the strictly come reading 2023 reading challenge thread

[Biddlybee]

1/15 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
2/15 - The Housekeeper and the Professor - Yōko Ogawa
3/15 - Slug - Hollie McNish
4/15 - Someday, Maybe - Onyi Nwabineli
5/15 - Tyger - SF Said
6/15 - Priestdaddy - Patricia Lockwood
7/15 - The Things I Would Tell You - ed. Sabrina Mahfouz
8/15 - The World's Wife - Carol Ann Duffy
9/15 - A Night Divided - Jennifer A Nielsen
10/15 - Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
11/15 - Lyrics Alley - Leila Aboulela
12/15 - Strange Flowers - Donal Ryan
13/15 - Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett
14/15 - The Truce - Primo Levi
15/15 - Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers
16/15 - River Spirit - Leila Abulela
17/15 - Strong Female Character - Fern Brady
18/15 - Kindred - Octavia Butler
19/15 - The Lost Girls of Ireland - Susanne O'Leary
20/15 - The Guilty Feminist - Deborah Frances-White
21/15 - Factfulness - Hans Rosling
22/15 - 1979 - Val McDermid
23/15 - The Furthest Station - Ben Aaronovitch

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Ruth Rendell - Tigerlilly's Orchids (re-read)
2/52 - Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
3/52 - Val McDermid - 1989
4/52 - Anthony Doerr - Cloud Cuckoo Land
5/52 - Ann Patchett - Commonwealth
6/52 - Peter James - Picture You Dead
7/52 - Donal Ryan - From a Low and Quiet Sea
8/52 - Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
9/52 - Ian McEwan - Lessons
10/52 - Robert Galbraith - The Ink Back Heart
11/52 - Kent Haruf - The Tie That Binds (re-read)
12/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and The Dead
13/52 - Clare Chambers - Small Pleasures
14/52 - Liu Cixin - The Three-Body Problem
15/52 - Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin
16/52 - Delia Owens - Where the Crawdads Sing
17/52 - Paula Hawkins - Into the Water
18/52 - William Boyd - The Romantic
19/52 - Doris Lessing - The Fifth Child
20/52 - Katy Hays - The Cloisters
21/52 - Doris Lessing - The Good Terrorist
22/52 - Stephen King - Dolores Claiborne (re-read)
23/52 - Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
24/52 - Barbara Vine - King Solomon's Carpet

25/52 - Kate Atkinson - Shrines of Gaiety

 

[imposs1904]

1/36 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos
2/36 Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook
3/36 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (ReRead)
4/36 The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
5/36 The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble
6/36 No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon
7/36 My Rock 'n' Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn
8/36 The Man Who Came Uptown by George P. Pelecanos
9/36 Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake
10/36 The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
11/36 Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake
12/36 Quick Change by Jay Cronley
13/36 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie
14/36 Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton by John Lahr
15/36 Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle
16/36 Fletch by Gregory McDonald
17/36 Fletch Won by Gregory McDonald
18/36 120, rue de la Gare by Léo Malet
19/36 Bellies and Bullseyes: The Outrageous True Story of Darts by Sid Waddell (ReRead)
20/36 Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz
21/36 For the Love of Willie by Agnes Owens
22/36 Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa (Reread)
23/36 Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
24/36 Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party by Michael Cragg
25/36 Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
26/36 Maigret Sets a Trap by Georges Simenon
27/36 One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters
28/36 Can't Stand Up For Falling Down: Rock'n'Roll War Stories by Allan Jones
29/36 A Prefect's Uncle by P. G. Wodehouse
30/36 Raymond Carver : an oral biography by Sam Halpert
31/36 Never Stop: How Ange Postecoglou Brought the Fire Back to Celtic by Hamish Carton

32/36 Psychocandy by Paula Mejia

Part of the 33 1/3 album series of books. 3 down . . . 171 to go.

