the wonderful world of reading 2020 reading challenge thread

[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 - Ld
17/50 The Killer You Know, SR Masters
18/50 Insurgent, Veronica Roth
19/50 Allegiant, Veronica Roth
20/50 Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid - Ld
21/50 My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell - Ld
22/50 The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern - this is so beautiful. Loved it.

 

[marty21]

1/75 The Girl Who Lived Twice - David Lagercrantz
2/75 Sweet Sorrow - David Nicholls
3/75 Mortal Prey - John Sandford
4/75 The Night Fire - Michael Connelly
5/75 Borderlands - L J Ross
6/75 Three Weeks to say goodbye - C J Box
7/75 Blue Heaven - C J Box
8/75 Hard Shot - J B Turner
9/75 Surviving The Evacuation: There We Stood - Frank Tayell
10/75 Back of Beyond - C J Box
11/75 The Secret War : Spies,Codes & Guerrillas 1939-45 . Max Hastings
12/75 Sunset Express - Robert Crais
13/75 Requiem - J B Turner
14/75 Reckoning - J B Turner
15/75 Zone One - Colson Whitehead
16/75 Long Range - C J Box
17/75 The Wanted - Robert Crais
18/75 Night Prey - John Sandford
19/75 Dark of the moon - John Sandford

****

20/75 No One Home - Tim Weaver

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/50 Hilary Hinds - A Cultural History of Twin Beds
2/50 Alan Garner - Boneland
3/50 James Herriot - All Things Bright and Beautiful
4/50 Philip Pullman - The Secret Commonwealth
5/50 Edgar Allan Poe - Tales of Mystery and Terror
6/50 China Mieville - Kraken
7/50 Terry Pratchett - Pyramids
8/50 Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!
9/50 Adam Kay - This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
10/50 Alastair Reynolds - Revenger
11/50 Brett Anderson - Afternoons With the Blinds Drawn
12/50 Andrzej Sapkowski - The Last Wish
13/50 James Herriot - All Things Wise and Wonderful
14/50 Anna Sewell - Black Beauty
15/50 Dodie Smith - The Hundred and One Dalmatians
16/50 Frances Hardinge - Twilight Robbery
17/50 Terry Pratchett - Eric
18/50 Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
19/50 Frances Hardinge - Deeplight
20/50 Robert Jordan - The Fires of Heaven
21/50 Douglas Adams - The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
22/50 John Masouri - Rebel Frequency: Jamaica's Reggae Revival
23/50 Douglas Adams - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
24/50 Bill Bryson - Notes from a Small Island
25/50 Sue Black - All That Remains

26/50 Alastair Reynolds - Shadow Captain

 

[chilango]

62/100: The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

 

[chilango]

63/100: Pedagogy of Hope - Paolo Freire

64/100: Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Paolo Freire

 

[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
21. The Plague - Albert Camus
22. All Systems Red - Martha Wells
23. Artificial Condition - Martha Wells
24. Rogue Protocol - Martha Wells
25. Exit Strategy - Martha Wells
26. Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 - Albert Marrin
27. High Rise - J. G. Ballard
28. The Girl With All the Gifts - M. R. Carey
29. The Rules of Contagion - Adam Kutcharski
30. Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo

 

[marty21]

1/75 The Girl Who Lived Twice - David Lagercrantz
2/75 Sweet Sorrow - David Nicholls
3/75 Mortal Prey - John Sandford
4/75 The Night Fire - Michael Connelly
5/75 Borderlands - L J Ross
6/75 Three Weeks to say goodbye - C J Box
7/75 Blue Heaven - C J Box
8/75 Hard Shot - J B Turner
9/75 Surviving The Evacuation: There We Stood - Frank Tayell
10/75 Back of Beyond - C J Box
11/75 The Secret War : Spies,Codes & Guerrillas 1939-45 . Max Hastings
12/75 Sunset Express - Robert Crais
13/75 Requiem - J B Turner
14/75 Reckoning - J B Turner
15/75 Zone One - Colson Whitehead
16/75 Long Range - C J Box
17/75 The Wanted - Robert Crais
18/75 Night Prey - John Sandford
19/75 Dark of the moon - John Sandford
20/75 No One Home - Tim Weaver

*******

21/75 Lockdown - Peter May

Timely novel, if he hadn't written it 15 years ago and had it rejected a virus locks down London, millions die Hugely enjoyable, think of our lockdown and switch it up several notches.

