the strictly come reading 2023 reading challenge thread

[hitmouse]

1/45 - Katherine Angel - Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again (re-read)
2/45 - Martin Lux - Anti-Fascist (re-read)
3/45 - Hannah Kent - Burial Rites
4/45 - Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride (re-read)
5/45 EP Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class
6/45 Henry James - The Princess Casamassima

7/45 Nigel Flanagan - Our Trade Unions: What comes next after the summer of 2022?

Discussed this one a little bit on the McAlevey thread. Tempting to go with that line about "it's both good and original but...", but that's probably a little bit harsh. Some stuff I agreed with and some stuff I disagreed with but it's the latter that tends to stick in the mind more. Next up, starting:

8/45 Katy Hays - The Cloisters

Someone's been reading Donna Tartt.

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Ruth Rendell - Tigerlilly's Orchids (re-read)
2/52 - Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
3/52 - Val McDermid - 1989
4/52 - Anthony Doerr - Cloud Cuckoo Land
5/52 - Ann Patchett - Commonwealth
6/52 - Peter James - Picture You Dead
7/52 - Donal Ryan - From a Low and Quiet Sea
8/52 - Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
9/52 - Ian McEwan - Lessons
10/52 - Robert Galbraith - The Ink Back Heart
11/52 - Kent Haruf - The Tie That Binds (re-read)

12/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and The Dead

 

[BoatieBird]

:

8/45 Katy Hays - The Cloisters

Someone's been reading Donna Tartt.

In a good way?

 

[hitmouse]

In a good way?

Possibly, I've only just started it! Just thinking that the Secret History comparisons feel a bit unavoidable. I suspect it's probably not going to be as good as TSH, but that's a fairly high bar to live up to.

 

[BoatieBird]

Possibly, I've only just started it! Just thinking that the Secret History comparisons feel a bit unavoidable. I suspect it's probably not going to be as good as TSH, but that's a fairly high bar to live up to.

I love TSH, and agree that it's a high bar to live up to
I'd be interested in your opinion when you've finished it.

I do wish Donna Tartt would hurry up and write another book!

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half a King
2/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half the World
3/45 - George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London
4/45 Jack London - The Call of the Wild
5/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half a War
6/45 Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
7/45 Mark Cooper - Later... with Jools Holland: 30 years of music, magic and mayhem
8/45 Michael Molcher - I Am the Law: how Judge Dredd predicted our future
9/45 Sarah J Maas - A Court of Thorns and Roses
10/45 David Graeber - The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy

11/45 Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

 

[nogojones]

1/45 Ken MacLeod - The Human Front
2/45 Edward Bunker - Death Row Breakout
3/45 Ian Bone - Bash the Rich
4/45 Joan Didion - The Year of Magical Thinking
5/45 Julia Nicholls - Revolutionary Thought After the Paris Commune, 1871-1885
6/45 Sarah Jaffe - Work Won't Love You Back
7/45 Ann Leckie - Ancillary Sword
8/45 David Graeber & David Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything
9/45 Ellen Meiksins Wood - Peasant-Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy
10/45 Hunter S. Thompson - The Rum Diary
11/45 Ann Leckie - Ancillary Mercy

12/45 David Graeber - Debt: The First 5,000 Years

 

[furluxor]

I don't usually have a set number of books to read but this year I want to do complete a challenge on a website I like so will try my best to score 12 books. They need to be in set categories so in reality I should probably set a goal of 19.

1/19 - Šaltienos Bistro by Ieva Dumbrytė
2/19 - The Principles of Equity & Trusts by Graham Virgo

 

[imposs1904]

1/36 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos
2/36 Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook
3/36 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (ReRead)
4/36 The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
5/36 The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble
6/36 No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon
7/36 My Rock 'n' Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn
8/36 The Man Who Came Uptown by George P. Pelecanos
9/36 Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake
10/36 The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
11/36 Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake
12/36 Quick Change by Jay Cronley
13/36 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie
14/36 Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton by John Lahr
15/36 Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle
16/36 Fletch by Gregory McDonald
17/36 Fletch Won by Gregory McDonald
18/36 120, rue de la Gare by Léo Malet
19/36 Bellies and Bullseyes: The Outrageous True Story of Darts by Sid Waddell (ReRead)

20/36 Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz

If you loved the film, you'll love this book.

