2024 Reading Challenge

Book 12: Talking The Groove: Jazz Words From The Morning Star by Chris Searle (Jazz In Britain, 2024)

The latest book from Jazz In Britain collates years worth of articles from "The Morning Star". I have to admit that this 394-page book was tough to get through, not because it wasn't interesting, but because each article is only a page or 2 long and I found it difficult to hold my concentration. This was mainly down to not being familiar with 90% of the musicians mentioned, but apart from this, it was a good read.

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Book 13: Change Is ... A Survey of British Modern Jazz, 1946-73 by Tony Adam (Self-Published, 2018)
This is more of a reference book than anything but it's pretty damn brilliant. Across the 254 pages, Adam highlights a key British jazz musician and provides a bit of a history as well as a detailed analysis of some of their 'best' albums, to which he gives a star rating. Exactly the kind of book that interests me as there is so little written about the British jazz scene.


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Book 14: Shift by Hugh Howey (Arrow, 2013)
I read the first book in the "Silo" trilogy earlier in the year and loved it, so I decided to go for the second one. It didn't meet the same heights as the first in my opinion, but I still rate it highly and its definitely a book I will read again. I believe the final book brings the first and second together so I look forward to reading that too.

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Book 15: The Expanse Book 01 - Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit, 2012)

I watched The Expanse TV show a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Earlier in the year I read the 3rd book in the series (it was the only one that the airport bookshop had) and loved it, so I jumped back and bought the first. A really great start to the series, which I will definitely delve into more this year.

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Selaws said:
Book 12: Talking The Groove: Jazz Words From The Morning Star by Chris Searle (Jazz In Britain, 2024)

The latest book from Jazz In Britain collates years worth of articles from "The Morning Star". I have to admit that this 394-page book was tough to get through, not because it wasn't interesting, but because each article is only a page or 2 long and I found it difficult to hold my concentration. This was mainly down to not being familiar with 90% of the musicians mentioned, but apart from this, it was a good read.

View attachment 206333

Book 13: Change Is ... A Survey of British Modern Jazz, 1946-73 by Tony Adam (Self-Published, 2018)
This is more of a reference book than anything but it's pretty damn brilliant. Across the 254 pages, Adam highlights a key British jazz musician and provides a bit of a history as well as a detailed analysis of some of their 'best' albums, to which he gives a star rating. Exactly the kind of book that interests me as there is so little written about the British jazz scene.


View attachment 206335

Book 14: Shift by Hugh Howey (Arrow, 2013)
I read the first book in the "Silo" trilogy earlier in the year and loved it, so I decided to go for the second one. It didn't meet the same heights as the first in my opinion, but I still rate it highly and its definitely a book I will read again. I believe the final book brings the first and second together so I look forward to reading that too.

View attachment 206338

Book 15: The Expanse Book 01 - Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit, 2012)

I watched The Expanse TV show a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Earlier in the year I read the 3rd book in the series (it was the only one that the airport bookshop had) and loved it, so I jumped back and bought the first. A really great start to the series, which I will definitely delve into more this year.

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I had planned to start re-reading the Expanse books but just not started since I have so much ‘new’ stuff I want to read. Maybe that will be part of my 2025 reading challenge.
 
Selaws said:
I watched The Expanse TV show a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Earlier in the year I read the 3rd book in the series (it was the only one that the airport bookshop had) and loved it, so I jumped back and bought the first. A really great start to the series, which I will definitely delve into more this year.
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My wife and I both loved the show. She decided to read the series and is now onto the books that come after where the TV series ended. (Book 7 I think?) She's loving it, and it's all new territory.
 
Book 12 - The Lost City of Z - David Grann

I didn't find this to be as much of a page-turner as The Wager. (I probably read them too close together.) But it was still a great read. Especially the details on how many ways the jungle tries to kill you.


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Next up is probably my first Coetzee book.
 
mdmost said:
I think my next read since we're about to go on vacation to the Caribbean is a nautical one. I may grab two.

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Really enjoyed the book on Captain Cook's final voyage. A really great read with a lot of detail about the voyage and a good discussion on the impacts "finding" a native land had both on the natives and the voyagers. It really makes me want to visit Tahiti and French Polynesia. Reading it on 7 Mile Beach in the Cayman Islands was a great backdrop.

I may skip a month on the Endurance.
 
Mr Moore said:
Agreed, I read it a few months back and thought it outstanding, creepy as hell.
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Aha, now I remember where I got the recommendation! I had forgotten that in your post you said it was somewhat like a modern era Crime and Punishment, which is exactly what I was thinking as I read it.
 
June 2024

Book 32: Hernan Diaz - Trust
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This was a cracker of a book to open the month with. I absolutely loved it. I'd sort of been putting it off because I thought it was going to be a bit dense and heavy going but, conversely I found it to be extremely easy reading and it had me riveted from the start. An interesting format, the book opens with a lengthy section, a novel within the novel that tells of the role of a financier who helped make and then break the US economy in the mid-late 1920s. Subsequent sections go on to retell the story by the core group of people involved. As this becomes apparent, the greater book, Trust, takes on a more mystery type feel as you start to strive for the truth. As the closing pages play out, it's easy to think that some sort of revelations are being laid out but, the truth is, you never actually know whose truth is the real truth and just who to trust the most. Loved it.

