long words where one would do. Interesting ideas about types of intelligence.

 

[rich!]

[dp]

 

[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

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

1/19 Paul Murray - Skippy Dies
2/19 Charlie Allison - No Harmless Power

 

[PR1Berske]

I think it's time I joined the Margaret Atwood club now.

Just before Christmas I blew off the dust from the MaddAddam trilogy and am not long finishing. Some unsettling parallels with the Covid era.

Her earliest novels, the more explicitly feminist leading up to Handmaid's, are so different in language and tone. I could do with picking them up again.

(I'm not sure about picking a number for this thread though I could do with spending more time reading them scrolling)

 

[kalmatthew]

3/60 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

4/60 The Ethos Effect LE Moddesit Jr. One of the lesser known books from my faverouite author I picked it ideally expecting it to last me few weeks ready for his next book to come out but enjoyed it too much for that.

The talk of Atwood on the thread though might have given me an idea of what I'll read next.

 

[marty21]

1/60 Silent Prey - John Sandford.
2/60 Sudden Prey - John Sandford

 

[bellaozzydog]

1/99 If you can’t take a joke. Born in Belfast made in the royal Navy . John Skull

Mainly about poverty and disrupted childhood in Belfast.

2/99 Face it. A memoir. Debbie Harry

Enjoyable frank autobiography

2/99 The life and rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah.

Another enjoyable and Frank autobiography

3/99
Poor. Dr Katrina O’Sullivan

Brutal memoir of poverty addiction and struggle

 

[rich!]

1. Glass and Gardens. A Solarpunk Anthology.
2. Made to Order - Robots and Revolution.
3. Frames of Mind - Howard Gardner.

4.The Social Brain - Camilleri, Rockey, Dunbar
Two business school wonks spend a lot of time applying Robin Dunbar's analysis of groups to business practise. Some of it was interesting.