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the great urban75 2016 reading challenge thread

how many books do you anticipate reading in 2016?


  • Total voters
    79
Since I've last posted here I've started many books and finished none. What did it I think was trying to read Cherryh at the same time as two other books and getting stuck with The Bell Jar for reasons I will explain.
And then getting so fed up with carrying three books with me everywhere i stopped carrying any books. Wanted to go back to spoken books but I had the spectre of The Bell Jar there looming over me. A good book but not one to read while feeling suicidal. I just couldn;t face it.

So i went on a mini spending spree of books. took a whole bunch to Cornwall with me but the thought of reading there just set up so much anxiety that i didn't bother and i vegetated instead - probably just what i needed.

Anyway - feeling energised and motivated again. Have picked up the Bell Jar again and getting through it quickly.
Next in line is Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh - which i had started reading in paperback format but now I've decided to go for audio format instead. It's just so much easier for me as my commute on overcrowded trains and with many changes does not really give me chance to get to grips with a physical book. Plus eyesight problems. Kindle is better but I quite often leave the Kindle at home. I never leave my phone at home.
 
1/32 - Arnaldur Indriðason - Tainted Blood (aka Jar City)
2/32 - Timur Vermes - Look Who's Back
3/32 - Kevin Barry - Beatlebone
4/32 - Tim Tate - Girls With Balls, the Secret History of Women's Football
5/32 - Paul Auster - The Book of Illusions
6/32 - Peter May - Coffin Road
7/32 - Tom Rob Smith - Child 44
8/32 - Tom Rob Smith - The Secret Speech
9/32 - Tom Rob Smith - Agent 6

10/32 - Kamel Daoud - The Meursault Investigation
11/32 - Stewart Lee - How I Escaped My Certain Fate
 
1/52 Autobiography by Mother Jones
2/52 Maigret and the Loner by Georges Simenon
3/52 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (Reread)
4/52 Do I Love You? by Paul McDonald
5/52 Totally Wired: Postpunk Interviews and Overviews by Simon Reynolds
6/52 The Chinese Detective by Michael Hardwick
7/52 Surviving Sting by Paul McDonald
8/52 Dangerous in Love by Leslie Thomas (Reread)
9/52 Dead To Me by Cath Staincliffe
10/52 Bleed Like Me by Cath Staincliffe
11/52 Ruthless by Cath Staincliffe

12/52 The Speakers by Heathcote Williams
 
1/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation
2/50 Justin Cronin - The Twelve
3/50 Neil Oliver - A History of Ancient Britain
4/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Authority
5/50 Jeff Vandermeer - Acceptance
6/50 Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
7/50 Svetlana Alexievich - Zinky Boys
8/50 Lisa Tuttle - The Mysteries
9/50 A M Homes - This Book Could Save Your Life
10/50 Allan Ahlberg - My Brother's Ghost
11/50 Margaret Elphinstone - The Gathering Night
12/50 Lauren Beukes - The Shining Girls.
13/50 Sarah Hall - The Carhullan Army

14/50 Tove Jansson - Moominvalley Midwinter
 
1/31 Wie man Deutscher wird in 50 einfachen Schritten - Adam Fletcher
2/31 Goblin Fruit - Laini Taylor
3/31 Just Kids - Patti Smith
4/31 Hydrofracked? One Man's Mystery Leads to a Backlash Against Natural Gas Drilling - Abrahm Lustgarten
5/31 The Cleaner - Mark Dawson
6/31 Saint Death - Mark Dawson
7/31 The Warrior Princess Submissive - Michael Makai
8/31 Unfinished Business - The Politics of Class War - Class War
9/31 How to Build the Perfect Rake - Kate Harper
10/31 The Driver - Mark Dawson
11/31 UR - Stephen King
12/31 Ghosts - Mark Dawson
13/31 The Sword of God - Mark Dawson
14/31 Salvation Row - Mark Dawson
15/31 The Loney - Andrew Michael Hurley
16/31 1,000 yards - Mark Dawson
17/31 Tarantula - Mark Dawson
18/31 Explaining the Explicit - Julian Barnes
19/31 The Princess Bride - William Goldman
20/31 Shadow of Night - Deborah Harkness
21/31 The Book of Life - Deborah Harkness
22/31 Reading Like a Writer - Francine Prose
23/31 The Migraine Mafia - Maia Sepp
24/31 Life Moves Pretty Fast: The lessons we learned from eighties movies (and why we don't learn them from movies any more) - Hadley Freeman
25/31 A Pair of Jeans and other stories - Asira Shahraz
26/31 The Marriage Bureau for Rich People - Farhad Zama
27/31 Exponential Apocalypse - Eirik Gumeny
28/31 Sewing Can Be Dangerous and Other Small Threads - S R Mallery
29/31 Spring Snow - Yukio Mishima
30/31 Gone to ground - Marie Jalowicz Simon
31/31 What would Satan do? - Anthony Miller
32/31 Red Love - the story of an East German Family - Maxim Leo
33/31 Duden Allgemeinbildung - Eselsbrücken: Die schönsten Merksätze und ihre Bedeutung
34/31 Work: A Story of Experience - Louisa May Alcott
35/31 Undone - Kristina Lloyd
36/31 My Grammar and I (or should that be "me"?) - Caroline Taggart & J A Wines
37/31 So... That's why I'm bonkers! : A girl's guide to surviving the menopause - Sheila Wenbourne
 