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half a King
2/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half the World
3/45 - George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London
4/45 Jack London - The Call of the Wild
5/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half a War
6/45 Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
7/45 Mark Cooper - Later... with Jools Holland: 30 years of music, magic and mayhem
8/45 Michael Molcher - I Am the Law: how Judge Dredd predicted our future
9/45 Sarah J Maas - A Court of Thorns and Roses
10/45 David Graeber - The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
11/45 Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
12/45 Agatha Christie - The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Poirot #1)
13/45 Mark Galeotti - A Short History of Russia: how the world's largest country invented itself, from the pagans to Putin
14/45 Anne Applebaum - Twilight of Democracy: the seductive lure of authoritarianism
15/45 Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
16/45 Daniel Gordis - Israel: a concise history of a nation reborn
17/45 Alan Garner - The Stone Book Quartet
18/45 E M Forster - Where Angels Fear to Tread
19/45 Kate DiCamillo - The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
20/45 Terry Pratchett - Interesting Times
21/45 A A Milne - Winnie-the-Pooh
22/45 Marcus Baram - Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man
23/45 F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
24/45 Gil Scott-Heron - The Vulture

25/45 Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dogs of War

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1. 'The Death of Mrs. Westaway" - Ruth Ware
2. "The Paris Apartment" - Lucy Foley
3. "Force of Nature" - Jane Harper
4. "Eight Ghosts: The English Herirage Book of New Ghost Stories"
5. "The Decagon House Murders" - Yukito Ayatsuji.
6. "The Four Legendary Kingdoms" - Matthew Reilly
7. "Girl A" - Abigail Dean
8. "What Lies Between Us" - John Marrs
9 "The Three Secret Cities" - Matthew Reilly
10. "Quantam Radio" - A.J. Riddle
11. "All That Lives" - James Oswald
12. "A Heart Full of Headstones" - Ian Rankin
13. "Keep It In The Family" - John Marrs
14. "The Last Passenger" - Will Dean

15. "Dark Matter" - Blake Crouch. Really good sci-fi thriller with interesting themes. Loses its way a little at the end but a good read

 

[nogojones]

1/45 Ken MacLeod - The Human Front
2/45 Edward Bunker - Death Row Breakout
3/45 Ian Bone - Bash the Rich
4/45 Joan Didion - The Year of Magical Thinking
5/45 Julia Nicholls - Revolutionary Thought After the Paris Commune, 1871-1885
6/45 Sarah Jaffe - Work Won't Love You Back
7/45 Ann Leckie - Ancillary Sword
8/45 David Graeber & David Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything
9/45 Ellen Meiksins Wood - Peasant-Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy
10/45 Hunter S. Thompson - The Rum Diary
11/45 Ann Leckie - Ancillary Mercy
12/45 David Graeber - Debt: The First 5,000 Years
13/45 Russell Hoban -Riddley Walker
14/45 The Invisible Committee - The Coming Insurrection
15/45 Assata Shakur - Assata: An Autobiography
16/45 Dan Evans - A Nation of Shopkeepers
17/45 Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
18/45 Nicola Griffith - Ammonite
19/45 Kim Stanley Robinson - New York 2140
20/45 Ali Smith - Autumn
21/45 David Harvey - A Brief History of Neoliberalism
22/45 Homer (Trans E.V. Rieu) - The Odyssey
23/45 Maxim Gorky - Creatures That Once Were Men
24/45 Jasmin Herstov - Paramilitarism and Neoliberalism
25/45 Kazuo Ishiguro - Klara and the Sun

26/45 Guy Debord - Society of the Spectacle

I had to go back and read quite a lot of this two or three times and I'm still none the wiser. A few OK points, but an awful lot of word salad.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

1. Beyond the burn line - Paul McAuley
2. Project hail Mary - Andy Weir
2.1 Randomize - Andy Weir
3. Artemis - Andy Weir
4.The Greek World - Robert Garland (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
5. I Robot - Isaac Asimov
6. The mystery of the blue train (Poirot 6)- Agatha Christie
7. Food: A cultural culinary history - Ken Alaba (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
8. Black Coffee (Poirot 7)-Agatha Christie
9. Ancient Civilisations of North America - Edwin Barnheart (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
10. Ancient Mesopotamia - Professor Amanda H Podany (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
11. Luka and the fire of life - Salman Rushdie
12. Life on Earth - David Attenborough (audio book)
13. the long way to a small angry planet - Becky Chambers (reread)
14. A closed and common orbit - Becky Chambers (reread)
15. All systems red (Murderbot 1) - Martha Wells (reread)
16. Artificial condition (Murderbot 2) - Martha Wells (reread)
17. Rouge protocol (Murderbot 3) - Martha Wells (reread)

18. The Iliad of Homer - Elizabeth Vandiver (The Great Courses) audio book lectures (Relisten)

Quite informative. No prizes for guessing what the next audio book is.

