the strictly come reading 2023 reading challenge thread

[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

 

[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

 

[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
Mildly spooky gothic mystery. Not totally convinced by the teenagedness of the teenage characters, still very readable though and creates a strong atmosphere of place. Not bad.

 

[Winot]

1/29 The London Problem - Jack Brown

2/29 Ephemeron - Fiona Benson

Her third collection of poetry.

 

[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

 

[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

 

[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

 

[pseudonarcissus]

A slow start to the year for me…

1/27 Quichotte -Salman Rushdie

Not one of his best, but read in solidarity after his attack.

 

[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)

It's still great. On re-reading, Tony's thing with messing about with backwards words didn't really work, but I think the device of having three protagonists worked quite well and reminded me to avoid any lazy identification between the narrator/protagonist and the authorial voice, iyswim? Interesting thinking about how (I think) psychological/psychiatric language has become that much more widespread in the thirty years or so since it was written, so it's tempting to go "oh, this character would have this diagnosis, and that one would have that one", but I dunno how much that adds to it, I think it might be better to just take them as they are? Anyway, always an interesting read, and I sort of feel like I may have encountered a Zenia recently.
Now back to EP Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class. Definitely going to finish that one before 2023's out.

 

[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

 

[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

 

[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
Nice cover design, not especially good stories mostly - couple of decent ones few bad ones. The setting didn't really play as significant a part as you'd think from the title.

 

[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" - a very enjoyable compilation of ghost stories set in English Heritage properties. Like all compilations done of the stories are better than others but overall a satisfying 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

 

[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

Best thing about it was the cover.

 

[krtek a houby]

1/19 Fortunes of War : The Levant Trilogy - Olivia Manning. Second trilogy in the series and even better than the first , imho

 

[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

 

[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

 

[marty21]

1/59 The Rooster Bar - John Grisham
2/59 The White Album - Joan Didion

 

[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

Following on from my reading the first few Poirot and Mrs Marple book last year I have progressed to this one.

I liked it quit a lot. I think I'd place it above Styles and Links. I think Ackroyd has a more interesting reveal at the end.

This feels very cinematic. Could just picture the TV adaptation.


As a side note I've given up the attempt to track my anime and Web novel reading. Lost track already. Might just add a few in a spoiler now and again.

 

[hitmouse]

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

What's it like? I really rate the Kristin Ross book, Communal Luxury, on a similar subject.

 

[nogojones]

What's it like? I really rate the Kristin Ross book, Communal Luxury, on a similar subject.

I found it a little dry on stuff like the French translation of Capital and how it was written to appeal to French workers, but how it differed from the German. Interesting on the communalism of exile and the mixed ideas that were competing and coalescing - how some "Marxists" were totally down with the idea of empire to be able to punt French workers goods to expanding markets and the drift of those into social democracy.


Mostly researched for radical papers of the time like Lafargues L'Egalite. Generally worthwhile and I feel like I knows a bit more. Especially helped with me often confusing Lafargue and Lissagaray (both French, with long-ish names staring with L never did any favours with my dyslexia).

I need to go back and properly read Lissagarays History of teh Commune, which I skim read when I was a youngster and didn't get half of it.

 

[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
Very interesting and pretty wide ranging for a short book and a useful follow up to Marx on Money and Theories of Surplus Value I read last year. Have his book on Hume in the to-read pile as well.

 

[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

Nothing particularly new, but good on organising in non traditional workplaces. A sort of counterpoint to the new Dan Evans book in a way. Just because you have your own bucket doesn't mean you're not getting exploited.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

3/29 Stewart Home - Art School Orgy

A very odd gay BDSM novel about an artist named David Hockney and his exploits in sixties London. Some odd deviations aside, it’s mainly a tour of various sub/dom antics which is ok as far as it goes. The extended description of cock and ball torture made me feel a bit queasy. The rest of it was more enjoyable.

 

[RedRedRose]

1/60 HP Lovecraft - Call of Cthulhu

 

[tim]

1/19 Fortunes of War : The Levant Trilogy - Olivia Manning. Second trilogy in the series and even better than the first , imho

A trilogy, surely, counts as three, doesn't it?

 

[krtek a houby]

A trilogy, surely, counts as three, doesn't it?

Not entirely sure of the rules but the three did come in one volume

 

[tim]

Not entirely sure of the rules but the three did come in one volume

But you could have bought it in three. If they work as stand-alone novels, I'd count them as three.

 

[tim]

1/39 Iain Sinclair - The Gold Machine.
2/39 William Shakespeare - Henry V.
3/39 Andrea Camilleri - The Overnight Kidnapper.
4/39 Andrea Camilleri - A Blade of Light.
5/39 William Shakespeare ( possibly one or two scenes) with the rest attributed to various of his contemporaries - Arden of Faversham.
True crime from Sixteenth Century Faversham and London, Arden gets rich after being given former monastery land by his sleazy chums in Edward VI's regime. His wife and her lover want him dead as do most of Faversham. The lovers hire two hopeless hitmen, Black John and Shakebag, to do the deed. CSI Faversham are on the case, and most of the cast get hanged or burnt at the stake. This can also be found on BBC Zounds Drama on 3 - Arden of Faversham - BBC Sounds
6/39 Andrea Camilleri - Game of Mirrors