50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Eleven

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eleventh (and final!) thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge was to read fifty books (or more!) in 2020, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and it's still not too late to delurk and tell us your reading highlights and lowlights of the year.

I hope your Mum gets the vaccine soon @bettbattenburg it must be a worrying time for you.

I'm going to aim for 70 books next year and want to limit the number of books I buy so I can work my way through my TBR pile. This includes my hard copy books as I have neglected them in favour of the convenience of my kindle. I also want to read more classics and fewer easy reads that I end up not enjoying. Hopefully I'll find it easier to concentrate next year.

Reading resolutions are pretty loose but mostly revolve around recognising what brings me comfort - and that is definitely a character driven series or two. So, for early 2021 I have lined up the first few volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time - I know, I know, you were all reading them about two or three years ago, I'm always behind, I don't care. I'm also going to make sure I continue with series I have been enjoying - Vera, Shetland, Dr Ruth Galloway, James Herriot and a few Reachers. My first book of 2021, will be Crooked Heart to continue with the much loved Old Baggage series.

I also used to be a big reader of sci-fi (and to a lesser extent fantasy) but it only made up about 10% of my list this year. I definitely want to explore some alternative realities next year, and with my series completion thing going on, am going to make sure I finally get around to the last book in the Fractured Europe sequence.

And finally I'm going to make sure non-fiction continues to feature heavily in my diet, and I'm going to try to quality control it better. Some of the absolute outstanding reads of this year have been non-fiction, and also some of the most complete dross (ooh, this book about trees / walking / by that bloke I like off Twitter is only 99p! Click! - THIS WILL STOP)

Thank you everyone for your outstanding company in this crazy year. See you all, old and new, next year!

Finished 78 books. Not a round number but worked for my collages of all the books by dividing by 6.

1. The Dilemma - B A Paris 
2. Dangerous Crossing - Rachel Rhys
3. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood
4. A Wedding in December - Anita Shreve 
5. The Other You - J S Monroe 
6. To The Lions - Holly Watt 
7. Here to Stay - Mark Edwards 
8. The Bigamist - Mary Turner Thomson
9. The Other Wife - Claire McGowan 
10. Finding Cupid - Bridget E Baker
11. All the Rage - Cara Hunter 
12. The Donor - Clare Mackintosh 
13. Who Did You Tell - Lesley Kara
14. I Wanted You to Know - Laura Pearson 
15. The Recovery of Rose Gold - Stephanie Wrobel
16. I Did It For Us - Alison Bruce
17. Half a World Away - Mike Gayle 
18. The Suspect - Fiona Barton
19. War Doctor - David Nott 
20. Tell Me Your Secret - Dorothy Koomson
21. My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russel
22. In Safe Hands - J P Carter 
23. Anything You Do Say - Gillian McAllister 
24. The Flatshare - Beth O'Leary
25. Keeper - Jessica Moor
26. Blood Orange - Harriet Tyce 
27. Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
28. How to Marry Your Husband - Jacqueline Rohen
29. The Chain - Adrian McKinty
30. Just My Luck - Adele Parks 
31. Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith
32. Daisy Jones and The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid 
33. Little Disasters - Sarah Vaughan
34. The Craftsman - Sharon Bolton 
35. His & Hers - Alice Feeney
36. Missing Pieces - Laura Pearson 
37. Little White Lies - Philippa East
38. The Ice Cream Girls - Dorothy Koomson 
39. Pretending - Holly Bourne 
40. Seven Days - Alex Lake 
41. Those People - Louise Candlish
42. We Know You Know - Erin Kelly
43. All My Lies Are True - Dorothy Koomson 
44. The Dead Line - Holly Watt 
45. Just Between Us - Rebecca Drake
46. If You Could Go Anywhere - Paige Toon
47. The Volunteer - Jack Fairweather
48. Invisible Girl - Lisa Jewell
49. Last Lesson - James Goodhand
50. American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins
51. The Angel - Katerina Diamond 
52. The Promise - Katerina Diamond
53. Truth or Die - Katerina Diamond
54. Woman in the Water - Katerina Diamond
55. Missing, Presumed - Susie Steiner
56. The Switch - Beth O'Leary
57. Blurred Lines - Hannah Begbie
58. My Everything - Katie Marsh
59. The July Girls - Phoebe Locke
60. The Seven Sisters - Lucinda Riley
61. In Case You Missed It - Lindsey Kelk
62. The Heatwave - Katerina Diamond
63. The Seven Husband's of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid 
64. The Other Passenger - Louise Candlish
65. She Lies in Wait - Gytha Lodge
66.Lockdown - Peter May
67.Troubled Blood - Robert Galbraith 
68.Seven Lies - Elizabeth Kay
69.Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier 
70.Three Hours - Rosamund Lupton 
71.Fifty Fifty - Steve Cavanagh 
72.Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors - Piers Paul Read
73.Just Like The Other Girls - Claire Douglas 
74.Truth Be Told - Kia Abdullah 
75.The Lies You Told - Harriet Tyce 
76.One More For Christmas - Sarah Morgan
77.The Twelve Dates of Christmas - Jenny Bayliss 
78.Playdate - Alex Dahl