Book 33: Zadie Smith - White Teeth
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I really enjoyed this one. I remember the hype surrounding it over here on initial publication but didn't get on the bandwagon at the time. Smith's writing feels accomplished, her voice authentic and experienced. There were moments in the third quarter where I started to feel like I'd been reading this a long time and even with hindsight, I think it probably could have benefited from a little light editing but, when the super smart finale arrived it really felt worth the wait.

Book 34: DBC Pierre - Meanwhile in Dopamine City
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This one was a joy from start to finish. A brutally funny, whip-smart satire on big tech and modern society. As a self-confessed declinist, this was no doubt preaching to the choir with me but, nonetheless, Pierre manages to flow with ideas that seem so incredibly ridiculous on the face of it but, just maybe, real enough to be plausible. The only minor criticism I could make is that even for this curmudgeon, this study of humanity in the 21st century was just so relentlessly cynical that even the ending didn't leave enough hope for the optimist in me.

Book 35: Kiley Reid - Such a Fun Age
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This was an enjoyable enough read. Issues of relationships, race and racism, transitioning to adulthood all feature in this well crafted modern tale. I suppose I'm a little surprised it was longlisted for the Booker, it was a good story and well plotted throughout but, the writing felt a lot more 'bestseller' than other Booker nominated examples I've read.

Book 36: Paul Auster - Mr Vertigo
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This one's a re-read and while it didn't quite live up to my memory of it, it was still an enjoyable enough entry in my Auster read-through. It's as close as he's gotten to magic realism so far in his books as it tells the tale of a young mistreated orphan who is adopted and taught to levitate by an aging immigrant businessman. It's a well crafted tale of overcoming adversity, dealing with loss and failure, and is quite touching in parts.
 
So @Mr Moore, I have to ask how you can get through books so quickly? Are you a speed reader? It's impressive. I wish I could make it through books at your pace.

I decided to pivot to a different book for July. If I can make it through this one since I've had some good luck doing 2 a month, I'll go back to the Endurance one. I've been wanting to read about LA and old Hollywood. This was the best one I could find. Most of the other ones I was interested in focused on LA crime in the old Hollywood era.

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mdmost said:
So @Mr Moore, I have to ask how you can get through books so quickly? Are you a speed reader? It's impressive. I wish I could make it through books at your pace.

I decided to pivot to a different book for July. If I can make it through this one since I've had some good luck doing 2 a month, I'll go back to the Endurance one. I've been wanting to read about LA and old Hollywood. This was the best one I could find. Most of the other ones I was interested in focused on LA crime in the old Hollywood era.

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No, not a speed reader, in fact I think I read quite steady really. I do read every day though and typically 2-3 hours between commuting and spare moments. It's likely to go up for a while too, I'm changing shift tomorrow so I'll have a couple of hours to myself in the morning. Some of it though, is that I feel like I'm playing catch up a bit. I read constantly through childhood and up to my mid 20s and then I stopped for some reason and must have read about 10 books in 20 years so I feel like I've missed so many good books over those years.
 
I find the more I like what I am reading, the more I read. If I have a really good book and finish it, I start something right away and often keep the momentum going for 2-3 books. But since I am trying not to abandon books as much, if I get something that is a bit of a slog, then my amount of daily reading time drops off.
 
mdmost said:
So @Mr Moore, I have to ask how you can get through books so quickly? Are you a speed reader? It's impressive. I wish I could make it through books at your pace.

I decided to pivot to a different book for July. If I can make it through this one since I've had some good luck doing 2 a month, I'll go back to the Endurance one. I've been wanting to read about LA and old Hollywood. This was the best one I could find. Most of the other ones I was interested in focused on LA crime in the old Hollywood era.

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Finished this last night. It was pretty interesting. Broken into 3 subjects which were interspersed in subsequent chapters. The Engineer that brought water to LA to feed the growing need, while at the same pissing off the valley they were taking the water from. The Artist whose silent movies made Hollywood what it was until "talkies" took over. The Preacher who brought evanglism to LA. The last was fairly interesting because she was the inspiration for Sister Alice in the excellent first season of the HBO series Perry Mason. Overall, an enjoyable read. It wasn't quite what I was wanting but it was a good dive into early LA. I still need to find a golden age of Hollywood book but that wasn't the era this book was set in.
Next up, Endurance.
 
Book 28

Star Wars: The High Republic - Temptation of the Force by Tessa Gratton
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More High Republic action! This book kicks off the second wave of the final phase, and the stakes keep climbing higher. It's been really fun watching all the pieces fall into place as connections through the previous phases continue to come together. This one's got sone really great callbacks, while also hurling things further forward with some shocking new developments.
 
Book 29

Harlem by Mikaël
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A gorgeously rendered historic fiction graphic novel telling of the story of Stephanie St. Clair, the Queen of the Harlem numbers, circa 1931. I absolutely love this era of Harlem history and this graphic novel is very well plotted and paced. The art is stunning at times, particularly the historic setpieces. As a bonus at the end of the book there are details and studies of the places and people in the story. I wasn't familiar with Mikaël before this but upon finishing this I immediately put in requests for his previous two historic NYC graphic novels.
 
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