50 Books challenge - 2024 roundup

[RomanMum]

Hello 50 bookers! Here's a separate thread to gather together our top recommendations from the year. Please post your final lists, or just your bolds if you prefer. If you’re posting the full lists just a reminder to please bold your favourites, and italicise the books you wouldn’t even pass on to your worst enemy.

I'll come back later in December with mine!

Hahaha that too 😀

Placemarking

Thanks for the thread RomanMum.

I’ve had a pretty good reading year. I’ve resisted reserving as many new releases from the library this year as in the last few years, and this has lead to less DNFs. Posting now as current read not looking like bold-material.

My favourite reads this year:

The People of Providence by Tony Parker
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Strong Female Character by Fern Brady

Passing by Nella Larsen
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (audio)
A Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi
The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt

Thanks to everyone here for this lovely, welcoming space. It was lovely to meet everyone who went to London in May and I am sorry not to have been able to make Manchester. Hoping we can do it again sometime!

I also enjoyed the Liaisons readalong and looking forward to The Count in the new year.

Wishing everyone a lovely Christmas and New Year with lots of reading time.

Will definitely read more in 2024 as I go on holiday tomorrow, but easier to post the stats from laptop than phone.

109 read of which: 28.4% were bolds, 3.7% duds, 82.6% by female authors, 85.3% fiction. (I put Mythos as fiction in the end 🙂)

Interestingly, I had a higher hit rate of bolds in non-fiction - 56.3% or 9 out of 16 - underlined in the below.

Bolds:
The Great Post Office Scandal - Nick Wallis
The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths
Bringing Columbia Home - Mike Leibenhart
A Memoir of my Former Self - Hilary Mantel
The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Nifenegger
Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe
The Strawberry Thief - Joanne Harris
Scoops - Sam McAllister
Royal Road to Fotheringhay - Jean Plaidy
Act of Oblivion - Robert Harris
After that Night - Karin Slaughter
Blindsighted - Karin Slaughter
Sisterland - Curtis Sittenfield
Meet Me at the Museum - Anne Youngson
Medea - Rosie Hewlett
Girl A - Abigail Dean
All Fours - Miranda July
Just Another Missing Person - Gillian McAllister
Vanishing Acts - Jodi Picoult
The Summer of Lies - Louise Douglas
Sister in Law - Harriet Wistrich
None of This is True - Lisa Jewell
Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life - Anna Funder
An Officer and a Spy - Robert Harris
Rodham - Curtis Sittenfield
My Favourite Mistake - Marian Keyes
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Incredible Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers - Larry McDonald and Patrick Robinson
Failed State - Sam Freedman
The Hand That First Held Mine - Maggie O’Farrell
Fallen - Karin Slaughter
Criminal - Karin Slaughter

Italics:
Whatever it Takes - Adele Parks
Under Her Roof - A A Chaudhuri
Alison Wonderland - Helen Smith
Conversations with Friends - Sally Rooney

Only one DNF: The Bat - Jo Nesbo

I started off the year with some great non fiction, mostly on Audible until I got a bit obsessed with political podcasts around the middle of the year, then had some personal stuff to deal with which meant I've only been able to read lighter stuff in the last few months (Thank God for Jilly Cooper). But Hey ho, on the mend now so figures crossed, back to normal in the new year. I'm still in Rutshire (Score!) so doubt I'll finish that and have begun Wolf Hall on Audible after loving the TV Series.

Quite a lot of DNFs (Orbital) but keeping it positive, I enjoyed the following.

Fiction

You Are Here- David Nicholls
Rivals - Jilly Cooper
Paper Cup - Karen Campbell
Madensky Square - Eva Ibbotson

Non Fiction

This Boy - Alan Johnson
Diaries Volume One: Prelude to Power: 1 - Alastair Campbell
The Great Post Office Scandal - Nick Wallis

Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe
Bringing Columbia Home - Michael D.Leinbach
Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982 - Dominic Sandbrook
Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death - Laura Cumming
Around The World In Eighty Days - Michael Palin
Killing Thatcher - Rory Carroll
Tunnel 29 - Helena Merriman
A Village in the Third Reich - Julia Boyd
Travellers in the Third Reich - Julia Boyd
A Woman of No Importance: - Sonia Purnell

Ooh, @BestIsWest we have similar taste in non fiction and I have your final one on my bookshelf, yay!

@SheilaFentiman there are a couple on your list on my TBR, especially Empire of Pain so looking forward to those and I've also enjoyed Curtis Sittenfield, Ellie Griffiths and My Favourite Mistake - Marian Keyes this year.

I haven't heard the word. 'twaddle' for years - and what a wonderful word it is!

I think my reading for the year is pretty much done now - I have a silly festive romance on my kindle and I think A Place of Greater Safety will easily take the next 10 days!