 

[imposs1904]

1/36 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos
2/36 Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook
3/36 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (ReRead)
4/36 The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
5/36 The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble
6/36 No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon
7/36 My Rock 'n' Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn
8/36 The Man Who Came Uptown by George P. Pelecanos
9/36 Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake
10/36 The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
11/36 Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake
12/36 Quick Change by Jay Cronley
13/36 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie
14/36 Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton by John Lahr
15/36 Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle
16/36 Fletch by Gregory McDonald
17/36 Fletch Won by Gregory McDonald
18/36 120, rue de la Gare by Léo Malet
19/36 Bellies and Bullseyes: The Outrageous True Story of Darts by Sid Waddell (ReRead)
20/36 Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz
21/36 For the Love of Willie by Agnes Owens
22/36 Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa (Reread)
23/36 Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
24/36 Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party by Michael Cragg
25/36 Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
26/36 Maigret Sets a Trap by Georges Simenon
27/36 One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters
28/36 Can't Stand Up For Falling Down: Rock'n'Roll War Stories by Allan Jones
29/36 A Prefect's Uncle by P. G. Wodehouse
30/36 Raymond Carver : an oral biography by Sam Halpert
31/36 Never Stop: How Ange Postecoglou Brought the Fire Back to Celtic by Hamish Carton
32/36 Psychocandy by Paula Mejia

33/36 Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver

 

[marty21]

1/59 The Rooster Bar - John Grisham
2/59 The White Album - Joan Didion
3/59 Storm Watch - CJ Box
4/59 Oath of Loyalty - Kyle Mills
5/59 SAS : Rogue Heroes - Ben Macintyre
6/59 The Odin Mission - James Holland
7/59 Darkest Hour - James Holland
8/59 Blood of Honour - James Holland
9/59 Hellfire - James Holland

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Ruth Rendell - Tigerlilly's Orchids (re-read)
2/52 - Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
3/52 - Val McDermid - 1989
4/52 - Anthony Doerr - Cloud Cuckoo Land
5/52 - Ann Patchett - Commonwealth
6/52 - Peter James - Picture You Dead
7/52 - Donal Ryan - From a Low and Quiet Sea
8/52 - Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
9/52 - Ian McEwan - Lessons
10/52 - Robert Galbraith - The Ink Back Heart
11/52 - Kent Haruf - The Tie That Binds (re-read)
12/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and The Dead
13/52 - Clare Chambers - Small Pleasures
14/52 - Liu Cixin - The Three-Body Problem
15/52 - Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin
16/52 - Delia Owens - Where the Crawdads Sing
17/52 - Paula Hawkins - Into the Water
18/52 - William Boyd - The Romantic
19/52 - Doris Lessing - The Fifth Child
20/52 - Katy Hays - The Cloisters
21/52 - Doris Lessing - The Good Terrorist
22/52 - Stephen King - Dolores Claiborne (re-read)
23/52 - Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
24/52 - Barbara Vine - King Solomon's Carpet
25/52 - Kate Atkinson - Shrines of Gaiety

26/52 - Denise Mina - Rizzio

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Melissa Harrison - All Among The Barley.
2. Armand Marie Leroi - Mutants.
3. Karen Joy Fowler - We are all completely beside ourselves.
4. Jing-Jing Lee - How We Disappeared.
5. Kate Atkinson - Shrines of Gaiety.
6. Anita Shreve - A Wedding in December.
7. Sophie Anderson - The Thief who Sang Storms.
8. Ann Patchett - The Dutch House.
9. My Pen is the Wing of a Bird: New fiction from Afghan women.

10. Sarah Allen - What stars are made of.
11. Sarah Sands - The interior silence.

 

[shifting gears]

1/30 - Russell Hoban - Riddley Walker
2/30 - Philip K. Dick - A Maze of Death
3/30 - William McIlvanney & Ian Rankin - The Dark Remains
4/30 - David Keenan - For the Good Times
5/30 - George Orwell - Animal Farm
6/30 - Michael Smith - The Giro Playboy
7/30 - Cosey Fanni Tutti - Re-Sisters
8/30 - Andrew Holleran - Dancer from the Dance
9/30 - Stanislaw Lem - Solaris
10/30 - Trevor Horn - Adventures in Modern Recording
11/30 - David Keenan - This is Memorial Device (audiobook)
12/30 - Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed

13/30 - Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness

 

[hitmouse]

26/45 Guy Debord - Society of the Spectacle

I had to go back and read quite a lot of this two or three times and I'm still none the wiser. A few OK points, but an awful lot of word salad.

