the wonderful world of reading 2020 reading challenge thread

[Poot]

1/23 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
2/23 The Magus - John Fowles
3/23 Shakespeare - Bill Bryson
4/23 No and Me - Delphine De Vigan
5/23 Orphan Boys - Phil Mews
6/23 The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
7/23 The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
8/23 Them: Adventures with Extremists - Jon Ronson
9/23 The Doll Factory - Elizabeth MacNeal

 

[MsHopper]

1/50 Bloody Brilliant Women - Cathy Newman
2/50 A Perfectly Good Man - Patrick Gale
3/50 All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
4/50 I Invited her in - Adele Parks
5/50 Wakenhyrst - Michelle Pave
6/50 NW - Zadie Smith
7/50 Conversations with friends - Sally Rooney
8/50 Digging to America - Anne Tyler
9/50 Priestdaddy - Patricia Lockwood
10/50 The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
11/50 Moon over Soho Ben Aaronovitch
12/50 Whispers under Ground Ben Aaronovitch

 

[kropotkin]

44/100: What's Wrong with Private Education? - John White

Is that worth reading?
Given you look to be reading on a theme, is there anything better?

 

[kropotkin]

1. Suttree - Cormac Mccarthy
2. The Order of Time - Carlo Rovelli
3. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
4. Exhalation - Ted Chiang
5. The Secret Commonwealth - Philip Pullman
6. Birds Without Wings - Louis de Berniere
7. The Peripheral - William Gibson
8. Proxima Rising - Brandon Q. Morris
9. She Came to Slay: the Life and Times of Harriet Tubman - Erica Armstrong Dunbar
10. Radicalized - Corey Doctorow
11. American Dirt - Janine Cummins
12. Energy and Civilisation--a History - Vaclav Smil
13. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk
14. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher - Hilary Mantel
15. Lampedusa - Steven Price
16. I am Legend - Richard Matheson
17. Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff
18. Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
19. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
20. The Long Walk - Richard Bachman/Stephen King

 

[chilango]

Is that worth reading?
Given you look to be reading on a theme, is there anything better?

Short answer, no. It's not.

Diane Reay's Miseducation is the best I've read (it's not particularly about private schools though)

 

[chilango]

45/100: School Choice and Competition: Markets in the Public Interest? - Woods et al.


Not exactly a page turner tbh.

 

[chilango]

46/100: Posh Boys: How the English Public schools ruin Britain - Robert Verkaik

 

[Shirl]

1/40 50 Ways to Wear a Scarf - Lauren Friedman. Yes I know, but it's a hard back book and I read it cover to cover.
2/40 The house on the Strand - Daphne Du Maurier
3/40 Afternoon of a Good Woman - Nina Bawden
4/40 Familia Passions - Nina Bawden
5/40 Spiderweb - Penelope Lively - 5 books in 10 days is a lot for me but I've spent an awful lot of time hanging around in hospitals + nothing much on the telly.
6/40 A Little Love, A Little Learning - Nina Bawden
7/40 The Day That Never Comes - Caimh McDonnell
8/40 In Search of the Rainbow's End: Inside the White House Farm Murders - Colin Caffell
9/40 A Woman of My Age - Nina Bawden
10/40 Let's Kill Uncle - Rohan O'Grady
11/40 The Wych Elm - Tana French
12/40 An English Murder - Cyril Hare
13/40 Transcription - Kate Atkinson
14/40 Christine Falls - Benjamin Black
15/40 The Silver Swan - Benjamin Black
16/40 The Secret Guests - Benjamin Black
17/40 The Book of Evidence - John Banville
18/40 Disclaimer - Renee Knight
19/40 The Secretary - Renee Knight
20/40 The Rumour - Lesley Kara. A bit rubbish tbh.
21/40 Ralph's Party - Lisa Jewell
22/40 The Good, The Bad and the Little Bit Stupid. - Marina Lewycka. I enjoyed the The Short History of Tractors... and thought I'd enjoy this but it didn't do anything for me, too much farce.
23/40 Our Little Cruelties - Liz Nugent
24/40 Slow Horses: Jackson Lamb - Mick Herron
25/40 The Stranger You Know - Jane Casey
26/40 Down Cemetery Road - Mick Herron
27/40 The Thief - Ruth Rendell
28/40 The Long Drop - Denise Mina

 

[butchersapron]

Is that Hayes book any good? I heard it was quite a "thin" book in both senses?