I've read 90 books and liked most of them, though loved very few. I think the ones I enjoyed the most, in different ways, both literary and genre, were:

Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
Inland by Tea Obreht
Soldier Sailer by Claire Kilroy
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
Under Your Spell by Laura Wood
The Long Island Compromise by Taffy B-A
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Heaven My Home by Attica Locke
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
The Echoes by Evie Wylde
Beartown by Frederick Backman
A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston

Adding to my highlights: Period Piece, by Gwen Raverat (published 72 years ago, but I got there eventually).

Thanks so much @RomanMum - I really enjoy the post-match analysis. Some quick stats:
55% authors I'd not read before, 45% old friends
61% women, 39% men
92% fiction, 8% non-fiction
80% 21st century, 17% 20th century, 3% 19th century
I don't think I read anything in translation this year, so something to think about for next year.

Top five of the year were:
Vernon God Little
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Mayflies
The Bee Sting

Stinkers of the year were:
Black Dogs
Broken Light
Ghosts
The Little House
Monsters

I've bolded and italicised my list below:

1.Just Like You by Nick Hornby
2.Oxblood by Tom Benn
3.My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
4.Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
5 The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
6.Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
7.Tresspasses by Louise Kennedy
8.Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
9.Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
10.The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
11.Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson
12.Mantel Pieces by Hilary Mantel
13.Freya by Anthony Quinn
14.Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
15.Our Friends in Berlin by Anthony Quinn
16.Paper Cup by Karen Campbell
17.Matrix by Lauren Groff
18.Picnic at Hanging Rock by Jean Lindsay
19.Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
20.Exiles by Jane Harper
21. The House on Half Moon Street by Alex Reeve
22.Undoctored by Adam Kay
22.Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
23.Bewilderment by Richard Powers
24.Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan
26.Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe
25.Absolutely and Forever by Rose Tremain
27.Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
28.The Tuscan Year: Life And Food In An Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer
29.Broken Light by Joanne Harris
30.The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
31. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
32.The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
33.Eight Months on Ghazzah Street by Hilary Mantel.
34.The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
35.The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman.
36.Mayflies by Andrew O'Hagan
37.Riders by Jilly Cooper
38.The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman.
39.Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
40.Ghosts by Dolly Alderton.
41.Piglet by Lottie Hazel.
42. Notes on a Execution by Danya Kukafka
43.Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
44.Eureka by Anthony Quinn
45.Little House by Philippa Gregory
46. Exposure by Helen Dunmore
47. Counterfeit by Kirsten Chen
48.The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
49. The House on Rye Lane by Susan Allot
50. The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
51.This Family by Kate Sawyer
52.Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan
53.A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe
54.Rivals by Jilly Cooper
55.Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
56.My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss
57.Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
58.Monsters: What Do We Do With Great Art by Bad People by Claire Dederer.
59.The Bloater by Rosemary Tonks
60.None of This is True by Lisa Jewell
61.The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell.

I doubt I'll finish my doorstop novel before the end of the year so I'm posting the final stats early.

68 books read, and it was the year of the non-fiction: 37 NF and 31 F, though funnily enough most of the bolds and the one dud were fiction. I didn't deplete my collection as much as I wanted, only ended up giving away four more than I bought. Must try harder next year. Most of my books being in storage meant I used the county library service more - 37 library books. I knocked 45 off my wish list, however, thanks to recommendations on here amongst other places I still have 70-odd on the wish list to tackle in the future!

2024 reads:

• Bluebottle Goes to War – PJ Brownsword
• A Month in the Country – JL Carr
• Dostadning: the Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning – Margareta Magnusson
• Detectives in Greasepaint – John Keir Cross
• A Hoxton Childhood – AS Jasper
• A View Across the Rooftops – Suzanne Kelman
• A Cruel Fate – Lindsey Davis
• How Much of These Hills is Gold – C Pam Zhang
• Ghost Wall – Sarah Moss
• The Victorian Criminal – Neil R Storey
• The Victorian Detective – Alan Moss & Keith Skinner
• Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
• Storyland: a New Mythology of Britain – Amy Jeffs
• The Tutenkhamun Deception – Gerald O’Farrell
• Several People are Typing – Calvin Kasulke
• The Royal Game (aka A Chess Story) – Stefan Zweig trans. Alexander Starritt
• The Accidental Psychic – Mhairi Kent
• The Gift – Mia Dolan
• The Surgeon of Crowthorne – Simon Winchester
• I Laughed, I Cried – Viv Groskop
• Dead Lions – Mick Herron
• Hell Bay – Kate Rhodes
• The Blood Flower – Alex Reeve
• Making it So – Patrick Stewart
• Primordial Soup – Grant Naylor
• In the Blink of an Eye – Jo Callaghan
• The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places – Neil Oliver
• Death Under a Little Sky – Stig Abell
• Dewey: the Small-Town Library Cat who Touched the World – Vikki Myron
• Mail Obsession – Mark Mason
• Delicacy – Katy Wix
• Mysterious Worlds – Dennis Bardens
• Tales from old Ashford – Bob Calder
• Watching Neighbours Twice a Day – Josh Widdecombe
• Rental Person who does Nothing – Shoji Morimoto
• Victoria Wood: Unseen on TV – Ed. Jasper Rees
• The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August – Claire North
• To the Last Round – Peter Hart
• Things I Learned on the 6:28 – Stig Abell
• Women Warriors – Tracey-Ann Knight
• The Young Pretender – Michael Arditti
• Hugh Grant – Jody Tresidder
• The Double Act – Andrew Roberts
• Bookworm – Lucy Mangan
• Beswitched – Kate Saunders
• Adele – Leila Slimani
• Death Comes to Marlow – Robert Thorogood
• The Enchanted April – Elizabeth von Armin
• We Bought an Island – Evelyn E Atkins
• The Invisible Library – Genevieve Cogman
• Necropolis: London and its Dead – Catharine Arnold
• Undoctored – Adam Kay
• The Bookbinder of Jericho – Pip Williams
• Memphis – Tara M Stringfellow
• Soldier Sailor – Claire Kilroy
• The Colour of Time – Dan Jones & Marina Amaral
• The End of the Road – Jack Cooke
• Warrior Queens and Quiet Revolutionaries – Kate Mosse
• Under Pressure – Lisa Damour
• Under the Whispering Door – TJ Klune
• My Family and Other Strangers – Jeremy Hardy
• The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
• Vagabonds – Oskar Jensen
• Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption – Stephen King
• Singled Out – Virginia Nicholson
• The Ghost Theatre – Mat Osman
• Real Tigers – Mick Herron
• A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