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/50 Hilary Hinds - A Cultural History of Twin Beds
2/50 Alan Garner - Boneland
3/50 James Herriot - All Things Bright and Beautiful
4/50 Philip Pullman - The Secret Commonwealth
5/50 Edgar Allan Poe - Tales of Mystery and Terror
6/50 China Mieville - Kraken
7/50 Terry Pratchett - Pyramids
8/50 Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!
9/50 Adam Kay - This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
10/50 Alastair Reynolds - Revenger
11/50 Brett Anderson - Afternoons With the Blinds Drawn
12/50 Andrzej Sapkowski - The Last Wish
13/50 James Herriot - All Things Wise and Wonderful
14/50 Anna Sewell - Black Beauty
15/50 Dodie Smith - The Hundred and One Dalmatians
16/50 Frances Hardinge - Twilight Robbery
17/50 Terry Pratchett - Eric
18/50 Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
19/50 Frances Hardinge - Deeplight
20/50 Robert Jordan - The Fires of Heaven
21/50 Douglas Adams - The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
22/50 John Masouri - Rebel Frequency: Jamaica's Reggae Revival
23/50 Douglas Adams - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
24/50 Bill Bryson - Notes from a Small Island
25/50 Sue Black - All That Remains
26/50 Alastair Reynolds - Shadow Captain

27/50 Douglas Adams - Life, the Universe and Everything

 

[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
28/70 - Anthony Doerr - All The Light we Cannot See
29/70 - Stephen King - If It Bleeds
30/70 - Patricia Highsmith - Ripley Under Ground
31/70 - Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) - The Running Man (re-read)
32/70 - Minette Walters - Acid Row
33/70 - Liz Nugent - Our Little Cruelties
34/70 - Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread
35/70 - Stephen King - Dreamcatcher
36/70 - Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones and The Six
37/70 - Ruth Rendell - Adam and Eve and Pinch Me (re-read)
38/70 - Harlan Coben - Run Away
39/70 - Susan Hill - The Various Haunts of Men

40/70 - Julian Barnes - Arthur and George

 

[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
16/36 - HMS Ulysses by Alistair Maclean
17/36 - Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
18/36 - Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist

 

[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
17/52 Paul Davies - The Demon in the Machine
18/52 Terry Pratchett - Mort
19/52 Tom Nancollas - Seashaken Houses
20/52 Randolph Nesse - Good Reasons for Bad Feelings
21/52 Anna Politkovskaya - Putin's Russia
22/52 William Gibson - Count Zero
23/52 Joseph Conrad - The Secret Agent
24/52 Benedict Anderson - A Life Beyond Boundaries
25/52 Pablo Sendra & Richard Sennett - Designing Disorder

26/52 Tom Sherrington - The Learning Rainforest
27/52 Walter Benjamin - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

 

[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
13. The Existentialist Cafe - Sarah Blackwell
14. Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
15. The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
16. Racecraft - Karen and Barbara Fields
17. Feminism, Interrupted - Lola Olufemi
18. Algiers, Third World Capital - Elaine Mokhtefi
19. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - David Foster Wallace
20. Occult Features of Anarchism - Erica Lagalisse
21. Mistaken Identity - Asad Haider
22. Hinterland, America's New Landscape of Class and Conflict - Phil A. Neel
23. Hood Feminism - Mikki Kendall
24. Assata: An Autobiography - Assata Shakur
25. The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson
26. Palace of Desire - Naguib Mahfouz

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/50 Hilary Hinds - A Cultural History of Twin Beds
2/50 Alan Garner - Boneland
3/50 James Herriot - All Things Bright and Beautiful
4/50 Philip Pullman - The Secret Commonwealth
5/50 Edgar Allan Poe - Tales of Mystery and Terror
6/50 China Mieville - Kraken
7/50 Terry Pratchett - Pyramids
8/50 Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!
9/50 Adam Kay - This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
10/50 Alastair Reynolds - Revenger
11/50 Brett Anderson - Afternoons With the Blinds Drawn
12/50 Andrzej Sapkowski - The Last Wish
13/50 James Herriot - All Things Wise and Wonderful
14/50 Anna Sewell - Black Beauty
15/50 Dodie Smith - The Hundred and One Dalmatians
16/50 Frances Hardinge - Twilight Robbery
17/50 Terry Pratchett - Eric
18/50 Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
19/50 Frances Hardinge - Deeplight
20/50 Robert Jordan - The Fires of Heaven
21/50 Douglas Adams - The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
22/50 John Masouri - Rebel Frequency: Jamaica's Reggae Revival
23/50 Douglas Adams - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
24/50 Bill Bryson - Notes from a Small Island
25/50 Sue Black - All That Remains
26/50 Alastair Reynolds - Shadow Captain
27/50 Douglas Adams - Life, the Universe and Everything