His not thin at all book The Ideology of Fascism and the Far Right in Britain - which is excellent, finished it recently - can be had off amazon if you use them for £3.89 with prime now. It was 20 quid for years.

 

[BoatieBird]

28/40 The Long Drop - Denise Mina

I really enjoyed this, and I wanted to know more about the Peter Manuel case so I read this

Peter Manuel, Serial Killer eBook : MacLeod, Hector, McLeod, Malcolm: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Peter Manuel, Serial Killer eBook : MacLeod, Hector, McLeod, Malcolm: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

www.amazon.co.uk

It seemed to be the best book on the subject.

 

[chilango]

47/100: From the factory to the metropolis - Toni Negri.

Some thought provoking snippets hidden amongst a lot of stuff that Paul Mason probably thinks he's writing.

 

[Shirl]

I really enjoyed this, and I wanted to know more about the Peter Manuel case so I read this

Peter Manuel, Serial Killer eBook : MacLeod, Hector, McLeod, Malcolm: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Peter Manuel, Serial Killer eBook : MacLeod, Hector, McLeod, Malcolm: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

www.amazon.co.uk

It seemed to be the best book on the subject.

Terrific. I was wondering what to buy next. I've just bought the McLeod because I trust your judgement.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

11/30 Mark Leier - Bakunin: The Creative Passion

 

[Threshers_Flail]

1. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reread)
2. The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
3. The Troubles - Tim Pat Coogan
4. Conversations with Friends - Stella Rooney
5. The Government of No One - Ruth Kinna
6. Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me - Javier Marias
7. All That Remains - Sue Black
8. Leaving the Atocha Station - Ben Lerner
9. The Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov
10. The Plague - Albert Camus (re-read)
11. Weather - Jenny Offill

 

[Fozzie Bear]

12/30 Andrea Dworkin - Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant

 

[BoatieBird]

1/70 - Shirley Jackson - The Bird's Nest
2/70 - Annie Proulx - Accordion Crimes (re-read)
3/70 - Liz Nugent - Unravelling Oliver
4/70 - Elizabeth Strout - Anything is Possible
5/70 - Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones
6/70 - Ruth Rendell - Make Death Love Me (re-read)
7/70 - Michael Farris Smith - Rivers
8/70 - Malcolm Pryce - Last Tango in Aberystwyth
9/70 - Stephen King - Elevation
10/70 - Liz Nugent - Lying in Wait
11/70 - Donald Ray Pollock - Knockemstiff
12/70 - John Irving - Avenue of Mysteries
13/70 - Liz Nugent - Skin Deep
14/70 - Annie Proulx - The Shipping News (re-read)
15/70 - Val McDermid - How The Dead Speak
16/70 - Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley
17/70 - Sally Rooney - Conversations With Friends
18/70 - John Green - An Abundance of Katherines
19/70 - Minette Walters - The Shape of Snakes
20/70 - Kazuo Ishiguro - Nocturnes
21/70 - Stephen King - Under The Dome (re-read)
22/70 - Denise Mina - Conviction
23/70 - William Boyd - Sweet Caress: The Many Lives of Amory Clay
24/70 - Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) - The Long Walk (re-read)
25/70 - Michael Morpurgo - Born to Run

26/70 - Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) - Roadwork

 

[nogojones]

1/50 Paul Lafargue - The Evolution of Property
2/50 Michio Kaku - Physics of the Impossible
3/50 Issac Asimov - Foundation
4/50 Ted Chiang - Stories of Your Life and Others
5/50 Philip K. Dick - Martian Time-Slip
6/50 Margret Atwood - The Penelopiad
7/50 Emma Goldman - Living My Life Vol.2
8/50 Jeremy Varon - Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, The Red Army Faction and Revolutionary Violence in the 60's and 70s
9/50 Lina Dencik, Oliver Leistert (Eds.) - Critical Perspectives on Social Media and Protest: Between Control and Emancipation
10/50 Chester Himes - Blind Man With a Pistol
11/50 Takashi Hiraide - The Guest Cat
12/50 Alice Goffman - On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City
13/50 Neal Stephenson - Zodiac
14/50 Will Self - My Idea of Fun
15/50 Yottam Ottolenghi - Plenty More
16/50 Jon Ronson - Them: Adventures With Extremists
17/50 Tom Robbins - Still Life with Woodpecker
18/50 Nick Bostrom - Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