1/60 The Lost Starship - Vaughn Heppner.
2/60 The Lost Command - Vaughn Heppner
3/60 The Lost Destroyer - Vaughn Heppner
4/60 The Lost Colony - Vaughan Heppner
5/60 Why it is still Kicking Off Everywhere - Paul Mason
6/60 The Lady From Zagreb - Philip Kerr
7/60 Anzio - Wynford Vaughan Thomas
8/60 Extinction Point : Genesis - Paul Antony Jones
9/60 Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel
10/60 Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
11/60 Blood Relatives - Ed McBain
12/60 Blood on Snow - Jo Nesbo
13/60 Raven Black - Ann Cleeves
14/60 White Nights - Ann Cleeves
15/60 Even Dogs In The Wild - Ian Rankin
16/60 Bryant & May : The Burning Man - Christopher Fowler.
17/60 Red Bones - Ann Cleeves
18/60 Blue Lightning - Ann Cleeves
19/60 Dead Water - Ann Cleeves
20/60 Thin Air - Ann Cleeves
21/60 Radical Cities : Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture - Justin McGuirk.
22/60 Deep South - Paul Theroux.
23/60 Constitution - Nick Webb.
24/60 Then We Take Berlin -John Lawton
 
1/12 - The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
2/12 - Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune by Kristin Ross
3/12 - Eric by Shaun Tan
4/12 - Orange is the new Black by Piper Kerman
5/12 - The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
6/12 - The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution by Patrick Cockburn
7/12 - Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf
8/12 - Noise Uprising: The Audiopolitics of a World Musical Revolution by Michael Denning
9/12 - The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
10/12 - Capitalism: A Ghost Story by Arundhati Roy

11/12 - The Accidental by Ali Smith
This was enjoyable in some ways - I thought the 12-year old girl character in this was well portrayed, I enjoyed some of the satirical aspects about middle class life, philandering men, and poetry, and I liked some of the wildness of Amber, the accidental guest. The overall impression though was that the author was trying too hard - the book has the same time periods told from the point of view of four members of a family, each character's segments start with the word beginning,then middle, then end, in the first sentence. One of the chapters turns into poetry. The bits about cinema that are supposed to be in Amber's voice seem tacked on, and the theme of cameras and film doesn't seem to go anywhere. There were bits of the ending that didn't seem believable, and some of Amber's actions and motivations remain unclear. I felt that the author really wanted the book to be a great bit of postmodern literature or something, but they weren't particularly successful in doing this.
 
1/50 A Heat of the Moment Thing, Maggie Le Page
2/50 How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran
3/50 The Guest Cat, Takashi Hiraide
4/50 The Fire, John A Heldt
5/50 The Worst Day of my Life, So Far, MA Harper
6/50 Alive and Killing, Jeff Carson
7/50 Persuasion, Jane Austen
8/50 The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
9/50 The Rowan Tree, Robert W Fuller
10/50 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling
11/50 Love Handles, Gretchen Galway
12/50 The Sisters, Claire Douglas
13/50 Fire Country, David Estes
14/50 New Year Island, Paul Draker
15/50 Sleep With Me, Joanna Briscoe
16/50 More Fool Me, Stephen Fry
17/50 Swimming Home, Ruth Mancini
18/50 Ransom Dreams, Robert Bucchianeri
19/50 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, JK Rowling
 
