26-ish books in 2021

[MercedesDeMonteChristo]

Thought I’d kick start the new thread for this year.

I’m starting with Outlander by Diana Gabalon and reading Anna Karenina Tolstoy one chapter a day, so expect to finish September sometime - I’m on chapter 4.

@Kobanidaughters I still love When Hitler Stoke Pink Rabbit (and the sequel Bombs on Aunt Dainty). I’m about to start Tom’s Midnight Garden with my 9 year old, but that probably doesn’t fit your definition of up to date! I do recommend The Boy at the Back of the Class though, and the Beetle Boy books have been a big hit here, although all of those he read himself. I must admit I don’t think much about vocabulary when reading books together, so not sure how those work in terms of that.

@TheAnswerIsCake we did Goodnight Mr Tom last year which they enjoyed but I guess was also a little slow to get into compared to what they’re used to

1. Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
2. Comet in Moominland - Tove Jansson
3. Miss Benson's Beetle - Rachel Joyce
4. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
5. The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
6. Dear Mrs Bird - A.J Pearce
7. The Racehorse Who Wouldn't Gallop - Clare Balding
8. Because of You - Dawn French
9. The Angel Tree - Lucinda Riley

10. Jamaica Inn - Daphne DuMaurier 11. The Duke and I - Julia Quinn 12. Home Stretch - Graham Norton

13. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
A comfort read (or rather listen on Audible) of an all-time favourite. I picked up Audible Originals’ Jane Austen Collection of the novels semi-dramatised for 1 credit and really loved this. I’m shattered at the end of a stressful term’s teaching and this really hit the spot, particularly as I know it so well that it didn’t matter that I kept falling asleep and missing chunks! Now that I’ve had a bit of a rest I’ll go for something new...

@Chickoletta I’m very excited that To Kill A Mockingbird is my next book club read. We try to steer clear of rereads but one member has never read it and discussion came up when we were relaxing Crawdads so we decided to make an exception.

@StColumbofNavron - you’ll have great discussions on Mockingbird. A good excuse for watching the Gregory Peck film too.

Hi everyone! This is such a great idea! Can I join the thread?

I've read a few books this year and honestly can't remember which ones they were but at the moment I'm reading *Mythos by Stephen Fry which I'm absolutely loving. I'm due to have a baby in the next week or so, so doubt I'll have time to read as much as I was hoping this year but I'm going to aim for 20 reads 😊 what sort of genres do you all like

@KobaniDaughters I feel your pain re When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. My daughter is not a reader and it broke my heart when she wouldn't read that book - or any of the others that I've tried to get her to read over the years 😢

Welcome Babo993

MargotMoon
My DCs aged 12 and 14 have no interest in reading whatsoever at the moment.
It is truly heartbreaking.
Hopefully, they will come back to it later in life 🤞🏻

@KobaniDaughters I love when Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. I have two sons, and DS1 got really into reading for a bit but seems to have given up now. I never tried When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit on them though.

I did get DS2 to read lots of Michael Morpurgo aloud to us between March and September last year, but can't get him to read books at all a lot of the time, though I think he is interested when he does.

Diana Wynne Jones' books are a lot of fun.

Does she like school stories, ones with animals, any other historical?

My niece, a friend's daughter and the child who took us round on the open evening for DS2 (way back in 2019! it seems like another era) all like Robin Stevens' tween historical crime series, which I rather want to read myself. I have the first on my Kindle.

My three also have no interest. I have managed to get 10 year old to listen to me read, but 13 and 15 year olds - not a chance. At least they are reading at school even if not totally actively.

I think I might be a while as I am back to 5 on the go and one is the bookclub weekly read which will take 4/5 weeks.

1. The Hills Is Lonely, by Lillian Beckwith
2. Early Riser, by Jasper Fforde
3. Dear Mrs Bird, by AJ Pearce
4. My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell

5.The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde 6.The Silver Sword, by Ian Serraillier 7.Honor, by Lyn Cote 8. One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, by Olivia Hawker

After a promising start, I was left a bit disappointed by this one. The writing was a too repetitive and flowery for me. Yet despite the book being overly long, the resolution between the two wives was far too abrupt and took me out of the story. One character literally switched from hating the other to wanting to be their sister after a single event.