Top 5

1. Troubled Blood - Robert Galbraith
2. My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell
3. The Flatshare - Beth O'Leary
4. Daisy Jones and the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
5. The Seven Husband's of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

Next year I just want to continue enjoying reading and try get my TBR pile down. Have also got a Pre-ordered for each month from now to July as a wee treat while I try save for a house.

Hope everyone has a lovely new year and I hope it's a better year.

My reading resolution is to read 21 books that I already own in 2021. I can read as many new buys/library books/books I've been lent as I like but I'm hoping the 21 target will dent my TBR as honestly I'm a bit fed up of looking at the same titles on the shelf unread. Rereads can also be included, don't reread much but have a few in mind to revisit this year.
Gretchen Rubin's challenge on her podcast Happier is to read for 21 minutes a day every day in 2021. I'm going to give it a whirl - think I do this most days anyway but it might encourage me to find some more minutes in my day instead of waiting until I'm tired in bed at night and might encourage me to keep reading when work gets busy and the habit can slip.

Should've said at least 21 minutes a day...looking forward to those moments when a book is just too compelling to step away from or an audiobook actually makes me want to walk further or clean the house more just to keep listening!

Oh definitely with the non fiction

2020 seems to have awakened me to non fiction and I think if I had to narrow and do a top 10, at least half but probably more of that 10 would be the non fiction.

REALLY slim pickings in my fiction for 2020. The one discovery/highlight eg not something I would have read without this thread would be the Lissa Evans trilogy.

Just slipped in another one before the end of the year, and an excellent read to finish off with:

111. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson I was inspired to revisit this after reading Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, no review needed I'm sure, but it's really so very good.

I got it from the online library after first trying Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan - inspired by Cote - loved the idea, but oh he is so very, very annoying, just unbearable. JW on the other hand I just want to kidnap and take home to tea and make her tell me stories

I'm still catching up with reviews before the chimes of midnight!

92. Flesh Wounds by Chris Brookmyre
The third (and final) book in the Jasmine Sharp series. Most of the plot hinges around some long-buried secrets, including some that are very close to home for Jasmine and her family. There’s some enjoyable business with gangsters double- and treble-crossing each other and the whole series is tied up very neatly (if a bit too predictably).

93. The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston
Seasonal re-read after a VERY long interval. This was wonderful, of course – there is some beautiful descriptive writing and the children of the house are drawn vividly but with real lightness of touch. I ached to be in Green Knowe and see them when I was a child, and I still do now (and I’ve just found out that the actual house is about 20 miles away from where I live, so this is a real possibility post-covid!). I saw a few reviews on Goodreads complaining that it’s the most boring book ever, and that nothing happens – which I suppose is true in one sense, but for me it’s such an inspiring book that the action isn’t really the point!

It did make me think, though: many of my favourite books as a child were a) really short (this Puffin edition is only 158 pages long – compare that with JKR and David Walliam’s doorstops); b) set in the past – there seemed to be a real fashion for time-slip and historical books between about 1965 and 1985; c) much more subtle than the books that my kids read today – less reliance on flashy action and wackiness, more poetic language (generally better writing, actually), more sophisticated vocabulary. I don’t think this is just me getting middle-aged and thinking that everything from my childhood was necessarily better! I’m sure that there are still books like that being published, but they tend to get drowned out by the noisy, attention-grabbing, celebrity-authored books that fill up supermarkets and bookshops and school libraries these days. (And which my children love, so I’m not being snobbish!)

94. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
I was obsessed with this series (and with this book in particular) when I was a child, and I’m pleased to report that it hasn’t lost one bit of its power for me! I suppose this is partly because my own childhood (I was Will’s age in the mid-1980s) was still close enough to the childhoods of children from the 1950s-1970s that books from that period seemed realistic to me. I grew up in a village, where we often had proper snow and floods, and where I sang in the church choir for 10 years (so I spent much of my time in candlelit stone buildings listening to people singing ancient carols). There was also not much in the way of TV (and no internet, of course!), and I had a lot more freedom than my own children do, so books like this successfully bridged the gap between “normal” life and “what might be” – if my day-to-day life wasn’t so far off Will’s, then maybe the rest of it could plausibly happen to me too…?

