50 Books challenge - 2024 roundup

Big question which could have a thread to itself. But I don't think classics have to be either written in the 19th century or be really hard to read (or both, though the two don't go together - some 19th century work is very readable and some 20th century (and 21st century) works are rather challenging for a variety of reasons.

@elkiedee - interesting! After all, how do we define a classic?!

@nowanearlyNicemum
I've not read it yet but my copy of O Caledonia is a publisher classics reprint type edition (well, it's Kindle but it's in the W&N Essentials series with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell. And the Amazon description of the Anita Desai book suggests a classic children's book. So that's 2 of your 33.

Stats:
33 books read – 78% by women, 42% non-fiction, 55% on audible, 64% authors I’d never read before.
Shamefully 0 books in French – not quite sure what happened there. And not a single classic this year either.

Favourite fiction:

• Amy & Isabelle – Elisabeth Strout
• Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
• Tom Lake – Ann Patchett
• Hamnett – Maggie O’Farrell
• Mother’s Boy – Patrick Gale

Favourite non-fiction:

• A heart that works – Rob Delaney
• The Sober Diaries – Clare Pooley
• Learn Spanish – Paul Noble

One stinker: Sober curious – Ruby Warrington

Full list:

• Confessions of a forty-something **-up – Alexandra Potter
• Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race – Reni Eddo-lodge
• A heart that works – Rob Delaney
• Really good, actually – Monica Heisey
• 52 ways to Walk – Annabel Streets
• Amy & Isabelle – Elisabeth Strout
• Islands of mercy – Rose Tremain
• From miniskirt to hijab – Jacqueline Saper
• Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
• The Sober Diaries – Clare Pooley
• The Lost Words – Robert Macfarlane & Jackie Morris
• Tom Lake – Ann Patchett
• The Strawberry Thief - Joanne Harris
• The village by the sea – Anita Desai
• Soldier, Sailor – Claire Kilroy
• Sober curious – Ruby Warrington
• 500 miles from you – Jenny Colgan
• 0 Caledonia – Elspeth Barker
• The Winners – Frederik Backman
• Learn Spanish – Paul Noble
• Fire Rush – Jacqueline Crooks
• Hamnett – Maggie O’Farrell
• Wild – Cheryl Strayed
• The Outrun – Amy Liptrot
• The cellist of Sarajevo – Steven Calloway
• Angels – Marian Keyes
• Four thousand weeks – Oliver Burkeman
• Miranda Hart – I haven’t been entirely honest with you
• The Wrong Knickers – Bryony Gordon
• Abide with me – Elizabeth Strout
• Mother’s Boy – Patrick Gale
• Much more to come – Eleanor Mills
• Close Knit – Jenny Colgan

@Hellohah I was also very disappointed with Tomorrow x 3

@Owlbookend all the best💐

@Resitinas we are all like that lol. I’ve got worse since joining the thread 😁

My full list:

1 Enough - Cassidy Hutchinson
2 Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
3 Kim JiYoung, Born 1982 - Cho Nam-Joo trans Jamie Chang
4 The Menopause Reset - Dr Mindy Pelz
5 Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day - Winifred Wilson
6 Past Lying - Val McDermid
7 The Winter List - SG MacLean
8 The Seeker - SG MacLean
9 Cross Roads - Val McDermid
10 Mythos - Stephen Fry
11 The Bookseller of Inverness - SG MacLean
12 Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat
13 Terms of Restitution - Denzil Meyrick
14 Standing Still - Caro Ramsay
15 The Black Friar - SG MacLean
16 The Rabbit Girls - Anna Ellory
17 How To Kill Your Family - Bella Mackie
18 A Litter of Bones - JD Kirk
19 Blood and Sugar - Laura Shepherd-Robinson
20 Bridges to Burn - Marion Todd
21 The Gathering Storm - Lynne McEwan
22 Destroying Angel - SG MacLean
23 The House of Lamentations - SG MacLean
24 A Treachery of Spies - Manda Scott
25 Tackle - Jilly Cooper
26 The Dubrovnik Book Club - Eva Glyn
27 The Suffering of Strangers - Caro Ramsay
28 Giggling Squid, Tantilising Thai to Cook at Home - Pranee
29 The Sideman - Caro Ramsay
30 The Red, Red Snow - Caro Ramsay
31 On An Outgoing Tide - Caro Ramsay
32 The Silent Conversation - Caro Ramsay
33 The Silk Code - Deborah Swift
34 The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths
35 In A Good Light - Clare Chambers
36 The Stranger Diaries - Elly Griffiths
37 Dead in the Water - Ed James
38 Murder Most Royal - SJ Bennett
39 Enter Ghost - Isabella Hammad
40 The Burning - Jane Casey
41 The Butterfly Room - Lucinda Riley
42 The Murder at Fleat House - Lucinda Riley
43 The Reading List - Sara Nisha Adams
44 The Curious Secrets of Yesterday - Namrata Patel
45 The Summer Skies - Jenny Colgan
46 Marple- various
47 The Stolen Weekend - Fern Britton
48 The Hopes and Dreams of Libby Quinn - Freya Kennedy
49 The Merchant's House - Kate Ellis
50 The Armada Boy - Kate Ellis
51 In Pursut of Happiness - Freya Kennedy
52 The Recipe for Hope - Fiona Valpy
53 The Season of Dreams - Fiona Valpy
54 Don’t Stop Believing - Freya Kennedy
55 Empty Nets and Promises - Denzil Meyrick
56 The Janus Stone - Elly Griffiths
57 The Postscript Murders - Elly Griffiths
58 Edinburgh Twilight - Carole Lawrence
59 Edinburgh Dusk - Carole Lawrence
60 Edinburgh Midnight - Carole Lawrence
61 Bleeding Heart Yard - Elly Griffiths
62 The House at Sea's End - Elly Griffiths
63 Trespasses - Louise Kennedy
64 Forever Home - Graham Norton
65 A Room Full of Bones - Elly Griffiths
66 The Maiden - Kate Foster
67 The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak
68 Soldier, Sailor - Claire Kilroy
69 The Last Word - Elly Griffiths
70 The Secret Adversary - Agatha Christie
71 Luckenbooth - Jenni Fagan
72 Squeaky Clean - Calum McSorley
73 Whites Bones - Graham Masterton
74 How Britain Ends - Gavin Esler
75 The House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz
76 Forty Rules of Love - Elif Shafak
77 The Shadow Network - Deborah Swift
78 Death and Croissants - Ian Moore
79 A Line to Kill - Anthony Horowitz
80 Caledonian Road - Andrew O'Hagan
81 The Crow Trap - Ann Cleeves
82 The King's Sister - Anne O'Brien
83 The 45% Hangover - Stuart McBride
84 Midnight at Malabar House - Vaseem Khan
85 Restless Dolly Maunder - Kate Grenville
86 The Garden of Weapons - John Gardner
87 The Dying Day - Vaseem Khan
88 One Minute Later - Susan Lewis
89 The Ballroom Café - Ann O'Laughlin
90 The Holy Island - LJ Ross
91 Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
92 The Estate - Denzil Meyrick
93 Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi trans Geoffrey Trousselot
94 Dying Fall - Elly Griffiths
95 When the Dust Settles - Lucy Easthope
96 That Bonesetter Woman - Frances Quinn
97 David Copperfield - Charles Dicken
98 Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent
99 How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water - Angie Cruz
100 Motherwell - Deborah Orr
101 The Outcast Dead - Elly Griffiths
102 The Ghost Fields - Elly Griffiths
103 The Woman in Blue - Elly Griffiths
104 Dead Lions - Mick Heron
105 Ask No Questions - Claire Allan
106 Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
107 The Chalk Pit - Elly Griffiths
108 Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe
109 Midnight and Blue - Iain Rankin
110 Brotherless Night - VV Ganeshananthan
111 The Secrets of Blythwood Square - Sara Sheridan
112 The Dark Angel - Elly Griffiths
113 Before and After - Andrew Shanaman
114 The Stone Circle - Elly Griffiths
115 The Lantern Men - Elly Griffiths
116 Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas - Adam Key
117 Real Tigers - Mick Heron
118 Weyward - Emilia Hart
119 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
120 Down Cemetery Road - Mick Heron

My favourite Audible book this year was Project Hail Mary.
Favourite non fiction was When the Dust Settles
I cant choose between Brotherless Night, Hamnet, Strange Sally Diamond and The Island of Missing Trees as my favourite fiction.