28/50 Bill Bryson - Neither Here Nor There

 

[Ptolemy]

1/50. Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty. - Karl Shaw.
2/50. Hrafnkel's Saga and Other Stories - Unknown (translated by Hermann Palsson).
3/50. Born 1900 - Hunter Davies.
4/50. The Pearl - John Steinbeck.
5/50. A Journal of the Plague Year - Daniel Defoe.
6/50. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick.
7/50. A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf.
8/50. First Love - Ivan Turgenev.
9/50. The Color Purple - Alice Walker.
10/50. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (re-read).
11/50. The Last Man - Mary Shelley.
12/50. A Very Easy Death - Simone de Beauvoir.
13/50. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys.
14/50. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen.
15/50. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (re-read).
16/50. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis.
17/50. Lord of the Flies - William Golding.
18/50. A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle.
19/50. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen.
20/50. The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole.
21/50. The Passion of New Eve - Angela Carter.
22/50. The Sign of Four - Arthur Conan Doyle.
23/50. The State and Revolution - V. I. Lenin.
24/50. Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh.
25/50. The Mysteries of Udolpho - Ann Radcliffe*.
26/50. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen.
27/50. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess (re-read).
28/50. One on One: 101 True Encounters - Craig Brown.
29/50. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes*.
30/50. Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev.
31/50. The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham.
32/50. Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon - Jane Austen.
33/50. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut (re-read).
34/50. Akira - Katsuhiro Otomo*.
35/50. Starving for Attention - Cherry Boone O'Neill.
36/50. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (re-read).
37/50. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Süskind.
38/50. Watchmen - Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons & John Higgins.
39/50. Diary of an Oxygen Thief - Anonymous.

 

[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
28/70 - Anthony Doerr - All The Light we Cannot See
29/70 - Stephen King - If It Bleeds
30/70 - Patricia Highsmith - Ripley Under Ground
31/70 - Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) - The Running Man (re-read)
32/70 - Minette Walters - Acid Row
33/70 - Liz Nugent - Our Little Cruelties
34/70 - Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread
35/70 - Stephen King - Dreamcatcher
36/70 - Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones and The Six
37/70 - Ruth Rendell - Adam and Eve and Pinch Me (re-read)
38/70 - Harlan Coben - Run Away
39/70 - Susan Hill - The Various Haunts of Men
40/70 - Julian Barnes - Arthur and George

41/70 - Stephen King - Cujo (re-read)

 

[Shirl]

/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
29/40 Peter Manuel, Serial Killer Kindle Edition
by Hector MacLeod (Author), Malcolm McLeod (Author)
30/40 Camberwell Beauty - Jenny Eclare
31/40 The Mystery of Henri Pick - David Foenkinos, Sam Taylor
32/40 The Minotaur - Barbara Vine
33/40 Talking to Strange Men - Barbara Vine
34/40 King Soloman's Carpet - Barbara Vine
35/40 The Chimney Sweeper's Boy - Barbara Vine

I seem to have lost all interest in reading. If I can be bothered again I might check out some of Me76 sister's library

 

[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
9/19 Paradise - A.L. Kennedy
10/19 Advocacy: A Practical Guide - Peter Lyons
11/19 Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution - Bruce T. Moran
12/19 Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race - Reni Eddo-Lodge

 

[DaveCinzano]

• 1/52: Fast Times And Excellent Adventures by James King
• 2/52: Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman
• 3/52: You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried by Susannah Gora
• 4/52: Irregular Army by Matt Kennard
• 5/52: Operation Ajax by Mike de Seve and Daniel Burwen
• 6/52: Judgment On Gotham by John Wagner, Alan Grant and Simon Bisley
• 7/52: The Jungle Is Neutral by F Spencer Chapman
• 8/52: The Films Of Danny Dyer by Jonathan Sothcott and James Mullinger
• 9/52: Judge Dredd Vs The Fatties by John Wagner, Alan Grant, Ron Smith, Carlos Ezquerra, Cam Kennedy & Tom Frame
• 10/52: Judge Dredd Vs Otto Sump by John Wagner, Alan Grant, Ron Smith & Tom Frame
• 11/52: The Judge Child Quest by John Howard (John Wagner & Alan Grant), Brian Bolland, Mike McMahon, Ron Smith & Tom Frame
• 12/52: Dirty War, Clean Hands: ETA, The GAL And Spanish Democracy by Paddy Woodworth
• 13/52: Frontline UK by William Corderoy, Ian Kennedy and Clemente Rezzonico (additional material by Steve Holland)

The whole COVID thing really fucked up my good intentions, reading-wise. Even though I had 2 weeks isolation at the start, I've just found it really hard to find the time or motivation.

