50 Book Challenge 2019 Part Seven

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh, and possibly final, thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2019, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it’s not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here, the third one here, the fourth one here, the fifth one here and the sixth one here.

How've you got on this year?

Final book of the year: Our spoons came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns Many thanks to whoever recommended this (sorry I can't remember). I read it in one sitting yesterday evening and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Top 5 books of 2019:

A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead
Vertigo and Ghost by Fiona Benson
Footsteps by Richard Holmes
Milkman by Anna Burns
Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievich

Best wishes and Happy New Year to all readers and many thanks for all the reviews and recommendations - I've read some great books which I would not otherwise have come across.

boiledegg I reviewed it recently don’t know if I was the only one - but glad you enjoyed it. I also loved Milkman and have just got Vertigo and Ghost from the library so we have similar tastes.

Time is running out, so here is my end-of-year round-up:

1. The Anxiety Solution - Chloe Brotheridge
2. Me - Tomoyuki Hoshino
3. Arlington Park - Rachel Cusk
4. The Beast - Alexander Starritt
5. A Sense of Direction - Gideon Lewis-Kraus
6. To Throw Away Unopened - Viv Albertine
7. The Lady and the Little Fox Fur - Violette Leduc
8. The Dead Ladies Project - Jessa Crispin
9. Cassandra Darke - Posy Simmonds

10. Tokyo Ueno Station - Yu Miri 11. 84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff 12. I am, I am, I am - Maggie O'Farrell 13. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace 14. Our Game - John Le Carre 15. Old Baggage - Lissa Evans 16. Tepper Isn't Going Out - Calvin Trillin 17. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things - Jon McGregor 18. The Night Guest - Fiona McFarlane 19. My Falling Down House - Jayne Joso 20. The Little Breton Bistro - Nina George 21. Clever Girl - Tessa Hadley 22. Le Chien de Madame Halberstadt - Stephane Carlier 23. The Muse - Jessie Burton 24. Princes on the Land - Joanna Cannan 25. Astonishing Splashes of Colour - Clare Morrall 26. The Position - Meg Wolitzer 27. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd 28. Midlife: A Philosophical Guide - Kieran Setiya 29. Alone Time - Stephanie Rosenbloom 30. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee 31. In Praise of Shadows - Junichiro Tanizaki 32. Go Went Gone - Jenny Erpenbeck 33. How to Live - Vincent Deary 34. Vertigo - Joanna Walsh 35. The Fair Fight - Anna Freeman 36. Ways to Disappear - Idra Novey 37. Apple Tree Yard - Louise Doughty 38. The Evenings - Gerard Reve 39. Life Reimagined - Barbara Bradley Hagerty 40. South of the River - Blake Morrison 41. The Peppered Moth - Margaret Drabble 42. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows - Balli Kaur Jaswal 43. Pull Me Under - Kelly Luce 44. New Finnish Grammar - Diego Marani 45. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce 46. The Great Passage - Shion Miura 47. Reasons to be Cheerful - Nina Stibbe 48. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill - Abbi Waxman 49. The Sound of the Mountain - Yasunari Kawabata 50. The Haunting of Henry Twist - Rebecca F John 51. Various Miracles - Carol Shields 52. The Little House - Kyoko Nakajima 53. Diary of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell 54. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock - Imogen Hermes Gowar 55. Wine of Angels - Phil Rickman 56. Embers - Sandor Marai 57. The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler 58. The Hours of the Night - Sue Gee 59. A Line Made by Walking - Sara Baume 60. Us - David Nicholls 61. The Salt Path - Raynor Winn 62. Three Houses - Angela Thirkell 63. Rules of Civility - Amor Towles 64. The Long Take - Robin Robertson 65. The Rose of Tibet - Lionel Davidson 66. Heligoland - Shena Mackay 67. The Consolation of Maps - Thomas Bourke 68. Deep Country - Neil Ansell 69. In the Language of Love - Diane Shoemperlen 70. High Rising - Angela Thirkell 71. The Book of Chameleons - Jose Eduardo Agalusa

Most recent reads:
72. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell
Elderly woman emerges from more than 60 years in a psychiatric hospital to find a niece who never knew she existed, leading to the uncovering of lots of family secrets. Very well told.

73. Death in a Cold Climate - Robert Barnard
Classic crime novel from the 1980s, set in Norway, repackaged for the Christmas market. Not bad.

74. Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez
I've been meaning to read this all year, and finally got it for Christmas. I had already heard about some of the most shocking stats from articles by/about Criado Perez, but this was still enough to make me angry about the continuing blithe indifference to half the human race.

75. The Buddha in the Attic - Julie Otsuka
Probably the only novel I have ever read which is written mostly in the first person plural, and does not have a named/individual narrator. It is written from the collective point of view of a generation of Japanese women shipped over to the US to marry Japanese men who had emigrated earlier, and follows their experiences of marriage, working (in agriculture, laundries, restaurants, brothels, domestic service), childbirth and motherhood, and then being rounded up and taken to internment camps after Pearl Harbour. Very much based on real-life experiences and research, but lyrically written.

76. Women and Power - Mary Beard
Another overdue feminist read from last year.

77. Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Stories from a Tokyo cafe where if you sit in the right seat, while the resident ghost goes to the toilet, you can travel back in time for the length of time it takes to drink a cup of coffee before it gets cold. Apparently this was originally a play, and was then developed into a novel. I can see it working as a play/film; it is a bit simplistic to be satisfying as a novel, but still a reasonably heart-warming read.

Stats for the year : the total of 77 was lower than last year's 90, but there was a lot going on in my life, and I did read Infinite Jest, which must count for at least half a dozen normal novels.

Non-fiction : 22%, which is about average for me, I think.
Female authors : 64%, also about average.
Translated: 18%, half of which were originally in Japanese, plus one which I read in the original French. At the start of the year I had planned to read more untranslated novels in languages other than English, but only managed the one French one; this year I am aiming to read at least one each in French, German and Japanese (I have plenty of suitable books ready and waiting).