Stats:
Bolds 10%
Women 77%, men 23%
Fiction 93%, non fiction 7%
BME 12%
LGBT 5%
trans 1.67%
Book breakdown: Audible 10.7%, Physical books 10%, Kindle/Borrowbox 56%, Library 22.5%. Kindle and Audible 0.8%

The amount of Kindle books I have read reflects my plan to get my TBR pile down. This year, I still plan to work on it, however the current number of 38 is far more manageable and as I read 65 (plus 2 on Borrowbox, but I dont like the formatting). That said, I want to read my physical TBR too. I plan to get more books out of the library, especially when I see all the great recommendations on here :)

Oops, sorry for duplicate rambly post, think I was getting a bit distracted by offline conversations

@Stowickthevast
Impressed by the level of overlap in our reading lists and bold choices. I think we have 4 shared bolds just from this year's reading, and quite a lot more shared reads. I also loved Tom Lake in 2023 and The Night Watchman in the year I read it (perhaps 2021?). I think I've read and enjoyed all Dorothy Whipple's novels and still have two collections of short stories to go - this isn't a lack of enthusiasm for short stories but I have a lot of anthologies and short story collections in my owned TBRs and several library ones to catch up with too, not to mention wishlists! I liked several more of your bolds very much but not quite on my bold list, including My Friends and There Are Rivers in the Sky. And I have a few more TBR.

I also loved Louise Erdrich's next novel The Sentence (no series connection) and am looking forward to her new one, The Mighty Red - currently borrowed from the library but I keep having to prioritise other books.

@Stowickthevast
Impressed by the level of overlap in our reading lists and bold choices. I think we have 4 shared bolds just from this year's reading, and quite a lot more shared reads. I also have qI also loved Tom Lake in 2023 and The Night Watchman in the year I read it (perhaps 2021?). I think I've read and enjoyed all Dorothy Whipple's novels and still have two collections of short stories to go - this isn't a lack of enthusiasm for short stories but I have a lot of anthologies and short story collections in my owned TBRs and several library ones to catch up with too, not to mention wishlists! I liked several more of your bolds very much but not quite on my bold list, including My Friends and There Are Rivers in the Sky. And I have a few more TBR.

Final stats :

117 books by 102 authors - 27% male. Only 2 non fiction, 20% from ethnic minorities, 5% in translation, 9% rereads.

I did top books earlier on the thread but would like to add:

There Are Rivers in The Sky - Elif Shafak
They were Sisters - Dorothy Whipple

I checked earlier @MamaNewtNewt and the last Patrick Rothfuss book was published in 2011, with various rumours since then but no actual book - so no conclusion to the (supposed) trilogy either he's a complete perfectionist and is really taking his time, or his writer's block is terrible...

The Extracted trilogy was an unexpected hit for me too, not usually my cup of tea but much better than anticipated!

My top reads this year:
The Covenant of Water, Abraham Veghese
The Familiars, Stacey Halls
The Clockwork Girl, Anna Mazzola
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
A Fine Balance, Vikram Seth
Six Suspects, Vilkas Swarup

My final list of 2024 is as follows:

1. TheTwist of a Knife - Anthony Horowitz
2. Hello Beautiful - Ann Napolitano
3. Verdigris - Michele Mari, translated by Brian Robert Moore
4. The Covenant of Water - Abraham Verghese
5. Big Swiss - Jen Beagin
6. The Memory of Animals - Claire Fuller
7. The School at the Chalet - Elinor M Brent Dyer
8. The Biography of X - Catherine Lacey
9. Stone Blind - Natalie Haynes

10. American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld 11. The First Bad Man - Miranda July 12. The New Life - Tom Crew 13. North Woods - Daniel Mason 14. Western Lane - Chetna Maroon 15. Lublin - Manya Wilkinson 16. Tom Lake -Anne Patchett 17. A Visit From The Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan 18. The Candy House - Jennifer Egan 19. I Have Some Questions For You - Rebecca Makkai 20. Hungry Ghosts - Kevin Jared Hosein 21. Eight Detectives - Alex Pavesi 22. Jo Returns to The Chalet School 23. In defence of the Act - Effie Black 24. Scrap - Calla Henkel 25. Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? - Nicci French 26. Our Wives Under The Sea - Julia Armfield 27. Open Throat - Henry Hoke 28. And Then She Fell - Alicia Elliot 29. Slow Horses - Mick Herron 30. The Fury - Alex Michaelides 31. River East, River West - Aube Rey Lescure 32. Mayflies - Andrew O'Hagan 33. Enter Ghost - Isabella Hammad 34. Cuddy - Benjamin Myers 35. Brotherless Nights - V.V Ganeshantanan 36. Bunny - Mona Awad 37. Come And Get it - Kiley Reid 38. The Mess We're In - Annie McManus 39. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin 40. The Raging Storm - Anne Cleeves 41. Greenwich Park - Katherine Faulkner 42. You Are Here - David Nicholls 43. Ordinary Human Failings - Megan Nolan 44. Scary Monsters - Michelle De Kretser 45. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus 46. Mammoth - Eva Baltasar 47. Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros 48. A Court Of Thorn and Roses - Sarah J Maas 49. A Court of Mist and Fury - Sarah J Maas 50. A Court Of Wings and Ruin - Sarah J Maas 51. A Court of Frost and Starlight - Sarah J Maas 52. Pearl - Sian Hughes 53. A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J Maas 54. Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar 55. Thunderclap - Laura Cumming 56. Brooklyn - Colm Toibin 57. Helle & Death - Oskar Jensen 58. Mongrel - Hanako Footman 59. We All Want Impossible Things - Catherine Newman 60. Caledonian Road - Andrew O'Hagan 61. There There - Tommy Orange 62. The Safe Keep - Yael van der Wouden 63. All Fours - Miranda July 64. Enlightenment - Sarah Perry 65. The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich 66. Summer Sisters - Judy Blume 67. Greta & Valdin - Rebecca K Riley 68. My Friends - Hisham Matar 69. Iron Flame - Rebecca Yarros 70. Family Lore - Elizabeth Acevedo 71. The Housemaid - Freida McFadden 72. Borderline - Mishell Barker 73. How to Say Babylon - Safiya Sinclair 74. The Song Of Achilles - Madeleine Miller 75. A Thousand Ships - Natalie Haynes 76. The Kellerby Code - Jonny Sweet 77. Hidden in Snow - Viveca Sten 78. Hidden in Shadows - Viveca Sten 79. Orbital - Samantha Harvey. 80. Sandwich - Catherine Newman 81. Creation Lake - Rachel Kushner 82. Butter - Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton 83. Case Histories - Kate Atkinson 84. One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson 85. When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson 86. Started Early, Took My Dog - Kate Atkinson 87. Nightbloom - Peace Adzo Medie 87. A Flat Place - Noreen Masud 88. The Coast Road - Alan Murrin 89. All The Colours of the Dark - Chris Whitaker 90. Desperate Characters - Paula byFox 91. Borrowed Finery - Paula Fox 92. Playground - Richard Powers 93. The Cracked Mirror - Chris Brookmyre 94. Rivals - Jilly Cooper 95. Polo - Jilly Cooper 96. James - Percival Everett 97. The Fell - Sarah Moss CDs 98. Caraval - Stephanie Garber 99. The Echoes - Evie Wyld 100. Wandering Stars - Tommy Orange 101. Our Evenings - Alan Hollinghurst 102. The God of the Woods - Liz Moore 103. Long Island - Colm Toíbin 104. Guilty by Definition - Susie Dent 105. The Most Secret Memory of Men - Mohammed Mbougar Sarr, translated by Lara Vergnaud 106. Shy Creatures - Clare Chambers 107. The Spoiled Heart - Sanjeev Sahota 108. Whale Fall - Elizabeth O' Connor 109. There are Rivers in the Sky- Elif Shafak 110. Mr Lovermam - Bernadette Evaristo 111. They Were Sisters - Dorothy Whipple 112. The Atlas Six - Olivie Blake 113. Animal Life - Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir, translated by Brian Fitzgibbon 114. Small Bomb At Dimperley - Lissa Evans 115. Madwoman - Chelsea Bieker 116. The Proof of My Innocence - Jonathan Coe 117. West Heart Kill - Dann McGorman