1/51 - Multiculturalism and Its Discontents by Kenan Malik
2/51 - Slade House by David Mitchell
3/51 - The True History of Merlin the Magician by Anne Lawrence-Mathers
4/51 - SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
5/51 - Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights by Meredith Tax
6/51 - The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
7/51 - The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry by Ned and Constance Sublette
8/51 - Félicie by Georges Simenon
9/51 - Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė by Julija Šukys
10/51 - What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? by Katherine Verdery
11/51 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
12/51 - Maigret Gets Angry by Georges Simenon
13/51 - Deer Hunting With Jesus: Guns, Votes, Debt and Delusion in Redneck America by Joe Bageant
14/51 - The Retreat from Class: A New 'True' Socialism by Ellen Meiksins Wood
15/51 - Blood Salt Water by Denise Mina
16/51 - Mouse in Eternity by Nedra Tyre
17/51 - Maigret in New York by Georges Simenon
18/51 - Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and 'the Peripheries of Capitalism' edited by Teodor Shanin
19/51 - Maigret's Holiday by Georges Simenon
20/51 - Maigret's Dead Man by Georges Simenon
21/51 - Maigret's First Case by Georges Simenon
22/51 - Rednecks, Queers & Country Music by Nadine Hubbs
23/51 - New Hope for the Dead by Charles Willeford
24/51 - The 39 Steps by John Buchan
25/51 - What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
26/51 - Light Reading by Aliya Whiteley
27/51 - The Goodbye Look by Ross MacDonald
28/51 - The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by Gerald Horne
29/51 - Spin Cycle by Zoë Strachan
30/51 - Heroes and Villains by Angela Carter
31/51 - Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
32/51 - The Last One Left by John D. MacDonald
33/51 - Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War by Jerry White
34/51 - Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
35/51 - In Letters of Blood and Fire: Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism by George Caffentzis
36/51 - Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre
37/51 - The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell
38/51 - Shadows On Our Skin by Jennifer Johnston
39/51 - The Free by Willy Vlautin
40/51 - Yuki Chan in Brontë Country by Mick Jackson
 
1/32 - Arnaldur Indriðason - Tainted Blood (aka Jar City)
2/32 - Timur Vermes - Look Who's Back
3/32 - Kevin Barry - Beatlebone
4/32 - Tim Tate - Girls With Balls, the Secret History of Women's Football
5/32 - Paul Auster - The Book of Illusions
6/32 - Peter May - Coffin Road
7/32 - Tom Rob Smith - Child 44
8/32 - Tom Rob Smith - The Secret Speech
9/32 - Tom Rob Smith - Agent 6
10/32 - Kamel Daoud - The Meursault Investigation
11/32 - Stewart Lee - How I Escaped My Certain Fate

12/32 - Kate Atkinson - Started Early, Took My Dog
 
1/35 Elizabeth is Missing – Emma Healy
2/35 Demetia Essentials – Jan Hall
3/35 The Moonlit Garden – Corina Bomann
4/35 The Selfish Pig's Guide to Caring - Hugh Marriot
5/35 Underground London: Travels beneath the city streets - Stephen Smith
6/35 The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson
7/35 In the Winter Dark - Tim Winton
8/35 Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
9/35 The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters

10/35 The Invention of Wings - Sue Monk Kidd
 
I'm back in the saddle

1/50 Special Deluxe - Neil Young
2/50 The Edible woman - Margaret Atwood
3/50 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
4/50 Sacrilege - S.J. Parris
5/50 Easily Distracted - Steve Coogan
6/50 Autobiography - Morrissey
7/50 The Ice Owl - Carolyn Ives Gilman
8/50 Angel of Europa - Allen M. Steele
9/50 The Ants of Flanders - by Robert Reed
10/50 The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary - by Ken Liu
11/50 Kiss Me Twice - by Mary Robinette Kowal
12/50 The Bell Jar - by Sylvia Plath
13/50 Downbelow Station - by C.J. Cherryh (about halfway through now)
 
