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

[kalmatthew]

I started out on the thread but was finishing books at night so didn't want to update it at the time and then realised I was getting anxious that I hadn't updated it so binned the idea off in my mind.

However I plan to post a screenshot of my kindle reading stats and if I can get the actual books out easily might update the list!

 

[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
8/30 - Louise Welsh - The Cutting Room
9/30 - J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
10/30 - Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness
11/30 - Percival Everett - James
12/30 - Frank Herbert - Dune
13/30 - Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory
14/30 - Frank Herbert - Dune Messiah
15/30 - William Gibson - Count Zero
16/30 - James Kelman - How Late It Was, How Late
17/30 - Laurie Gunst - Born Fi’ Dead
18/30 - John Niven - O Brother
19/30 - Mel Cheren - My Life and the Paradise Garage
20/30 - William S. Burroughs - Queer
21/30 - Edna O’Brien - Lantern Slides
22/30 - Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions
23/30 - Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles
24/30 - Toni Morrison - Jazz
25/30 - Ed Gillett - Party Lines: Dance Music and the Making of Modern Britain
26/30 - John Williams - Stoner
27/30 - Colette - Gigi

28/30 - Russell Hoban - Fremder

 

[CNT36]

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
77. Samantha Harvey - Orbital [audiobook]
78. Mark Millar, Chris Weston - Canon Fodder
79. Mark Steel - The Mark Steel Lectures [audiobook]
80. James Peaty, Paul Marshall, Colin MacNeil - Skip Tracer vol 1

81. Paul Cornell, D'Isreali - XTNCT
82. James Joyce - The Dubliners - really didn't like this at all, a disconnected exercise in miserablism which leaned heavily into the Pour Paddy trope
83. Jay Kristoff - Empire of the Vampire - this on the other hand is highly entertaining. Vampires in a grimdark fantasy setting, what's not to like?

And I think that's me for 2024.

I reckon you could knock a few minutes off your rides through the forest if you put the books down.

 

[rich!]

141. Len Deighton, Blood, Tears and Folly. Len sets out to settle scores with almost everyone above the rank of Corporal who was involved in the Second World War. To justify his scores he provides a magisterial historical perspective on various aspects of the war, which is useful and makes the historical vindication clearly so much sweeter. Annoyingly, it stops about 1942, so I'm not 100% sure that the Allies won in his particular history. (eta: it's non-fiction)

142. Michael Moorcock, The Wandering Swarm. There's a lot of Moorcock that basically goes "We had the best time in the 60s, so much better than anyone has ever had before, and there is no way anyone will ever have a time as good as that again." This does that as semi-autobiography with a portal fantasy blended in where he ends up in his own pulps. Sort of entertaining as a Moorcock completist, and interesting to get the views on other writers of the time...

 

[rich!]

Can I say, posters that add to the full list each time are very helpful, however, posters with names ending in a number are problematic if I just drag the name down on the spreadsheet. Thanks Marty50

my list is too long to post as a post and won't attach for some reason!