Just waiting for Storygraph to give me my final stats....

I posted my bolds and italics upthread and no change to those.

My final number was 357. Of those, 127 were by men and 225 by women (with the remaining 5 being by both). 118 were on kindle, with 15 audiobooks and 224 physical books (including 30 from the library). 276 were fiction, 59 non fiction, 14 children’s/YA and 8 short stories. 279 were new to me and 78 were rereads.

In 2025 I need to read more non fiction. I’m happy with the male/female author split though.

Just realised I should have posted my list on here!

1 The Trial – Rob Rinder
2 The Generation Divide: Why we can’t agree and why we should – Bobby Duffy
3 The Fell – Sarah Moss
4 Impossible Creatures – Katherine Rundell
5 Over Sea Under Stone – Susan Cooper
6 Greenwitch – Susan Cooper
7 The Grey King – Susan Cooper
8 Silver on the Tree – Susan Cooper
9 Orlando – Virginia Woolf
10 Liza’s England – Pat Barker
11 Winter – Ali Smith
12 Farewell Fountain Street – Selcuk Altun
13 Hungry – Grace Dent
14 The Shadow Murders – Jussi Adler-Olsen
15 The Wayward Bus – John Steinbeck
16 My Dark Vanessa – Kate Elizabeth Russell
17 Giving Up the Ghost – Hilary Mantel
18 Spook Street – Mick Herron
19 The Waves – Virginia Woolf
20 At Freddie’s – Penelope Fitzgerald
21 Before the Queen Falls Asleep – Huzama Habayeb
22 The Progress of a Crime – Julian Symons
23 Death of a Lesser God – Vaseem Khan
24 Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
25 Green Dot – Madeleine Gray
26 Family Politics – John O’Farrell
27 The Five – Hallie Rubenhold
28 London Rules – Mick Herron
29 The Brightest Night (Wings of Fire 5) – Tui T. Sutherland
30 Joe Country – Mick Herron
31 Spring – Ali Smith
32 Yellowface – Rebecca F. Kuang
33 Sidesplitter – Phil Wang
34 Slough House – Mick Herron
35 Bad Actors – Mick Herron
36 The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree – Nice Nailantei Leng’ete
37 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster – Mirinae Lee
38 A Month in the Country – J. L. Carr
39 The Letters Volume IV: 1929 – 1931 – A Reflection of the Other Person – Virginia Woolf
40 The Truths We Hold – Kamala Harris
41 The Chinese Maze Murders – Robert van Gulik
42 Summer – Ali Smith
43 Virginia Woolf (vol 2) – Quentin Bell
44 Wifedom – Anna Funder
45 Past Lying – Val McDermid
46 The Wind Through the Keyhole – Stephen King
47 L’Etranger – Albert Camus
48 Patchwork – Ellen Banda-Aaku
49 Night Waking – Sarah Moss
50 Traces – Patricia Wiltshire
51 Maskerade – Terry Pratchett
52 The Marrying of Chani Kaufman – Eve Harris
53 Mayflies – Andrew O’Hagan
54 How to Say Babylon – Safiya Sinclair
55 The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra – Vaseem Khan
56 The House of Mirrors – Erin Kelly
57 Clara’s Daughter – Meike Ziervogel
58 Mongrel – Hanako Footman
59 Frankie – Graham Norton
60 Rivals – Jilly Cooper
61 Johnson at 10 – Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell
62 The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years – Shubnum Khan
63 The Lido – Libby Page
64 The Outrun – Amy Liptrot
65 The Dark is Rising – Susan Cooper
66 The Burning – Jane Casey
67 The Raging Storm – Anne Cleeves

I think my top 5 (not necessarily in this order) were:

1. Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
2. 8 Lives of a Centuries Old Trickster - Mirinae Lee
3. A Month in the Country - J L Carr
4. Traces - Patricia Wiltshire
5. Mayflies - Andrew O'Hagan

Thanks @DuPainDuVinDuFromage - I loved Devices and Desires so I must check out the Bess of Hardwick

My top 5 non-fictions (in no particular order):

Agent Sonya
The Wager
Bess of Hardwick
The Lost City of Z
The Dictionary People

And my top 5 fictions:

The Ferryman
The Searcher
The Hunter
The Bookbinder of Jericho
The Dictionary of Lost Words

Here’s my full list, with (very brief) comments for each book.

Stats:

• 52 fiction; 12 non-fiction
• 11 by male authors (one of which was translated by a woman); 52 by female authors; 1 by a male/female pair of authors
• Only 2 in French (one of which was a graphic novel, and the other was Gardening for Dummies - so not exactly great literature! Work is busy enough that I don’t feel like making my brain work hard when I have downtime, so I have pretty much given up on reading in French!).

List with comments:

1. Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens (fascinating characters eventually get their just deserts)
2. The Five-minute Garden - Laetitia Maklouf (oh, gardening is sooo easy!)
3. A Symphony of Echoes - Jodi Taylor (more time-travelling historians)
4. Agent Sonya - Ben Macintyre (excellent true spy story)
5. A Second Chance - Jodi Taylor (Troy etc this time)
6. The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley (Highland Hogmanay murder)
7. Homecoming - Kate Morton (long Australian tragedy)
8. Le Jardinage pour les Nuls - Michael MacCaskey (in French; tr. Valérie Martin-Rolland) (gardening is hard work)
9. Once Upon a Crime - Robin Stevens (transitional short stories)
10. Heresy - SJ Parris (Tudor murder mystery)
11. The Ministry of Unladylike Activity - Robin Stevens (wartime child detectives)
12. Politics on the Edge - Rory Stewart (political autobiography)
13. The Appeal - Janice Hallett (modern epistolary murder)
14. The Ferryman - Justin Cronin (thought-provoking sci-fi)
15. The Twyford Code - Janice Hallett (silly, trying to be clever)
16. The Mitford Girls - Mary S Lovell (fascinating but biased biography)
17. Country Secrets - Fiona Walker (next-gen Jilly Cooper)
18. A Stitch in Time - Penelope Lively (70s seaside)
19. The Wager - David Grann (harrowing shipwreck and mutiny)
20. The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels - Janice Hallett (hack investigates deaths)
21. The Hike - Lucy Clarke (Norwegian mountain murder)
22. Seeing a Large Cat - Elizabeth Peters (murder and intrigue in Edwardian Egypt)
23. The Ski Trip - Sarah Clarke (snowy thriller with silly plot twists)
24. The Scarlet Dress - Louise Douglas (character-driven cold case)
25. The Lost Bookshop - Evie Woods (mediocre magical realism)
26. The Lost Notebook - Louise Douglas (summer in Brittany with incongruous murders)
27. The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman (lots of murders, lots of sadness)
28. The Future of Geography - Tim Marshall (geopolitics: the final frontier)
29. The Secret of Villa Alba - Louise Douglas (Sicilian mystery)
30. The House by the Sea - Louise Douglas (Sicilian mystery…again)
31. One of the Girls - Lucy Clarke (hen do shenanigans)
32. The Summer of Lies - Louise Douglas (better Brittany sequel)
33. The Room in the Attic - Louise Douglas (gothic time-slip)
34. Bess of Hardwick - Mary S. Lovell (comprehensive Elizabethan biography)
35. The Body in the Blitz - Robin Stevens (murder, spying and bombs)
36. The Pact - Sharon Bolton (unlikeable Oxford teens)
37. The Lost City of Z - David Grann (Amazon exploration)
38. Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers (50s love story)
39. The Invisible Library - Genevieve Cogman (fantasy book-retrievers)
40. The Masked City - Genevieve Cogman (fairies in Venice)
41. Les Cahiers d’Esther: Histoires de mes 13 ans - Riad Sattouf (in French) (Esther in 5ème)
42. The Burning Page - Genevieve Cogman (more Library, more worlds)
43. The Lost Plot - Genevieve Cogman (dragons in 1920s New York)
44. The Mortal Word - Genevieve Cogman (diplomacy and murder in Paris)
45. The Secret Chapter - Genevieve Cogman (Bond baddies and heists)
46. The Dark Archive - Genevieve Cogman (evil mastermind returns)
47. The Untold Story - Genevieve Cogman (all is revealed)
48. The Searcher - Tana French (ex-cop in rural Ireland)
49. Has anyone seen Charlotte Salter? - Nicci French (average family drama / murder)
50. The Dictionary of Lost Words - Pip Williams (women and the OED)
51. Scarlet - Genevieve Cogman (French revolution…with vampires)
52. The Bookbinder of Jericho - Pip Williams (book lovers in wartime Oxford)
53. Borrower of the Night - Elizabeth Peters (70s characters in a gothic adventure)
54. The Reluctant Widow - Georgette Heyer (lively Regency romance)
55. Death and Croissants - Ian Moore (cosy crime in the Loire valley)
56. A Very British Murder - Lucy Worsley (overview of crime literature)
57. The Quiet Gentleman - Georgette Heyer (attempted murder with a happy ending)
58. Just Like the Other Girls - Claire Douglas (blonde girls; red herrings)
59. The Wrong Sister - Claire Douglas (siblings and murder)
60. The Hunter - Tana French (village intrigue in a heatwave)
61. False Colours - Georgette Heyer (twin-swapping fun)
62. The Art of Murder - Fiona Walker (Jilly Cooperesque whodunnit)
63. The Dictionary People - Sarah Ogilvie (fascinating history of crowd-sourcing project)
64. Women Living Deliciously - Florence Given (how to be nicer to yourself)

And an honourable mention to New Scientist magazine - a year’s worth of those makes a pretty big non-fiction book overall, and I’ve learned a lot (even if I still can’t even begin to understand quantum physics 😄)

88 books in total (same as last year)
9 non-fiction
79 fiction
47 authors
31 female authors
16 male authors

Quite a few re-reads (Jilly Cooper, Felix Francis, Mick Herron and Agatha Christie)

Full list on 2024 thread but highlights were:

1. Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
2. The Golden Mole - Katherine Rundell
3. The Bandit Queens - Parini Shroff
4. Politics on the Edge - Rory Stewart
5. False Colours - Georgette Heyer
6. The Scapegoat - Daphne du Maurier
7. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
8. In Memoriam - Alice Winn
9. Consequences - Penelope Lively
10. Poor - Katriona O'Sullivan
11. The Enchanted April - Elizabeth von Arnim
12. Water - John Boyne
13. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor
14. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell
15. Earth - John Boyne
16. When the Dust Settles - Lucy Easthope
17. Conclave - Robert Harris
18. The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal - Jodi Taylor

One real stinker : The Secret Adversary - Agatha Christie

And two which stood out as particularly disappointing were:

1. The Midnight Feast - Lucy Foley
2. Men without Women - Ernest Hemingway

Here's my final list for the year. No additions to my list of bolds up thread, but one final read in Riders by Jilly Cooper. No italics as I DNF if I'm not enjoying.

Formatting looks good in preview, let's see if it works for real!

1 - *The Vanishing Half - *Brit Bennett
2 - Proust and the Squid - Maryanne Wolf
3 - Anything is Possible - Elizabeth Strout
4 - Birnham Wood - Eleanor Catton
5 - Good Pop, Bad Pop - Jarvis Cocker
6 - Legends and Lattes - Travis Baldree
7 - Fabulosa - Paul Baker
8 - A Wizards Guide to Defensive Baking - T Kingfisher
9 - *For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on my Little Pain - *Victoria McKenzie
10 - *A Suitable Boy - *Vikram Seth
11 - *Before We Were Trans - *Kit Heyam
12 - The Disappearance Boy - Neil Bartlett
13 - *Doppelganger - *Naomi Klein
14 - Werecockroach - Polenth Blake
15 - Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands - Heather Fawcett
16 - Power Trip - Damian McBride
17 - *Julia - *Sandra Newman
18 - Sunstruck - Polenth Blake
19 - Edible Economics - Ha Joon Chang
20 - A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel - KJ Charles
21 - Red Side Story - Jasper Fforde
22 - *Doors of Eden - *Adrian Tchaikovsky
23 - Winter's Gifts - Ben Aaronovich
24 - The Living Soil Handbook - Jesse Frost
25 - Fire Weather - John Vaillant
26 - Hot Water - Christopher Fowler
27 - Role Playing - Cathy Yardley
28 - The 13th Witch - Mark Hayden
29 - *Eleanor Rigby - *Douglas Coupland
30 - *Sophia - *Anita Anand
31 - People Like Us - Caroline Slocock
32 - A Marvellous Light - Freya Marske
33 - *Natives - *Akala
34 - Why We Remember - Charan Ranganath
35 - *Shadows at Noon - *Joya Chatterji
36 - A Psalm for the Wild - built - Becky Chambers
37 - *Tubes - *Andrew Blum
38 - A Prayer for the Crown - Shy - Becky Chambers
39 - The House Witch and the Enchanting of the Hearth - Emilie Nikota
40 - The House Witch and the Charming of Austice - Emilie Nikota
41 - The House Witch and When the Cat Spells War - Emilie Nikota
42 - Infomocracy - Malka Older
43 - The Princess of Potential - Emilie Nikota
44 - Death in the Spires - KJ Charles
45 - Ruth - Elizabeth Gaskell
46 - Do You Dream of Terra - Two? - Temi Oh
47 - *Living With Robots: What Every Anxious Human Needs to Know - *Patricia Vargas & Ruth Aylett
48 - The Burning Witch 1 - Emilie Nikota
49 - In The Days of Rain - Rebecca Stott
50 - *Tir - *Carwyn Graves
51 - The Mimicking of Known Successes - Malka Older
52 - Cloistered - Catherine Coldstream
53 - *Prophet Song - *Paul Lynch
54 - The Trading Game - Gary Stevenson
55 - A Bookshop of One's Own - Jane Cholmely
56 - Faro's Daughter - Georgette Heyer
57 - The black moth - Georgette Heyer
58 - The Burning Witch 2 - Emilie Nikota
59 - Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer
60 - Scattered Showers - Rainbow Rowell
61 - Quiver - Julia Watts
62 - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
63 - Generation A - Douglas Coupland
64 - The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie
65 - The October Man - Ben Aaronovich
66 - Want You Gone - Chris Brookmyre
67 - *Private Revolutions - *Yuan Yang
68 - *Thirty Two Words for Field - *Manchan Magan
69 - Full Tilt - Dervla Murphy
70 - *Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts - *Christopher de Hamel
71 - Spells & Spice & Everything Nice - Jessica Rosenberg
72 - *Ordinary Human Failings - *Megan Nolan
73 - The Duke at Hazard - KJ Charles
74 - Code Dependent - Madhumita Murgia
75 - *The Mountain in the Sea - *Ray Nayler
76 - The Windsor Knot - SJ Bennett
77 - The Prodigal Tongue - Lynne Murphy
78 - *A Restless Truth - *Freya Marske
79 - Other Minds - Peter Godfrey - Smith
80 - *The Creativity Code - *Marcus du Sautoy
81 - A Power Unbound - Freya Marske
82 - Mona of the Manor - Armistead Maupin
83 - *Failed State - *Sam Freedman
84 - *A Little Luck - *Claudia Piñeiro
85 - In Ascension - Martin McInnes
86 - Deaf Utopia - Nyle Dimarco
87 - A Three Dog Problem - SJ Bennett
88 - Bluebird - Ciel Perlot
89 - Murder Most Royal - SJ Bennett
90 - A Death in Diamonds - SJ Bennett
91 - Who's Afraid of Gender - Judith Butler
92 - Mary Ellen, Craterean! - Chaz Brenchley
93 - Slow Dance - Rainbow Rowell
94 - The Cracked Mirror - Chris Brookmyre
95 - Exam Nation - Sammy Wright
96 - Their Finest Hour and a Half - Lissa Evans
97 - The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman
98 - Medieval Woman - Ann Baer
99 - Small Bomb at Dimperley - Lissa Evans
100 - The Pairing - Casey McQuiston
101 - Help Wanted - Adelle Waterman
102 - *Network Effect - *Martha Wells
103 - Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells
104 - Zero Risk - Simon Hayes
105 - *Service Model - *Adrian Tchaikovsky
106 - Stuffed - Pen Vogler
107 - The Accidental Seed Heroes - Adam Alexander
108 - *A Woman Like Me - *Diane Abbot
109 - *Elena Knows - *Claudia Piñeiro
110 - *The Christmas Chronicles - *Nigel Slater
111 - Riders - Jilly Cooper

Final list! One more bold and one more dud from my last 8 books. 117 in all, I will redo the percentages when back on laptop. Non fiction books are underlined.

Bolds:
The Great Post Office Scandal - Nick Wallis
The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths
Bringing Columbia Home - Mike Leibenhart
A Memoir of my Former Self - Hilary Mantel
The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Nifenegger
Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe
The Strawberry Thief - Joanne Harris
Scoops - Sam McAllister
Royal Road to Fotheringhay - Jean Plaidy
Act of Oblivion - Robert Harris
After that Night - Karin Slaughter
Blindsighted - Karin Slaughter
Sisterland - Curtis Sittenfield
Meet Me at the Museum - Anne Youngson
Medea - Rosie Hewlett
Girl A - Abigail Dean
All Fours - Miranda July
Just Another Missing Person - Gillian McAllister
Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult
The Summer of Lies - Louise Douglas
Sister in Law - Harriet Wistrich
None of This is True - Lisa Jewell
Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life - Anna Funder
An Officer and a Spy - Robert Harris
Rodham - Curtis Sittenfield
My Favourite Mistake - Marian Keyes
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Incredible Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers - Larry McDonald and Patrick Robinson
Failed State - Sam Freedman
The Hand That First Held Mine - Maggie O’Farrell
Fallen - Karin Slaughter
Criminal - Karin Slaughter
The Kept Woman - Karin Slaughter

Italics:
Whatever it Takes - Adele Parks
Under Her Roof - A A Chaudhuri
Alison Wonderland - Helen Smith
Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney
Dear Coca-Cola: The Timewaster Letters - Terry Ravenscroft

Only one DNF: The Bat - Jo Nesbo

Best of 2024

Non Fiction
Louisa Waugh, Meet Me in Gaza (reread)
Natasha Walter, Before the Light Fades: A Memoir of Grief and Resistance
Sarah Watling, Tomorrow Perhaps The Future: Following Writers and Rebels in the Spanish Civil War
Kirsty Gunn, My Katherine Mansfield Project
Heather Clark, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
Lea Ypi, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History
Carol Atherton, Reading Lessons: The Books We Read at School, the Conversations They Spark and Why They Matter
Emma Smith, Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers

Fiction
Pip Williams, The Bookbinder of Jericho
Aingeala Flannery, The Amusements
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
Aube Rey Lescure, River East, River West
Tayari Jones, An American Marriage
Ruth Thomas, Super Girl
Monica Ali, Love Marriage
Isabella Hammad, Enter Ghost
Georgina Hammick, The Arizona Game
Elizabeth McCracken, The Giant's House
Fredrik Backman, Britt-Marie Was Here
Rebecca K Reilly, Greta & Valdin
Lynne Reid Banks, The L-Shaped Room
Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional
Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling
Emily Usher, Wild Ground
Kate Glanville, The Cherry Tree Summer
Elizabeth Hay, Late Nights on Air
V V Ganeshanathan, Brotherless Night
Michelle Magorian, A Little Love Song
Clare Chambers, Shy Creatures
Alan Hollinghurst, Our Evenings
Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen
Sally Rooney, Intermezzo
Christine Dwyer Hickey, Our London Lives
Michelle Magorian, Impossible!

1. Anne Enright, The Wren, The Wren
2. Nancy Spain, Poison for Teacher
3. Nicole Flattery, Nothing Special
4. Richard Osman, The Last Devil to Die - reviewed 17.01.24
5. Elizabeth Wein, White Eagles - reviewed 08.10.24
6. Elizabeth McKenzie, The Dog of the North
7. Jennifer O'Connell, Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume
8. Colm Toibin, The Shortest Day
9. Rachael English, Whatever Happened to Birdy Troy?

10. Walter Mosley, The Awkward Black Man 11. Louisa Waugh, Meet Me in Gaza 12. Alix E Harrow, The Six Deaths of the Saint 13. Adelle Waldman, Help Wanted 14. Daniel Rachel, Don't Look Back in Anger: The Rise and Fall of Cool Britannia 15. Natasha Walter, Before the Light Fades: A Memoir of Grief and Resistance

16. Emily Gunnis, The Girl in the Letter

17. Jo Thomas, Finding Love at the Christmas Market

18. Mourid Barghouti, I Saw Ramallah

19. Jean Kwok, The Leftover Woman

20. Henrietta McKervey, Violet Hill

21. Pip Williams, The Bookbinder of Jericho

22. Aingeala Flannery, The Amusements - reviewed 17.12.24

23. Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

24. Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

25. Viv Groskop, Au Revoir, Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature - reviewed 17.09.24

26. Alice Hoffman, The Bookstore Sisters - short story

27. Kate Clayborn, The Other Side of Disappearing

28. Sarah Watling, Tomorrow Perhaps The Future: Following Writers and Rebels in the Spanish Civil War - reviewed 10.11.24

29. Simon Brett, An Amateur Corpse

30. Kirsty Gunn, My Katherine Mansfield Project - reviewed 21.12.24

31. Val McDermid, Still Life

32. Joanna Wallace, The Dead Friend Project

33. Fannie Flagg, The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion

34. K M Peyton, Flambards Divided

35. Martin Edwards (editor), Crime on the Move

36. Alice Hoffman, Everything My Mother Taught Me - short story

37. Jane Gardam, The Queen of the Tambourine

38. Aube Rey Lescure, River East, River West

39. Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

40. Naomi Alderman, The Future

41. Otto Penzler (Editor), The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives

42. Luci Adams, It Must Be True Then

43. Isabel Allende, Lovers at the Museum - short story

44. Peggy Frew, Hope Farm

45. Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults

46. Richard Thompson, Beeswing: Fairport, Folk Rock and Finding My Voice, 1967-75

47. Lara Thompson, One Night, New York

48. Margaret Atwood, Cut & Thirst - short story

49. Patrice Lawrence, Splinters of Sunshine

50. Rachel Khong, Real Americans

51. Ruth Thomas, Super Girl

52. Monica Ali, Love Marriage

53. Diana Tutton, Mamma

54. Nina Stibbe, One Day I Shall Astonish the World

55. Frances Brody, A Mansion for Murder

56. Jane Cholmeley, A Bookshop of One's Own: How a Group of Women Set Out to Change the World

57. Heather Clark, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath

58. Isabella Hammad, Enter Ghost

59. Jami Attenberg, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home - reviewed 17.12.24

60. Laura Kay, Making It

61. Lindsey Davis, Time to Depart

62. Georgina Hammick, The Arizona Game

63. Hisham Matar, My Friends - reviewed 13.09.24

64. Francesca Hornak, Seven Days of Us

65. Daphne Du Maurier, My Cousin Rachel

66. Jennifer Weiner, Golden Hills - short story

67. Stef Penney, The Beasts of Paris

68. Elizabeth McCracken, The Giant's House

69. Molly Clavering, Because of Sam

70. Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch

71. Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World - reviewed 18.06.24

72. Robin Stevens, First Class Murder

73. Sally Franson, Big in Sweden

74. Xochitl Gonzalez, Anita De Monte Laughs Last

75. Suzannah Dunn, Levitation for Beginners

76. Lea Ypi, Free: Coming of Age at the End of History - reviewed 19.11.24

77. Sue Grafton & Otto Penzler (editors), The Best American Mystery Stories 1998

78. Elin Cullhed, Euphoria

79. Fredrik Backman, Britt-Marie Was Here

80. Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig, You're a Brick, Angela: The Girls' Story 1839-1985

81. Lauren Farnsworth, The Lonely Hearts Quiz League

82. Rebecca K Reilly, Greta & Valdin - reviewed 10.06.24

83. Ian Rankin, The Rise - novella

84. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

85. Katy Watson, Seven Lively Suspects

86. Colm Toibin, Long Island - reviewed 18.06.24

87. Louise Welsh, The Second Cut

88. Francesca Reece, Glass Houses

89. Marina Warner, Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir

90. Linda Newbery, The Key to Flambards

91. Niamh Mulvey, The Amendments

92. Ursula Owen, Single Journey Only: A Memoir - reviewed 08.10.24

93. Kate Atkinson, Normal Rules Don't Apply

94. Lynne Reid Banks, The L-Shaped Room

95. Emma Steele, The Echoes of Us

96. Andrew O'Hagan, Caledonian Road

97. C J Carey, Widowland

98. Tessa Hadley, Late in the Day

99. Liv Constantine, Everywhere You Look - short st ory

100. Penelope Mortimer, The Home

101. Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional - reviewed 13.10.24

102. Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling

103. Daisy Dunn, Not Far From Brideshead: Oxford Between the Wars

104. Nita Prose, Murder at the Royal Ruby - short story

105. Elizabeth Macneal, The Burial Plot

106. Sarah Moss, My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir

107. Sara Wheeler, Glowing Still: A Woman's Life on the Road

108. Carol Birch, Shadow Girls

109. Lizzie Skurnick, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading

110. Evie Wyld, All the Birds, Singing

111. Marian Keyes, Again, Rachel

112. Daisy Buchanan, Pity Party

113. Robin Stevens, Jolly Foul Play

114. C J Sansom, Lamentation

115. Emily Usher, Wild Ground

116. Ed McBain & Otto Penzler (editors), The Best American Mystery Stories 1999

117. A S Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden

118. Kate Glanville, The Cherry Tree Summer

119. Avril Horner, Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence

120. Jessica Anthony, The Most

121. Jo Thomas, The Honey Farm on the Hill

122. Monisha Rajesh, Around the World in 80 Trains, A 45,000 Mile Adventure - reviewed 23.12.24

123. Alice Hoffman, The Bookstore Wedding - short story

124. Carol Atherton, Reading Lessons: The Books We Read at School, the Conversations They Spark and Why They Matter

125. Elizabeth Hay, Late Nights on Air

126. Tracy Chevalier, The Glassmaker

127. Kristin Hannah, The Women

128. Catherine Carswell, Open the Door!

129. Elly Griffiths, The Man in Black & Other Stories

130. Peter May, The Black Loch

131. Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Lover - short story

132. David Nicholls, You Are Here - reviewed 30.09.24

133. V V Ganeshanathan, Brotherless Night

134. Olga Wojtas, Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Weird Sisters

135. Caryn Rose, Why Patti Smith Matters - reviewed 18.10.24

136. Caitlin Davies, The Ghost of Lily Painter - reread, previously reviewed 22.06.11

137. Sinéad Gleeson, Constellations: Reflections from Life

138. Mai Senaar, They Dream in Gold

139. A J Pearce, Mrs Porter Calling

140. Della Cai, Central Places

141. Lissa Evans, Small Bomb at Dimperley - reviewed 05.11.24

142. Mark Hodkinson, No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working Class Reader

143. Michelle Magorian, A Little Love Song

144. Cheryl Strayed, Two Women Walk Into a Bar

145. Barbara Nadel, Belshazzar's Daughter

146. Kate Glanville, The Peacock House

147. Clare Chambers, Shy Creatures

148. Lorrie Moore, I Am Homeless If This is Not My Home - reviewed 01.10.24

149. Eva Dolan, Tell No Tales

150. Attica Locke, Guide Me Home

151. Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women

152. Rory Cellan-Jones, Sylvia, Me and the BBC

153. Orlaine McDonald, No Small Thing

154. Jim Kelly, At Death's Window

155. Pete Brown, Clubland: How the Working Men's Club Shaped Britain

156. Lisa Kleinholz, Exiles on Main Street

157. Helen Taylor, Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives

158. Jane Thynne, Midnight in Vienna

159. Kate Johnson, Hex Appeal

160. Elizabeth Harrower, The Watch Tower

161. Maggie Shipstead, The June Paintings - short story

162. Alan Hollinghurst, Our Evenings

163. Tsitsi Dangarembga, Black and Female

164. Lauren Elkin, Scaffolding

165. Nelson De Mille & Otto Penzler (editors), The Best American Mystery Stories 2004

166. Jenny Colgan, Class

167. Diana Anyakwo, My Life As a Chameleon

168. Harriet Baker, Rural Hours: The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann

169. Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

170. Phoebe MacLeod, The Do-Over

171. Robert Harris, Imperium

172. Robin Stevens, Mistletoe and Murder

173. David Lodge, Quite a Good Time to be Born: A Memoir 1935-1975
     175. Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen

174. Cheryl Strayed, This Telling - story

175. Charlotte Betts, The Italian Garden

176. Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

177. Kate Atkinson, Death at the Sign of the Rook

178. Antonia Fraser & Victoria Gray (editors), The Pleasure of Reading: 43 Writers on the Discovery of Reading and the Books That Inspired Them

179. Georgina Clarke, Death and the Harlot

180. Christine Dwyer Hickey, The House on Parkgate and Other Dublin Stories - reviewed 29.10.24

181. Amor Towles, Table for Two

182. Tracy Farr, The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt

183. Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus

184. Roxane Gay, Graceful Burdens - short story

185. Christy McKellen, About Last Night
     188. Christine Dwyer Hickey, Our London Lives

186. Xiaolu Guo, A Lover's Discourse

187. Craig Cabell, Ian Rankin and Inspector Rebus

188. Stephanie Butland, Lost for Words

189. Diane Abbott, A Woman Like Me: A Memoir

190. Katy Watson, A Lively Midwinter Murder

191. Pat Barker, The Voyage Home

192. Sally Bayley, The Green Lady: A Spirit, A Story, A Place

193. Rowan Coleman, River Deep

194. J Courtney Sullivan, The Cliffs

195. Caoilinn Hughes, The Alternatives
     199. Emma Smith, Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers

196. Lindsey Davis, A Dying Light in Corduba

197. Langston Hughes, Not Without Laughter

198. Sefi Atta, The Bead Collector

199. Beth O'Leary, Swept Away

200. Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

201. Jocelyn Playfair, A House in the Country
     206. Michelle Magorian, Impossible!

202. Tony Travers, London's Boroughs at 50

203. Maxine Morrey, Reach for the Stars

204. Scott Turow & Otto Penzler (editors), The Best American Mystery Stories 2006

205. Meron Hadero, A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times

206. Sarra Manning, The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp

207. Richard Osman, We Solve Murders

208. David M Barnett, The Little Christmas Library

209. Elvis Costello, Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink

My final list of the year. There's been lots of books I've enjoyed but it's not been a great year for standout books.

1 The Chrysalids, John Wyndham
2 Bomber, Len Deighton
3 Stay With Me, Ayobami Adebayo
4 A Thread of Grace, Mary Doria Russell
5 Under Sea, Over Stone, Susan Cooper
6 Frenchman’s Creek, Daphne du Maurier
7 War Doctor, David Nott
8 Zoo Station, David Downing
9 Politics on the Edge, Rory Stewart
10 My Forth Time We Drowned, Sally Hayden
11 A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam
12 So Late in the Day, Claire Keegan
13 The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
14 The Rose Code, Kate Quinn
15 The Burgess Boys, Elizabeth Strout
16 Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler
17 The House of Doors, Tan Twan Eng
18 Breathtaking, Rachel Clarke
19 Woman, Eating, Claire Kohda
20 The Alienist, Caleb Carr
21 Memphis, Tara M Stringfellow
22 Little, Edward Carey
23 Natives, Akala
24 Blood & Sugar, Laura Shepherd-Robinson
25 D-Day: Minute by Minute, Jonathon Mayo
26 Violetta, Isabel Alllende
27 On the Beach, Nevil Shute
28 Slow Horses, Mick Herron
29 Learning to Swim, Claire Chambers
30 The Glass Pearls, Emeric Pressburger
31 The Making of the Modern Middle East, Jeremy Bowen
32 The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
33 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
34 The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey
35 The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
36 Enter Ghost, Isabella Hammad
37 Bosnian War, Hourly Histories
38 Killing Thatcher, Rory Carroll
39 The Visit, Chimamanda Nigozi Adiche
40 I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman
41 The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom
42 The Book of Negroes, Lawrence Hill
43 Iron Lake, William Kent Kruegar
44 The Little Liar, Mitch Albom
45 Soldier Sailor, Claire Kilroy
46 Windswept & Interesting: My Autobiography, Billy Connolly
47 Honor, Elif Shafak
48 Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano
49 Searching for Shindler, Thomas Keneally
50 The Spy and the Traitor, Ben Macintyre
51 Babycakes, Armistead Maupin
52 Water, John Boyne
53 Tales from the Folly, Ben Aaronovitch
54 Olive Again, Elizabeth Strout
55 Apple of my Eye, Helene Hanff
56 The Forester's Daughter, Claire Keegan
57 Stonemouth, Ian Banks
58 We Begin at the End, Chris Whitaker
59 The Japanese Lover, Isabel Allende
60 Amy & Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout
61 The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O'Farrell
62 Jamaica Inn, Daphne du Maurier
63 All the Colours of the Dark, Chris Whitaker
64 Heartburn, Nora Ephron
65 Earth, John Boyne
66 Signal Moon, Kate Quinn
67 My Evil Mother, Margaret Atwood
68 Lovers at the Museum, Isabel Allende
69 Dean Lions, Mick Herron
70 The Outsider, Jane Casey
71 Good Girls, Hadley Freeman
72 Real Tigers, Mick Herron

We're currently watching Real Tigers and it's really pissing me off how different they've made this to the book.

@ClaraTheImpossibleGirl I did enjoy the Patrick Rothfuss books but was gutted to see that the third instalment is showing no sign of appearing. It looks like we have some similar tastes as I also loved the Extracted trilogy!

Posting my complete list below - although with apologies in advance for the formatting, which looks fine when I preview it then not when I post! - my reading was derailed a bit by taking out a Kindle Unlimited subscription to read a couple of books, then reading the whole of some related series. I was surprised to enjoy the two autobiographies I did read this year - Wes Streeting and Tom Felton - as it's not a genre I read often, but they were both most entertaining with Wes' being the one I enjoyed slightly more.

Next year I'm looking forward to the The Legendary Scarlett and Browne as there will be no more Lockwood books <sobs quietly> - I'd also re-read the Patrick Rothfuss books if I thought there was any hope the next one would be out any time soon! @MamaNewtNewt hope you enjoyed those? Pleased to see that Sometimes People Die was a bold for someone else, I read it at random from the library and thought it was great!

@Terpsichore I gave up on Mistletoe Malice too, in theory it was right up my street, but I just found it tedious...

Sending best wishes for a better 2025 @Owlbookend

My final list of the year:

1. Rory Clements - The English Fuhrer
2. Rhys Bowen - The Proof of the Pudding
3. Janice Hallett - The Christmas Appeal
4. Kate Saunders - The Case of the Wandering Scholar
5. Karen M McManus - One of Us is Back
6. Alex Coombs - Murder on the Menu
7. Richard Osman - The Last Devil to Die
8. Faith Martin - Murder by Candlelight
9. Lindsey Kelk - The Christmas Wish

10. Nathan Anthony - Bored of Lunch 11. Simon Stephenson - Sometimes People Die 12. Hannah Richell - The Search Party 13. Sophia Holloway - Isabelle 14. Cynthia Murphy - Win Lose Kill Die 15. Richard Armitage - Geneva 16. Richard Coles - A Death in the Parish 17. Tom Hindle - Murder on Lake Garda 18. Bill Bryson - A Walk in the Woods 19. CJ Sansom - Heartstone 20. Laura Wood - The Agency for Scandal 21. Laura Wood - A Season for Scandal 22. Sophia Holloway - The Devil You Know 23. Agatha Christie - Sinister Spring 24. Bridget Walsh - The Tumbling Girl 25. RR Haywood - Extracted 26. RR Haywood - Executed 27. RR Haywood - Extinct 28. Liz Hedgecock & Paula Harmon - Death on the Towpath 29. Liz Hedgecock - All At Sea 30. Liz Hedgecock - Off the Map 31. Liz Hedgecock - Gone to Ground 32. Liz Hedgecock - In Plain Sight 33. Finley Turner - The Engagement Party 34. Liz Fielding - Murder under the Mistletoe 35. Peter Robinson - Gallows View 36. Jan Durham - Death at the Abbey 37. Jan Durham - Death at Neptune Yard 38. Jan Durham - Death at the Feast 39. Jan Durham - Death at the Anchorage 40. Jan Durham - Death on the Stella Mae 41. Jan Durham - Death on the West Cliff 42. Jenni Keer - No 23 Burlington Square 43. Izzie Harper - Murder at the Christmas Carols 44. Lesley Cookman - Death Plays a Part 45. Lesley Cookman - Entertaining Death 46. Lesley Cookman - Death Treads the Boards 47. Tom Mead - Death and the Conjuror 48. Tom Mead - The Murder Wheel 49. Helena Dixon - Murder at the Highland Castle 50. Helena Dixon - Murder at the Island Hotel 51. Enid Blyton - Five Go To Smuggler's Top 52. Jenni Keer - At The Stroke of Midnight 53. Benedict Brown - Murder at Everham Hall 54. Benedict Brown - The Hurtwood Village Murders 55. Benedict Brown - Murder at the Spring Ball 56. Benedict Brown - A Body at a Boarding School 57. Benedict Brown - Death on a Summer's Day 58. JM Hall - A Clock Stopped Dead 59. Taylor Zajonc - The Maw 60. CM McDonnell - Relight My Fire 61. JR Ellis - The Canal Murders 62. Lesley Cookman - Murder after Midnight 63. Enid Blyton - Five Go Off To Camp 64. Mark Richards & E S Richards - The Hanged Woman 65. Benedict Brown - The Mystery of Mistletoe Hall 66. Benedict Brown - The Tangled Treasure Trail 67. Emily Organ - The Baker Street Murders 68. Emily Organ - The Curse of the Poppy 69. Emily Organ - The Bermondsey Poisoner 70. Emily Organ - An Unwelcome Guest 71. Emily Organ - Death at the Workhouse 72. Emily Organ - The Gang of St Bride's 73. Emily Organ - Murder in Ratcliffe 74. Emily Organ - The Egyptian Mystery 75. Emily Organ - The Camden Spiritualist 76. Sarah Rossi - What's for dinner in one pot? 77. Emila Hart - Weyward 78. MRC Kasasian - The Montford Maniac 79. Various - Murder Under The Sun 80. Rachel Burton - The Mystery of Haverford House 81. Vanessa Len - Never a Hero 82. Clare Mackintosh - A Game of Lies 83. Orlando Murrin - Knife Skills for Beginners 84. Jane Steen - Lady Helena Investigates 85. Jane Steen - Lady Odelia's Secret 86. Anthony Horowitz - Close to Death 87. CL Miller - The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder 88. Ann Treneman - Finding the Plot 89. Benedict Brown - The Castleton Affair 90. Jodi Taylor - Killing Time 91. Georgette Heyer - The Unfinished Clue 92. Susanna Gregory - Mystery in the Minster 93. Katy Watson - The Three Dahlias 94. Nathan Anthony - Bored of Lunch: Healthy Slow Cooker Even Easier 95. Sarah J Naughton - Your Time Is Up 96. Holly Hepburn - The Missing Maid 97. John Marrs - The Family Experiment 98. Stuart Turton - The Last Murder at the End of the World 99. Gillian McAllister - Just Another Missing Person 100. E Lockhart - Family of Liars 101. Rachel Burton - The Last Party at Silverton Hall 102. Daniel Kalla - Fit to Die 103. Richard Osman - The Bullet That Missed 104. Cara Devlin - Murder at the Seven Dials 105. Cara Devlin - Death at Fournier Downs 106. Sophie Irwin - A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting 107. Jonathan Stroud - The Notorious Scarlett & Browne 108. Fiona Leitch - The Cornish Wedding Murder 109. KJ Charles - Death in the Spires 110. Hannah Dolby - How To Solve Murders Like a Lady 111. Marie Browne - Narrow Minds 112. Marie Browne - Narrow Margins 113. Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum 114. Wes Streeting - One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up 115. Stuart Maconie - Never Mind the Quantocks 116. LC North - Clickbait 117. Claire Evans - The Graves of Whitechapel 118. Rob Rinder - The Suspect 119. Suzanne Mulholland - The Batch Lady: Grab and Cook 120. Maureen Johnson - Nine Liars 121. Sally Smith - A Case of Mice and Murder 122. Maureen Johnson - Death at Morning House 123. Ruth Ware - One by One 124. Stephanie Garber - A Curse for True Love 125. Daniel Kalla - High Society 126. Lesley Cookman - Murder Repeated 127. Lesley Cookman - Murder on the Edge 128. Ruth Ware - In a Dark Dark Wood 129. Kristen Perrin - How to Solve Your Own Murder 130. Robin Stevens - The Body in the Blitz 131. Lucy Foley - The Midnight Feast 132. Katy Watson - A Very Lively Murder 133. Sophie Irwin - A Lady's Guide to Scandal 134. Jane Dunn - A Lady of Fortune 135. Jane Steen - Lady Ambition's Dilemma 136. Chris Brookmyre - The Cracked Mirror 137. Michael Innes - Appleby Talks 138. Jonathan Stroud - The Screaming Staircase 139. Jonathan Stroud - The Whispering Skull 140. Jonathan Stroud - The Hollow Boy 141. Jonathan Stroud - The Creeping Shadow 142. Jonathan Stroud - The Empty Grave 143. Tom Felton - Beyond the Wand 144. Catherine Coles - Murder at the Manor 145. Catherine Coles - Murder at the Village Fete 146. Tom Mead - Cabinet Macabre 147. Lesley Cookman - Murder by Mistake 148. Lesley Cookman - Murder in Autumn 149. Lesley Cookman - Murder by Christmas 150. Janice Hallett - The Examiner 151. Lesley Cookman - Murder at the Crooked Horse 152. Michael Crichton & James Patterson - Eruption 153. Helena Dixon - Murder in the Countryside 154. JL Blackhurst - Three Card Murder 155. JL Blackhurst - Smoke and Murders 156. Denzil Meyrick - The Christmas Stocking Murders 157. Katy Watson - A Lively Midwinter Murder 158. Enid Blyton - Five Go Off in a Caravan 159. Enid Blyton - Five on Kirrin Island Again 160. Enid Blyton - Five Get Into Trouble 161. Enid Blyton - Five Fall Into Adventure 162. Enid Blyton - Five on a Hike Together 163. Enid Blyton - Five Have a Wonderful Time 164. Jane Dunn - A Scandalous Match 165. Andrea Penrose - Murder on Black Swan Lane 166. Andrea Penrose - Murder at Half Moon Gate 167. Andrea Penrose - Murder at Kensington Palace 168. Andrea Penrose - Murder at Queen's Landing 169. Andrea Penrose - Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens 170. Andrea Penrose - Murder at the Serpentine Bridge 171. Andrea Penrose - Murder at the Merton Library 172. Liz Hedgecock & Paula Harmon - Murder at Work 173. Jane Dunn - The Marriage Season 174. Pam Lecky - No Stone Unturned 175. Pam Lecky - Footprints in the Sand 176. Emma Melbourne - Miss Fleming Falls in Love 177. Emma Melbourne - The Mysterious Mr Oliver 178. Sofi Laporte - Lady Ludmilla's Accidental Letter 179. Liz Hedgecock & Paula Harmon - Death in a Dinner Jacket 180. Lana Williams - The Ravenkeeper's Daughter 181. Jennifer Lynn Barnes - The Naturals 182. Jennifer Lynn Barnes - Killer instinct 183. Jennifer Lynn Barnes - All In 184. Jennifer Lynn Barnes - Bad Blood 185. Ruth Ware - One Perfect Couple