1/50 The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence -- Martin Gayford
2/50 The Boxcar Children -- Gertrude Warner
3/50 The Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and their Food -- John Dickie
4/50 Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X -- Deborah Davis.
5/50 White Trash Zombie Gone Wild - Diana Rowland
6/50 Dead to Me - Anton Strout
7/50 Deader Still- Anton Strout
8/50 Dead Matter - Anton Strout
9/50 American Gothic: The Life of America's Most Famous Painting - Steven Biel
10/50 Impulse - Steven Gould
11/50 My life as a White Trash Zombie - Diana Rowland
12/50 Silent Spring - Rachael Carson
13/50 Koko Takes a Holiday - Kieran Shea
14/50 Blue Zones - Dan Buettner
15/50 100 Millions Years of Food - Steven Ye
16/50 The Sea of Trolls -- Nancy Farmer
17/50 The Land of the Silver Apples -- Nancy Farmer
18/50 The Island of the Blessed -- Nancy Farmer
19/50 7th Sigma - Steven Gould
20/50 Radio Free Albumuth - Phillip K. Dick

21/50 Black Spring - Christina Henry - another one of those books where a romance writer thought they could make a buck shilling SF. You won't be finding a second from this author on a future list.
22/50 Exo - Steven Gould - reminded me of Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.
 
1/45 An American Outlaw - John Stonehouse
2/45 George's Marvellous Medicine - Roald Dahl
3/45 Cry, The Beloved Country - Alan Paton
4/45 Killer In The Rain - Raymond Chandler
5/45 Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
6/45 Woken Furies - Richard K Morgan
7/45 The Wall Jumper - Peter Schneider
8/45 Care of the Soul - Thomas Moore
9/45 The Mosquito Coast - Paul Theroux
10/45 Motley Crue: The Dirt. Confessions of the world's most notorious rock band
11/45 Englishman - Toby Broom aka Mister Swing Easy
12/45 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
13/45 Comanche Moon - Larry McMurtry
 
1/12 - The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
2/12 - Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune by Kristin Ross
3/12 - Eric by Shaun Tan
4/12 - Orange is the new Black by Piper Kerman
5/12 - The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
6/12 - The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution by Patrick Cockburn
7/12 - Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf
8/12 - Noise Uprising: The Audiopolitics of a World Musical Revolution by Michael Denning
9/12 - The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
10/12 - Capitalism: A Ghost Story by Arundhati Roy
11/12 - The Accidental by Ali Smith

12/12 - The Hedgerow Handbook: Recipes, Remedies and Rituals by Adele Nozedar
This is a really sweet little book. It may not be not as in depth on foraged food as something like "Food for Free", or be a complete herbal, but it is useful in its own way and beautifully presented with full-page illustrations by Lizzie Harper. A range of common plants - many that would be considered weeds are beautifully illustrated and described, and their herbal medicinal use, edible qualities, and folklore and facts about them are given - along with lots of imaginative recipes. I look forward to trying Himalayan Balsam seed Rissoles, Cleavers Curry, Beech Leaf Noyau, and Honeysuckle Sorbet. There's also a nice piece about the history and ecology of hedgerows at the beginning of the book. My only criticism is that I spotted one or two mistakes in the text which should have been removed in the editorial process (i'm a bit of a pedant about plants).

Well I've finished my challenge quicker than I expected! From now on, i'll try to keep reading, and see what number I end up with by the end of the year.
 
1/60 The Lost Starship - Vaughn Heppner.
2/60 The Lost Command - Vaughn Heppner
3/60 The Lost Destroyer - Vaughn Heppner
4/60 The Lost Colony - Vaughan Heppner
5/60 Why it is still Kicking Off Everywhere - Paul Mason
6/60 The Lady From Zagreb - Philip Kerr
7/60 Anzio - Wynford Vaughan Thomas
8/60 Extinction Point : Genesis - Paul Antony Jones
9/60 Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel
10/60 Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
11/60 Blood Relatives - Ed McBain
12/60 Blood on Snow - Jo Nesbo
13/60 Raven Black - Ann Cleeves
14/60 White Nights - Ann Cleeves
15/60 Even Dogs In The Wild - Ian Rankin
16/60 Bryant & May : The Burning Man - Christopher Fowler.
17/60 Red Bones - Ann Cleeves
18/60 Blue Lightning - Ann Cleeves
19/60 Dead Water - Ann Cleeves
20/60 Thin Air - Ann Cleeves
21/60 Radical Cities : Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture - Justin McGuirk.
22/60 Deep South - Paul Theroux.
23/60 Constitution - Nick Webb.
24/60 Then We Take Berlin -John Lawton
25/60 The Cold Dish - Craig Johnson
 