19/50 Margret Atwood - Cat's Eye
20/50 Olga Tokarczuk - Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

 

[D'wards]

1/36 - Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
2/36 - Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (reread)
3/36 - The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
4/36 - Me by Elton John
5/36 - Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
6/36 - Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
7/36 - Amazon Adventure by Willard Price
8/36 - Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
9/36 - Gotta get Theroux This: My Life and Strange Times in Television by Louis Theroux
10/36 - South Sea Adventure by Willard Price (reread)
11/36 - Atomised by Michel Houellebecq
12/36 - Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy
13/36 - When the Green Woods Laugh by H.E. Bates
14/36 - The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
15/36 - Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

 

[Poot]

1/23 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
2/23 The Magus - John Fowles
3/23 Shakespeare - Bill Bryson
4/23 No and Me - Delphine De Vigan
5/23 Orphan Boys - Phil Mews
6/23 The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
7/23 The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
8/23 Them: Adventures with Extremists - Jon Ronson
9/23 The Doll Factory - Elizabeth MacNeal*
10/23 The Neighbour - Fiona Cummins

*This was a real page-turner. Highly recommended if you like a Victorian-style thriller.

 

[braindancer]

1/30 - Now in November - Josephine Johnson
2/30 - The Wanderers - Richard Price
3/30 - The Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov
4/30 - The Naked Sun - Isaac Asimov
5/30 - Robots of Dawn - Isaac Asimov
6/30 - Robots and Empire - Isaac Asimov
7/30 - Underland - Robert McFarlane
8/30 - The 39 Steps - John Buchan
9/30 - The Secret Commonwealth - Phillip Pullman

 

[SpookyFrank]

1/52 Philip Pullman - La Belle Sauvage
2/52 Norman Doidge - The Brain That Changes Itself
3/52 Vladimir Nabokov - Bend Sinister
4/52 Mackenzie Wark - Capital is Dead
5/52 Peter Kinderman - A Manifesto for Mental Health
6/52 China Mieville - The Last Days of New Paris
7/52 Fred Pearce - The New Wild
8/52 Andy Wood - Abandoned and Vanished Canals of England
9/52 Benedict Anderson - Imagined Communities
10/52 Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts - Edgelands
11/52 William Gibson - The Peripheral
12/52 Vera Caspary - Laura
13/52 Mary Roach - Packing for Mars
14/52 Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago

15/52 Serhii Plokhy - Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy
16/52 Carl Sagan - The Dragons of Eden

 

[May Kasahara]

1. ed. Dan Coxon - Tales from the Shadow Booth vol.3.
2. The Lonely Crowd issue 9
3. Ted Chiang - Stories of Your Lives and Others
4. Tade Thompson - The Rosewater Insurrection
5. Tade Thompson - The Rosewater Redemption
6. Tim Moore - Frost On My Moustache (reread)

7. Tim Moore - Continental Drifter. More (Moore?) comfort reading, and most enjoyable it was

 

[BoatieBird]

1/70 - Shirley Jackson - The Bird's Nest
2/70 - Annie Proulx - Accordion Crimes (re-read)
3/70 - Liz Nugent - Unravelling Oliver
4/70 - Elizabeth Strout - Anything is Possible
5/70 - Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones
6/70 - Ruth Rendell - Make Death Love Me (re-read)
7/70 - Michael Farris Smith - Rivers
8/70 - Malcolm Pryce - Last Tango in Aberystwyth
9/70 - Stephen King - Elevation
10/70 - Liz Nugent - Lying in Wait
11/70 - Donald Ray Pollock - Knockemstiff
12/70 - John Irving - Avenue of Mysteries
13/70 - Liz Nugent - Skin Deep
14/70 - Annie Proulx - The Shipping News (re-read)
15/70 - Val McDermid - How The Dead Speak
16/70 - Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley
17/70 - Sally Rooney - Conversations With Friends
18/70 - John Green - An Abundance of Katherines
19/70 - Minette Walters - The Shape of Snakes
20/70 - Kazuo Ishiguro - Nocturnes
21/70 - Stephen King - Under The Dome (re-read)
22/70 - Denise Mina - Conviction
23/70 - William Boyd - Sweet Caress: The Many Lives of Amory Clay
24/70 - Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) - The Long Walk (re-read)
25/70 - Michael Morpurgo - Born to Run
26/70 - Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) - Roadwork