My other unachieved resolution from earlier in the year was to read something by Thomas Hardy, to try to overcome the aversion to him rooted in enforced Hardy-reading for English O-level. I failed, but again I do now have a couple on the shelves waiting, so I have no excuse this year.

I am not sure if I can really pick a top five or top ten books of the year, but the ones which stand out as most memorable for me are probably:

Non-fiction:
A Sense of Direction - Gideon Lewis-Kraus
To Throw Away Unopened - Viv Albertine
I am, I am, I am - Maggie O'Farrell
Deep Country - Neil Ansell

Fiction:
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Go Went Gone - Jenny Erpenbeck
Pull Me Under - Kelly Luce
The Little House - Kyoko Nakajima
The Hours of the Night - Sue Gee
The Long Take - Robin Robertson

A final cheeky pair

201. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk
     This is the oddest murder mystery I have ever read and yet it was strangely compelling. An older reclusive lady finds herself in the centre of a number of bodies found locally and inserts herself into the investigation, but nobody will take her suggestions seriously.

202. In a House of Lies (Rebus 22) - Ian Rankin
     A body is found in woodland that is from a cold case. Rebus was involved in the original investigation so pokes his nose in from the sidelines. I do think these have gone off the boil since the main character retired, however I do still like reading them anyway. He's not quite flogging a dead horse yet.

Condolences to @Waawo and congratulations to @AliasGrape and Happy New Year to everyone!

Enjoying everyone's roundups. I had an interrupted year with work stress, crappy politics, mental health stuff (thanks menopause!) and ending with death of FIL.

But still got through 62 books. 39 fiction, 23 non-fiction. 31 female authors and 31 male (nice and tidy!).

Most enjoyment came from reading classics I'd always meant to read - Moby Dick, Crime and Punishment and Wuthering Heights. However was also surprised that my fiction book of the year was a graphic novel (my first), Berlin by Jason Lutes.

Aims for next year is to improve on this total and not beat myself up for comfort rereading when times are hard. Also going to be more committed to writing and finally get my long-laboured over novel in a state to be submitted in 2020. Full list below:

1 - An Infamous Army - Georgette Heyer
2 - Zero Zero Zero - Roberto Saviano
3 - Milkman - Anna Burns
4 - The Bounty - Caroline Alexander
5 - The Sleep of Reason - David James Smith
6 - Moby Dick - Herman Melville
7 - Mike at Wrykyn - P.G.Wodehouse
8 - At Freddie’s - Penelope Fitzgerald
9 - Winter - Ali Smith
10 - Village of Secrets - Caroline Moorhead
11 - Back Story - David Mitchell
12 - Anthills of the Savannah - Chinua Achebe
13 - How not to be a Boy - Robert Webb
14 - Waterloo - Victor Hugo
15 - A Murder is Announced - Agatha Christie
16 - The Cranes Dance - Meg Howrey
17 - Astonish Me - Maggie Shipstead
18 - Witnessing Waterloo - David Crane
19 - The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark
20 - The Things I Would Tell You - edited by Sabrina Mahfouz
21 - Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese - Patrick Leigh Fermor
22 - An American Princess: Many Lives of Allene Tew - Annejet van der Zijl
23 - Winter Men - Jesper Bugge Koke
24 - The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker
25 - Arabella - Georgette Heyer
26 - Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Truman Capote
27 - Swear Down - Russ Litten
28 - The Beast - Alexander Starritt
29 - The Secret Olympian - Anonymous
30 - A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell
32 - I Have the Right To - Chessy Prout
33 - The Encyclopedia of Oil Techniques - Jeremy Galton
34 - A Buyer’s Market - Anthony Powell
35 - Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy - Serhii Plokhy
36 - A Body of Work - David Hallberg
37 - Berlin - Jason Lutes
38 - Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
39 - Bolshoi Confidential - Simon Morrison
40 - This Thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson
41 - Anne Frank: The Biography - Melissa Muller
42 - My Sister, the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite
43 - The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
44 - Frederica - Georgette Heyer
45 - Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
46 - The Owl Service - Alan Garner
47 - The Pleasure of Reading - ed. Antonia Fraser
49 - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
50 - Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
51 - Old Baggage - Lissa Evans
52 - Venetia - Georgette Heyer
53 - Meadowland - John Lewis-Stempel
54 - Ross Poldark - Winston Graham
55 - A Traveller In Time - Alison Uttley
56 - Miss Pym Disposes - Josephine Tey
57 - The Little Snake - A.L.Kennedy
58 - One of your own: the life and death of Myra Hindley - Carol Ann Lee
59 - Caldicott Place - Noel Streatfield
60 - Apple Bough - Noel Streatfield
61 - Thursday’s Children - Rumer Godden
62 - Great Granny Webster - Caroline Blackwood

The full list...

1. The Odyssey - Homer (trans. - Emily Wilson)
2. Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading - Lucy Mangan
3. The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
4. Eleanor of Aquitaine: - the Wrath of God, Queen of England - Alison Weir
5. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Joan Lindsay
6. Too Much Happiness - Alice Munro
7. The Last Hours - Minette Walters
8. Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney
9. The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware

10. A Killer of Pilgrims - Susanna Gregory 11. Beloved - Toni Morrison 12. Lullaby - Leila Slimani 13. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 14. A Dog’s Purpose - W. Bruce Cameron 15. Commonwealth - Ann Patchett 16. Frenchman’s Creek - Daphne du Maurier 17. Mutiny on the Bounty - John Boyne 18. The Secret History - Donna Tartt 19. Lamentation - CJ Sansom 20. Mystery in the Minster - Susanna Gregory 21. Witches Abroad – Terry Pratchett 22. Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel 23. The Secret Adversary – Agatha Christie 24. Planet of the Apes – Pierre Boulle 25. Circe – Madeline Miller 26. Atonement – Ian McEwan 27. Partners in Crime – Agatha Christie 28. The Good People – Hannah Kent 29. The Salt Path – Raynor Winn 30. Murder by the Book – Susanna Gregory 31. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 32. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys 33. Reaper Man – Terry Pratchett 34. Reader I Married Him – Tracy Chevalier 35. From Doon with Death (Insp Wexford #1) – Ruth Rendell 36. Shadow of Night – Deborah Harkness 37. The Last Detective (Peter Diamond #1) - Peter Lovesey 38. The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane 39. The Book of Life – Deborah Harkness 40. The Lost Abbott – Susanna Gregory 41. Displaced - Malala Yousafsai & Liz Welch 42. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman 43. A Place of Greater Safety – Hilary Mantel 44. House of Names – Colm Tóibín 45. Autumn – Ali Smith 46. Fruit of the Drunken Tree - Ingrid Rojas Contreras 47. The River – Peter Heller 48. Birdcage Walk - Helen Dunmore 49. Danny the Champion of the World – Roald Dahl 50. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert 51. Death of a Scholar (Matthew Bartholomew #20) – Susanna Gregory 52. The Silence of the Girls – Pat Barker 53. A Question of Upbringing – Anthony Powell 54. The Turn of Midnight – Minette Walters 55. A Buyer’s Market – Anthony Powell 56. The Acceptance World – Anthony Powell 57. At Lady Molly’s – Anthony Powell 58. My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout 59. Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant – Anthony Powell 60. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez 61. Becoming – Michelle Obama 62. The Kindly Ones – Anthony Powell 63. A Poisonous Plot (Matthew Bartholomew #21) – Susanna Gregory 64. Invisible Women – Caroline Criado Pérez 65. Diary of a Provincial Lady – E.M.Delafield 66. Five Children on the Western Front – Kate Saunders 67. The Valley of Bones – Anthony Powell 68. A Column of Fire – Ken Follett 69. Convenience Store Woman – Sayaka Murata 70. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins 71. Cartwheel – Jennifer duBois 72. State of Wonder – Ann Patchett 73. The Soldier’s Art – Anthony Powell 74. A Grave Concern (Matthew Bartholomew #22) – Susanna Gregory 75. The Military Philosophers – Anthony Powell 76. The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly 77. H is for Hawk – Helen Macdonald 78. Bitter Orange – Claire Fuller 79. The Female Persuasion – Meg Wolitzer 80. Bel Canto – Ann Patchett 81. Tangerine – Christine Mangan 82. Strangers on a Train – Patricia Highsmith 83. Gingerbread – Helen Oyeyemi 84. The Ghost – Robert Harris 85. The Adventure of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain 86. Everything Under – Daisy Johnson 87. The Power – Naomi Alderman 88. Queenie – Candice Carty-Williams 89. The Door – Magda Szabó 90. The Wytch Elm – Tana French 91. Swimming Lessons – Claire Fuller 92. My Sister the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite 93. Milkman – Anna Burns 94. Melmoth – Sarah Perry 95. Pandora’s Boy – Lindsey Davis 96. A Woman Is No Man – Etaf Rauf 97. The Tiger’s Wife – Téa Obreht 98. At the Edge of the Orchard – Tracy Chevalier 99. Books Do Furnish a Room – Anthony Powell 100. The Heart’s Invisible Furies – John Boyne 101. A History of the World in 21 Women – Jenni Murray 102. The Stranger Diaries – Elly Griffiths 103. A Spool of Blue Thread – Anne Tyler 104. The Habit of Murder (Matthew Bartholomew #23) – Susanna Gregory 105. Heartburn – Norah Ephron 106. Lanny – Max Porter 107. Temporary Kings (A Dance to the Music of Time #11) – Anthony Powell 108. The Testaments – Margaret Atwood 109. Ready Player One – Ernest Cline 110. Hell Ship – Michael Veitch 111. The Old Drift – Namwali Serpell 112. The Immortalists – Chloe Benjamin 113. The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing 114. An American Marriage – Tayari Jones 115. Mythos – Stephen Fry 116. Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens 117. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton 118. Recursion – Blake Crouch 119. There There – Tommy Orange 120. Hearing Secret Harmonies (A Dance to the Music of Time #12) – Anthony Powell 121. Tombland (Shardlake #7) – CJ Sansom 122. Girls Burn Brighter – Shobha Rao 123. Exit West – Mohsin Hamid 124. White Oleander – Janet Fitch 125. The Tattooist of Auschwitz – Heather Morris 126. Medicus (Ruso #1) – Ruth Downie 127. We Should All Be Feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche 128. The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead 129. Belgravia – Julian Fellowes 130. Rather Be the Devil – Ian Rankin 131. Girl, Woman, Other – Bernadine Evaristo 132. I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith 133. The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman 134. The Library Book – Susan Orlean 135. The Dutch House – Ann Patchett 136. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 137. Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier 138. Terra Incognita (Medicus Investigation #2) - Ruth Downie 139. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner 140. The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coates 141. The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah 142. The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli 143. A Capitol Death (Flavia Albia Mystery #7) - Lindsey Davis 144. Mrs. Everything - Jennifer Weiner 145. Frankissstein: A Love Story - Jeanette Winterson 146. Difficult Women - Roxane Gay 147. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston 148. In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad #1) -Tana French 149. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall -Anne Brontë 150. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher - Hilary Mantel 151. Snobs - Julian Fellowes 152. Case Histories (Jackson Brodie #1) - Kate Atkinson 153. The World I Fell Out Of – Melanie Reid 154. Agnes Grey - Anne Brontë 155. Woman Hating - Andrea Dworkin 156. The Various Haunts of Men (Simon Serrailler #1) - Susan Hill 157. The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot - Robert Macfarlane 158. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong 159. Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi 160. Wakenhyrst - Michelle Paver 161. La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust) – Philip Pullman 162. Codename Villanelle – Luke Jennings 163. A Month in the Country – JL Carr 164. Brooklyn – Colm Toibin 165. The Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway #1) – Elly Griffiths 166. Educated – Tara Westover 167. Fierce Bad Rabbits – Clare Pollard 168. Hamlet – William Shakespeare 169. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – Mary Wollstonecraft 170. Wilding – Isabella Tree 171. Rain: Four Walks in English Weather – Melissa Harrison 172. Holy Island (DCI Ryan #1) – LJ Ross 173. The Unwomanly Face of War – Svetlana Alexievich 174. The Book of Essie – Meghan MacLean Weir 175. The Pure In Heart (Simon Serailler #2) – Susan Hill 176. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark – AJ Hartley 177. Three Blind Mice – Agatha Christie 178. Beneath a Scarlett Sky – Mark Sullivan 179. Wilder Girls – Rory Power 180. Warlight – Micheal Ondaatje 181. Pie Fidelity: In Defence of British Food – Pete Brown 182. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit – Judith Kerr 183. Bombs on Aunt Dainty – Judith Kerr 184. The Zig Zag Girl – Elly Griffiths 185. Once Upon A River – Diane Setterfield 186. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – RL Stevenson 187. Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf 188. A Girl is a Half Formed Thing – Eimear McBride 189. Friday Black – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 190. The Whisper Man - Alex North 191. A Small Person Far Away – Judith Kerr 192. Celine – Peter Heller 193. The Silent Companions – Laura Purcell 194. One Good Turn (Jackson Brodie #2) – Kate Atkinson 195. The Turn of the Key – Ruth Ware 196. The Lost Girls of Paris – Pam Jenoff 197. Girl – Edna O’Brien 198. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World – Elif Shafak 199. The Beekeeper of Aleppo – Christy Lefteri 200. The Glass Woman – Caroline Lea 201. Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead – Olga Tokarczuck 202. In a House of Lies – Ian Rankin

