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