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.

17. Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
I read this as I'd loved Great Circle, also by MS.

Unfortunately, this was just ok.
It's about a wealthy family on the East Coast of America coming together for a family wedding and deals with the different family members' pasts and presents.
Yep, found this disappointing.

Ha! Yes! Lessons in Chemistry was so annoying, especially the precocious kid, and as for that fucking dog...

I did watch the TV series though and they managed to make it quite good.

20: Prima Facie - Suzie Miller. I did this on audible and it was read by Jodie Comer which makes complete sense after her rave theatre reviews for the one man show of hte same name. It's sort of half 'lead up' and half 'courtroom drama' and flits between a couple of timelines.

The crux of the thing is that the protagonist - an avid believer in the justice system - finds herself having to question the justice system following becoming the victim of a crime with a very blurred / no witness type of backdrop.

I did enjoy it and Jodie Comer does a good job of narration but there were times were it felt a bit repetitive and banging home the same point.

Checking in with my number I'm up to 15, having had the opportunity to read a lot in the last few weeks. Ahh, summer!

I've been attempting to re-read Thomas Hardy. Struggling, and gutted because I loved his work when I was in my late teens. I've tried three novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Jude the Obscure both of which I've read (and re-read) previously and Far From the Madding Crowd, seen the films, never read it. Anyway I wasn't able to get past the first couple of chapters of any of them. Reluctant to give up completely I will likely pick one of them up again a few weeks. Perhaps they are best read during long winter nights!

23) Milkman by Anna Burns

When I started reading this book I thought it would be a DNF. It's very original in its writing style which does not make it an easy book to read. Very long paragraphs, one chapter was 130 pages!! So not many natural pauses in the book. But after 50 pages I had got use to the writing and in the end I loved it and think it's a work of pure genius!

I a nutshell it's about Northern Ireland and the troubles seen from an 18 year old girls perspective as she falls victim to gossip and rumours within her district and the consequences of this and from been stalked by a very powerful paramilitary.

There are no names, places are never mentioned. Every thing is given as a description, so first sister, that country over the water etc. there is a lot of deep analysis of seemingly very small details.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, a very marmite book.

24. The End of the World is Flat - Simon Edge 5/10
25. Mildred Pierce - James M Cain 9/10 - I loved this, didn’t want it to end!
26. The Importance of Being Earnest 8/10 - a re-read after 20+ years.
27. Absolutely and Forever - Rose Tremain 7/10

28 The Thing Around Your Neck, Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche

i really wish she’d hurry up and write another novel, Purple Hibiscus and Half a Yellow Sun are in my top books of all time (wasn’t as keen on Americanah), but this collection of short stories scratched the itch. All centred around Nigerian protagonists but across ages and continents, all brief moments and brief lives, exquisitely wrought and all of which I’d happily read a full novel on

28 The Thing Around Your Neck, Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche

i really wish she’d hurry up and write another novel, Purple Hibiscus and Half a Yellow Sun are in my top books of all time (wasn’t as keen on Americanah), but this collection of short stories scratched the itch. All centred around Nigerian protagonists but across ages and continents, all brief moments and brief lives, exquisitely wrought and all of which I’d happily read a full novel on

18. The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Didn't finish this...couldn't warm to the main characters.
Found them feckless tbh.
Many of my friends loved this book but it wasn't for me.

Now reading the new Kate Atkinson Jackson Brodie and loving it.

I've decided to listen to the others again before I read it, they are so good

23: Your Blue-Eyed Boy by Helen Dunmore
A bleak tale with sinister undertones which seems perfect for this time of year.

I loved Lessons in Chemistry. Also, just watched Prima Facie at the cinema - it was amazing on stage.

21: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. I don't often re-read books (must be having a year for it what with the Bill Brysons I have just re-read) but the Jackson Brodie series are just great. This will be my third time of reading them in about 5 years.

10. Sour Candy by Kealan Patrick Burke - This horror novella is only about 80 pages, so was a very quick read. It was ok, and creepy in parts, but could have done with being a bit longer to ramp up the suspense.

Reading My Husband by Maud Ventura (translated by Emma Ramadan) now, and enjoying it a lot.

18. Nine Lives by Dan Baum. Written by a journalist based on interviews he conducted. This is spliced chunks of narrative commentary of the lives of nine (real) people in New Orleans, spanning from hurricanes Betsy to about a year after Katrina. I cared more about some than others but it was all fascinating. The catastrophic effects of Katrina and the responses to it are well known and I did find the unfolding Katrina parts hard to read. I was invested in them by that stage, some we had followed since childhood. Stand out "characters" were a collage band leader who became a sort of surrogate parent for pupils whose own parents weren't involved, the coroner, a woman desperate to get an education and leave, and a man who spent all year working on his increasingly elaborate mardi gras costumes. His thinking was that if people took pride in their costumes they wouldn't want to end up brawling and the violence associated with the event would be curbed. Also themes such as racism, police corruption, community, rich/ poor divide, young people with limited futures.

@Scout2016 that sounds really interesting - thanks for the run down

29 A Terrible Kindness - Jo Browning Wroe

meh it was fine. The main character starts likeable but honest the longer the boom went on the less sympathy I had for him and the book was too long. A solid 3/5

I’m going to a talk with Susanna Clarke in a month so want to re-read Dr Strange and Mr Norell before then but had forgotten what a huge book it is!

11. My Husband by Maud Ventura (translated by Emma Ramadan) - I really enjoyed this, although it's a difficult book to describe. There's very little actual plot. Instead the novel gives us the internal monologue of an unhinged woman who's obsessed with her husband. It details her attempts to test his love, and punish him for every perceived slight or infraction.

It's the literary version of a car crash that you can't pull your eyes away from.

Just fancied an easy, reliable thriller so have just finished

21: Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? - Nicci French

It's fine. It's perfectly good - decent writing and has all the things you would expect it to have. Close knit community, missing person/dead person/complex family/red herrings/ crappy detective/stellar detective/whodunnit outcome etc

I'll forget it in about a month but it scratched the itch.

22: Poor by Katriona O'Sullivan. Katriona was born to alcoholic and drug abusing parents, and suffered severe poverty and neglect, becoming a parent herself at 15. However she received support at crucial moments from teachers and academic staff and turned her life round, taking a degree and PhD and pursuing a successful career in academia, this is a really engaging memoir.

19. High Dive by Jonathan Lee. Fictionalised account of the Brighton IRA bombing from the perspectives of one of the bombers and a father and daughter who are hotel staff preparing for hosting the conference. Not as political as you might expect if that would put anyone off.
One of the main IRA men we encounter is a bit of a pantomime baddie but once I'd got past a stagey initiation in the opening pages I was sold. That said, I did not like the ending one bit but just because I wanted a different one rather than it being ill fitting.

17. How to kill your family by Bella Mackie

Not an instruction manual!!
Instead a witty, dark humoured story which I raced through. I wasn't sure about the ending but I enjoyed it overall. 4 out of 5.

@TrustPenguins I loved this. I think it was her first book.

Held - Anne Michaels. Shortlisted for the Booker this year.

I loved the lysiricism and poetry of this book, I needed something a bit, I dunno, “more” and this fitted the bill perfectly

14. Career of Evil Robert Gailbraith. Loved it. Was totally gripped. Homecoming by Kate Morton next. Hop it's a good one.

14 - The Silence In Between, Josie Ferguson
This was really good. I found the first 20% a bit slow but it became brilliant after that. A very interesting story based around the Berlin Wall with a focus on mother-daughter relationships