Noodle I laughed at your Alice Feeney experience. Someone chose one of hers for book club and then I read another voluntarily a few weeks later. Never again.
Chessie glad to hear he's on the mend.
EmGee I really like the sound of King Leopold's Ghost
Pepe I'll be looking out for the Steven Pinker, I did a module on socio-linguistics for my degree and his books were a joy. I keep meaning to read more of him and that sounds right up my street.
The list!
-
Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday
- The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides
- Woke – Titania McGrath
-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh
- The Familiars – Stacey Halls
- The Hunting Party – Lucy Foley
- The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
-
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
- The Sanctuary Murders – Susanna Gregory
10.
North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
11. Villette – Charlotte Brontë
12. Night Boat to Tangiers – Kevin Barry
13. Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
14. Homesick for Another World - Ottessa Moshfegh
15. Middlemarch – George Eliot
16. Galatea – Madeline Miller
17. The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
18. The Running Hare – John Lewis Stempel
19. The Hidden World of the Fox – Adele Brand
20. The Janus Stone (Ruth Galloway #2) – Elly Griffiths
21. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
22. And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie
23. The Witches Are Coming – Lindy West
24.
Lost Children Archive – Valeria Luiselli
25. The Confession – Jessie Burton
26. The Wall – John Lanchester
27. The Man Who Saw Everything – Deborah Levy
28. Bone China - Laura Purcell
29.
I Am, I Am, I Am – Maggie O’Farrell
30. Call the Midwife – Jennifer Worth
31. Candide - Voltaire
32. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
33.
The Mercies – Kiran Millwood Hargrave
34.
Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
35.
The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco
36. Such A Fun Age- Kiley Reid
37.
Bring Up the Bodies – Hilary Mantel
38. Conviction – Denise Mina
39. Disappearing Earth – Julia Phillips
40. The Illness Lesson – Clare Beams
41. A History of Britain in 21 Women – Jenni Murray
42. Three Things About Elsie – Joanna Cannon
43. Dear Edward – Ann Napolitano
44. Djinn Patrol on the Purplr Line – Deepa Anappara
45. The Outsiders – SE HInton
46. Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
47. The Mars Room – Rachel Kushner
48. Red at the Bone – Jacqueline Woodson
49.
Nightingale Point – Luan Goldie
50.
The Most Fun We Ever Had – Claire Lombardo
51. Ask Again, Yes – Mary Beth Keane
52. The Death of Mrs Westaway – Ruth Ware
53.
The Mirror and the Light – Hilary Mantel
54. Sometimes I Lie – Alice Feeney
55. The Confessions of Frannie Langton – Sara Collins
56. Long Bright River – Liz Moore
57. Silas Marner – George Eliot
58. Persona Non Grata (Ruso #3) - Ruth Downie
59. Heroes – Stephen Fry
60. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (POirot #4) – Agatha Christie
61. Lark Rise to Candleford – Flora Thompson
62. The Spire – William Golding
63. The Furies – Natalie Haynes
64.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
65. The House at Sea’s End (Ruth Galloway #3) – Elly Griffiths
66.
If You Want to Make God Laugh – Bianca Marais
67.
A Woman of No Importance – Sonia Purnell
68. A Good Neighbourhood – Therese Anne Fowler
69. The Absolutist – John Boyne
70.
Daisy Jones and the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
71.
My Dark Vanessa – Kate Elizabeth Russell
72.
Actress – Anne Enright
73. Dominicana – Angie Cruz
74. Fleishman is in Trouble – Tiffany Brodesser-Akner
75.
Weather – Jenny Offill
76.
Saltwater – Jessica Andrews
77.
How We Disappeared – Jing-Jing Lee
78.
Guest House for Young Widows – Azadeh Moaveni
79. Unsheltered – Barbara Kingsolver
80. A Thousand Ships – Natalie Haynes
81. When Will There Be Good News (Jackson Brodie #3) – Kate Atkinson
82. Supper Club – Lara Williams
83.
Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell
84. He Said/She Said – Erin Kelly
85. Surfacing – Kathleen James
86. The Other Bennet Sister – Janice Hadlow
87.
Our Women on the Ground – Zahra Hankir
88.
The Five - Hallie Rubenhold
89. Dear Mrs Bird –AJ Pearce
90. The Reservoir Tapes – Jon McGregor
91. The Story of My Teeth – Valeria Luiselli
92. Topics of Conversation – Miranda Popkey
93. A Single Thread – Tracy Chevalier
94. The Opposite of Fate – Alison McGhee
95. The Girl With the Louding Voice Abi Daré
96. Miss Austen – Gill Hornby
97. Redhead By the Side of the Road – Anne Tyler
98. I Know Who You Are – Alice Feeney
99.