Did Not Finish
The Spire – William Golding
Possession – AS Byatt
My Man Jeeves – PG Wodehouse
We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver
The Overstory – Richard Powers
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – Paul Torday
100 Nasty Women of History – Hannah Jewell
The Feminism Book – DK Publishing
Sea Monsters – Chloe Aridjis
The New Achilles – Christian Cameron
The Gods of Jade and Shadow – Silvia Moreno Garcia
The Tent, the Bucket and Me – Emma Kennedy
The Farm – Joanne Ramos

181 Fiction 90% 21 Non-fic – 10%
137 Female authors 68% 65 Male Authors 32%
27 BAME 13%
45 Print 22% 16 E-book 8% 141 Audio 70%

In the DNFs I will give Kevin and The Spire another go at some point.

Top Five Ten Eleven
The Odyssey - Homer (trans. - Emily Wilson)
A Dance to the Music of Time - Anthony Powell
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Circe – Madeline Miller
Milkman – Anna Burns
Girl, Woman, Other – Bernadine Evaristo
A Month in the Country – JL Carr
A Girl is a Half Formed Thing – Eimear McBride
Invisible Women – Caroline Criado Pérez
The World I Fell Out Of – Melanie Reid
Educated – Tara Westover

I could have put another dozen overall in bold realistically, I had a lot of very good reads this year. Also very few absolute stinkers. An epic year.

Once again, thanks for the company and all the recommendations along the way.

Thank you Satsuki! I hope you enjoy Vertigo and Ghost.

Condolences to Waawo I hope you are ok over the coming weeks.

AliasGrape, congratulations to you both.

A question for Nicemum
Are you Early or Nearly Nice? I've often wondered....

I have always read that as nearly !

Jumping on with my final list for the year which includes book 70. A Child’s Christmas in Wales - Dylan Thomas - a little bit of cheating given how short it is but perfect for today.

My full list is:

1. The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley
2. Men without Women - Huraki Murakami

3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer

1. How Hard Can It Be? - Allison Pearson
2. Christmas Pudding - Nancy Mitford
3. Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton
4. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson

8. Any Human Heart - William Boyd 9. A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles 10. Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain 11. The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie 12. Harriet - Jilly Cooper 13. A Buyer’s Market - Anthony Powell 14. Charity Girl - Georgette Heyer 15. New Boy - Tracy Chevalier 16. The Acceptance World - Anthony Powell 17. Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene 18. Here Be Dragons - Sharon Penman 19. Venetia - Georgette Heyer 20. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper - Hallie Rubenhold 21. At Lady Molly's - Anthony Powell 22 The Suspect - Fiona Barton 23. Bath Tangle - Georgette Heyer 24. My name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout 25. 4.50 from Paddington - Agatha Christie 26. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton 27. We have always lived in the castle - Shirley Jackson 28. Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell 29. I am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes 30. Last Bus to Woodstock - Colin Dexter 31. The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes 32. The Quiet American - Graham Greene 33.Black Sheep - Georgette Heyer 34.The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell 35. Case Histories (Jackson Brodie) - Kate Atkinson 36. Warlight - Michael Ondaatje 37. The Covent Garden Ladies - Hallie Rubenhold 38. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton 39. The House at Riverton - Kate Morton 40. The Valley of Bones - Anthony Powell 41. A Column of Fire - Ken Follett 42. Bitter Orange - Claire Fuller 43. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 44. Dominion - CJ Samson 45. Cat Among the Pigeons - Agatha Christie 46. Paradise Fields - Katie Fforde 47. Second Life - SJ Watson 48. Shatter - Michael Rowbotham 49. The Bat - Jo Nesbo 50. Frederica - Georgette Heyer 51. Perfidious Albion - Sam Byers 52. Soldier’s Art - Anthony Powell 53. Earthly Joys - Philippa Gregory 54. Conclave - Robert Harris 55. Ladder to the Sky - John Boyne 56. The Military Philosophers - Anthony Powell 57. The Foundling - Georgette Heyer 58. A Town like Alice - Nevil Shute 59. A Murder is Announced - Agatha Christie 60. Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61. Books do Furnish a Room - Anthony Powell 62. A Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 63. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood 64. Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell 65. Crisis - Felix Francis 66. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion 67. Friday’s Child - Georgette Heyer 68. Hearing Secret Harmonies - Anthony Powell 69. Northern Lights - Philip Pullman 70. A Child’s Christmas in Wales - Dylan Thomas

Highlights of the year not including my re-reads of favourites A Gentleman in Moscow and Shadow of the Wind were:

A Dance to the Music of Time - Antony Powell
A Town like Alice - Nevil Shute
The Five - Hallie Rubenhold
Any Human Heart - William Boyd
Here be Dragons - Sharon Penman

but lots of other great reads in bold above.

