2024 Reading Challenge

Mr Moore said:
Yeah, similar really. We're a bit lucky over here though in that you can build a mammoth library of really great books, classics and contemporary, on 99p monthly and daily deals. I've got more than I'll ever get through and still find myself buying them but it has to be something really special to me to convince me not to wait and see if it pops up on a price drop.
Click to expand...
Sadly in Canada, the cheap Kindle titles are all last years James Patterson books.
 
ayayrawn said:
My horror Halloween month reading was kind of a dud.

33. The Fisherman by John Langan - an audiobook I DNFed. Liked the cosmic horror idea that it was going for, but never once vibed with the pacing or writing style of it.

34. Poems by Emily Bronte - Y'all already know. Despairing stuff perfect for the season.

35. Berserk vols 1-5 by Kentaro Miura - A classic manga I've never really dived into and holy shit does it slap. Kind of oppressively bleak tho, so going to take a decent break before I continue on but will be doing so.

36. The Cipher by Kathe Koja - Incredibly bleak and gross early 90s body/psych horror. Drags on and on and makes you miserable by design, and was relieved when I finally finished it. Didn't hate it, vibes are unique but did not love and will not read again.

37. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - A blind spot for me. Read for a buddy's book club. Yep, it's depressing.

The last couple weeks I've been reading Say Nothing, a book by Patrick Radden Keefe on The Troubles, which is incredible (and apparently has a miniseries coming out soon, which i had no idea until 10 min ago). I'm thinking of having a nonfiction November, but I'm getting to the point where I really think I need to read something happy lol
Click to expand...
38. Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe - I've said plenty about this book on the Troubles. Loved it, will definitely be one of my favorite books of the year, highly recommend to everybody.

39. The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen - Memoirs of a Danish poet that just recently found acclaim as it was translated in full into English a few years ago. Incredibly lyrical and gorgeous writing that becomes increasingly harrowing as it goes along. This woman had a pretty tortured life.

40. The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay - Met this writer because he was in conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib a couple months ago. This is a collection of mini essays he wrote over the course of a year about things that delighted him. Very pleasant read!

41. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan - Heard about this because it was recently adapted into a movie with Cillian Murphy. It's a breezy novella, only 100 pages. But it packs a wallop. I won't spoil too much but it's about a man trying to do good in a (shockingly recent) dark moment of Irish history I didn't know about (really went all in on Irish history the last month).

Since I've read almost exclusively sad and bleak books the last several months, I'm closing out the year with some contemporary romance and comic strips. Have a big on in store for January.
 
Last edited:
Next batch of 3
#32 - Manel Loureiro - Apocalypse Z - A fun Spanish zombie book to finish off October. Not totally original but also not totally derivative either. I think this is a movie on Prime now as well, but haven't watched it yet.
IMG_0607.jpg
#33 - Nick Harkaway - Karla's Choice - Picks up his father's famous spy master character, Smiley. Felt very true to the spirit of Le Carres writing and characters. Sadly no one will be Le Carre.
IMG_0608.jpg
#34 - Neal Stephenson - Polostan - This felt like a 300 page prologue to one of Stephenson's doorstop books. Also feels like I have read this book from him a hundred times. Not sure if I will actually bother to read the next in the series.
IMG_0609.jpg
 
Book 33: Lady Joker Volume 2 by Kaoru Takamura (Baskerville, 2023)

Volume 1 of Lady Joker was one of the first books that I read this year and I finally picked up the second to read. As with the first, I found the story to be great but spread incredibly thin over a staggering 608 pages. It could have easily been half or even a third in length whilst still capturing the same story. There were a few times when I found it to be dragging a bit but I was also really intrigued by the Japanese cultural elements.

IMG_8131.JPG

Book 34: The Boys Omnibus Volume 1 by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson (Dynamite Entertainment, 2019)

I've had this on my phone for the past year and got through a couple of pages per day inbetween tube stops on my way to work. It's a fun read that fleshes out some of the characters more than the TV show. I think I will end up getting the next volume to work through next year.

IMG_8440.JPG

Book 35: Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka (Harvill Secker)

My local charity shop sells 3 books for £1 which is unreal value so I typically just take a chance on any that catches my eye. I pulled this off the shelf without realising it was the book that the film starring Brad Pitt was part of. It was a really fun read that doesn't take itself seriously at all. Well worth the 33.3p

IMG_8441.JPG
 
mdmost said:
This was so good. A really compelling story that would make a great Netflix or HBO documentary. Next is one I've been putting off but it keeps coming up on Best Of lists.

41SjBd5jIPL._SY445_SX342_.jpg
Click to expand...
Finished this tonight after putting it down for another book about 100 pages in. I just had a mental block to get through but I'm so glad I did. I'll have to pick up some other Larson books in 2025. I know my wife really enjoyed Devil in the White City.

I was excited to read about a new Ron Chernow biography coming in March 2025. I tore through his Hamilton and Washington biographies. The one on Grant was too much of a trudge and I never finished it. I am very much looking forward to this one.

81ULJHDhdLL._SY522_.jpg
 
Last edited:
So I finished 23 books this year, not too shabby for me.
I decided to rank them in tiers.

Epic
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry

Fantastic
Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Wager - David Grann
In a Lonely Place - Dorothy B Hughes

Great Reads
Frankenstein: The 1812 Text - Mary Shelley
Winter - Karl Ove Knausgaard
Spring - Karl Ove Knausgaard
Summer - Karl Ove Knausgaard
(I read Autumn in 2023, it's the first of the tetralogy)
33 1/3: J Dilla's Donuts - Jordan Ferguson
Kafka on the Shore - Murakami
Surely You Can't Be Serious - David Zucker
Hitchcock/Truffaut - Francois Truffaut

Readable
World Within a Song - Jeff Tweedy
The Sun Also Rises - Hemmingway
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Lost City of Z - David Grann
Stoner - John Williams
Waiting for the Barbarians - J.M. Coetzee
Chairman at the Board - Bill Schnee

Can't Recommend
Murder Your Employer - Rupert Holmes
Beethoven: The Music and the Life - Lewis Lockwood
Your Song Changed My Life - Bob Boilen
 
Interesting idea. I read 15 books this year, 3 more than the resolution I set to read one a month.

Epic
Nuclear War: A Scenario- Annie Jacobsen
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped THem- Timothy Egan

Fantastic
The Demon of Unrest - Erik Larson
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook- Hampton Sides
The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis - George Stephanopoulos
Empire of the Summer Moon - S.C. Gwynne

Great Reads
The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age - Michael Wolraich
A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown's Most Shocking Crime - Casey Sherman
The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession - Michael Finkel
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage - Alfred Lansing
Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War - S.C. Gwynne
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation - Imani Perry
Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth

Readable
The Nineties - Chuck Klosterman
The Mirage Factory: Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles - Gary Krist

Book of 2024: Nuclear War: A Scenario - Annie Jacobsen. I've never encountered a book that I could absolutely not put down. I finished this in under 2 days. Simply riveting and utterly terrifying. Reminded me of the 1980s nuclear holocaust movies that scared me growing up.
 
Book 34

Star Wars: The High Republic - Beware The Nameless by Zoraida Cordova
1000011712.jpg

Wow. First post since mid-August—my reading really fell off. This book was incredibly enjoyable, despite my taking three months to read it (it was only 4 sittings to read the whole thing!) but between scary movies and life being quite lifey it just didn't get the attention it deserved. The younger reader books in this series have all been quite fantastic, and the build-up toward the final act has been quite exciting in all streams.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top