But determined am I to crack on!

14/52: The Million Pound Bus Fare by David Weldon - absolute stinker of a pulp novel, with no redeemable qualities. The gist is that a small group of gun-wielding hard men hijack a bus near Heathrow, and demand a ransom (ONE MILLION POUNDS!), but this is all a front for some shady Deep State shenanigans involving a false flag attack in some tiny protectorate in the Arabian peninsula. Characters are lucky if they're given two whole dimensions. It's a bit like a cheap British version of Die Hard, but unfolding entirely from the perspective of the terrorists (the rapey one, the nervous Irish one, the one who's always banging on about how he's ‘a hitman for the Mafia’ etc).

15/52: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler - this is more like it: lean, pared-down prose, a persistent gumshoe who finds stuff out by putting himself about and listening more than he talks, and plenty of sleazy goings-on in pre-war LA. Enjoyable for the ride if not the destination.

16/52: Fantastic Adventures by David McDonald (plus additional material by Alan Clarke) - the fifth in the excellent Hibernia Comics ‘Comic Archives’ series, this time focusing on comics and strips that never were: pilots that didn't quite pan out, planned spin-offs, projects where the money ran out before anything hit the streets, stories scheduled to start in titles that were then cancelled, and so on. If you are interested in UK comics from the second half of the twentieth century, then this is worth your time and money. McDonald is by no means forensic in his interviews, but he is thorough and avoids hagiography. His straight-forward approach is probably why he manages to get so many otherwise hermit-like (former) players to give their side of the story. This one has articles on the original deep-sixed Judge Dredd comic as well as the mooted DC Thomson SF/action title Manga, independent humour and adventure titles, a terrace-perspective football comic, and much more. Interviews include a hilariously brief one with the seemingly monosyllabic Gerry Finley-Day, an in-depth one with legendary humour artist Robert Nixon (reprinted with permission of Alan Clarke from an early 80s fanzine), Peter Hogan, Frank Wynne and Si Spencer from Revolver, and Battle editor Terry Magee. Get it while you still can.

 

[marty21]

1/75 The Girl Who Lived Twice - David Lagercrantz
2/75 Sweet Sorrow - David Nicholls
3/75 Mortal Prey - John Sandford
4/75 The Night Fire - Michael Connelly
5/75 Borderlands - L J Ross
6/75 Three Weeks to say goodbye - C J Box
7/75 Blue Heaven - C J Box
8/75 Hard Shot - J B Turner
9/75 Surviving The Evacuation: There We Stood - Frank Tayell
10/75 Back of Beyond - C J Box
11/75 The Secret War : Spies,Codes & Guerrillas 1939-45 . Max Hastings
12/75 Sunset Express - Robert Crais
13/75 Requiem - J B Turner
14/75 Reckoning - J B Turner
15/75 Zone One - Colson Whitehead
16/75 Long Range - C J Box
17/75 The Wanted - Robert Crais
18/75 Night Prey - John Sandford
19/75 Dark of the moon - John Sandford
20/75 No One Home - Tim Weaver
21/75 Lockdown - Peter May

***

22/75 Rough Country - John Sandford

 

[yield]

1. Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.
2. The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks
3. The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
4. The Making of the English Working Class by E. P. Thompson.

5. Stories of Your Life: And Others by Ted Chiang

 

[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
9. "No One Home" - Tim Weaver
10. "Orphan X" - Gregg Hurwitz
11. "Nomad" - James Swallow
12. "Horns" - Joe Hill

13. "Dark Places" - Gillian Flynn. Melancholic thriller, she writes different voices/characters very well.

