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.

Sorry for split post, have swapped devices.

Love Maggie O'Farrell but that last one was a bit of a slog if I'm honest.

Next is One Christmas Eve by Shari Lee.

Also reading Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles, an annual tradition.

(No. 25 was the Maggie O' Farrell)

I also adored Heart's Invisible Furies as apps

*PPs

38 The Mercies - Kiran Millwood Hargrave

a re-read for me as I chose it for bookclub having found out NONE of them had read it. God I love this book, I’d forgotten how slowly she builds the claustrophobia and fear and then how quickly the end is rattled towards. Just so atmospheric

@Citygirlrurallife
I've just chosen The Mercies for my book group. Can't wait read it!

Realised I missed one off my list - Prima Facie- Suzie Miller.

Edited list:

1. Stone Yard Devotional - Charlotte Wood
2. Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent
3. Normal Rules Don’t Apply - Kate Atkinson
4. The Drowning Girls - Veronica Lando
5. Lessons In Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
6. Limberlost - Robbie Arnott
7. Back to Bangka - Georgina Banks
8. Zeus is a Dick - Susie Donkin
9. Water - John Boyne
10. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning - Margareta Magnusson
11. The Mercies - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
12. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
13. Prima Facie - Suzie Miller
14. Joe Cinque's Consolation - Helen Garner
15. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
16. The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo

28) The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton.

This book was a gift, had read about it but was never really drawn to it. However I loved it!

27: Big Skies by Kate Atkinson, another Jackson Brodie book, I do love this series. Just the new one to go now.

I have just started listening to The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, which I read and loved when it first came out, thoroughly enjoying it again but it will probably last me to the end of the year now as it is such a long book.

I need to give this a go

29 - Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Amazing book (not read David Copperfield) but it took me an age to read. I think this is one I’m going to mull over.

30. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

I really enjoyed this, not what I was expecting. An easy read but one that I wanted to know the answers to.

I had started Babel but was struggling with it so dropped it for now but may return.

17 - Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson. Loved it. But could have done with more Jackson Brodie in it.

1. Stone Yard Devotional - Charlotte Wood
2. Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent
3. Normal Rules Don’t Apply - Kate Atkinson
4. The Drowning Girls - Veronica Lando
5. Lessons In Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
6. Limberlost - Robbie Arnott
7. Back to Bangka - Georgina Banks
8. Zeus is a Dick - Susie Donkin
9. Water - John Boyne
10. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning - Margareta Magnusson
11. The Mercies - Kiran Millwood Hargrave
12. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
13. Prima Facie - Suzie Miller
14. Joe Cinque's Consolation - Helen Garner
15. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
16. The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo
17. Death at the sign of the Rook - Kate Atkinson

23 Small Bomb At Dimperly by Lissa Evans. I find Lissa Evans's books so enjoyable. Great style, reads as if easy listening but there is a lot of skill. Fantastic diologue, characters and period detail and wonderfully well plotted.

24 So Late In The Day by Claire Keegan. This is a short story really, and I realised once I'd started that I'd already listened to it on The New Yorker podcast where someone reads a short story and chats about it.
Anyway, it was a well written snapshot story which I'd recommend.

17 - The Bee Sting - Paul Murray

This was a very long read so has taken me ages but I really loved it

Fitting in a few more before the end of the year. DD works in the city near my work so I often collect her from the train by my work after she finishes, so that makes a nice little cuppa-and-reading book window in my day.

80 - Catch Your Breath - an anaesthetist's biography.

81 - The Next Patient - ER medicine
82 - And Then You're Dead - A bit of an irreverent science book about all the different ways you could die if you tried daft things or if emergencies occurred.

83 - My Experiences as an Executioner - the account written by James Berry of the years he spent in that post.

25. They Fell Like Stars From The Sky & Other Stories by Sheikha Helawy. 118 short stories translated from Arabic and focusing on Bedouin women and girls in Palestine. All worth reading. Varied, and I enjoyed some more than others. Some were quite brief and left me with questions and wanting more, which is a good sign, I think, rather than just feeling frustrated. Some light hearted some much darker.

18 -Yellowface Rebecca Kuang
Squeezed one more in this year - was readable but didn't love it!

30: Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson
These short stories were exactly right for the time of year. Although they are described as horror, I would say that genre isn't quite the correct description - maybe more unsettling.

As an aside, does anyone use Goodreads to log their books? I'm really liking the My Year in Books (don't think I have noticed it before):
8,808 pages read
Shortest: 127 pages
Longest: 560 pages
My average rating: 3.5

29) Small things like these by Claire Keegan

Last book of the year with not much time to read right now so choose a short but wonderful one. Very poignant and sad but beautifully written.

@DiggoryVenn I use Goodreads,

10,723 words
Average book length 357 pages
Average rating 4.1
Most shelved book: The girl with the dragon tattoo.
Highest rated on GR: Brotherless night.

Love a few statistics!

? Cromartie V. the God Shiva: Acting Through the Government of India by Rumer Godden Not sure if I've already posted this, I couldn't find it.
Not as interesting as I'd hoped, not a crime novel and has ridiculous "love" scenes and melodrama. Disappointing.

19. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman - A reread. I'd actually forgotten Eleanor's backstory, so it was nice to rediscover it. The whole book was was sadder than I remember, with multiple deaths and illnesses. I still enjoyed it though.

39 A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson

it took me a while to get into this, not sure why it just didn’t grip me for the first 30odd pages but then I really fell in love with Teddy and his grandchildren. Story of a bomber in the 2nd world war that flits between his life then and his life later on post-war in his marriage and subsequent old age looking after his grandchildren. Solid 3.5 for me