My most disappointing reads were:

Perfidious Albion - Sam Byers
Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I am afraid I don’t have time to do my stats but not much non-fiction or in translation.

An enjoyable year of variety much of it stemming from recommendations on this thread.

Happy new year to you all.

Here's my final list:

1 Ada Palmer Seven Surrenders
2 Thomas Levenson Newton and the Counterfeiter
3 Chris Brookmyre Places in the Darkness
4 Andrew Caldecott Rotherweird
5 Andrew O'Hagan The Missing
6 Ada Palmer The Will to Battle
7 CJ Sansom Dissolution
8 Damian Le Bas The Stopping Places
9 Cassandra Clare Queen of Air and Darkness
10 KJ Charles The Lilywhite Boys
11 Chris Hadfield An Astronaut's Guide to Life
12 Darren McGarvie Poverty Safari
13 Oliver Burkeman Help!
14 Viv Albertine To Throw Away Unopened
15 John Boughton Municipal Dreams
16 Tim Marshall Divided
17 Cat Sebastian It Takes Two to Tumble
18 Banerjee & Duflo Poor Economics
19 Dave Hutchinson Europe in Autumn
20 Matthew Desmond Evicted: Poverty & profit in the American City
21 Ysenda Maxtone Graham Terms & Conditions
22 Isabel Hardman Why we get the wrong politicians
23 Jean-Martin Fortier The Market Gardener
24 Dave Hutchinson Europe at Midnight
25 Dave Hutchinson Europe in Winter
26 Alex Renton Stiff Upper Lip
27 KJ Charles Spectred Isle
28 Dave Hutchinson Europe at Dawn
29 Isabella Tree Wilding
30 Michael Haag The Durrells in Corfu
31 Rick Wilson Everything Trump Touches Dies
32 James Rebanks The Shepherd's Life
33 Alexander Starritt The Beast
34 Courtney Milan The Governess Affair
35 Courtney Milan The Duchess War
36 Viv Groskop How to Own the Room
37 KJ Charles Proper English
38 Richard Reed If I could tell you just one thing
39 Serhii Plokhy Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy
40 Ronald Fraser The Pueblo
41 Philip Pullman La Belle Sauvage
42 Gail Carriger The Fifth Gender
43 John Carreyrou Bad Blood
44 Anthony Powell A question of upbringing
45 Anthony Powell A Buyers Market
46 Jordan Hawk Widdershins
47 Mariana Mazzucato The Value of Everything
48 Cathy O'Neill Weapons of Math Destruction
49 KJ Charles Band Sinister
50 Anthony Powell The Acceptance World
51 Diana Wynne Jones The Merlin Conspiracy
52 Porter Erisman Alibaba's World
53 Don Allmon The Glamour Thieves
54 Gail Carriger How to Marry a Werewolf
55 Nathan Filer The Heartland
56 Naomi Novik Spinning Silver
57 Stig Abell How Britain Really Works
58 Georgette Heyer Devil's Cub
59 Rosemary Kirstein The Steerswoman
60 Rosemary Kirstein The Outskirter's Secret
61 Naomi Novik Uprooted
62 Michael Innes Hamlet, revenge!
63 Naomi Novik Temeraire
64 Cathy Newman Bloody Brilliant Women
65 Hannah Mitchell The Hard Way Up
66 Michelle Obama Becoming
67 Naomi Novik Throne of Jade
68 Beck Dorey-Stein From the Corner of the Oval Office
69 Isabel Losada The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment
70 Kevin Kwan Rich People Problems
71 James McBride The Color of Water
72 Kassia St Clair The Secret Lives of Colour
73 Stella Rimington Open Secret
74 Becky Chambers Long Way to a Small Angry Planet
75 Becky Chambers A Closed and Common Orbit
76 Carl Cattermole Prison
77 Dan Lyons Disrupted: Ludicrous Adventures in the Tech Bubble
78 KJ Charles Gilded Cage
79 KJ Charles The Rat-Catchers Daughter
80 Stephanie Burgis Snowspelled
81 Stephanie Burgis Thornbound
82 Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow
83 Jonathan Gershuny & Oriel Sullivan What we really do all day
84 Gareth Davies & Margi Lennartsson Organic Vegetable Production
85 Ben Aaronovitch Rivers of London
86 Paul Lewis / Rob Evants Undercover
87 Gretchen McCulloch Because Internet
88 Ted Chiang Stories of Your Life and Others
89 Gill Sims Why Mummy Drinks
90 Gill Sims Why Mummy Swears
91 Jia Tolentino Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
92 Steve Silberman Neurotribes
93 Amanda Brown The Prison Doctor
94 Adrian Tchaikovsky Dogs of War
95 Noel Streatfeild The Whicharts
96 Brian Christian The Most Human Human
97 Beth Macy Dopesick
98 Martha Wells All Systems Red
99 Seth Stephens-Davidowitz Everybody Lies
100 Hannah Fry Hello World

Took some time out today to go to the bookshop & spend some of my book token on two more non-fiction books, Respectable by Lynsey Hamley, and We Have Been Harmonised by Kai Strittmatter (about the surveillance state in China). Sadly they didn't have Queens of the Kingdom, which I'll probably end up getting on Kindle - but it does mean I still have £10 to play with another time.

I'm enjoying another of my Christmas books, Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky, not going to finish it by tonight, but it's definitely a good one to start out 2020. (So far it reads rather like someone hired Alexander Dumas and Joseph Conrad to co-write one of those episodes of Doctor Who where the Tardis ships up in the dying days of humanity.)