Did you ever read any of the Spectacular Times pamphlets? They'd be my top tip for "situationism but readable".

Anyway:

1/45 - Katherine Angel - Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again (re-read)
2/45 - Martin Lux - Anti-Fascist (re-read)
3/45 - Hannah Kent - Burial Rites
4/45 - Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride (re-read)
5/45 EP Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class
6/45 Henry James - The Princess Casamassima
7/45 Nigel Flanagan - Our Trade Unions: What comes next after the summer of 2022?
8/45 Katy Hays - The Cloisters
9/45 John Darnielle - Devil House
10/45 JoAnn Wypijewski - What We Don't Talk About: Sex and the Mess of Life
11/45 Jen Calleja - Vehicle
12/45 Cedric Robinson - Black Marxism
13/45 John Darnielle - Universal Harvester (re-read)

14/45 Simon Reynolds - Rip It Up and Start Again (re-read)

As always with this kind of big heavy book, I end up still being annoyed by the stuff that's left out (wot no Kleenex? etc), and I still can't see the appeal of Scritti Politti, but there's a lot of great stuff in there, plenty of fun anecdotes and reminders to listen to stuff that I've still never got around to. Next up, probably going to read Anonymous - Appel/Call plus a critique, which might be heavy going but is at least very short.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

13/27 The Tiergarten Tales - Paolo G Grossi

12/27 My Ear to his Heart - Hanif Kureisi
11/27 Voyage in the Dark - Jean Rhys
10/27 God's Children Are Little Broken Things - Arinze Ifeakandu
9/27 Cox's Navy: Salvaging the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow 1924-1931 - Tony Booth
8/27 The Go Between - L. P Hartley
7/27 Sucking Feijoas - Jeffrey Buchanan
6/27 Singin' and Swingin' & Getting Merry like Christmas - Maya Angelou
5/27 The Rings of Saturn - W G Sebald
4/27 Maurice - E M Forster (re-read)
3/27 The Last Word - Hanif Kureishi
2/27 Alec - William di Canzio
1/27 Quichotte - Saman Rushdie

 

[inva]

1/35 Middlemarch by George Eliot
2/35 Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century: Through the Prism of Value by Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts
3/35 The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue
4/35 The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction edited by Michael Emmerich, Jim Hinks & Masashi Matsuie
5/35 Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government: John Locke's Philosophy of Money by George Caffentzis
6/35 Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze
7/35 Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
8/35 Civilizing Money: Hume, his Monetary Project and the Scottish Enlightenment by George Caffentzis
9/35 An Untouched House by Willem Frederik Hermans
10/35 Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata
11/35 Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
12/35 Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
13/35 Exiles from European Revolutions: Refugees in Mid-Victorian England edited by Sabina Freitag
14/35 The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P by Rieko Matsuura
15/35 A Civil War: A History of the Italian Resistance by Claudio Pavone
16/35 Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
17/35 Dracula by Bram Stoker
18/35 The Silent Dead by Tetsuya Honda
19/35 Lady Susan by Jane Austen
20/35 Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century by Giovanni Arrighi
Discovered when I started this it's part 2 following from The Long Twentieth Century which I haven't read, I don't think it was too much of a problem though. A great read this with a really impressive scope and depth looking at things like the origins and development of capitalism, imperialism and hegemony and its relation with cycles of accumulation and financialisation. Even when I wasn't fully onboard with all Arrighi's arguments they were always interesting. It did seem a bit starry eyed about prospects for China, although that's more understandable given when it was published (2007) so with meteoric growth and upsurge of labour unrest, and actually I found reading it now with at least a small amount of hindsight was useful in that respect. Will definitely tackle The Long Twentieth Century at some point.

 

[marty21]

1/59 The Rooster Bar - John Grisham
2/59 The White Album - Joan Didion
3/59 Storm Watch - CJ Box
4/59 Oath of Loyalty - Kyle Mills
5/59 SAS : Rogue Heroes - Ben Macintyre
6/59 The Odin Mission - James Holland
7/59 Darkest Hour - James Holland
8/59 Blood of Honour - James Holland
9/59 Hellfire - James Holland
10/59 English Journey - J.B. Priestley

 

[furluxor]

1/19 - Šaltienos Bistro by Ieva Dumbrytė
2/19 - The Principles of Equity & Trusts by Graham Virgo
3/19 - The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International by McKenzie Wark
4/19 - If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio
5/19 - Tales From The Thousand And One Nights (ed. by E.V. Rieu, R. Baldick, C.A. Jones & B. Radice)

Good: there's still plenty of magic in it, and I'll say the part where a woman walks out of a wall and talks to fish in the frying pan
Bad: gender awareness is 0/10 and most protagonists are blasted idiots
Verdict: I adored this as a kid but the shine has well and truly worn off; R.I.P.

6/19 - The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by K J Charles (audiobook)

Good: hawt; also, the period writing and language are skillful, it does feel immersive
Bad: well, it's basically porn/romance, and a lot of overlap with the author's other books
Verdict: I am not proud exactly but I would do it again

7/19 - The Sugared Game by K J Charles (audiobook)

Good: more interesting than the other one as it's a spy thriller with a hefty amount of violence, and the interwar setting is cool/well done
Bad: it's still porn/romance and I have exactly one friend I can discuss this with
Verdict: I did it again

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

1. Beyond the burn line - Paul McAuley
2. Project hail Mary - Andy Weir
2.1 Randomize - Andy Weir
3. Artemis - Andy Weir
4.The Greek World - Robert Garland (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
5. I Robot - Isaac Asimov
6. The mystery of the blue train (Poirot 6)- Agatha Christie
7. Food: A cultural culinary history - Ken Alaba (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
8. Black Coffee (Poirot 7)-Agatha Christie
9. Ancient Civilisations of North America - Edwin Barnheart (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
10. Ancient Mesopotamia - Professor Amanda H Podany (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
11. Luka and the fire of life - Salman Rushdie
12. Life on Earth - David Attenborough (audio book)
13. the long way to a small angry planet - Becky Chambers (reread)
14. A closed and common orbit - Becky Chambers (reread)
15. All systems red (Murderbot 1) - Martha Wells (reread)
16. Artificial condition (Murderbot 2) - Martha Wells (reread)
17. Rouge protocol (Murderbot 3) - Martha Wells (reread)
18. The Iliad of Homer - Elizabeth Vandiver (The Great Courses) audio book lectures (Relisten)

19. Jack Four - Neal Asher (Polity)

Kinda fun sci-fi set in the polity universe which is basically the Ian Banks Culture universe but human and kinda grim.

This one is a one man against the world Secret agent type story. It kinda feels like a greatest hits album of things from his previous polity books. Sadly missing the ship minds or the more bizarre stuff of some of his other novels.

I'll keep reading this sub series but I do hope it has more of that other stuff in later instalments.

 

[hitmouse]

1/45 - Katherine Angel - Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again (re-read)
2/45 - Martin Lux - Anti-Fascist (re-read)
3/45 - Hannah Kent - Burial Rites
4/45 - Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride (re-read)
5/45 EP Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class
6/45 Henry James - The Princess Casamassima
7/45 Nigel Flanagan - Our Trade Unions: What comes next after the summer of 2022?
8/45 Katy Hays - The Cloisters
9/45 John Darnielle - Devil House
10/45 JoAnn Wypijewski - What We Don't Talk About: Sex and the Mess of Life
11/45 Jen Calleja - Vehicle
12/45 Cedric Robinson - Black Marxism
13/45 John Darnielle - Universal Harvester (re-read)
14/45 Simon Reynolds - Rip It Up and Start Again (re-read)

15/45 Anonymous - Appel/Call plus a critique

I like the idea of publishing a book that also a includes a critique of the main text, it's a good way of ensuring that even readers who hate most of it should still get something out of it. Unfortunately I thought the anonymous author of the critique was more annoying than the anonymous authors of Appel, but they did score some direct hits at times.
I didn't realise quite how old it was (2003, 20 years old this year), and it was interesting to see perhaps the first statement of various themes that would crop up in various places over the communisation/insurrectionist scene over the past two decades. Also depressing to think how much things have got worse in various ways since 2003. Not sure how much I practically took from it, but a few lovely turns of phrase there. Now starting Emily St. John Mandel - Sea of Tranquility. I enjoy how the first page introduces a character with the middle name St. John.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

1. Beyond the burn line - Paul McAuley
2. Project hail Mary - Andy Weir
2.1 Randomize - Andy Weir
3. Artemis - Andy Weir
4.The Greek World - Robert Garland (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
5. I Robot - Isaac Asimov
6. The mystery of the blue train (Poirot 6)- Agatha Christie
7. Food: A cultural culinary history - Ken Alaba (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
8. Black Coffee (Poirot 7)-Agatha Christie
9. Ancient Civilisations of North America - Edwin Barnheart (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
10. Ancient Mesopotamia - Professor Amanda H Podany (The Great Courses) audio book lectures
11. Luka and the fire of life - Salman Rushdie
12. Life on Earth - David Attenborough (audio book)
13. the long way to a small angry planet - Becky Chambers (reread)
14. A closed and common orbit - Becky Chambers (reread)
15. All systems red (Murderbot 1) - Martha Wells (reread)
16. Artificial condition (Murderbot 2) - Martha Wells (reread)
17. Rouge protocol (Murderbot 3) - Martha Wells (reread)
18. The Iliad of Homer - Elizabeth Vandiver (The Great Courses) audio book lectures (Relisten)
19. Jack Four - Neal Asher (Polity)

20. The Odyssey of Homer - Elizabeth Vandiver (The Great Courses) audio book lectures

This was good. Not heard it before. Frames the story as an exploration of the guest/host relationship

Wondering if I should hit up the lecture of the spinoff

 

[marty21]

1/59 The Rooster Bar - John Grisham
2/59 The White Album - Joan Didion
3/59 Storm Watch - CJ Box
4/59 Oath of Loyalty - Kyle Mills
5/59 SAS : Rogue Heroes - Ben Macintyre
6/59 The Odin Mission - James Holland
7/59 Darkest Hour - James Holland
8/59 Blood of Honour - James Holland
9/59 Hellfire - James Holland
10/59 English Journey - J.B. Priestley
11/59 Outbreak - Frank Gardner

 

[inva]

1/35 Middlemarch by George Eliot
2/35 Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century: Through the Prism of Value by Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts
3/35 The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue
4/35 The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction edited by Michael Emmerich, Jim Hinks & Masashi Matsuie
5/35 Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government: John Locke's Philosophy of Money by George Caffentzis
6/35 Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze
7/35 Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
8/35 Civilizing Money: Hume, his Monetary Project and the Scottish Enlightenment by George Caffentzis
9/35 An Untouched House by Willem Frederik Hermans
10/35 Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata
11/35 Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
12/35 Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
13/35 Exiles from European Revolutions: Refugees in Mid-Victorian England edited by Sabina Freitag
14/35 The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P by Rieko Matsuura
15/35 A Civil War: A History of the Italian Resistance by Claudio Pavone
16/35 Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
17/35 Dracula by Bram Stoker
18/35 The Silent Dead by Tetsuya Honda
19/35 Lady Susan by Jane Austen
20/35 Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century by Giovanni Arrighi
21/35 This Should be Written in the Present Tense by Helle Helle
One of those novels about someone in their early twenties who does various things aimlessly is vaguely unhappy and nothing much happens. Sometimes these kind of novels are good and sometimes bad and it's often hard to say what the difference is. Anyway this is one I liked.

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Ruth Rendell - Tigerlilly's Orchids (re-read)
2/52 - Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
3/52 - Val McDermid - 1989
4/52 - Anthony Doerr - Cloud Cuckoo Land
5/52 - Ann Patchett - Commonwealth
6/52 - Peter James - Picture You Dead
7/52 - Donal Ryan - From a Low and Quiet Sea
8/52 - Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
9/52 - Ian McEwan - Lessons
10/52 - Robert Galbraith - The Ink Back Heart
11/52 - Kent Haruf - The Tie That Binds (re-read)
12/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and The Dead
13/52 - Clare Chambers - Small Pleasures
14/52 - Liu Cixin - The Three-Body Problem
15/52 - Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin
16/52 - Delia Owens - Where the Crawdads Sing
17/52 - Paula Hawkins - Into the Water
18/52 - William Boyd - The Romantic
19/52 - Doris Lessing - The Fifth Child
20/52 - Katy Hays - The Cloisters
21/52 - Doris Lessing - The Good Terrorist
22/52 - Stephen King - Dolores Claiborne (re-read)
23/52 - Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
24/52 - Barbara Vine - King Solomon's Carpet
25/52 - Kate Atkinson - Shrines of Gaiety
26/52 - Denise Mina - Rizzio

27/52 - Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1. 'The Death of Mrs. Westaway" - Ruth Ware
2. "The Paris Apartment" - Lucy Foley
3. "Force of Nature" - Jane Harper
4. "Eight Ghosts: The English Herirage Book of New Ghost Stories"
5. "The Decagon House Murders" - Yukito Ayatsuji.
6. "The Four Legendary Kingdoms" - Matthew Reilly
7. "Girl A" - Abigail Dean
8. "What Lies Between Us" - John Marrs
9 "The Three Secret Cities" - Matthew Reilly
10. "Quantam Radio" - A.J. Riddle
11. "All That Lives" - James Oswald
12. "A Heart Full of Headstones" - Ian Rankin
13. "Keep It In The Family" - John Marrs
14. "The Last Passenger" - Will Dean
15. "Dark Matter" - Blake Crouch

16. "The Perfect Wife" - J.P. Delaney. Techno thriller. Good concept but a bit slow and not as good as the initial idea

 

[colbhoy]

1/9 - The Outsider, A History of the Goalkeeper by Jonathan Wilson
2/9 - In the Middle of Middle America by David B Lyons
3/9 - The Promise by Robert Crais
4/9 - Down River by John Hart
5/9 - A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tay
6/9 - Uniquely Celtic, the Soul and the Spirit by Frank Rafters

 

[imposs1904]

1/36 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos
2/36 Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook
3/36 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (ReRead)
4/36 The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
5/36 The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble
6/36 No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon
7/36 My Rock 'n' Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn
8/36 The Man Who Came Uptown by George P. Pelecanos
9/36 Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake
10/36 The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
11/36 Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake
12/36 Quick Change by Jay Cronley
13/36 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie
14/36 Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton by John Lahr
15/36 Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle
16/36 Fletch by Gregory McDonald
17/36 Fletch Won by Gregory McDonald
18/36 120, rue de la Gare by Léo Malet
19/36 Bellies and Bullseyes: The Outrageous True Story of Darts by Sid Waddell (ReRead)
20/36 Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz
21/36 For the Love of Willie by Agnes Owens
22/36 Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa (Reread)
23/36 Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
24/36 Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party by Michael Cragg
25/36 Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
26/36 Maigret Sets a Trap by Georges Simenon
27/36 One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters
28/36 Can't Stand Up For Falling Down: Rock'n'Roll War Stories by Allan Jones
29/36 A Prefect's Uncle by P. G. Wodehouse
30/36 Raymond Carver : an oral biography by Sam Halpert
31/36 Never Stop: How Ange Postecoglou Brought the Fire Back to Celtic by Hamish Carton
32/36 Psychocandy by Paula Mejia
33/36 Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver

34/36 Unhappy-Go-Lucky by Ian Pattison

 

[Winot]

1/29 The London Problem - Jack Brown
2/29 Ephemeron - Fiona Benson
3/29 NW - Zadie Smith
4/29 Spring - Ali Smith
5/29 A History of the Bible - John Barton
6/29 Falconer - John Cheever
7/29 Diary of an MP’s Wife - Sasha Swire
8/29 Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban (reread)
9/29 Purity and Danger - Mary Douglas
10/29 Einstein’s Monsters - Martin Amis

11/29 Greenvoe - George Mackay Brown

Read this to accompany a holiday to Orkney. It’s GMB’s first novel after he achieved success for his poetry and has been described as a ‘prose poem’. Quite well-written but not really my thing.