95. An English Murder by Cyril Hare
Classic English country house murder mystery, which I’ve re-read because it’s set at Christmas. Lord Warbeck (no relation to Perkin) assembles his family and hangers-on for what is likely to be his last Christmas at Warbeck Hall. The ill-assorted guests include his son, Robert Warbeck, who leads the fascist League of Liberty and Justice (and is meant to be Oswald Mosley but comes across more as Roderick Spode), his cousin Sir Julius (Chancellor of the Exchequer in the then-Labour government), two women who are old family friends/relatives, and Dr Wenceslaus Bottwink, a Professor of History of central-European origin who has evidently spent time in a Nazi concentration camp, and who is staying at the house while he researchers the family’s papers. There is also, needless to say, a butler and a detective. The book rattles along quite fast, and the portrayal of Britain in a fast-changing post-war society is interesting, but the main mystery (which is based on an obscure point of constitutional law – Cyril Hare was himself a lawyer) hasn’t worn that well.

I need to throw in my last few reviews before the year ends!

1. Native Tongue - Suzette Haden Elgin
2. If Cats Disappeared from the World - Genki Kawamura
3. Frankenstein in Baghdad - Ahmed Saadawi
4. Lies Sleeping -Ben Aaranovitch
5. The History of Bees - Maja Lunde
6. Severance - Ling Ma
7. NOS4A2 - Joe Hill
8. Choose Your Own Apocalypse
9. Before you Sleep - Adam Nevill

10. Recursion - Blake Crouch 11. The Hot Zone - Richard Preston 12. Hotel Iris - Yoko Ogawa 13. Bazaar of Bad Dreams - Stephen King 14. Friday Black - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 15. Pastoralia - George Saunders 16. The Diving Pool - Yoko Ogawa 17. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee 18. Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky 19. Rosewater - Tade Thompson 20. ‘Salem’s Lot - Stephen King 21. Lexicon - Max Barry 22. World War Z - Max Brooks 23. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers 24. Mammoth - Chris Flynn 25. Three Hours - Rosamund Lupton 26. Man vs Nature - Diane Cook 27. The Unexpected - Short story collection, Ed. Stephen Jones

World War Z Cracking start, lots of very human reactions to a burgeoning pandemic. However, halfway through the voices of the different characters start to get pretty repetitive, which takes the edge off the intensity. Still a good mid-pandemic read though.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet About a third of the way in, I really thought this wasn’t for me. A space drilling crew (human and alien) make their way through dodgier ends of space, facing mild peril and generally hanging out. I like SF/fantasy, but hadn’t previously read anything that focused so much on relationships and feelings and issues (the navigator is two “people” in one body, the chef is multigendered, humans and aliens fall in love...) But about halfway through, the whole thing just won me over. It’s so damn warm and lovely and caring and open minded, and everybody’s just nice If you like mild peril and gentle acceptance in space, you’d enjoy this.

Mammoth was my absolute favourite of the year. Narrated by the fossil of a 13,000 year old mammoth, the story covers his history, extinction, and journey round the world as fossils, Irish revolution, a bit of Nazis, the rise of early man. Ably supported/heckled by a Tyrannasaur Bataan, a pterodactyl, the severed hand of a pharaoh, and a bitter prehistoric penguin. I wasn’t prepared for the ending to make me cry, but it did. A great, unusual read.

Three Hours much reviewed on here. A fast paced take on an English school shooting, told from the perspectives of the police, teachers, students and parents and loosely centered around 2 young Syrian refugees. Gripping, and interesting to read the (too brief!) Macbeth/Syrian conflict parallels.

Man vs Nature I was expecting to really enjoy this. A short story collection with either nature or supernatural beings/events getting the better of humans - and a fair pinch of human nature getting the better of humans. Well written, but the characters were so (deliberately) unlikeable, and in such emotionally grinding situations that reading the stories back to back was not a pleasant experience! It would have been a much better read if I hadn’t read them all in one go, but I can’t really fault the author for that!

The Unexpected short horror anthology. Nothing groundbreaking, but a decent enough cheap spooky read in the dark.

And halfway through but not finished:
28. Early Riser - Jasper Fforde
29. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
30. On Writing - Stephen King

Only 27 this year, down from 40-something last year but I have a fantastically huge and exciting tbr pile so I’m very excited for next year!