I was just looking back through my list and realised something else: not only did I not manage any Hardy, I didn't read a single book from before the 20th century, and only a handful from pre-WW2, which is unusual for me. I will add 'read more pre-20th-century literature' to my resolutions for next year.

Recently I listened to my first few (random) episodes of the Backlisted podcast, which I really enjoyed, so I may use the next few months while they are on a break to catch up with a few more, and I suspect that may lead to reading quite a bit more mid-20th-century fiction too.

And I am going on a book-buying-fast for January, not that that will make any serious impact on my huge backlog of unread books at home and on my kindle.

Happy reading in 2020 to everyone!

My final list for 2019:

1. Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid
2. Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence
3. The Christmasaurus by Tom Fletcher
4. The Mistake I Made by Paula Daly
5. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
6. Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
7. An Argumentation of Historians by Jodi Taylor
8. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
9. The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood

10. The Atlantis World by A.G. Riddle 11. Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett 12. Wool by Hugh Howey 13. Sticks and Stones by Jo Jakeman 14. When She Was Bad by Tammy Cohen 15. The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge 16. The Anomaly by Michael Rutger 17. The Breakdown by B. A. Paris 18. Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders 19. The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware 20. Our House by Louise Candlish 21. Symbiont by Mira Grant 22. The Child by Fiona Barton 23. Perfect People by Peter James 24. The Three Secret Cities by Matthew Reilly 25. Brave New Girl by Rachel Vincent 26. Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon 27. The Tall Man by Phoebe Locke 28. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson 29. Into The Drowning Deep by Mira Grant 30. I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist 31. The Dark Path by Michelle Sacks 32. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman 33. Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho 34. The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman 35. The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman 36. Night After Night by Phil Rickman 37. Grimm Tales by Philip Pullman 38. Ghost Virus by Graham Masterton 39. It Was Her by Mark Hill 40. The Farm by Emily McKay 41. A Clash of Kings by George R R Martin 42. The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb 43. Tell Me a Secret by Jane Fallon 44. Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty 45. Humans by Tom Phillips 46. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson 47. The Magician King by Lev Grossman 48. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor 49. The True Queen by Zen Cho 50. Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott 51. Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah 52. Bad Apple by Zoje Stage 53. Artemis by Andy Weir 54. Ammonite by Nicola Griffith 55. Black and White by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge 56. Atlas Alone by Emma Newman 57. The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton 58. Ascension by Victor Dixen 59. Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor 60. Hope For The Best by Jodi Taylor 61. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik 62. The Magicians Land by Lev Grossman 63. A Chalet Girl From Kenya by Elinor M Brent-Dyer 64. The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey 65. The Disappearance of Emily Marr by Louise Candlish 66. The Lying Game by Ruth Ware 67. 666 Charing Cross Road by Paul Magrs 68. The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller 69. Ragnarok by A. S. Byatt 70. Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence 71. Happy by Fearne Cotton 72. Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero 73. The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden 74. The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware 75. The Woman in the Window by A J Finn 76. The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey 77. A Storm of Swords by George R R Martin 78. Cold Welcome by Elizabeth Moon 79. Two Sams at the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer 80. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge 81. Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb 82. My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite 83. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor 84. Ararat by Christopher Golden 85. Isabel’s World by Roy Richard Grinker 86. Speak by Louisa Hall 87. The Taking of Annie Thorne by C J Tudor 88. The Wrong Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer 89. The Call by Peadar O’Guilin 90. Mythos by Stephen Fry 91. Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch 92. City of Dragons by Robin Hobb 93. The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton 94. Misogynation by Laura Bates 95. Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb 96. A Lovely Way to Burn by Louise Welsh 97. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman 98. Raven’s Gate by Anthony Horowitz 99. Lullaby by Leïla Slimani 100. Heroes by Stephen Fry 101. Vox by Christina Dalcher 102. Long Story Short by Jodi Taylor 103. Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden 104. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden 105. The Gender Games by Juno Dawson 106. Brodmaw Bay by F. G. Cottam 107. Ruey Richardson at the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer 108. Katy by Jacqueline Wilson 109. A Leader in the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer 110. Lost Connections by Johann Hari 111. Girls Will Be Girls by Emer O’Toole 112. The Declaration by Gemma Malley 113. M is for Autism by The Students of Limpsfield Grange School and Vicky Martin 114. The Chalet School Wins the Trick by Elinor M Brent-Dyer 115. Beswitched by Kate Saunders 116. A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers 117. My Child’s Different by Elaine Halligan 118. X-Force: Angels and Demons 119. My Name is Anna by Lizzy Barber

Library books - 63%
Female authors 64% / Male authors 36%
Non-fiction 8% / Fiction 92%

Almost all physical books rather than ebooks, and no audio books. I didn’t bother keeping a note of the books I abandoned part way.

Top reads of the year in no particular order:

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Ragnarok by A. S. Byatt
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton
Into The Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Mythos and Heroes by Stephen Fry
City of Dragons by Robin Hobb

I am sorry for your loss Waawo.

My last book of the year was possibly my favourite! I am on a train on my phone so I cannot recall who first reviewed it, but I thought Once Upon a River by Diana Settlefield was beautifully written, and although I felt it did not need the very last chapter, I really really enjoyed it.

Happy new year to you all, and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2020- thank you for your company again, your reviews and your endless recommendations!

Just wanted to say again, thanks so much for all your kind thoughts and words over the last few days. (Putting this here where it’s firmly in 2019!) We’re back from Wales after the funeral now and I for one can’t wait for 2020 in general and the 2020 50 books thread part one :)

Happy new year to you all

27. Origin – Dan Brown

Professor Langdon attends a scientific presentation by his former student that promises to change the world. Before the presentation can be completed and the discovery unveiled disaster strikes. The rest of the novel follows Langdon and this book's designated beautiful female sidekick as they race around the city avoiding the authorities and trying to uncover the secret. As always, there is a fanatical brainwashed acolyte also out to get them.

This one was a struggle to complete; the old formula is tired now and there was just nothing new to make this instalment stand out from other Brown books.