1. "11.22.63" - Stephen King
2. "Blind Eye" - Stuart MacBride
3. "The Inspector and Silence" - Hakan Nesser
4. "Dark Blood" - Stuart MacBride
5. "Old Man's War" - John Scalzi
6. "Night Music (Nocturnes 2)" - John Connolly
7. "Bloodline" - Mark Billingham.
8. "Shatter the Bones" - Stuart MacBride
9. "Apple Tree Yard" - Louise Doughty
10. "Close to the Bone" - Stuart MacBride
11. "Empire State" - Henry Porter. Interesting spy thriller
 
1/51 - Multiculturalism and Its Discontents by Kenan Malik
2/51 - Slade House by David Mitchell
3/51 - The True History of Merlin the Magician by Anne Lawrence-Mathers
4/51 - SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
5/51 - Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights by Meredith Tax
6/51 - The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
7/51 - The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry by Ned and Constance Sublette
8/51 - Félicie by Georges Simenon
9/51 - Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė by Julija Šukys
10/51 - What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? by Katherine Verdery
11/51 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
12/51 - Maigret Gets Angry by Georges Simenon
13/51 - Deer Hunting With Jesus: Guns, Votes, Debt and Delusion in Redneck America by Joe Bageant
14/51 - The Retreat from Class: A New 'True' Socialism by Ellen Meiksins Wood
15/51 - Blood Salt Water by Denise Mina
16/51 - Mouse in Eternity by Nedra Tyre
17/51 - Maigret in New York by Georges Simenon
18/51 - Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and 'the Peripheries of Capitalism' edited by Teodor Shanin
19/51 - Maigret's Holiday by Georges Simenon
20/51 - Maigret's Dead Man by Georges Simenon
21/51 - Maigret's First Case by Georges Simenon
22/51 - Rednecks, Queers & Country Music by Nadine Hubbs
23/51 - New Hope for the Dead by Charles Willeford
24/51 - The 39 Steps by John Buchan
25/51 - What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
26/51 - Light Reading by Aliya Whiteley
27/51 - The Goodbye Look by Ross MacDonald
28/51 - The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by Gerald Horne
29/51 - Spin Cycle by Zoë Strachan
30/51 - Heroes and Villains by Angela Carter
31/51 - Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
32/51 - The Last One Left by John D. MacDonald
33/51 - Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War by Jerry White
34/51 - Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
35/51 - In Letters of Blood and Fire: Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism by George Caffentzis
36/51 - Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre
37/51 - The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell
38/51 - Shadows On Our Skin by Jennifer Johnston
39/51 - The Free by Willy Vlautin
40/51 - Yuki Chan in Brontë Country by Mick Jackson
41/51 - Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire by Katherine Connelly
 
1/20 My Story - Steven Gerrard
2/20 Ancient Sites In West Penwith - Cheryl Straffon
3/20 Execution Sites Of Devon And Cornwall - Richard Peirce
4/20 Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights - Salman Rushdie
5/20 Pegasus Descending - James Lee Burke
6/20 The Story Of Kullervo - J.R.R. Tolkein
7/20 Walking The Himalayas - Levison Wood
8/20 Narcopolis - Jeet Thayil
9/20 The Doors Of Perception - Aldous Huxley
10/20 Doctor Sleep - Stephen King
11/20 Autobiography - Morrissey
12/20 I Swear I Was There: The Gig That Changed The World - David Nolan
13/20 Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense Of The Twentieth Century - John Higgs
14/20 So You've Been Publicly Shamed - Jon Ronson
15/20 The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson
16/20 Raw Spirit - Iain Banks
17/20 Them: Adventures With Extremists - Jon Ronson
18/20 A Decent Ride - Irvine Welsh
19/20 The Road To Little Dribbling: More Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
20/20 A Game Of Thrones - George R.R. Martin
 