27/70 - William Boyd - The Vanishing Game

 

[Winot]

1/19 Normal People - Sally Rooney
2/19 Prospero's America: John Winthrop, Jr., Alchemy, and the Creation of New England Culture, 1606-1676 - Walter Woodward
3/19 Colonial America (A Very Short Introduction) - Alan Taylor
4/19 Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney
5/19 The Reformation (The Penguin History of the Church 3) - Owen Chadwick
6/19 The Countenance Divine - Michael Hughes
7/19 A Culture of Fact: England, 1550-1720 - Barbara J. Shapiro

8/19 Semicolon - Cecelia Watson

 

[Threshers_Flail]

1. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reread)
2. The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
3. The Troubles - Tim Pat Coogan
4. Conversations with Friends - Stella Rooney
5. The Government of No One - Ruth Kinna
6. Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me - Javier Marias
7. All That Remains - Sue Black
8. Leaving the Atocha Station - Ben Lerner
9. The Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov
10. The Plague - Albert Camus (re-read)
11. Weather - Jenny Offill
12. Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz

 

[circleline]

Didn't keep up with this last year but, like start of financial year and all, will start now, afresh, 'cause it's easy and stuff..

(Re-reads all; because am not getting to charity shops and book-sales, and supermarkets have put prices up, have noticed, and don't like Amazon, particularly, and don't pick any reading list because I'm not studying or anything, but like to discover books. But now I've said that, am comprising a conscious list of titles to search on Abe.)

The Secret History
The Little Friend
The Goldfinch

 

[StanleyBlack]

1/20? Dickens, Charles (2004) David Copperfield. Revised/Penguin Classics edition. Paperback edition. London: Penguin Books. (0140439447) Finished 12/4/20

2/20? Hensher, Philip (2020) A small revolution in Germany. Hardback edition. London: 4th Estate. (9780008323073) Finished 4/5/20

I don't often buy a 'physical' newspaper these days, I can pretty much find everything I want to read in 'the press' via Twitter, but I did buy the Guardian in February which is how I ended up reading this review: A Small Revolution in Germany by Philip Hensher review – a rebel’s tale, and subsequently this book.

It triggered the 'left trainspotter' in me and I was curious how he would depict the 'left', particularly as I was never a teenage trotskyist (or any other kind of 'ist' for that matter - that all came much later for me). Anyway, it all generally rang untrue for me, especially the corny use of 'Spartacists' for the name of the group, but this extract from the review seems apt, "[t[his book is bound to be seen as a satire on the left. But in fact its keynote is a deep anger and disillusionment with politics, a lack of faith in all systems. Whether tragedy or farce, history, as Spike realises, “is what most people succeed in ignoring”, to their cost." I'm quite disillusioned some times.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1."Tombland" - C. J. Sansom
2. Exit Wounds" - compilation
3. "Murder in the Crooked House" - Soji Shimada
4."Into the Woods" - Tana French
5. "The Chalk Man" - CJ Tudor
6. "The Institute" - Stephen King
7. "The White Road" - Sarah Lotz

8. "Black Widow" - Christopher Brookmyre. Okay but I found it quite a struggle to read. However that could be due to lockdown brain!

 

[Me76]

L - library
Ld - my sister's library

1/50 The Gallows Pole, Benjamin Myers - Ld
2/50 You, Caroline Kepnes - Ld
3/50 Women Within, Anne Leigh Parrish
4/50 Life After Life, Kate Atkinson - Ld
5/50 Creed, Celina Grace
6/50 The Dilemma, B A Paris
7/50 Drive, James Sallis - L
8/50 Waking Lions, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen - Ld
9/50 The Surrogate, Louise Jensen
10/50 The Note, Zoe Folbigg
11/50 Divergent, Veronica Roth - L
12/50 In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware - ld
13/50 Our Stop, Laura Jane Williams
14/50 Dangerous Lady, Martina Cole
15/50 The Babysitter, Sheyl Browne
16/50 Nutshell, Ian McEwan
17/50 The Killer You Know, SR Masters

 

[chilango]

48/100: The Precariat - Guy Standing