 

[Winot]

1/29 The London Problem - Jack Brown
2/29 Ephemeron - Fiona Benson
3/29 NW - Zadie Smith

4/29 Spring - Ali Smith

The third of her Seasonal Quartet and the one I’ve enjoyed the most (possibly because - due to having Covid - I’ve had the luxury of reading it in a day).

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Ruth Rendell - Tigerlilly's Orchids (re-read)
2/52 - Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
3/52 - Val McDermid - 1989
4/52 - Anthony Doerr - Cloud Cuckoo Land
5/52 - Ann Patchett - Commonwealth
6/52 - Peter James - Picture You Dead
7/52 - Donal Ryan - From a Low and Quiet Sea
8/52 - Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
9/52 - Ian McEwan - Lessons
10/52 - Robert Galbraith - The Ink Back Heart
11/52 - Kent Haruf - The Tie That Binds (re-read)
12/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and The Dead

13/52 - Clare Chambers - Small Pleasures

 

[iona]

1/5 Cixin Liu - Hold Up the Sky
2/5 N. K. Jemisin - The Killing Moon
3/5 Youngman: Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan (ed. Ellis Martin & Zach Ozma)
4/5 Pat Cadigan - Synners

 

[Chilli.s]

Reckon 59 this year
1 Stella Maris : Cormac McCarthy
2 My Family and Other Animals: G Durrell, reread
3 Mister Slaughter: Robert R. McCammon
4 Winter: Len Deighton
5 Lives of Lucian Freud 22-68 : William Feaver
6 Lives of Lucian Freud 68-11 : William Feaver
7 Waterland : Graham Swift
8 Eight Million Ways to Die : Lawrence Block
9 The Sun Also Rises : Ernest Hemingway
10 Underworld : Don DeLillo
11 The Providence Rider: Robert R McCammon
12 The River of Souls: Robert R McCammon
13 Freedom of the Mask: Robert R McCammon
14 A Tall History of Sugar: Curdella Forbes
15 Lolly Willowes: Sylvia Townsend Warner

 

[Fozzie Bear]

4/5 Pat Cadigan - Synners

Oh I met her once and she was super cool.

 

[iona]

Oh I met her once and she was super cool.

(I could only 'like' that coz I'm still boycotting these other newfangled post reactions, but)

 

[Fozzie Bear]

(I could only 'like' that coz I'm still boycotting these other newfangled post reactions, but)

Ha well thank you! It was when I was doing Association of Autonomous Astronauts stuff and we were interviewed together for something. She even did a blurb quote for us. Was just very engaging and articulate and warm.

 

[RedRedRose]

1/60 HP Lovecraft - Call of Cthulhu
2/60 HP Lovecraft - The Shadow over Innsmouth
3/60 Martin Pugh - We Danced All Night
4/60 Katherine Connelly - Sylvia Pankhurst
5/60 A.J.P. Taylor - Bismarck: the man and the statesman
6/60 Christopher Clark - Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
7/60 Georges Lefebvre - The French Revolution

I found this very heavy going, as it required a lot of prior knowledge about people and events etc. The author is touted as the E.P. Thompson of the French Revolution and apparently coined the phrase "history from below". I didn't really get that from this. The book was preoccupied with the influence of American Revolution, discussions on federalism and the usual role of the main actors. I probably need to look at one of his other seminal works, but this has put me off for the time being.

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half a King
2/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half the World
3/45 - George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London
4/45 Jack London - The Call of the Wild
5/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half a War
6/45 Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
7/45 Mark Cooper - Later... with Jools Holland: 30 years of music, magic and mayhem
8/45 Michael Molcher - I Am the Law: how Judge Dredd predicted our future
9/45 Sarah J Maas - A Court of Thorns and Roses
10/45 David Graeber - The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
11/45 Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

12/45 Agatha Christie - The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Poirot #1)

 

[Winot]

1/29 The London Problem - Jack Brown
2/29 Ephemeron - Fiona Benson
3/29 NW - Zadie Smith
4/29 Spring - Ali Smith

5/29 A History of the Bible - John Barton

 

[imposs1904]