 

[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
16/36 - HMS Ulysses by Alistair Maclean
17/36 - Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
18/36 - Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist
19/36 - Adolf Hitler- My Part in his Downfall by Spike Milligan

 

[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 - Ld
17/50 The Killer You Know, SR Masters
18/50 Insurgent, Veronica Roth
19/50 Allegiant, Veronica Roth
20/50 Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid - Ld
21/50 My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell - Ld
22/50 The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

23/50 The Cat and the City, Nick Bradley - really enjoyed this, a collection of short stories with connections, set in Tokyo just before the 2020 Olympics. Luckily the Olympics doesn't feature too heavily or it could have suffered.

 

[Ptolemy]

1/50. Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty. - Karl Shaw.
2/50. Hrafnkel's Saga and Other Stories - Unknown (translated by Hermann Palsson).
3/50. Born 1900 - Hunter Davies.
4/50. The Pearl - John Steinbeck.
5/50. A Journal of the Plague Year - Daniel Defoe.
6/50. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick.
7/50. A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf.
8/50. First Love - Ivan Turgenev.
9/50. The Color Purple - Alice Walker.
10/50. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (re-read).
11/50. The Last Man - Mary Shelley.
12/50. A Very Easy Death - Simone de Beauvoir.
13/50. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys.
14/50. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen.
15/50. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (re-read).
16/50. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis.
17/50. Lord of the Flies - William Golding.
18/50. A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle.
19/50. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen.
20/50. The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole.
21/50. The Passion of New Eve - Angela Carter.
22/50. The Sign of Four - Arthur Conan Doyle.
23/50. The State and Revolution - V. I. Lenin.
24/50. Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh.
25/50. The Mysteries of Udolpho - Ann Radcliffe*.
26/50. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen.
27/50. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess (re-read).
28/50. One on One: 101 True Encounters - Craig Brown.
29/50. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes*.
30/50. Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev.
31/50. The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham.
32/50. Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon - Jane Austen.
33/50. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut (re-read).
34/50. Akira - Katsuhiro Otomo*.
35/50. Starving for Attention - Cherry Boone O'Neill.
36/50. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (re-read).
37/50. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Süskind.
38/50. Watchmen - Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons & John Higgins.
39/50. Diary of an Oxygen Thief - Anonymous.
40/50. Bear - Marian Engel.

* = more than 500 pages.

 

[PursuedByBears]

1/50 Hilary Hinds - A Cultural History of Twin Beds
2/50 Alan Garner - Boneland
3/50 James Herriot - All Things Bright and Beautiful
4/50 Philip Pullman - The Secret Commonwealth
5/50 Edgar Allan Poe - Tales of Mystery and Terror
6/50 China Mieville - Kraken
7/50 Terry Pratchett - Pyramids
8/50 Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!
9/50 Adam Kay - This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
10/50 Alastair Reynolds - Revenger
11/50 Brett Anderson - Afternoons With the Blinds Drawn
12/50 Andrzej Sapkowski - The Last Wish
13/50 James Herriot - All Things Wise and Wonderful
14/50 Anna Sewell - Black Beauty
15/50 Dodie Smith - The Hundred and One Dalmatians
16/50 Frances Hardinge - Twilight Robbery
17/50 Terry Pratchett - Eric
18/50 Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows
19/50 Frances Hardinge - Deeplight
20/50 Robert Jordan - The Fires of Heaven
21/50 Douglas Adams - The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
22/50 John Masouri - Rebel Frequency: Jamaica's Reggae Revival
23/50 Douglas Adams - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
24/50 Bill Bryson - Notes from a Small Island
25/50 Sue Black - All That Remains
26/50 Alastair Reynolds - Shadow Captain
27/50 Douglas Adams - Life, the Universe and Everything
28/50 Bill Bryson - Neither Here Nor There

29/50 Douglas Adams - So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

 

[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
28/70 - Anthony Doerr - All The Light we Cannot See
29/70 - Stephen King - If It Bleeds
30/70 - Patricia Highsmith - Ripley Under Ground
31/70 - Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) - The Running Man (re-read)
32/70 - Minette Walters - Acid Row
33/70 - Liz Nugent - Our Little Cruelties
34/70 - Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread
35/70 - Stephen King - Dreamcatcher
36/70 - Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones and The Six
37/70 - Ruth Rendell - Adam and Eve and Pinch Me (re-read)
38/70 - Harlan Coben - Run Away
39/70 - Susan Hill - The Various Haunts of Men
40/70 - Julian Barnes - Arthur and George
41/70 - Stephen King - Cujo (re-read)