The Book of Longings – Sue Monk Kidd
100. Akin – Emma Donaghue
101. Out of Darkness, Shining Light – Pettina Gappah
102.
The Sealwoman’s Gift – Sally Magnusson
103. Jonathan Pie Off the Record – Jonathan Pie
104.
Dept of Speculation – Jenny Offill
105.
The Lesser Bohemians – Eimer McBride
106. We must Be Brave – Frances Liardet
107. All the Birds Singing – Evie Wyld
108.
Know My Name – Chanel Miller
109. The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters
110.
Say Nothing – Patrick Radden Keith
111. Absolution By Murder ( Sister Fidelma #1) – Peter Tremayne
112. The Rise of Darkness (Serailler #3) – Susan Hill
113.
The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places – Neil Oliver
114. The Secretary – Zoe Lea
115. Everyday Sexism – Laura Bates
116. A Bit of a Stretch – Chris Atkins
117. Pamela – Samuel Richardson
118. Three Women – Lisa Taddeo
119. The Yellow Bird Sings – Jennifer Rosner
120. The Uncoupling – Meg Wolitzer
121. Strange Hotel – Eimear McBride
122.
If Beale Street Could Talk – James Baldwin
123.
A Different Class of Murder: The Story of Lord Lucan – Laura Thompson
124. The Foundling – Stacey Halls
125. St Clare’s Collection – Enid Blyton
126. Days Without End – Sebastian Barry
127. A Thousand Moons – Sebastian Barry
128. The Grove of the Caesars (Flavia Albia #8) – Lindsey Davis
129. The Bookseller’s Tale (Oxford Medieval #1) - Ann Swinfen
130. Clock Dance – Anne Tyler
131. If I Had Your Face – Frances Cha
132. These Women – Amy Pochoda
133.
Brit(ish):On Race, Identity and Belonging – Afua Hirsch
134. The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship and Liberation in the 1960s – Maggie Doherty
135. The Inimitable Jeeves – PG Wodehouse
136. A Far Cry from Kensington – Muriel Spark
137. One, Two, Buckle my Shoe – Agatha Christie
138. Invitation to Die – Lyndsey Davis
139.
Mouthful of Birds - Samata Schweblin
140. McGlue – Ottessa Moshfegh
141. David Copperfield – Charles DIckens
142. Disgrace - JM Coetzee
143. A Room Full of Bones (Ruth Galloway #4) – Elly Griffiths
144.
Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
145. Crooked Heart – Lissa Evans
146. Ithaca – Patrick Dillon
147. The Mothers – Brit Bennett
148. Red Dress in Black ad White – Elliot Ackerman
149. All My Mother’s Lovers – Ilana Masad
150. Pericles: Prince of Tyre – William Shakespeare
151. The Porpoise – Mark Haddon
152.
The Other Americans – Leila Slimani
153. What We Lose – Zinzi Clemmons
154. Home Remedies – Xuan Juliana Wang
155. The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett
156. Caveat Emptor – Ruth Downie
157.
The Gathering – Anne Enright
158. The Truants – Kate Weinberg
159. Watching You – Lisa Jewell
160. What’s Left of Me Is Yours – Stephanie Scott
161. Little Eyes – Samata Schweblin
162. My Mother’s House – Francesca Monplaisir
163. Drifts – Kate Zambreno
Reviews for the last two. I'm in a very jaded mood of late (most of this year), so I could be being a little too harsh.
My Mother’s House – Francesca Monplaisir
Told from the perspective of the house itself, a sentient being. A couple with 3 children move into a changing immigrant neighbourhood in New York. It starts out as a place other Haitian immigrants can turn to for help, but as the woman becomes terminally ill and the man turns to depraved habits, the house decides to burn itself down in rage at the horrors committed within it.
This deals with a lot of immigrant issues and important topics such as abduction, abuse, sex slavery. It is trying too hard to be be literary and is rammed full of themes and imagery, the writing isn't bad, just very laboured. To me, the author has tried very hard and failed to make this a modern day Beloved. I found it dull and I considered abandoning it more than once.
Drifts – Kate Zambreno
The ramblings of a writer who is trying and failing to complete a manuscript long overdue at the publisher. Her daily life and correspondence get in the way of any achievement and she muses about other famous writers who have also failed to complete a work on time.
Pretentious self indulgent drivel.