1/36 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos
2/36 Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook
3/36 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (ReRead)
4/36 The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
5/36 The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble
6/36 No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon
7/36 My Rock 'n' Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn
8/36 The Man Who Came Uptown by George P. Pelecanos
9/36 Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake
10/36 The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
11/36 Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake
12/36 Quick Change by Jay Cronley
13/36 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie
14/36 Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton by John Lahr
15/36 Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle
16/36 Fletch by Gregory McDonald
17/36 Fletch Won by Gregory McDonald
18/36 120, rue de la Gare by Léo Malet
19/36 Bellies and Bullseyes: The Outrageous True Story of Darts by Sid Waddell (ReRead)
20/36 Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz

21/36 For the Love of Willie by Agnes Owens

 

[inva]

1/35 Middlemarch by George Eliot
2/35 Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century: Through the Prism of Value by Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts
3/35 The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue
4/35 The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction edited by Michael Emmerich, Jim Hinks & Masashi Matsuie
5/35 Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government: John Locke's Philosophy of Money by George Caffentzis
6/35 Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World by Adam Tooze
7/35 Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
8/35 Civilizing Money: Hume, his Monetary Project and the Scottish Enlightenment by George Caffentzis
9/35 An Untouched House by Willem Frederik Hermans
10/35 Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata
11/35 Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
12/35 Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
13/35 Exiles from European Revolutions: Refugees in Mid-Victorian England edited by Sabina Freitag
14/35 The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P by Rieko Matsuura
A magical realism novel about a woman whose toe turns into a penis. Similarly gimmicky to how those novels tend to be, and a little way into this I thought there's only so many times you can read the words toe-penis before the novelty wears off. To be fair that did happen, but actually Matsuura managed to treat it in a more interesting way than I expected and unlike most magical realism I've read the gimmick in this case felt less peripheral to the plot. I do have a bit mixed feelings about this one really, at its best its a well written and thoughtful, visceral exploration of themes of sex, love, gender and physicality, definitely not without its flaws though - a bit over repetitive, oddly paced in places with a cast too large for the plot to invest in, and the ending was misjudged as were one or two other eyebrow raising moments. Very much worth reading though I think. Would like to read some more by her, I don't think anything else has been published in English unfortunately.

 

[colbhoy]

1/9 - The Outsider, A History of the Goalkeeper by Jonathan Wilson
2/9 - In the Middle of Middle America by David B Lyons
3/9 - The Promise by Robert Crais
4/9 - Down River by John Hart

 

[nogojones]

1/45 Ken MacLeod - The Human Front
2/45 Edward Bunker - Death Row Breakout
3/45 Ian Bone - Bash the Rich
4/45 Joan Didion - The Year of Magical Thinking
5/45 Julia Nicholls - Revolutionary Thought After the Paris Commune, 1871-1885
6/45 Sarah Jaffe - Work Won't Love You Back
7/45 Ann Leckie - Ancillary Sword
8/45 David Graeber & David Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything
9/45 Ellen Meiksins Wood - Peasant-Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy
10/45 Hunter S. Thompson - The Rum Diary
11/45 Ann Leckie - Ancillary Mercy
12/45 David Graeber - Debt: The First 5,000 Years

13/45 Russell Hoban -Riddley Walker

Not sure what I was expecting, but whatever it was I expected more. Didn't particularly like the Riddleyspeak either. I couldn't help but read it in the voice of a 14 year old feral crusty at a 90's free party selling mud.

 

[hitmouse]

1/45 - Katherine Angel - Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again (re-read)
2/45 - Martin Lux - Anti-Fascist (re-read)
3/45 - Hannah Kent - Burial Rites
4/45 - Margaret Atwood - The Robber Bride (re-read)
5/45 EP Thompson - The Making of the English Working Class
6/45 Henry James - The Princess Casamassima
7/45 Nigel Flanagan - Our Trade Unions: What comes next after the summer of 2022?

8/45 Katy Hays - The Cloisters

I think the prologue, where she sort of goes "THIS IS WHAT THE THEMES OF THIS BOOK ARE" in a fairly heavy-handed way, made me think it was going to be a bit annoying, but it got better after that. Very page-turnery. I managed to see most of the twists coming but didn't expect one big one. Next up, starting:

9/45 John Darnielle - Devil House

eta: blimey, just looked it up and turns out the Met Cloisters are actually a real thing, I couldn't decide but had come down on the side of her probably having made them up.