As always, I am in awe of the readers on this thread; not just the sheer volume of books you have read, but the depth and breadth of subjects and tastes. I will never keep up with you, but I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the thread.

My stats:
27 books read this year
81% Fiction 19% Non Fiction
70% Male Authors, 22% Female 8% Unknown
77% Print 23% Kindle 0% Audio
77% Owned books 23% borrowed from the library

@FortunaMajor & @Piggywaspushed
When I joined about 15 or 16 years ago I was ParisMum and not long after that I moved south and became Now a nearly Nice mum. I'd never realised there could be confusion between early and nearly until now!!

And there was me thinking you'd previously been late and grumpy!

Geography didn't cross my mind and I used to live in France myself

I too thought being Early and Nice was a resolution you were making - I am far too often Late Grumpy Mum

Oh well, I have been pronouncing that wrong all along : zut alors!

Hi, long time lurker here and occasional poster, now going by a new name. Managed 50 books last year, so am glad to have surpassed last year's total

1. This Is Going To Hurt - Adam Kay
2. Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk - Kathleen Rooney
3. Silkworm - Robert Galbraith
4. After You - Jojo Moyes
5. Circe- Madeline Miller
6. Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton
7. Dead Man's Folly -Agatha Christie
8. Our House - Louise Candlish
9. Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty

10. How To Find Love In A Bookshop - Veronica Henry 11. Harry Potter 1 - J K Rowling 12. Still Me - Jojo Moyes 13. Becoming - Michelle Obama 14. The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley 15. Gillespie and I - Jane Harris 16. Don't Let Go - Harlan Coben 17. You Think It - Curtis Sittenfeld 18. Cell Biology Book 2 - OU 19. Tripwire - Lee Child 20. The Couple Next Door - Shari Lapena 21. This Thing of Darkness - Harry Thompson 22. The Cut Out Girl - Bart van Es 23. A Game of Thrones- GRRM 24. Harry Potter 2 - J K Rowling 25. Dear Mrs Bird - A J Pearce 26. Detectives Secret - Lesley Thomson 27. Stepford Wives - Ira Levin 28. Surprise Me - Sophie Kinsella 29. Turning Forty - Mike Gayle 30. The Rumour - Lesley Kara 31. Paris for One - Jojo Moyes 32. Cell Biology Book 3 - OU 33. Everything I Never Told You- Celeste Ng 34. The Unfinished Clue - Georgette Heyer 35. Before the Storm - Christie Golden 36. Fried Green Tomatoes - Fannie Flagg 37. Tom's Midnight Garden- Philippa Pearce 38. Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood - Rebecca Wells 39. My Sister The Serial Killer - Oyinken Braithwaite 40. Anything is Possible - Elizabeth Strout 41. The President is Missing - Clinton and Patterson 42. Case Histories - Kate Atkinson 43. Midnight Crossroad - Charlaine Harris 44. An American Marriage - Tayari Jones 45. The House Next Door - James Patterson 46. Uncommon Type - Tom Hanks 47. War Doctor - David Nott 48. The Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger 49. One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson 50. Death of Mrs Westaway - Ruth Ware 51. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood 52. The Secret History - Donna Tartt 53. I Owe You One - Sophie Kinsella 54. Commonwealth - Ann Patchett 55. Elizabeth is Missing - Emma Healey 56. Skipping Christmas - John Grisham 57. Christmas at the Beach Hut - Veronica Henry 58. We'll Always Have Paris- Emma Beddington

Stand out books this year:

This Thing of Darkness
Cut-out Girl
War Doctor
A Game of Thrones
Fried Green Tomatoes

Also enjoyed books by Veronica Henry, Jojo Moyes and my old favourite, Agatha Christie!

Only stinker for me was Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood.

I haven't had time to contribute reviews over the year but I did reach 50 books for the first time so pretty chuffed! Here's my list:

1. Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid
2. Stories of the Seen and Unseen, Margaret Oliphant
3. Father and Son, Edmund Gosse
4. Café Assasin, Michael Stewart
5. Down Under, Bill Bryson
6. Personal Pleasures, Rose Macaulay
7. Circe, Madeline Miller
8. Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: Extraordinary Journeys into the Human Brain, Allan Ropper
9. Things I Don’t Want to Know, Deborah Levy
10. Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
11. Venice, Jan Morris
12. The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sachs
13. Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
14. The Wonder Spot, Melissa Bank
15. Rhapsody in Green, Charlotte Mendelson
16. Living Alone, Stella Benson
17. The Greengage Summer, Rumer Godden
18. The Cost of Living, Deborah Levy
19. Hot Milk, Deborah Levy
20. Bad Dreams, Tessa Hadley
21. Letters to the Lady Upstairs, Proust
22. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh
23. An Experiment in Love, Hilary Mantel
24. Everything Under, Daisy Johnson
25. I am, I am, I am, Maggie O’Farrell
26. What We Cannot Know, Marcus du Sautoy
27. The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
28. The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker
29. Hotel du Lac, Anita Brookner
30. The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq, Emma Sky
31. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
32. Home Truths, Mavis Gallant
33. The Emigrants, W G Sebald
34. Sight, Jessie Greengrass
35. The Outrun, Amy Liptrot
36. The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
37. Women and Power, Mary Beard
38. Mothering Sunday, Graham Swift
39. No Sweetness Here, Ama Ata Aidoo
40. How to Stop Time, Matt Haig
41. The Pigeon Tunnel, John Le Carré
42. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
43. Northern Lights, Philip Pullman
44. Fleishman is in Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner
45. Never Anyone but You, Rupert Thomson
46. Travellers in the Third Reich, Julia Boyd
47. The Man Who Saw Everything, Deborah Levy
48. The Interestings, Meg Wolitzer
49. The Power, Naomi Alderman
50. The True Drama of the Gifted Child, Max Miller
51. The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
52. To Capture What We Cannot Keep, Beatrice Colin
53. Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
54. Reservoir 13, Jon McGregor
55. Factfulness, Hans Rosling
56. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

My absolute favourites were Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid and Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson - both beautifully written and highly recommended.