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Ruth Rendell - Tigerlilly's Orchids (re-read)
2/52 - Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
3/52 - Val McDermid - 1989
4/52 - Anthony Doerr - Cloud Cuckoo Land
5/52 - Ann Patchett - Commonwealth
6/52 - Peter James - Picture You Dead
7/52 - Donal Ryan - From a Low and Quiet Sea
8/52 - Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
9/52 - Ian McEwan - Lessons
10/52 - Robert Galbraith - The Ink Back Heart
11/52 - Kent Haruf - The Tie That Binds (re-read)
12/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and The Dead
13/52 - Clare Chambers - Small Pleasures
14/52 - Liu Cixin - The Three-Body Problem
15/52 - Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin
16/52 - Delia Owens - Where the Crawdads Sing
17/52 - Paula Hawkins - Into the Water
18/52 - William Boyd - The Romantic
19/52 - Doris Lessing - The Fifth Child
20/52 - Katy Hays - The Cloisters
21/52 - Doris Lessing - The Good Terrorist
22/52 - Stephen King - Dolores Claiborne (re-read)
23/52 - Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
24/52 - Barbara Vine - King Solomon's Carpet
25/52 - Kate Atkinson - Shrines of Gaiety
26/52 - Denise Mina - Rizzio
27/52 - Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin

28/52 - Elly Griffiths - The House at Sea's End
29/52 - Stephen King - Nightmares and Dreamscapes

 

[belboid]

1 - Noviolet Bulawayo - Glory
2 - Alan Garner - Treacle Walker
3 - Joe Thomas - White Riot (Book 1 of the United Kingdom trilogy)
4 - Robert Edric - My Own Worst Enemy
5 - Cynthia Cruz - The Melancholia of Class: A Manifesto for the Working Class
6 - David Graeber & David Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
7 - Joe Thomas - Bent
8 - Harry Harrison - Dreaming in Yellow the story of the DiY sound system
9 - Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policeman's Union
10 - Bob Dylan - The Philosophy of Modern Song

After the promising start to the year, I then got stuck on Alan Moore's book of short stories. Six weeks just rereading the first few pages over and over. I've put it aside now.

11 - Gary Younge - Who Are We? How identity politics took over the world.

Excellent study of the contradictions of 'IP', its strengths and weaknesses. The perfect definition of 'Identity Politics' too - "identity politics means whatever you want it to, as long as you're against it."

12 Susanna Clarke - Piranesi

An unnamed man 'trapped' in a house/maze who may or may not want to get out. Highly entertaining, it appears what is going on is fairly straightforward, but then......and fifty pages later another and then.....


13 Virginia Woolf - A Rooms of One's Own

An obvious and deserved class. 500 a year would be 26k inflation adjusted, or about 75k if we are going on average wage rise. ie, its a fair bit of money.

14 - Iain Reid - We Spread

I think there is a character from Reid's I'm Thinking of Ending it All involved. If he isn't from there, I don't what he is actually doing in the book. Either way, a powerful read that quickly draws you in and engrosses. When you finally work out what is (possibly/probably) going on, it is rather depressing. Tho maybe it shouldn't be.



So I have till Sunday to read book 15, hmmm, maybe I'll put off that slightly heavy one till afterwards.

 

[imposs1904]

1/36 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos
2/36 Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook
3/36 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (ReRead)
4/36 The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
5/36 The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble
6/36 No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon
7/36 My Rock 'n' Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn
8/36 The Man Who Came Uptown by George P. Pelecanos
9/36 Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake
10/36 The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
11/36 Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake
12/36 Quick Change by Jay Cronley
13/36 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie
14/36 Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton by John Lahr
15/36 Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle
16/36 Fletch by Gregory McDonald
17/36 Fletch Won by Gregory McDonald
18/36 120, rue de la Gare by Léo Malet
19/36 Bellies and Bullseyes: The Outrageous True Story of Darts by Sid Waddell (ReRead)
20/36 Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz
21/36 For the Love of Willie by Agnes Owens
22/36 Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa (Reread)
23/36 Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
24/36 Reach for the Stars: 1996–2006: Fame, Fallout and Pop’s Final Party by Michael Cragg
25/36 Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
26/36 Maigret Sets a Trap by Georges Simenon
27/36 One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters
28/36 Can't Stand Up For Falling Down: Rock'n'Roll War Stories by Allan Jones
29/36 A Prefect's Uncle by P. G. Wodehouse
30/36 Raymond Carver : an oral biography by Sam Halpert
31/36 Never Stop: How Ange Postecoglou Brought the Fire Back to Celtic by Hamish Carton
32/36 Psychocandy by Paula Mejia
33/36 Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver
34/36 Unhappy-Go-Lucky by Ian Pattison

35/36 The Shoe by Gordon Legge (Reread)