1/75 - Belinda Bauer - The Facts of Life and Death
2/75 - Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin
3/75 - David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
4/75 - Daniel Woodrell - Winter's Bone
5/75 - Kate Atkinson - Case Histories
6/75 - Margaret Atwood - Lady Oracle
7/75 - Jon Ronson - So You've Been Publicly Shamed
8/75 - Kate Atkinson - One Good Turn
9/75 - Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
10/75 - Iain Banks - Espedair Street
11/75 - John Steinbeck - East of Eden
12/75 - Ruth Rendell - Make Death Love Me
13/75 - Stephen King - The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
14/75 - Keith Waterhouse - Billy Liar
15/75 - Kate Atkinson - When Will There be Good News?
16/75 - Stephen King - Finders Keeper
17/75 - Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections
18/75 - Wendy Cope - Family Values
19/75 - Kate Atkinson - Started Early, Took my Dog
20/75 - David Mitchell - Ghostwritten
21/75 - Kent Haruf - The Tie that Binds
22/75 - Val McDermid - Splinter the Silence
23/75 - Anthony Doerr - About Grace
24/75 - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - We Should all be Feminists
25/75 - Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending
26/75 - Iain Banks - Canal Dreams
27/75 - Belinda Bauer - The Shut Eye
28/75 - Margaret Atwood - The Heart Goes Last
29/75 - Mario Puzo - The Godfather
30/75 - Annie Proulx - Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3
31/75 - Ruth Rendell - From Doon With Death

32/75 - Kate Atkinson - A God in Ruins
 
1/50 A Heat of the Moment Thing, Maggie Le Page
2/50 How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran
3/50 The Guest Cat, Takashi Hiraide
4/50 The Fire, John A Heldt
5/50 The Worst Day of my Life, So Far, MA Harper
6/50 Alive and Killing, Jeff Carson
7/50 Persuasion, Jane Austen
8/50 The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
9/50 The Rowan Tree, Robert W Fuller
10/50 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, JK Rowling
11/50 Love Handles, Gretchen Galway
12/50 The Sisters, Claire Douglas
13/50 Fire Country, David Estes
14/50 New Year Island, Paul Draker
15/50 Sleep With Me, Joanna Briscoe
16/50 More Fool Me, Stephen Fry
17/50 Swimming Home, Ruth Mancini
18/50 Ransom Dreams, Robert Bucchianeri
19/50 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, JK Rowling
20/50 Preschooled, Anna Lefler
21/50 Finders, Keepers, Sean Costello
 
crossthebreeze said:
Well I've finished my challenge quicker than I expected! From now on, i'll try to keep reading, and see what number I end up with by the end of the year.

Same here. I had a very modest target of 10 at first which I subsequently upped to 20. I've just got to that so I'm not setting another one. Will just see how it goes. I've really got back into reading now and that was the point. Good thread.
 
1/60 The Lost Starship - Vaughn Heppner.
2/60 The Lost Command - Vaughn Heppner
3/60 The Lost Destroyer - Vaughn Heppner
4/60 The Lost Colony - Vaughan Heppner
5/60 Why it is still Kicking Off Everywhere - Paul Mason
6/60 The Lady From Zagreb - Philip Kerr
7/60 Anzio - Wynford Vaughan Thomas
8/60 Extinction Point : Genesis - Paul Antony Jones
9/60 Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel
10/60 Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
11/60 Blood Relatives - Ed McBain
12/60 Blood on Snow - Jo Nesbo
13/60 Raven Black - Ann Cleeves
14/60 White Nights - Ann Cleeves
15/60 Even Dogs In The Wild - Ian Rankin
16/60 Bryant & May : The Burning Man - Christopher Fowler.
17/60 Red Bones - Ann Cleeves
18/60 Blue Lightning - Ann Cleeves
19/60 Dead Water - Ann Cleeves
20/60 Thin Air - Ann Cleeves
21/60 Radical Cities : Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture - Justin McGuirk.
22/60 Deep South - Paul Theroux.
23/60 Constitution - Nick Webb.
24/60 Then We Take Berlin -John Lawton
25/60 The Cold Dish - Craig Johnson
26/60 Chavs - Owen Jones
 
1/30 - In the Shadow of Crows - David Charles Manners
2/30 - The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K Le Guin
3/30 - The Word for World is Forest - Ursula K Le Guin
4/30 - The Wind Up Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi
5/30 - Plainsong - Kent Haruf
6/30 - Eventide - Kent Haruf
7/30 - Benedicton - Kent Haruf
8/30 - A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James
9/30 - Someone else's skin - Sarah Hilary
10/30 - Where once you belonged - Kent Haruf
 