Mainly because of heavy duty studying, I read far fewer books this year than in recent years and here's my complete list:

1. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
2. The Reason I Jump - Naoki Higashida
3. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh
4. The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell
5. You Will Not Have My Hate - Antoine Leiris
6. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - Horace McCoy
7. Something to Live For - Richard Roper
8. From Prejudice to Pride: A History of LGBTQ+ Movement - Amy Lamé
9. 84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff

10. Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams 11. Blood Orange - Harriet Tyce 12. Those People - Louise Candlish 13. Lady in Waiting - Anne Glennconner 14. Authentic - Stephen Joseph 15. Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo 16. Clothes and Other Things That Matter - Alexandra Shulman 17. Platform Seven - Louise Doughty 18. How Not to Be a Boy - Robert Webb 19. Heartstopper vol 2 - Alice Oseman 20. Heartstopper vol 3 - Alice Oseman 21. Two Besides: A Pair of Talking Heads - Alan Bennett 22. Talking Heads - Alan Bennett 23. Motherwell: A Girlhood - Deborah Orr 24. The Shielding of Mrs Forbes - Alan Bennett 25. No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference - Greta Thunberg 26. The Glossy Years: Magazines, Museums and Selective Memoirs - Nicholas Coleridge 27. Me - Elton John 28. Nick and Charlie - Alice Oseman 29. Exciting Times - Naoise Dolan 30. Queen Bee - Jane Fallon 31. I Love the Bones of You - Christopher Eccleston 32. I Am Not Your Babymother - Candice Brathwaite 33. Hinch Yourself Happy - Sophie Hinchcliffe 34. Fleabag: the Special Edition - Phoebe Waller Bridge 35. Who Did You Tell - Lesley Kara 36. To Be a Gay Man - Will Young 37. Finding Joy - Gary Andrews 38. Rake's Progress - Rachel Johnson 39. Creativity - John Cleese 40. Intimations - Zadie Smith 41. Eating for England - Nigel Slater

My book of the year is the dazzling Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo.

Wishing everyone lots of good health and happiness in 2021

Yikes, I’d better post my final 3 reviews before Big Ben strikes!

96. A True Story by Lucian of Samosata
I had this on my TBR list because I saw it referred to somewhere as “the first science fiction novel”. It was written in the mid-2nd century AD (yes, really!) by Lucian of Samosata, a Greek-speaking author of Assyrian descent. Despite the title, it’s basically a giant shaggy dog story-cum-literary trolling exercise, and is one of the weirdest books I’ve ever read. The author begins with a disingenuous claim that this work has been written to relax the minds of serious scholars after their labours, just as athletes must pay attention to rest as well as exercise. Lucian’s aim is to parody other philosophers and poets who have written about miracles and fables – but, unlike them, he’s completely upfront about that fact his fabulous tales are all made up … which therefore makes him more truthful than them because at least he’s telling the reader not to believe a word he says .

The narrator sets off on a long voyage and find many wonders – within the first couple of pages, they’ve discovered an island visited by Dionysus where springs of wine rise from the ground, and where the fish who inhabit those springs are wine-coloured and -flavoured (and make the crew drunk when they eat them). Within a few more pages, they’ve been caught up in a whirlwind, sail through the air for seven days, and land on a round, shining island that they later discover to be the moon. They are caught up in a battle between Endymion and Phaeton, the respective rulers of the moon and sun, who are fighting to colonise the Morning Star with the aid of their troops: the Vulture Dragoons, who ride giant vultures; the Grassplume-riders, who ride birds with grass for plumage and wings like lettuce leaves; the Flea-archers; the Millet-shooters; the Sky-mosquitoes; the Stalk-mushrooms; the Sky-dancers, who sling lethally poisoned radishes at their enemies, and so on . Lucian’s travels continue in this vein, and take him to places where men bear children in the calves of their legs, where the people wear clothes of polished glass and have removable eyes; and where the sea is made of milk and contains islands of cheese. It’s all rather entertaining in a hallucinogenic way, but fortunately stops after about 80 pages because I think the determined weirdness and arch jibes at other writers would have worn thin after many more pages. I’m still glad that I’ve read it, though!

97. Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood
I listened to this on Borrowbox, but thought it was so good that I am planning to buy a proper copy so I can refer to it again and again. Wendy Wood is an academic psychologist, and an expert in habits – what they are, how we form them, and how we maintain them. This is not a self-help book (it’s not going to tell you how to stop smoking or how to develop a gym habit), but it’s a really interesting and accessible overview of what psychologists like her know about habits, and how we can put that knowledge to use in everyday life. Wood points out that our society is based on a rather puritan ideal of “willpower” – that if we want to do something enough, and if we have a rational enough reason for wanting to achieve it, then we can do so by sheer force of mind – and anyone who fails is just weak. Obviously, this isn’t true for the vast majority of people, as we know both from empirical evidence and from psychology experiments. Wood takes us through the ways in which context, cues, automaticity, state of mind, personality and other factors all influence our behaviours and habits – and I found that understanding really useful in helping me to understand where I’ve been going wrong and how I can set myself up to succeed in future. (Having said that it’s not a “how to” guide, there are some useful tips in the last chapter about how to be less in thrall to your phone, which I’m definitely going to start using ).