42/70 - Susan Hill - The Pure in Heart

 

[pennimania]

1. The Generous Earth – Philip Oyler
2. Excitements at the Chalet School
3.The New Mistress at the Chalet School
4. Betty: the story of Betty MacDonald - Anne Wellman
5. The Coming of Age of the Chalet School - Elinor Brent Dyer
6. The Chalet School and Richenda - “ “ “
7. Trials for the Chalet School - “ “ “
8. We Took to the Woods – Louise Rich Dickinson
9. Theodora and the Chalet School - Elinor Brent Dyer
and
10. Camera Lucida - Roland Barthes (reread)
11. Joey and Co in Tyrol – Elinor Brent Dyer
12. Ruey Richardson at the Chalet School – Elinor Brent Dyer
13. Oil Paint and Greece – Peter Hemming
14. The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker
15. The Chalet School Reunion – Elinor Brent Dyer
and
16. The Valley and the Farm - Monica Edwards
17. Black Hunting Whip - " "
18. Punchbowl Midnight - " "
19. The Spirit of Punchbowl Farm - " " (these books from my childhood are a delight. I still have them)
20. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C S Lewis
21. Prince Caspian - " " "
22. The Last Battle - " " "
23. The Feud in the Chalet - Elinor Brent Dyer
24. The Chalet School Wins the Trick- " " "
25. A Future Chalet School Girl - " " "
26. A Leader in the Chalet School - " " "
27. The Empty World - D E Stevenson
28. The Obesity Code - Jason Fung
29. The Go Between - L P Hartley
30. Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel
31. Beyond a Boundary - CLR James
32. Good Evening Mrs Craven: the Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter Downes - MP Downes
33. Modern Nature - Derek Jarman
34. Mythologies - Roland Barthes (reread)
35. Paper Houses - Michele Roberts
36. Dinah's Husband - Ursula Bloom
37. Normal People - Sally Rooney
38. Devil Water - Anya Seton (reread)

 

[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
9. "No One Home" - Tim Weaver
10. "Orphan X" - Gregg Hurwitz
11. "Nomad" - James Swallow
12. "Horns" - Joe Hill
13. "Dark Places" - Gillian Flynn

14. "The Second Sleep" - Robert Harris. I do enjoy his writing, he creates very vivid characters and landscapes. This isn't his best but still enjoyable and rather timely.

 

[billy_bob]

*1/40 Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White
2/40 Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter
3/40 Hans Rosling - Factfulness
4/40 Alastair Bonnett - Off the Map
5/40 Anna Burns - The Milkman
6/40 Charles Fernyhough - Pieces of Light: The New Science of Memory
7/40 Julia Leigh - The Hunter
8/40 John Higgs - William Blake Now: Why He Matters More Than Ever
9/40 Ammon Shea - Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation
10/40 Donald D. Cohen - Depression Folk: Grassroots Music and Left-Wing Politics in 1930s America
*11/40 Daniel Rachel - Walls Come Tumbling Down: The Music and Politics of Rock Against Racism, 2 Tone and Red Wedge
12/40 Shalom Auslander - Hope: A Tragedy
13/40 Reinhard Kleist - Nick Cave: Mercy on Me
* 14/40 James Joyce - Ulysses
15/40 Shirley Jackson - Dark Tales
16/40 Charles Fernyhough, ed. - Others
17/40 Sally Rooney - Conversations with Friends
18/40 Hannah Fry - Hello World: How to Be Human in the Age of the Machine
19/40 Sally Rooney - Conversations with Friends
20/40 Holly Muller - My Own Dear Brother
21/40 Sarah Perry - Melmoth
22/40 Samanta Schwebelin - Mouthful of Birds
23/40 Denis Johnson - The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
24/40 Eva Meijer - Animal Languages
25/40 George Saunders - Pastoralia
26/40 Zoe Turner - The Book of Newcastle
27/40 Pete Brown - The Story of Craft Beer
*28/40 Ernest Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls
29/40 George Saunders - In Persuasion Nation
30/40 George Saunders - CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
31/40 Shirley Jackson - The Lottery and Other Stories

32/40 Catherine Bradley - Dogs: A Literary Anthology
33/40 Jon Wiederhorn - Ministry: The Lost Gospels according to Al Jourgensen
*34/40 Vikram Seth - Two Lives

* 500+ pages (target this year was more long books)

 

[chilango]

65/100: The Chrysalids - John Wyndham.


Let down by the ending.