It also irritated me that magical prairie girl Beulah was constantly described by the other characters as dreamy/slow/lazy, whilst simultaneously running her family's whole damn farm at just 13!

1. The Hills Is Lonely, by Lillian Beckwith
2. Early Riser, by Jasper Fforde
3. Dear Mrs Bird, by AJ Pearce
4. My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell

5.The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde 6.The Silver Sword, by Ian Serraillier 7.Honor, by Lyn Cote

1. One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, by Olivia Hawker

9. The Haunting of Gillespie House, by Darcy Coates

A short ghost story read over the course of an evening. It was a bit meh.

14. The Secret Commonwealth - Philip Pullman

Follow up to The Book of Dust but also the sequel to His Dark Materials. It’s taken me a while to get through, I dunno just didn’t hook me as quickly as I thought it would but I preferred to Book of Dust I think....

@KobaniDaughters I'm about halfway through The Secret Commonwealth but have slowed down a bit. I am loving meeting adult Lyra though

Book 9, Big Sky by Kate Atkinson. I love her books and thIs was no exception. I should re read When Will There be Good News which I didn't realise was the earlier one with Reggie.

1. English Pastoral: An Inheritance by James Rebanks. This is an interesting and very beautiful book about farming and its future.

1. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
2. Diary of a Provincial Lady, E M Delafield
3. The Duke & I, Julia Quinn
4. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
5. Us, David Nicholls
6. The Autumn of the Ace, Louis de Bernieres
7. Migrant City: A New History of London, Panikos Panayi
8. Frenchman’s Creek, Daphne du Maurier
9. The Outsider, Albert Camus

10. The Battle of Green Lanes, Cosh Omar 11. Malamander, Thomas Taylor 12. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens 13. The Interest, Michael Taylor 14. Twenty Years After, Alexandre Dumas 15. The Disappearance of Emile Zola: Love, Literature and the Dreyfus Case, Michael Rosen 16. Gargantis, Thomas Taylor 17. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka 18. The Uses and Abuses of History, Margaret Macmillan 19. The Wrong Side of the Table, Ayser Salman 20. Stoner, John Williams 21. A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room, Lemony Snicket 22. The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey, Julia Laite

If you enjoyed The Five by Hallie Rubenhold then I would highly recommend this. I thought The Five was very good and achieved an awful lot with scant records. This magnificent book by Julia Laite deserves all the prizes and then some. It’s the story of Lydia Harvey who was trafficked at the beginning of the twentieth century from New Zealand via Buenos Aires and London. It’s supremely well researched and a brilliant insight into the history of the metropolitan police, migration, sex work and globalisation.

18. Limitless - Tim Peake
I love Tim Peake. I think the work he has done in terms of inspiring children and young people to engage with STEM is nothing short of amazing. I also think he's a great example of a person from a relatively modest middle class background who has achieved amazing things through sheer hard work and determination, albeit with a sprinkling of good luck.
However, I really struggled with this book. It's a 500 page memoir. He doesn't even become an astronaut until two thirds of the way through and his time on the ISS gets a mere 70 pages at the end. Whilst his army service record is admirable and he has travelled the world as a helicopter test pilot I found these aspects of his life less engaging. I think I wanted more spaceships. I would probably only suggest reading this if you are a big fan of his or you have an existing interest in aviation.

On The Secret Commonweatlh, I originally read Northern Lights and listened to the other two His Dark Materials on audio. I've head quite a bit of the two Book of Dust books on Radio 4, and was very put out by the ending of TSC - I'm hoping that Philip Pullman is getting on with writing #3 and that his health and writing ability remain for a while. I might read La Belle Sauvage later this year but am not sure about TSC until I have the opportunity to read #3 in that series, even if it then takes me another year or two (I was reading The Subtle Knife at the beginning of lockdown last year so it took me nearly a year to get round to Spyglass.

15. Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro Had surgery last week and my brother sent me a hard copy to work through (in between binging on Call My Agent). I’m not sure how I feel about this, I feel like there are several layers it will take me a while to unpick. I’ve tried a few of his books now and I’m not sure why I’m not entirely blown away, I enjoy them but they never seem to go quite deep enough for me to be really hooked

28. All The Lonely People by Mike Gayle

I’ve been reading Mike Gayle all the way since My Legendary Girlfriend (actually, since he was a teen agony uncle... revealing my age there!) I like his books as they are usually full of believable characters and generally warm, undemanding reads. I believe this is the first time that he has tackled racism. I did enjoy this story, but would have liked it to go a little deeper. In contrast to what I said above, some of the characters felt over stereotyped and there were several “conveniences” in the plot. I wanted to know about some aspects of the different relationships and characters that felt like a big part in the story, but were glossed over somewhat. I also don’t think the “twist” really worked and that the ending was perhaps, overall, unnecessary (I’d rather it finished without the last chapter!) It was still an enjoyable read though!

29. Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo

I really enjoyed this one. Plenty of commentary on race, sexuality and family dynamics (and how we can all tie ourselves in knots doing what we think other people want us to do based on what we think they are thinking, whilst actually missing how they really feel) alongside quite a few genuine laugh-out-louds.

1. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
2. Diary of a Provincial Lady, E M Delafield
3. The Duke & I, Julia Quinn
4. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
5. Us, David Nicholls
6. The Autumn of the Ace, Louis de Bernieres
7. Migrant City: A New History of London, Panikos Panayi
8. Frenchman’s Creek, Daphne du Maurier
9. The Outsider, Albert Camus

10. The Battle of Green Lanes, Cosh Omar 11. Malamander, Thomas Taylor 12. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens 13. The Interest, Michael Taylor 14. Twenty Years After, Alexandre Dumas 15. The Disappearance of Emile Zola: Love, Literature and the Dreyfus Case, Michael Rosen 16. Gargantis, Thomas Taylor 17. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka 18. The Uses and Abuses of History, Margaret Macmillan 19. The Wrong Side of the Table, Ayser Salman 20. Stoner, John Williams 21. A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room, Lemony Snicket 22. The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey, Julia Laite 23. A Series of Unfortunate Events #4: The Wide Window, Lemony Snicket

I continue to think these are quite clever, if repetitive and 10 year old enjoys them. The Baudelaire orphans continue to encounter peril at the hands of Count Olaf and a frankly waste of space executor of their parents wishes.

1. The Hills Is Lonely, by Lillian Beckwith
2. Early Riser, by Jasper Fforde
3. Dear Mrs Bird, by AJ Pearce
4. My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell
5. The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
6. The Silver Sword, by Ian Serraillier
7. Honor, by Lyn Cote
8. One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, by Olivia Hawker
9. The Haunting of Gillespie House, by Darcy Coates

10. A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape From North Korea, by Masaji Ishikawa - The autobiographical account of a man who escaped North Korea after 30+ years of living there. This was fasinating and gave me a better insight into the history of the mass repatriation of ethnic Koreans living in Japan in the 1960s. I felt it was too short, and would have loved the memoir to have more detail about Ishikawa's family members, but appreciate this might have been omitted for their safety. Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in the subject.

Book 10 Away with the Penguins, Hazel Prior, was recommended by... Er.... someone... Anyway it was a slow starter but satisfying in the end.

1. Wonder
2. Shuggie Bain
3. The Unlikely Thru-Hiker
4. Olive Ketteridge
5. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
6. Instructions for a Heat Wave
7. Parable of the Sower
8. Parable of the Talents
9. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe

10. The Dog Stars 11. The Hobbit 12. Conversations With Friends 13. Reservoir 13 14. The Secret Commonwealth 15. Klara and the Sun 16. Wild Seed - Octavia Butler

Continuing my year of delving into Butler’s back catalogue. Loved this book and consumed it over the weekend and led me to do more research on Afrofuturism. I love how Butler creates the world piecemeal and you gradually put it all together without a definitive road map at the start. Excited to get the other 3 books in the Patternist series

@TheAnswerIsCake sounds like Mr Loverman is worth a good
Read!

Have a boring book for work to get through next