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the strictly come reading 2023 reading challenge thread

i expect to read this many books in 2023

  • Total voters
    48
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

39/52 - Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
 
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)

36/36 The Storytellers One by Roger Mansfield

The wonders of archive.org strikes again. Stumbled across this 1971 collection of short stories whilst looking for a particular Alan Sillitoe short story. Compiled by Roger Mansfield - and obviously intended as a school text - it includes short stories by, amongst others, Doris Lessing, Ray Bradbury, John Steinbeck, Alan Sillitoe and Jack London.

Recommended.
 
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
12/59 Desert Star - Michael Connelly
 
14/27 Jane Ayre - Charlotte Bronte

I enjoyed that. I can now look forward to the Wide Sargasso Sea

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
 
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
11 - Gary Younge - Who Are We? How identity politics took over the world.
12 Susanna Clarke - Piranesi
13 Virginia Woolf - A Rooms of One's Own
14 - Iain Reid - We Spread


15 - Pat Nevin - Football and How to Survive It

Comrade Pat does another fine job of the describing the high and lows of a footballing career, this time starting with his time at the Mecca of football - Prenton Park.

For us Tranmere supporters, this was the time we came oh so fucking close, when we were exciting and a joy to watch. Thankfully, he only spends nine words on those final five games :(

A good read for any Motherwell fan too, or just anyone interested in how fucked the modern game is.
 
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

26/45 Andy Beckett - When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies
 
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

16/45 Emily St. John Mandel - Sea of Tranquility

Sci-fi time travel stuff, quite likeable. Now starting DD Johnston - Disnaeland, which is great. A bit of a thematic link to Sea of Tranquility in that they're both pandemic-informed novels. Going through the apocalypse in a Scottish town, think it's meant to be quite uplifting overall but there's certainly plenty of bleakness in it. Some of the literary jokes raise a wry smile, there's a chippy called Lord of the Fries and I enjoyed the line, in the middle of recounting someone's grim life story, about how in 1994 she shacked up with a weegie called Sammy until he went blind after a doing off the polis. (Also fits nicely with the post above, in that it's very literally a book about when the lights go out.)
 
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
30/52 - Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five

31/52 - Clare Chambers - Learning to Swim
 
Shippou-Sensei said:
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
Click to expand...
Was back on the manga for a while but...

21. Witch King - Martha Wells

As I liked Murderbot so much I decided to give her fantasyvstuff a go. I tried 'Element of fire' a while back but was distracted by other stuff I had on the go.

This one has a rough start as you are thrown right into things and it can take a while for you to work out what us going on.
Particularly this is the case as the time line bounces back and forth. One time line is set about 100 years before the other. It tells the story of our main characters past and the expansion of a destructive empire. The main present day story line is set in the fractured but rebuilding world left after the empire was destroyed.

The world has a number of different factions and magic systems so it can be a lot to take in to start but once you get to know the main character a bit better it is an engaging read to find out more about what has happened to the world and what kind of journey this character has been on.

This appears to be a stand alone novel but the world is certainly rich enough to support more stories.

In all not as immediately engaging as the Murderbot series but I'm now very glad I have Element of fire sitting on my kindle as I'm going to re start that soon.
 
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)
36/36 The Storytellers One by Roger Mansfield

37/36 Norwood by Charles Portis
 
Shippou-Sensei said:
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
21. Witch King - Martha Wells
Click to expand...
22. Ancient writing and the history of the alphabet - John McWhorter (The Great Courses) audio book lectures

This was OK. I've listened to some of his other stuff and preferred it for being g a bit more specific to a core subject. This runs through the history of sets of letters so hit similar topics and while it does go into some detail about all of it I think I might have preferred hearing about each of the ages rather than the slightly repeated story for each letter.
 
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
26/45 Andy Beckett - When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies

27/45 J G Ballard - High-Rise
 
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
22/35 The Citadel of Weeping Pearls by Aliette de Bodard
Not brilliant but better than the last one of hers I read. Pulpy sci-fi.
23/35 The Invention of Art: A Cultural History by Larry Shiner
Really excellent account of the history of the split of art from craft and artist from artisan.
24/35 Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder
Immensely silly pandemic inspired horror. Think it's meant to be Lovecraftian but I've never read any Lovecraft. By about halfway through I thought it was terrible, as it's short I stuck with it and I ended up thinking it wasn't quite that bad, did remind me of fanfiction though.
 
9/29 Midnight Notes Collective - Auroras of Zapatistas: Local and Global Struggles of the Fourth World War.

I was jealous that chilango found a cheap second hand copy of this when we were at the Radical Bookfair in London some year ago and finally got my own. Of its time (2001) but still interesting. A bit of a grab bag of topics that are often inspired by or adjacent to the Zapatistas themselves. George Caffentzis' overview of American class struggle from the 1970s to 2000 was written for a Mexican audience but is a pretty great intro to Midnight Notes' take on these things.
 
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
12/59 Desert Star - Michael Connelly
13/59 On The Run - Kerry J Donovan
 
Fozzie Bear said:
9/29 Midnight Notes Collective - Auroras of Zapatistas: Local and Global Struggles of the Fourth World War.

I was jealous that chilango found a cheap second hand copy of this when we were at the Radical Bookfair in London some year ago and finally got my own. Of its time (2001) but still interesting. A bit of a grab bag of topics that are often inspired by or adjacent to the Zapatistas themselves. George Caffentzis' overview of American class struggle from the 1970s to 2000 was written for a Mexican audience but is a pretty great intro to Midnight Notes' take on these things.
Click to expand...
'tis a cracking book. Though (imo) doesn't nail it quite so definitively as "Midnight Oil" did
 
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
26/45 Andy Beckett - When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies
27/45 J G Ballard - High-Rise

28/45 Randall Munroe (xkcd comics) - What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
As recommended by my teenage daughter. I enjoyed this a lot.

29/45 Antoine de Saint-Exupery - The Little Prince
Surprisingly melancholic. I also enjoyed this.
 
Last edited:
10/29 Nick Soulsby - Everything Keeps Dissolving: Conversations With Coil

Lavish compilation of interviews with this eccentric electronic music group. One for the fans, obviously. It includes one I did with them in 1991. Their interviews were always a blast when you’d find them in the music press - black humour and erudite observations on the occult, gay sexuality, drugs, surrealism and a lot more. This blast is a bit dulled when you read them sequentially (as opposed to reading them next to an interview with another artist in the same magazine) so it’s good to dip into gradually. There’s a touching evolution away from the younger intensity in the early interviews that verges on nihilism. The later interviews are less didactic and very honest about John Balance’s struggles with various challenges including alcoholism. The move from Mars to Moon music, as they put it. Both of the mainstays of Coil are now dead and this is as fitting a tribute as any - their primary legacy being the incredible other worldly back catalogue of course.
 
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
30/52 - Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
31/52 - Clare Chambers - Learning to Swim

32/52 - Cormac McCarthy - All The Pretty Horses
 
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
16/45 Emily St. John Mandel - Sea of Tranquility

17/45 DD Johnston - Disnaeland

Definitely recommended, one of the best "political" novels I've read in a while. Worth a read if hopeful Scots apocalyptic fiction sounds like it might be something you like. Think I'm going to start reading WEB DuBois - Darkwater next. Which I suppose I can claim a thematic link in that they're both books by authors with initials for names?
 
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

27/45 Anne Fine - Diary of a Killer Cat

Only a 20 minute kids read, but hey, it's a book and a real fun one as well. #Team Tuffy
 
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nogojones said:
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

27/45 Anne Fine - Diary of a Killer Cat

Only a 20 minute kids read, but hey, it's a book and a real fun one as well. #Team Tuffy
Click to expand...
I've read it, it's a fine book.
 
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

17. "Cold People" - Tom Rob Smith. A kind of SciFi eco thriller which was just a bit if mish-mash that didn't seem to know where it was going really.
 
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
27/45 Anne Fine - Diary of a Killer Cat

28/45 Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace
29/45 A. M. Gittlitz - I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism

I picked this up for shit and giggles, but it turns out to be a really good history of Posadism, that places it in its historical and social context. Follows Posadas from a militant union organiser to cult leader and follows on with some of his legacies.
 
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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
24/15 - The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin
 
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
27/45 Anne Fine - Diary of a Killer Cat
28/45 Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace
29/45 A. M. Gittlitz - I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism

30/45 Sheila Rowbotham & Jeffrey Weeks - Socialism and the New Life: The Personal and Sexual Politics of Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis

Political biographies of two 19c sexual reformers. Not particularly enthralling.
 
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
26/45 Andy Beckett - When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies
27/45 J G Ballard - High-Rise
28/45 Randall Munroe (xkcd comics) - What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
29/45 Antoine de Saint-Exupery - The Little Prince

30/45 H C McNeile ("Sapper") - Bulldog Drummond
Definitely of its time (1920) but hugely enjoyable
 
I am well behind. Only on 16 at half way through the year when target is 50. This is entirely down to George RR Martin writing 800 + page books.
I've paused the boring one I'm on now, mainly because I want to get my challenge in.

There will probably quite a few free/ 99p no consequence books coming up on my list soon.
 
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