1/50 The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence -- Martin Gayford
2/50 The Boxcar Children -- Gertrude Warner
3/50 The Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and their Food -- John Dickie
4/50 Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X -- Deborah Davis.
5/50 White Trash Zombie Gone Wild - Diana Rowland
6/50 Dead to Me - Anton Strout
7/50 Deader Still- Anton Strout
8/50 Dead Matter - Anton Strout
9/50 American Gothic: The Life of America's Most Famous Painting - Steven Biel
10/50 Impulse - Steven Gould
11/50 My life as a White Trash Zombie - Diana Rowland
12/50 Silent Spring - Rachael Carson
13/50 Koko Takes a Holiday - Kieran Shea
14/50 Blue Zones - Dan Buettner
15/50 100 Millions Years of Food - Steven Ye
16/50 The Sea of Trolls -- Nancy Farmer
17/50 The Land of the Silver Apples -- Nancy Farmer
18/50 The Island of the Blessed -- Nancy Farmer
19/50 7th Sigma - Steven Gould
20/50 Radio Free Albumuth - Phillip K. Dick
21/50 Black Spring - Christina Henry
22/50 Exo - Steven Gould

23/50 The Man in the High Castle - Phillip K. Dick
24/50 The Sixth Extinction - Elizabeth Kolbert
 
1/51 - Multiculturalism and Its Discontents by Kenan Malik
2/51 - Slade House by David Mitchell
3/51 - The True History of Merlin the Magician by Anne Lawrence-Mathers
4/51 - SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard
5/51 - Double Bind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights by Meredith Tax
6/51 - The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
7/51 - The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry by Ned and Constance Sublette
8/51 - Félicie by Georges Simenon
9/51 - Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė by Julija Šukys
10/51 - What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? by Katherine Verdery
11/51 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
12/51 - Maigret Gets Angry by Georges Simenon
13/51 - Deer Hunting With Jesus: Guns, Votes, Debt and Delusion in Redneck America by Joe Bageant
14/51 - The Retreat from Class: A New 'True' Socialism by Ellen Meiksins Wood
15/51 - Blood Salt Water by Denise Mina
16/51 - Mouse in Eternity by Nedra Tyre
17/51 - Maigret in New York by Georges Simenon
18/51 - Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and 'the Peripheries of Capitalism' edited by Teodor Shanin
19/51 - Maigret's Holiday by Georges Simenon
20/51 - Maigret's Dead Man by Georges Simenon
21/51 - Maigret's First Case by Georges Simenon
22/51 - Rednecks, Queers & Country Music by Nadine Hubbs
23/51 - New Hope for the Dead by Charles Willeford
24/51 - The 39 Steps by John Buchan
25/51 - What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
26/51 - Light Reading by Aliya Whiteley
27/51 - The Goodbye Look by Ross MacDonald
28/51 - The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by Gerald Horne
29/51 - Spin Cycle by Zoë Strachan
30/51 - Heroes and Villains by Angela Carter
31/51 - Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
32/51 - The Last One Left by John D. MacDonald
33/51 - Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War by Jerry White
34/51 - Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
35/51 - In Letters of Blood and Fire: Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism by George Caffentzis
36/51 - Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre
37/51 - The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell
38/51 - Shadows On Our Skin by Jennifer Johnston
39/51 - The Free by Willy Vlautin
40/51 - Yuki Chan in Brontë Country by Mick Jackson
41/51 - Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire by Katherine Connelly
42/51 - Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette
43/51 - Dirty Weekend by Helen Zahavi
 
1/20 My Story - Steven Gerrard
2/20 Ancient Sites In West Penwith - Cheryl Straffon
3/20 Execution Sites Of Devon And Cornwall - Richard Peirce
4/20 Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights - Salman Rushdie
5/20 Pegasus Descending - James Lee Burke
6/20 The Story Of Kullervo - J.R.R. Tolkein
7/20 Walking The Himalayas - Levison Wood
8/20 Narcopolis - Jeet Thayil
9/20 The Doors Of Perception - Aldous Huxley
10/20 Doctor Sleep - Stephen King
11/20 Autobiography - Morrissey
12/20 I Swear I Was There: The Gig That Changed The World - David Nolan
13/20 Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense Of The Twentieth Century - John Higgs
14/20 So You've Been Publicly Shamed - Jon Ronson
15/20 The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson
16/20 Raw Spirit - Iain Banks
17/20 Them: Adventures With Extremists - Jon Ronson
18/20 A Decent Ride - Irvine Welsh
19/20 The Road To Little Dribbling: More Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
20/20 A Game Of Thrones - George R.R. Martin
21 The Men Who Stare At Goats - Jon Ronson

New target of 30 maybe?
 
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