26-ish books 2024

[Tinkhasflown]

A shiny new thread for 2024.

All welcome and note 26 is just a number. Everyone can set their own target and you are welcome here even if you only read 3 books a year.

I personally count the larger novel style books I read to my children and audio books I listen to. Others don't and there are no rules.

I look forward to all your suggestions again this year.

13 - The Silent Patient Alex Michaelides - okay for 99p 😅. I'm not really a thriller kind of person but wanted an easy read and for a thriller it was okay!

18: When the Dust Settles - Lucy Easthope
Non-fiction (can't remember if I posted this before) but is written by a disaster planner and is really interesting. Goes right up to the Covid pandemic
19: Death in the Dark - Kitty Murphy
Second book (and actually better than the first IMHO) - set in the drag world in Dublin.
20: The Wall - John Lanchester
Everyone has posted about this. I love a bit of dystopian fiction but I'm not sure it lived up to the hype. Or maybe I was just hopeful it would be a lot better.

19: Before I Met You - Lisa Jewell

Lazy read but I was on my library BorrowBox app and this was available so had it playing whilst driving this week. I find LJ a bit hit and miss but broadly find her to be a reliable 'paperback/holiday/easy' option - perfect for a quick read. Reasonably enjoyable overall although the more contemporary character storyline was rather ridiculous and lightly drawn.

Thinking of starting Prophet Song by Paul Lynch which has been in my 'stack' for a while now i keep moving it to the back

@SlightlyJaded I really enjoyed Prophet Song. It has such mixed reviews though!

27. Winter People - Grainne Murphy

One of these books where nothing much happens if you are looking for a hanging on the cliff edge type book. But, huge things in every day people's lives. 3 people's story of living on the coast of Ireland and as they live their lives at a turning point for each of them. I enjoyed this, quite sad but beautifully written and easily read. Made me want to go stand by the sea.

slightlyjaded I did the same with Prophet Song, not sure why I kept avoiding it. I am so glad when I did finally get round to reading it.

I've got Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow next on my list but keep pushing it back. I also started Floss on the Mill but struggled to stay involved with it. I used to love classics like that but it didn't grab me.
Also, on a whim, I downloaded the Anne of Green Gables full set for my holiday, partly because I had never read it amd it seems one that everyone knows and should be read. And it was cheap 🤣.
But, its not inspiring me either. I must be a right glumbum because I seem to always be drawn to darker books. I'm not in daily life though, I promise 😅.

@DiggoryVenn ah thanks & sorry! only just seen this, I've been AWOL

15 . Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang

Got through this pretty quickly as I couldn't put it down! Well-written and suspenseful, it offers a sharp critique of the publishing industry which I found interesting and insightful. 4 stars out of 5.

Sorry, I meant 3 stars out 5.

18 Demon Copperhead.
I thought this was great. Sad in parts, and a bit depressing but ultimately a story of life over adversity.

@TrustPenguins
I listened to Yellowface on audio.
I enjoyed it but, yes, it wasn't amazing.

In book form, a good page turner.

Yes, it was definitely a page-turner as I really wanted to know what happened next... but I was waiting for something bigger which never really came. I do get it's satirical and dark humoured though, and i love Kuang's writing style. I did think about giving it 4 out of 5 but then down-graded to 3 as even though I got through it quickly (often the sign of a good book for me), it didn't quite live up to the hype.

19 Someone else's shoes by Jojo Moyes

I thought this was really enjoyable.

20. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Read this in a day (I am on holiday) and really enjoyed, would make a great film thriller, good twist at the end.

21: We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg
A really interesting book about a mother and daughter coping with life living in an iron lung. This is the third book by Berg that I have read in the past two years and I've not been disappointed yet.

Finished 24 The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht by Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Susan Dalgety. Really insightful but slightly under edited.
25 Summer Lightning by Olive Senior - she's also a children's author, this was my August/1980s book and it was gorgeous - perfect child's eye view of a really poor and isolated Jamaican village.

And no 26, Swan by Dan Keel. Gorgeous little book, I'm inspired to take up birdwatching!

22: Day 21 (The 100) by Kass Morgan
Disappointing read really. Picked it up in a charity shop as thought it looked interesting. Must have been living under a rock not to know that there is a TV series of the same.

25 what you are looking for is in the library - michiko aoyama

book club pick, it was readable/fine but I like more substance and less whimsy

9) Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - Protagonist Elizabeth is the most smartest, specialist, beautifulist, quirky, not-like-other-girls scientist in the whole world! She doesn't need to follow basic social etiquette or compromise to succeed as a woman in the 1950s. That's for other, less special women with fatter arses.

Elizabeth's so amazing that she literally gets given a TV show that she hasn't asked for because her presence is just that commanding, and two minutes after she first learns to row (by reading a book on physics, natch) she's offered a place on the men's team despite being unable to swim. Due to her superior parenting, her 4 year old is a genius who reads Nabokov, and the dog's not far behind.

There are other people on the book too, but these are mainly baddies who are very stupid at best, or misogynistic rapists at worst. Even the few goodies can't hold a candle to Mary Sue Elizabeth.

Crock of shite.

😂I really enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry.

20: Free by Lea Ypi.
Memoir of an Albanian girl growing up at the time of the fall of the communist regime, and Westernisation, I remember many of the events depicted from the news but it was fascinating reading about how it was from the inside and what a tumultuous period it was.

16. Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

A great book- but a heartbreaking read (about dementia).
4 stars out of 5

I really enjoyed Lessons in Chemistry but this review has given me a good laugh 😂

17 Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns. Central character relates a troubled period of her life. Opens with "I told Helen my story and she went home and cried." People behave terribly and are wonderfully described, such as a woman whose face is like a melting strawberry ice-cream - a cheap one at that - and whose body is probably the same but you can't see as it's covered in mauve.

I loved this book. First half more than the second (when people start behaving better and it moves from being populated by self centred artists) but by then I was so taken with the "heroine" that I loved went with it. She'd have been maddening company in real life though!

Heads up - the introduction by Maggie O'Farrell has tons of spoliers so I was glad I'd skipped straight to the story. I don't know why they don't call them something else and put them at the end, rather than give away so much. Reviews often do this too but at least there's a gap between reading them and the book to forget some of them in.