98. A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman
My last book of the year, but definitely not one of my favourites! I basically read it because I was looking for more books in translation, and this one had won the International Booker Prize in 2017 (it was originally written in Hebrew, and the author is Israeli). The action all takes place within a single comedy show, with digressions for back story; the comedian, Dovaleh G (otherwise known as Dov Greenstein), does a late-night set and progressively gets more and more crude and confessional, essentially having a breakdown on stage as the audience gradually walk out. The set is watched (and the book is narrated) by Avishai Lazar, a retired judge and old schoolfellow of Dov’s, who has been invited to attend so he can report back to Dov about what he sees. Dov is intensely unlikeable – he has a charismatic, manic energy on stage, but his jokes are tasteless and abusive, he makes fun of audience members, and his disintegration manages to be repellent as well as pitiable. As he unravels, you find out more about the tragic events that have led him to be the way he is – and it’s quite a harrowing read, taking in much of Israel’s less salubrious history. But although I admired the writing, I didn’t particularly enjoy it – I found it a rather “male” book in the way that Philip Roth and Martin Amis can be (which, to me, is just as off-putting as overtly "girly" books are).

Anyway, that’s my final review for 2020, just in time for midnight! I'll post the full list, with highlights, stinkers and analysis in a moment. Thank you to all you wonderful 50 bookers for keeping me company on this journey - see you next year!

I'll just pop my list for the year here. I've not managed nearly as much reading as most years (work-related), so I'm not sure there's enough for a statistical breakdown. I hope I'm not forced to turn in my 50 Bookers badge, and promise to try harder next year.

1. March Violets by Philip Kerr
2. Ring The Hill by Tom Cox
3. The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
4. The Lost Man by Jane Harper
5. Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood.
6. Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver
7. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
8. The Secret Barrister - Stories of the Law and How It's Broken
9. Enigma by Robert Harris

10.Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata 11. Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner 12. The Citadel by AJ Cronin 13. The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel 14. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid 15. Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner 16. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe 17. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams 18. Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman 19. The Five by Hallie Rubenhold 20. Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell 21. In the Days of Rain by Rebecca Stott 22. Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins 23. Peaches for Monsieur le Curé by Joanne Harris 24. American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins 25. Bone China by Laura Purcell 26. Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge 27. The Familiars by Stacy Hall 28. The Benefit of Hindsight by Susan Hill 29. The Murder of Harriet Monckton by Elizabeth Haynes 30. Elmet by Fiona Mozley 31. Inheritance by Jenny Eclair 32. Jeremy Hutchinson's Care Histories by Thomas Grant 33. Three Hours by Rosamund 34. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickend 35. The Chimes by Charles Dickens

Top five of the year:

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner
Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge

Stinker of the year: Fleishman is in Trouble

My full 2020 list.
I read 118 books in 2019, so a slight increase this year to 125 books, despite a reading slump around the start of the first lockdown.

1. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
2. Death is a Welcome Guest by Louise Welsh
3. Bird Box by Josh Malerman
4. Stranger With My Face by Lois Duncan
5. Calmer, Easier, Happier Homework by Noel Janis-Norton
6. Skeletons by Jane Fallon
7. The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice
8. Red: A Natural History of the Redhead by Jacky Colliss Harvey
9. The Neutronium Alchemist by Peter F Hamilton

10. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley 11. 99 Red Balloons by Elisabeth Carpenter 12. Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini 13. Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy 14. The Scent of Shadows by Vicki Pettersson 15. The Silver Dream story by Neil Gaiman & Micheal Reaves, written by Michael Reaves & Mallory Reaves 16. By Light Alone by Adam Roberts 17. The Treatment by C L Taylor 18. Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor 19. The Escape by C L Taylor 20. The Chalk Man by C J Tudor 21. No Dominion by Louise Welsh 22. How to Lose Weight Without Being Miserable by Richard Templar 23. The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig 24. Chimera by Mira Grant 25. God Bless the NHS by Roger Taylor 26. Bring Me Back by B A Paris 27. The Shape We’re In by Sarah Boseley 28. The Understudy by B A Paris, Clare Mackintosh, Holly Brown and Sophie Hannah 29. Someone Like Me by M R Carey 30. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 31. Calmer Easier Happier Screen Time by Noel Janis-Norton 32. The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley 33. Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott 34. The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell 35. First Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton 36. Night Film by Marisha Pessl 37. Second Form at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton 38. Third Year at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton 39. Believe Me by J P Delaney 40. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones 41. The Record Keeper by Agnes Gomillion 42. Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer 43. The Demon Code by Adam Blake 44. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey 45. Everything Begins With Asking For Help by Kevin Braddock 46. Evil Star by Anthony Horowitz 47. Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig 48. Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson 49. Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman 50. Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones 51. The Invasion by Peadar O’Guilin 52. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker 53. Early Riser by Jasper Fforde 54. Friend Request by Laura Marshall 55. A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena 56. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge 57. When She Woke by Hillary Jordan 58. The Naked God by Peter F Hamilton 59. Big Fat Lies by Hannah Sutter 60. The Migration by Helen Marshall 61. Circe by Madeline Miller 62. Sleep by C L Taylor 63. The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed 64. Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor 65. Gone by Leona Deakin 66. White Cat by Holly Black 67. An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena 68. White Silence by Jodi Taylor 69. The Institute by Stephen King 70. All New Wolverine Volume 1: The Four Sisters 71. Dracula by Bram Stoker 72. Roman Quests: The Archers of Isca by Caroline Lawrence 73. Malory Towers Upper Fourth by Enid Blyton 74. Uhura’s Song by Janet Kagan 75. Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly 76. The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike 77. Autism: How to Raise a Happy Autistic Child by Jessie Hewitson 78. Nod by Adrian Barnes 79. The Ogre Downstairs by Diana Wynne Jones 80. Touch by Claire North 81. What’s in a Surname? by David McKie 82. Dark Light by Jodi Taylor 83. The Sweet Poison Quit Plan by David Gillespie 84. Fellside by M R Carey 85. Roman Quests: Return to Rome by Caroline Lawrence 86. Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo 87. Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch 88. The Map of Bones by Francesca Haig 89. Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates 90. The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone 91. The Thieves of Ostia by Caroline Lawrence 92. Girl by Edna O’Brien 93. The Wolves of Winter by Tyrell Johnson 94. Panic by Lauren Oliver 95. My Son’s Not Rainman by John Williams 96. In The Fifth at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton 97. No. More. Plastic. by Martin Dorey 98. Last Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton 99. The 21st Century Is Making You Fat by Pat Thomas 100. New Term at Malory Towers by Pamela Cox 101. Summer Term at Malory Towers by Pamela Cox 102. Winter Term at Malory Towers by Pamela Cox 103. The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware 104. The Grace Year by Kim Liggett 105. Hurrah for Gin by Katie Kirby 106. All New Wolverine Vol 2: Civil War II 107. All New Wolverine Vol 3: Enemy of the State 108. All New Wolverine Vol 4: Immune 109. All New X-Men Vol 1: Yesterday’s X-Men 110. All New X-Men Vol 2: Here to Stay 111. All New X-Men Vol 3: Out of Their Depth 112. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi 113. Doing Time by Jodi Taylor 114. House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones 115. Fun and Games at Malory Towers by Pamela Cox 116. Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson 117. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid 118. The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood 119. Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch 120. The I.D.I.C Epidemic by Jean Lorrah 121. The Clever Guts Diet by Dr Michael Mosley 122. The Venus Conspiracy by Michael Cordy 123. Identity Crisis by Ben Elton 124. Secrets at Malory Towers by Pamela Cox 125. The Meg by Steve Alten

Top 5, in no particular order:

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Girl by Edna O’Brien
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Statistics:

Library books 38% (63% in 2019)
Non-fiction 14% (8% in 2019)
Male authors 31%, Female authors 63%, Not sure 6% (64% female authors in 2019, so not much change there)
Ebooks 6%

I’ve not got any reading goals for 2021, other than to continue enjoying reading.

Happy new year to all 50 Bookers :)

Just been through the year's threads to add my books to Goodreads and realised that due to some mid-year miscounting I'd actually underestimated the number of books completed - I actually managed 29 which is not too bad considering that two of them were the huge Moby-Dick and The Count of Monte Cristo. There were some real corkers in the year - as you may know I'm not a fan of the huge lists so will just add my top five here:

Wolf Hall trilogy - Hilary Mantel
Libra - Don Delillo
The Hopkins Manuscript - RC Sherriff
The Emigrants - WG Sebald
Journal of a Disappointed Man - WNP Barbellion

Happy New Year Folks

This thread or new thread as of 2021? @southeastdweller

I know it's technically 2021 now (happy new year, everyone!!!!), but I'm putting my list for last year on this thread so it doesn't clutter up the shiny new one with old news.

My full list:

1. Hall of Mirrors by Christopher Fowler
2. Festive Spirits by Kate Atkinson
3. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel
4. The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths
5. Angel With Two Faces by Nicola Upson
6. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
7. The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson
8. The Woman in Blue by Elly Griffiths
9. The Chalk Pit by Elly Griffiths

10. The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves 11. The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths 12. Normal People by Sally Rooney 13. The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths 14. The Herring Seller's Apprentice by L. C. Tyler 15. To Siri With Love by Judith Newman 16. The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co) by Jonathan Stroud 17. 9th and 13th by Jonathan Coe 18. Literary Life by Posy Simmonds 19. Bach by Denis Arnold 20. The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy 21. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones 22. Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert 23. England's Finest by Christopher Fowler 24. How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb 25. The Quest for the Golden Hare by Bamber Gascoigne 26. Masquerade by Kit Williams 27. Vermeer to Eternity by Anthony Horowitz 28. Wine and Punishment by Sarah Fox 29. Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler 30. True Love by Posy Simmonds 31. Airhead by Emily Maitlis 32. Grown Ups by Marian Keyes 33. The Porpoise by Mark Haddon 34. Annabel Scheme by Robin Sloan 35. The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah 36. Noble Savages by Sarah Watling 37. Coffin, Scarcely Used by Colin Watson 38. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells 39. Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes 40. Where Do Comedians Go When They Die? by Milton Jones 41. Mount! by Jilly Cooper 42. Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe 43. The Hoarder by Jess Kidd 44. One More Croissant for the Road by Felicity Cloake 45. The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards 46. Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi 47. The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss 48. Gentlemen & Players by Joanne Harris 49. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley 50. Slow Horses by Mick Herron 51. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens 52. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling 53. The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend 54. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman 55. Northbridge Rectory by Angela Thirkell 56. Apricots on the Nile by Colette Rossant 57. Chasing the Dram by Rachel McCormack 58. Growing Up by Angela Thirkell 59. Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah 60. Winter by Ali Smith 61. Tales from the Folly by Ben Aaronovitch 62. The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow 63. Death is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa 64. The Zig-Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths 65. Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths 66. The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young 67. Me by Elton John 68. Mortmain Hall by Martin Edwards 69. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett 70. The Organised Mum Method by Gemma Bray 71. The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos 72. Maths on the Back of an Envelope by Rob Eastaway 73. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson 74. When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson 75. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman 76. The Doctor Who Sat for a Year by Brendan Kelly 77. The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah 78. Mr Finchley Discovers His England by Victor Canning 79. Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi 80. Where the Bodies Are Buried by Chris Brookmyre 81. When the Devil Drives by Chris Brookmyre 82. Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell 83. Selection Day by Aravind Adiga 84. Hamilton: the Revolution by Lin Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter 85. The Carer by Deborah Moggach 86. The Deaths of December by Susi Holliday 87. The Thirteen Days of Christmas by Jenny Overton 88. Dead Famous by Greg Jenner 89. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 90. Grimble and Grimble at Christmas by Lucian Freud 91. Ruth's First Christmas Tree by Elly Griffiths 92. Flesh Wounds by Chris Brookmyre 93. The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston 94. An English Murder by Cyril Hare 95. A True Story by Lucian of Samosata 96. Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood 97. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper 98. A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman

Of my 98 books:

• 57% were by women and 43% by men
• 79% were fiction and 21% were non-fiction (I think I had a higher “hit” rate with the latter, so I’m definitely planning to read more next year)
• 6 were translated from other languages (Arabic, German, French, Hebrew and Latin)
• 87% were by authors based in the UK or USA, which is also something I’m going to try to rectify next year.
• 49% were mine, 46% were from the library and the other 5% were borrowed from other people (I’m pleased to see that my efforts to use the library more have been successful!)
• 44% were audiobooks (which I only started using last year!), 36% were ebooks and only 20% were print books.
• 66% were written in the last decade (and 30% in 2018-20). I was really surprised by this – I hadn’t realised how many very recent books I’d been reading, but maybe this is because of my greater library use? My books averaged 301 pages each, but the shortest was only 41 pages ( Ruth’s First Christmas Tree ) and the longest was 658 pages ( The Other Bennet Sister, closely followed by Grown Ups and Mount!* at 656 and 640 pages respectively).

I am a bit of a data geek, so I have put all this information into a spreadsheet so I can make pivot tables and plot graphs and so on. A graph of pages read against time shows that I had big reading spurts in February and December, with a rather slow period from mid-March to late-June (hardly surprising, given that I was struggling with work, homeschooling, volunteering and general covid-related chaos, but it’s nice to see that this was a real dip in my rate of reading, not just my perceptions).

Fiction highlights (not necessarily the best books, but the ones that have stayed with me):
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy
Grown Ups by Marian Keyes
The Porpoise by Mark Haddon
The Hoarder by Jess Kidd
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

Non-fiction highlights:
How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb
The Quest for the Golden Hare by Bamber Gascoigne
Noble Savages by Sarah Watling
The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards
Me by Elton John
Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood

My aim for next year will probably be 100 again (depending on what happens with my work, as I used to do a lot of reading in the days when I was actually commuting to the office!). I am also thinking of putting a total stop to impulse Kindle deal purchases (I’m terrible for this), and trying not to buy more than 5 new books next year (). I’ve just bought a secondhand Kobo so I can read more ebooks from the library (as the native app is so dreadful). I’m also considering getting a pile of, say, 30 books that I already own, giving them each a number, and using a random number generator to pick one for me every other book. If I don’t want to read a book when its number comes up, then I’ll get rid of it – I’m just sick of having piles of unread books everywhere, making me feel guilty but not actually getting read!

Oh, I forgot to add Dead Famous by Greg Jenner to the non-fiction highlights, but I think it probably belongs there .

Just dropping in to say I made my 50 books with just two days to spare! Thank you to posters for your recommendations of shorter books that helped me get over the line when I had 5 books to go with just over a week left of the year.

I read Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, Daddy by Emma Cline, Face It by Debbie Harry and finished Barack Obama’s A Promised Land. All well worth it.

Here’s to 2021!

Thank you for the tips on which versions of A Streetcar Named Desire to watch Remus and Palegreen. I can definitely see Gillian Anderson in the Blanche roll (although I'm sure Marge Simpson is a close second!) I must have seen clips of Marlon as Stanley because I can see him in the white vest in my minds eye.

My top 5 2020 reads:

A Fine Balance - Epic, memorable tale of Indian oppression
The Green Mile - One of King's finest.
Love After Love - Original and captivating
Alias Grace - Beautifully written, open ended telling of a true crime
American Dirt - A real page turner

Honourable Mentions to:
Holes - a great YA book, clever plotting.
The Silence Of The Girls - Greek myth from the female perspective
Sweet Sorrow - Slight but sweet story of first love, very nostalgic
Bring Up The Bodies - Would have been top five if it hadn't been a re-read
The Homegoing - Multi generational story of black oppression

Happy 2021 to all 50 Bookers old and new, many thanks to southeast for keeping the threads going, and I'll see you on the shiny new thread later on today!

It's still 2020 where I am, and I just sneaked in my 50.

48. The Book of Longings, by Sue Monk Kidd. Story of Ana, wife of Jesus. I didn't expect to love this as much as I did, but the writing is beautiful. Strong side eye to the reviewer who didn't like it because "those with even a passing familiarity with Jesus's life know what will happen"

49. Emily, by Jilly Cooper. Fell in love with it aged 13, and have read it countless times, but the comfort read factor was a bit dented this time by how badly it's aged. Despite everything, Rory Balniel is largely responsible for my having a soft spot for a tall, dark man in a navy jumper.

50. The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse, by Charlie Mackesy. Is it cheating to include a very short illustrated book as my last of the year? Maybe but I'm unrepentant. A mixed bag. Gorgeous illustrations, and text that is equal parts beautiful and 90s motivational poster. I think this wants to be Winnie the Pooh for the modern age, and it isn't quite. Still loved it though.

Thank you all 50 bookers; old, new and returning, and especially southeast for creating the threads. This corner of the internet has been a respite in a horrible year and I am very thankful to you all.

De lurking to say that 8 or so of Jan Morris's books are all on today's Kindle deal.

Happy New Year fellow readers and looking forward to joining you on the 2021 threads. Thanks for running the threads southeast. And thanks for all the book chat everyone, agree with others that this is the nicest thread on Mumsnet.

I managed to sneak a couple more in at the end:

295. One By One by Ruth Ware

The staff of a tech company all go away together to a ski chalet in France. It’s obvious from the start that they don’t all get on and things get worse when they’re trapped by an avalanche. This is told from the point of view of Liz, one of the tech staff, and Erin, who runs the chalet. It’s good although it has put me off ever wanting to go skiing! All the chapters are short so it’s easy to race through (just one more chapter!)

296. A Village Murder by Frances Evesham

Average kindle freebie, not the best to end the year on but it was short enough to get in before the deadline!

I’m not going to add my full list but here’s my stats:

36% male authors, 58% female authors, 6% both (mainly Nicci French books!)

7% Audible, 21% kindle, 72% physical. I usually read more on the kindle when I’m travelling. Despite reading so many physical books I still don’t seem to have reduced my physical TBR pile!

11% children’s books, 8% chicklit, 30% crime/thriller, 29% other fiction, 22% non fiction.

12% rereads, 88% new books.

I have 219 unread books on my kindle this morning so my aim this year is to get it down to 100. I really need to stop buying random 99p books! I also want to make more of a dent in my physical TBR pile by not buying so many new books. I’m not having a complete ban as I want to support my local bookshop but will try and be more discerning with the ones I do buy!

Noodle it's not cheating to include it as your last book. It was my backup read if I was struggling to make target.

Magi thanks for the tip.

@KeithLeMonde you were asking about South Korean literature. The Books and Bao blog is good on SE Asian literature, might be worth a look.