1. Something Rotten, Jasper affords

2. The Lonesome Bodybuilder, Yukiko Motoya 3. Vox, Christina Dalcher

1. Suicide Club, Rachel Zheng
2. Birdbox, Josh Malerman
3. The Psychology of Time Travel, Kate Mascarenhas

7. 11:22:63, Stephen King

1. Lightspeed Magazine Futures and Fantasies, ed John Joseph Adams

9. The Bees, Laline Paul 10. The One, John Marrs 11. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Stephen King 12. The Terror, Dan Simmons 13. The Talisman, Stephen King & Peter Straub 14. This Thing of Darkness, Harry Thompson 15. Me, Tomoyuki Hoshino 16. The 1000 Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, David Mitchell 17. Six Stories, Matt Wesobwski 18. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, John McWhorter 19. The Science of Storytelling, Will Storr 20. The Colorado Kid, Stephen King 21. The Outsider, Stephen King 22. Pet Semetary, Stephen King 23. The Mandibles, Lionel Shriver 24. Revenge, Yoko Ogawa 25. The Traveling Cat Chronicles, Hiro Arikawa 26. The Overstory, Richard Powers 27. Sunfall, Jim Al-Khalili 28. The Turn of the Screw, Henry James 29. Early Riser, Jasper Fforde DNF 30. Dogs of War, Adrian Tchaikovsky 31. Dr Sleep, Stephen King

I’m quite sad that I only got through 31 this year I felt like I’d read much more than that! My stand out favourites were The Bees and Dogs of War - 2 very not human choice which somewhat reflects my mood.

Stats -
94% fiction, 6% non fiction
74% male, 26% female (Need to improve that next year!)
13% translated
13% short story collections
Stephen King made up a whopping 22% of my reads I will definitely be trying for more variety next year!

I have a fantastic tbr list thanks to so many great recommendations on this thread. Happy new year to all of you, may your year be full of both good books and time to read them

Condolences to Waawo and congratulations to aliasGrace

Gave up on Six Minutes in May (maybe I'll try again but emphatically Christmas is not the time for it) and finished the year on a high note with The Trick to Time by Kit de Waal, which I loved. A beautifully written, slow, thoughtful book where truths are revealed in a way that feels natural, and the characters are fleshed out in short phrases spread throughout the story. I have bought her earlier book My Name is Leon in the 12 Days of Kindle sale.

My full list and stats below - standouts in bold, stinkers in italics.

1. Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass – Stephen King
2. Normal People – Sally Rooney
3. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton
4. Mornings in Jenin – Susan Abulhawa
5. Convenience Store Woman – Sayaka Murata
6. Behind Closed Doors – B.A. Paris
7. Elizabeth is Missing – Emma Healey
8. Commonwealth – Ann Patchett
9. A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles
10. The Wife – Meg Wolitzer
11. Guns Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond
12. Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
13. Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla – Stephen King
14. Reservoir 13 – Jon McGregor
15. Love Your Enemies – Nicola Barker
16. Crazy Rich Asians – Kevin Kwan
17. The Hunting Party – Lucy Foley
18. After the Crash – Michel Bussi
19. The Sympathizer – Viet Thanh Ngyuyen
20. Stuart: a life backwards – Alexander Masters
21. Misogynies – Joan Smith
22. The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
23. The Rotters’ Club – Jonathan Coe
24. The Closed Circle – Jonathan Coe
25. Middle England – Jonathan Coe
26. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
27. When God was a Rabbit – Sarah Winman
28. Our House – Louise Candlish
29. Bel Canto – Ann Patchett
30. The Darkness – Ragnar Jonasson
31. Educated – Tara Westover
32. The Wych Elm – Tana French
33. If Beale Street Could Talk – James Baldwin
34. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
35. The Door – Magda Szabo
36. The Comforts of Home – Susan Hill
37. Loitering With Intent – Muriel Spark
38. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
39. The Reservoir Tapes – Jon McGregor
40. The Shepherd’s Life – James Rebanks
41. To Love and Be Wise – Josephine Tey
42. Grief is the Thing with Feathers – Max Porter
43. The Green Road – Anne Enright
44. The Female Persuasion - Meg Wolitzer
45. Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy**
46. Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie
47. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
48. The Knife – Jo Nesbo
49. The Great Passage – Shion Miura
50. Still Waters – Viveca Sten
51. Bookworm – Lucy Mangan
52. Any Human Heart – William Boyd
53. A Very English Scandal – John Preston
54. Black and British – David Olusoga
55. WTF? – Robert Peston
56. Punch & Judy Politics – Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton
57. People Like Us: Margaret Thatcher and Me – Caroline Slocock
58. This Thing of Darkness – Harry Thompson
59. Lethal White – Robert Galbraith
60. Song of Susannah: Dark Tower VI – Stephen King
61. The Dark Tower: Dark Tower VII – Stephen King
62. Restless – William Boyd
63. Miss Pym Disposes – Josephine Tey
64. A Ladder to the Sky – John Boyne
65. Natives – Akala
66. We Were the Mulvaneys – Joyce Carol Oates
67. Fire from Heaven – Mary Renault
68. Different Class – Joanne Harris
69. The Silence Between Breaths – Cath Staincliffe
70. Found – Erin Kinsley
71. My Sister the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
72. The Dark is Rising – Susan Cooper
73. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness – Arundhati Roy
74. Do No Harm – Henry Marsh
75. The Trick to Time - Kit de Waal

The following numbers may be of interest

14 BAME authors (19%)
31 by male authors (41%), 43 by women (57%) and one by male and female co-authors
14 non-fiction (19%), 61 fiction (81%)

I have achieved my aims of reading more male and BAME authors (although still not very many of the latter!). Still low on the non-fiction and those I did read were mainly biography or political commentary.

Favourite authors of the year were probably Stephen King and Ann Patchett - I certainly have to thank this thread for the Dark Tower series, and also for re-introducing me to Patchett so as ever I am very grateful for the recommendations and reading companionship! Happy New Year to all 50 Bookers.