 

[nogojones]

1/45 Ken MacLeod - The Human Front
2/45 Edward Bunker - Death Row Breakout
3/45 Ian Bone - Bash the Rich
4/45 Joan Didion - The Year of Magical Thinking
5/45 Julia Nicholls - Revolutionary Thought After the Paris Commune, 1871-1885
6/45 Sarah Jaffe - Work Won't Love You Back
7/45 Ann Leckie - Ancillary Sword
8/45 David Graeber & David Wengrow - The Dawn of Everything
9/45 Ellen Meiksins Wood - Peasant-Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy
10/45 Hunter S. Thompson - The Rum Diary
11/45 Ann Leckie - Ancillary Mercy
12/45 David Graeber - Debt: The First 5,000 Years
13/45 Russell Hoban -Riddley Walker

14/45 The Invisible Committee - The Coming Insurrection

Not all that. Some fun barbs at the liberal left, but mostly a bit silly.

 

[imposs1904]

1/36 Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George P. Pelecanos
2/36 Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook
3/36 How To Rob An Armored Car by Iain Levison (ReRead)
4/36 The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook
5/36 The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble
6/36 No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon
7/36 My Rock 'n' Roll Friend by Tracey Thorn
8/36 The Man Who Came Uptown by George P. Pelecanos
9/36 Good Behavior by Donald E. Westlake
10/36 The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
11/36 Drowned Hopes by Donald E. Westlake
12/36 Quick Change by Jay Cronley
13/36 The Greatest Show on Earth: The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie
14/36 Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton by John Lahr
15/36 Thatcher Stole My Trousers by Alexei Sayle
16/36 Fletch by Gregory McDonald
17/36 Fletch Won by Gregory McDonald
18/36 120, rue de la Gare by Léo Malet
19/36 Bellies and Bullseyes: The Outrageous True Story of Darts by Sid Waddell (ReRead)
20/36 Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused by Melissa Maerz
21/36 For the Love of Willie by Agnes Owens

22/36 Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa (Reread)

 

[hitmouse]

14/45 The Invisible Committee - The Coming Insurrection

Not all that. Some fun barbs at the liberal left, but mostly a bit silly.

I was going to say I quite like it, then I remembered I've never actually read it and was thinking of To Our Friends. Think it maybe gets points cos of when it was written?

 

[BoatieBird]

1/52 - Ruth Rendell - Tigerlilly's Orchids (re-read)
2/52 - Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
3/52 - Val McDermid - 1989
4/52 - Anthony Doerr - Cloud Cuckoo Land
5/52 - Ann Patchett - Commonwealth
6/52 - Peter James - Picture You Dead
7/52 - Donal Ryan - From a Low and Quiet Sea
8/52 - Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
9/52 - Ian McEwan - Lessons
10/52 - Robert Galbraith - The Ink Back Heart
11/52 - Kent Haruf - The Tie That Binds (re-read)
12/52 - Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and The Dead
13/52 - Clare Chambers - Small Pleasures

14/52 - Liu Cixin - The Three-Body Problem

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half a King
2/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half the World
3/45 - George Orwell - Down and Out in Paris and London
4/45 Jack London - The Call of the Wild
5/45 Joe Abercrombie - Half a War
6/45 Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
7/45 Mark Cooper - Later... with Jools Holland: 30 years of music, magic and mayhem
8/45 Michael Molcher - I Am the Law: how Judge Dredd predicted our future
9/45 Sarah J Maas - A Court of Thorns and Roses
10/45 David Graeber - The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
11/45 Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
12/45 Agatha Christie - The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Poirot #1)

13/45 Mark Galeotti - A Short History of Russia: how the world's largest country invented itself, from the pagans to Putin

 

[Biddlybee]

1/15 - We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
2/15 - The Housekeeper and the Professor - Yōko Ogawa
3/15 - Slug - Hollie McNish
4/15 - Someday, Maybe - Onyi Nwabineli
5/15 - Tyger - SF Said
6/15 - Priestdaddy - Patricia Lockwood
7/15 - The Things I Would Tell You - ed. Sabrina Mahfouz
8/15 - The World's Wife - Carol Ann Duffy
9/15 - A Night Divided - Jennifer A Nielsen
10/15 - Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
11/15 - Lyrics Alley - Leila Aboulela
12/15 - Strange Flowers - Donal Ryan
13/15 - Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett