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the strictly come reading 2023 reading challenge thread

i expect to read this many books in 2023

  • Total voters
    48
1/30 - 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
14/30 - William Gibson - Neuromancer
15/30 - John Steinbeck - The Moon is Down
16/30 - James Joyce - Dubliners
17/30 - Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
18/30 - Michael Moorcock - Behold the Man

19/30 - Kurt Vonnegut - Timequake
 
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
25/15 - The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak
26/15 - Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
27/15 - Soul Tourists - Bernadine Evaristo
28/15 - Foster - Claire Keegan
29/15 - Buried - Alice Roberts
30/15 - Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
31/15 - The Dance Tree - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
 
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

16 - Peter Frankopan - The Silk Roads: a New History of the World

I thought it would be rather more about the actual Silk Road than a general history of the region (the subtitle should have given me the hint), but still a well written reorientation of world history. I'd largely agree with Cid in this post.

17 - Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

I needed something lighter after that. As soon as I started it I remembered all the key details (it seemed quite a short time to me) but none of the rest of it. A magnificent tale, I can't believe there isn't a proper film of it.

18 - Hamid Ismailov - The Devil's Dance

The first novel to be translated directly from Uzbek. to English. A parable about the oppressive Karimov regime, recreating the last days of Uzbekistan's greatest 20th century novelist. Who was himself writing a parable about the Stalinist purges of 1936 under the guise of a novel about the Khanates of eighteenth century Uzbek lands.

The novel within the novel is engrossing (a notable portion of it is covered in the Frankopan book too), whilst the Stalinism is all too believable and depressing. Until it gets kinda unbelievable and wtf? But in a way that makes sense. It's a good introduction to Uzbek literary history too, which is groovy if you are about to go to Uzbekistan, which I am. I now have to delete it off my Kindle tho, because Isamilov is banned there.

60% done after 72% of the year. Bit of catching up to do.
 
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
38/36 Born to struggle by May Hobbs
39/36 Brian Eno’s Another Green World by Geeta Dayal
40/36 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Reread)

41/36 To Die in June by Alan Parks
 
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
33/52 - Candice Carty-Williams - People Person
34/52 - Donal Ryan - The Queen of Dirt Island
35/52 - Ann Patchett - Bel Canto
36/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Heron's Cry
37/52 - Claire Keegan - Foster
38/52 - Ruth Rendell - The Fever Tree and other stories
39/52 - Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
40/52 - Clare Chambers - A Dry Spell
41/52 - Dennis Lehane - Small Mercies

42/52 - Sarah Waters - The Paying Guests
 
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
14/59 Righteous Prey - John Sandford
15/59 Extreme Prey - John Sandford
16/59 Field of Prey - John Sandford
17/59 Invisible Prey- John Sandford
18/59 The Devil's Pact - James Holland
19/59 Slow Horses - Mich Herron
20/60 Nicholas Nickelby - Charles Dickens
21/60 Get Carter - Ted Lewis
 
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
23/35 The Invention of Art: A Cultural History by Larry Shiner
24/35 Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder
25/35 The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
26/35 Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo
27/35 Carol by Patricia Highsmith
28/35 Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question edited by Nicola Diane Thompson
29/35 Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural & Political by James Kelman
30/35 Mem by Bethany C. Morrow
31/35 Russia Under Yeltsin and Putin by Boris Kagarlitsky
32/35 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
33/35 The History of the British Film 1918-1929 by Rachael Low
34/35 The Law of Accumulation and Breakdown of the Capitalist System by Henryk Grossman
Maybe this suffered too much from being an abridged version and it also didn't help the print quality on my copy was so bad it was almost unreadable in a few places, anyway I thought this was very unconvincing. Basically he takes Otto Bauer's version of Marx's reproduction tables with a few adjustments and uses them to prove that capitalism is destined for a terminal collapse (counter-tendencies permitting) with support via a dubious reading of Marx. I did find his discussion of other theorists interesting which makes up about 75% of the book so it's not all bad but the core argument is extremely flimsy. Sort of by coincidence after I read this I looked up Andrew Kliman to see if he's had any books published lately and pretty much the first thing I saw was a very critical piece he wrote on Grossman's breakdown theory, obviously much more intelligent criticism than I'm capable of and argues, successfully I think, that it's fatally flawed.
 
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
31/45 Ann Leckie - Provenance
32/45 Vicky Osterweil - In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action
33/45 Joan Didion - Let Me Tell You What I Mean
34/45 Rachel Ingalls - Mrs Caliban
35/45 Voltaire - Selected works of [Thinkers Library -1935]
36/45 Catherine Nixey - The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
37/45 John Fante - Ask the Dust
38/45 K.J. Parker - Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

39/45 Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States
 
hc - hard copy
dl - dens library
k - kindle
g - google

1/50 Saturday, Ian McEwan - hc
2/50 East of Eden, John Steinbeck - dl
3/50 Sweet Sorrow, David Nicholls - k
4/50 Game of Thrones, George RR Martin - k
5/50 The Black Kids, Christina Hammonds Reed - k
6/50 A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin - g
7/50 My Wife's Secrets, Wendy Owens - k
8/50 Wahala, Nikki May - k
9/50 A Storm of Swords part 1, George RR Martin - k
10/50 Girl in Trouble, Stacey Claflin - k
11/50 Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
12/50 A Storm of Swords part 2, George RR Martin - k
13/50 This Book Belongs To, Nick Levy - k
14/50 Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney - dl
15/50 Valentine, Elizabeth Wetmore - dl
16/50 Alone, Robert J Crane - k
17/50 To Speak for the , Paul Levine - k
18/50 Good Girl Bad, S A McEwan- k
19/50 In Every Mirror She's Black, Lola Alinmade Akerstrom - k
20/50 What Happens in New York, Kristin Adams - k
21/50 Other Parents, Sarah Stovell - k
22/50 Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin - dl
23/50 Throne of Deceit, Richard Fierce and pdmac - k
24/50 Under the Dome, Stephen King - hc
25/50 The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates - dl
26/50 Holly, Stephen King - g

27/50 The Truth About Her, Annie Taylor - k
This is written by the sister of a person I work with. Its the kind of thrillerI would read anyways and it's bad.
 
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
18/45 Milan Kundera - Laughable Loves (re-read)
19/45 WEB DuBois - Darkwater
20/45 George Saunders - Liberation Day
21/45 Sheila Rowbotham - Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties
22/45 Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller - Bad Gays: A Homosexual History
23/45 Ralph Edney - The Adventures of Lazarus Lamb
24/45 Ralph Edney - Lazarus Lamb and the Riddle of the Sphincter
25/45 Anonymous - Total Liberation
26/45 adrienne maree brown - We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice
27/45 David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero
28/45 Jamie Stewart - Anything That Moves
29/45 Pear Nuallak - Pearls From Their Mouth
30/45 Emma Warren - Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through The Dancefloor
31/45 Katherine Angel - Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell
32/45 Hao Ren, Zhongjin Li, and Eli Friedman (eds) - China on Strike
33/45 Kai Cheng Thom - I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World

34/45 Richard Fariña - Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me

This one really did not age well. I was quite keen on the idea of it in advance, cos a neglected mid-twentieth century classic seems like the sort of thing I'd be very into, but some things are probably better forgotten. There's a really nasty strain of Beat misogyny that runs through the book, I don't want to do the sort of tedious literalist reading that would condemn Nabokov for being a paedo and so on, but I did get the impression that Fariña expected the reader to like his shitty misogynist protagonist and think he was cool. The book having an anti-sex antagonist called Susan B Pankhurst also makes it feel less like the lazy unreflective sexism of someone who's not put a lot of thought into it and more like the deliberate, conscious sexism of someone who has put a fair bit of effort in.
Not totally without good points - there's a wired energy to it that makes it a good page-turning read, and the bit where the protagonist suffers from chronic constipation and then has a massive shit as soon as he falls in love is quite fun - but I really couldn't recommend this one in good faith. I suppose you could call it thought-provoking, in that it made me think about sexism and literature a bit?
At some points I thought "I can imagine really loving this book if I read it when I was about 14", but by the end I reckon that even as a 14-year-old I would probably have found it quite objectionable.
Also, my edition features one of the funniest cases I've ever seen of "blurb written by someone who has absolutely not read the book", the back cover describes it as "the classic novel of the 1960s" and claims that Fariña captures the 60s as well as Fitzgerald did the 20s. If you were to try and learn about the 1960s by reading "the classic novel of the 1960s", you'd come away thinking that they were a decade when no-one talked about Vietnam but they were very interested in the possibility that that Batista regime in Cuba might be overthrown in the near future, and also said things like "It's 1958, not 1922".

Now starting Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford - Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South. Forgotten uprisings and revolts told from a viewpoint influenced by insurrectionary anarchism, autonomist Marxism and Walter Benjamin. Will hopefully leave a bit less of a bad taste in my mouth.
 
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
23/35 The Invention of Art: A Cultural History by Larry Shiner
24/35 Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder
25/35 The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
26/35 Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo
27/35 Carol by Patricia Highsmith
28/35 Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question edited by Nicola Diane Thompson
29/35 Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural & Political by James Kelman
30/35 Mem by Bethany C. Morrow
31/35 Russia Under Yeltsin and Putin by Boris Kagarlitsky
32/35 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
33/35 The History of the British Film 1918-1929 by Rachael Low
34/35 The Law of Accumulation and Breakdown of the Capitalist System by Henryk Grossman
35/35 Mayhem & Death by Helen McClory
Collection of short stories, the first and last of them were good while the ones in between didn't really work so well. The two most successful stories were less focused on a vague uncanniness and more grounded in interaction and emotion and worked much better as a result, especially the first. In general I quite liked it even where it didn't click and McClory is good at descriptive writing which I always appreciate.
And with that I've hit my target! Really underestimated despite raising it from last year.
 
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
25/15 - The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak
26/15 - Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
27/15 - Soul Tourists - Bernadine Evaristo
28/15 - Foster - Claire Keegan
29/15 - Buried - Alice Roberts
30/15 - Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
31/15 - The Dance Tree - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
32/15 - Critical - Matt Morgan
 
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
25/15 - The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak
26/15 - Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
27/15 - Soul Tourists - Bernadine Evaristo
28/15 - Foster - Claire Keegan
29/15 - Buried - Alice Roberts
30/15 - Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
31/15 - The Dance Tree - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
32/15 - Critical - Matt Morgan
33/15 - Space Dogs - Martin Parr
 
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
31/45 Miki Berenyi - Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success
32/45 Karen Lloyd - The Gathering Tide: a Journey Around the Edgelands of Morecambe Bay
33/45 Malcolm Bradbury - The History Man
34/45 Alex Garland - The Beach
35/45 Sarah Tolmie - All the Horses of Iceland
36/45 J G Ballard - The Drowned World
37/45 Terry Pratchett - Feet of Clay
38/45 Larry McMurtry - Sin Killer
39/45 Ariel Anderssen - Playing to Lose: How A Jehovah's Witness Became a Submissive BDSM Model
40/45 Terry Pratchett - Maskerade

41/45 J B Priestley - An Inspector Calls
 
Last edited:
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
14/30 - William Gibson - Neuromancer
15/30 - John Steinbeck - The Moon is Down
16/30 - James Joyce - Dubliners
17/30 - Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
18/30 - Michael Moorcock - Behold the Man
19/30 - Kurt Vonnegut - Timequake

20/30 - Louise Kennedy - Trespasses
 
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
31/45 Miki Berenyi - Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success
32/45 Karen Lloyd - The Gathering Tide: a Journey Around the Edgelands of Morecambe Bay
33/45 Malcolm Bradbury - The History Man
34/45 Alex Garland - The Beach
35/45 Sarah Tolmie - All the Horses of Iceland
36/45 J G Ballard - The Drowned World
37/45 Terry Pratchett - Feet of Clay
38/45 Larry McMurtry - Sin Killer
39/45 Ariel Anderssen - Playing to Lose: How A Jehovah's Witness Became a Submissive BDSM Model
40/45 Terry Pratchett - Maskerade
41/45 J B Priestley - An Inspector Calls

42/45 Frances Hodgson Burnett - A Little Princess
 
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
23/35 The Invention of Art: A Cultural History by Larry Shiner
24/35 Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder
25/35 The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
26/35 Ninety-Three by Victor Hugo
27/35 Carol by Patricia Highsmith
28/35 Victorian Women Writers and the Woman Question edited by Nicola Diane Thompson
29/35 Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural & Political by James Kelman
30/35 Mem by Bethany C. Morrow
31/35 Russia Under Yeltsin and Putin by Boris Kagarlitsky
32/35 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
33/35 The History of the British Film 1918-1929 by Rachael Low
34/35 The Law of Accumulation and Breakdown of the Capitalist System by Henryk Grossman
35/35 Mayhem & Death by Helen McClory
36/35 White by Marie Darrieussecq
I've been ill all last week and couldn't do much except watch telly and read so I got through a lot! Maybe it's the fever talking but I liked them all. I think this is the kind of novel you'd call lyrical, very atmospheric and dreamlike. I thought it was setting up to be more about sexism than it turned out to be, I think I was influenced by an article I read probably linked on here about the (predictable, depressing) experience of women on these antarctic bases. Anyway, what Darrieussecq does do is very effectively capture the feeling of being looked at.
37/35 Dream Houses by Genevieve Valentine
This felt like a very over familiar plot even though I can't actually think of anything I've read or watched that features it. A woman wakes up alone on a ship in deep space with only a AI computer for company. Valentine takes quite a psychological approach more so than the space opera or horror kind of style and it worked really well. Very nicely written with an interesting dynamic between the astronaut and the computer, and another dreamlike, hallucinatory read which seems to have been a mini theme this week.
38/35 The Vanishers' Palace by Aliette de Bodard
I read a fantasy romance by her early in the year and didn't like it, luckily I found this one better. Felt like it kept a tighter focus and the fantasy world less of an imposition and this gave it the space for the plot to develop more smoothly. Very undemanding, enjoyable enough.
39/35 Maigret Takes a Room by Georges Simenon
I'm not sure if this was more leery than Simenon's novels usually are it's been a while since I read one, it was really leery though. He was so good at creating these perfectly encapsulated little worlds, I don't think any crime writer is so immersive the actual crime plot ends up almost irrelevant.
 
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
14/59 Righteous Prey - John Sandford
15/59 Extreme Prey - John Sandford
16/59 Field of Prey - John Sandford
17/59 Invisible Prey- John Sandford
18/59 The Devil's Pact - James Holland
19/59 Slow Horses - Mich Herron
20/60 Nicholas Nickelby - Charles Dickens
21/60 Get Carter - Ted Lewis
22/60 Essex Dogs - Dan Jones
 
20/27 The Double – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

19/27 In Youth is Pleasure – Denton Welch
18/27 Candide - Voltaire
17/27 The New Life – Tom Crewe
16/27 The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi (re-read)
15/27 Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
14/27 Jane Ayre - Charlotte Bronte
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 - Salman Rushdie
 
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
31/45 Miki Berenyi - Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success
32/45 Karen Lloyd - The Gathering Tide: a Journey Around the Edgelands of Morecambe Bay
33/45 Malcolm Bradbury - The History Man
34/45 Alex Garland - The Beach
35/45 Sarah Tolmie - All the Horses of Iceland
36/45 J G Ballard - The Drowned World
37/45 Terry Pratchett - Feet of Clay
38/45 Larry McMurtry - Sin Killer
39/45 Ariel Anderssen - Playing to Lose: How A Jehovah's Witness Became a Submissive BDSM Model
40/45 Terry Pratchett - Maskerade
41/45 J B Priestley - An Inspector Calls
42/45 Frances Hodgson Burnett - A Little Princess

43/45 P G Wodehouse - Psmith in the City
 
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
33/52 - Candice Carty-Williams - People Person
34/52 - Donal Ryan - The Queen of Dirt Island
35/52 - Ann Patchett - Bel Canto
36/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Heron's Cry
37/52 - Claire Keegan - Foster
38/52 - Ruth Rendell - The Fever Tree and other stories
39/52 - Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
40/52 - Clare Chambers - A Dry Spell
41/52 - Dennis Lehane - Small Mercies
42/52 - Sarah Waters - The Paying Guests

43/52 - Celeste Ng - Our Missing Hearts
 
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
12/29 Material World - Ed Conway
13/29 Journey by Moonlight - Antal Szerb
14/29 Reginald McKenna: Statesman among Financiers, 1916-1943 - Martin Farr
15/29 The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph - Albert O. Hirschman
16/29 Milkman - Anna Burns
17/29 The Ballard of Peckham Rye - Muriel Spark

18/29 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Read this because I was going to a talk on JA given by John Mullan of UCL. Had only ever read Northanger Abbey and hadn't seen any of the P&P adaptations. Enjoyed it more than I thought I would - I'm not going to turn into a raving Janeite but I'd probably give other books of hers a go. Very funny at points and a real mix of modern (in terms of insight into character) and dated (in terms of social mores).
 
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
12/29 Material World - Ed Conway
13/29 Journey by Moonlight - Antal Szerb
14/29 Reginald McKenna: Statesman among Financiers, 1916-1943 - Martin Farr
15/29 The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph - Albert O. Hirschman
16/29 Milkman - Anna Burns
17/29 The Ballard of Peckham Rye - Muriel Spark
18/29 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

19/29 The Kids - Hannah Lowe

Poetry collection by East End teacher and mother. Won the 2021 Costa prize. In the new formalism movement I’d say. So good.
 
Not kept a list, on Paddle your own canoe - Nick Offerman at the moment. Audiobooks only now. Particularly liking the fact he narrates it. Always a bonus
 
1 Paddle your own Canoe - Nick Offerman

Excellent, part autobiographical with some musings on lots of topics that come out very balanced and well thought out relating to a various issues about growing up, life in general, attitudes to lots of topics that can be easily transferred, learned a lot more about the theatre than I ever thought I would and bloody hell he has a diverse skillset. Made me think about my dad a lot, lots of things that was very similar amongst the attitudes of his raising and a lot of the vague chaos I ended up resulting in that differed much as Nick did to his. Had a rather surprising life in a lot of ways, will be recommending/gifting this to my daughters boyfriend as it deals a lot with creativity and mindset but indirectly with relation to his experiences.

Will have to backdate this when I get my prior listened list together. Now on to Where the Deer and Antelope Play by the same author.
 

21/27 A Problem in Greek Ethics - John Addington Symonds​

I keep coming across references to it, so I thought I’d read it

20/27 The Double – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
19/27 In Youth is Pleasure – Denton Welch
18/27 Candide - Voltaire
17/27 The New Life – Tom Crewe
16/27 The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi (re-read)
15/27 Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
14/27 Jane Ayre - Charlotte Bronte
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 - Salman 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
16 - Peter Frankopan - The Silk Roads: a New History of the World
17 - Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
18 - Hamid Ismailov - The Devil's Dance

19 - Karin Smirnoff - The Girl in the Eagle’s Talon

Part 7 of the millennium series. I enjoyed the first sequel, but thought part 5 was shit so ignored #7. As this was actually written by a woman I thought it might make a decent return to form. And it’s well written, a strong story that’s pretty well done and a rip-roaring read. But, it has yet another relative of Salander who is basically a superhero. I suspect the girl is meant to take over the franchise eventually.

20 - Gary Younge - Dispatches from the Diaspora: From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter

Far and away the Guardians best ever writer on race and class. A selection of articles (mostly but not always from the G) that are incredibly insightful, moving and infuriating. The fact that he was replaced by the Moron’s Moron Malik is tragic.

Christopher Marlowe - Tamburlaine the Great, parts I & II

The final part of my Uzbek trilogy. One of the most important plays ever written, it changed the face of English drama. It’s also historical nonsense, quite hard to read rhythmically, but still an intriguing tale of toxic masculinity.
 
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
33/52 - Candice Carty-Williams - People Person
34/52 - Donal Ryan - The Queen of Dirt Island
35/52 - Ann Patchett - Bel Canto
36/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Heron's Cry
37/52 - Claire Keegan - Foster
38/52 - Ruth Rendell - The Fever Tree and other stories
39/52 - Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
40/52 - Clare Chambers - A Dry Spell
41/52 - Dennis Lehane - Small Mercies
42/52 - Sarah Waters - The Paying Guests
43/52 - Celeste Ng - Our Missing Hearts

44/52 - Sebastian Barry - Old God's Time
 
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
38/36 Born to struggle by May Hobbs
39/36 Brian Eno’s Another Green World by Geeta Dayal
40/36 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Reread)
41/36 To Die in June by Alan Parks

42/36 Wire’s Pink Flag by Wilson Neate
 
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
31/45 Ann Leckie - Provenance
32/45 Vicky Osterweil - In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action
33/45 Joan Didion - Let Me Tell You What I Mean
34/45 Rachel Ingalls - Mrs Caliban
35/45 Voltaire - Selected works of [Thinkers Library -1935]
36/45 Catherine Nixey - The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
37/45 John Fante - Ask the Dust
38/45 K.J. Parker - Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City
39/45 Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States

40/45 Margaret Atwood - The Testaments
 
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