I'm just placemarking, will come back later with my list

Totally missed this and will come back with my list tomorrow. Thanks @RomanMum

My bolds this year are:
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, Ros Schwartz (Translator)
The Winter Cottage by Rachael Lucas
North woods by Daniel Mason
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
A month in the country by JL Carr
Christ on a bike by Orla Owen
The third Gilmore girl by Kelly Bishop on audiobook

Just here to add Brooklyn by Colm Toibin to my bolds

Adding Madensky Square by Eva Ibbotson and Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali (trans. M. Freely and D. Selim Sayers).

I didn't mark books as bolds at the time of reading so, looking back over my year's list, these are the ones that have stuck in my memory as really enjoyable/interesting/original.

Katheryn Howard, the Tainted Queen Alison Weir
The Whalebone Theatre Joanna Quinn
Paper Cup Karen Campbell
This Is Where I Am Karen Campbell
Trustee from the Toolroom Nevil Shute
The Stranding Kate Sawyer
Saplings Noel Streatfeild
Someone From a Distance Dorothy Whipple
High Wages Dorothy Whipple
The Daughters of Mars Thomas Keneally
In Memoriam Alice Winn
Sunset Song Lewis Grassic Gibbon
A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
The Dutch House Ann Patchett
Black Butterflies Priscilla Morris
Foster Claire Keegan

Out of 70 books, only 2 non-fiction (Travellers in the Third Reich and Airhead). I sometimes think I must be missing out but I do like getting absorbed in a good novel and non-fiction still feels a bit like homework to me.

49 by women and 21 by men.

14 crime books; none in my top 16. Mostly Marion Todd and Karen Campbell.

7 rereads. I am planning to reread more frequently next year as I tend to read quickly for plot initially and get much more out of a novel second or third time round.

Thank you for volunteering to do this RomanMum

I d

This was a good reading year for me, with lots of bolds, and more fiction than in recent years:

Conquest Of The Useless - Werner Herzog
Chernobyl: A Stalkers’ Guide - Darmon Richter
The Sandman - Neil Gaiman (counting as one entry here although read in several volumes)
Toast - Nigel Slater
Re:Sisters - Cosey Fanni Tutti
Echoes - Will Sergeant
Lucifer - Mike Carey (again one entry covering the series)
East West Street - Philippe Sands
The Places In Between - Rory Stewart
The Marches - Rory Stewart
The Day Of The Jackal - Frederick Forsyth
Savage Messiah - Laura Grace Ford
Challenger - Adam Higginbotham
The Damned Utd - David Peace
Street-Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence - Will Hodgkinson
Munichs - David Peace
Great-Uncle Harry - Michael Palin
A Place Of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel
The Pigeon Tunnel - John Le Carre
The Zone Of Interest - Martin Amis

And just one italic worthy of mentioning:

A Thousand Feasts - Nigel Slater (sorry Nige, but this was lazy and boring)

Posted too early!
My highlights have been the Mick Herron Slough House series:
Slow Horses
Dead Lions
Real Tigers
Spook Street
London Rules
Joe Country

Also enjoyed
Small Things Like These
And
Foster
By Clare Chambers

You Are Here by David Nicholls

Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad by Daniel Finkelstein

I reckon I've finished my last couple of books for 2024 - pleasingly both good ones - so here's my final round-up

Fiction:
The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on my Little Pain - Victoria McKenzie
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Julia - Sandra Newman
Doors of Eden - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Eleanor Rigby - Douglas Coupland
Sophia - Anita Anand
Prophet Song - Paul Lynch
Ordinary Human Failings - Megan Nolan
The Mountain in the Sea - Ray Nayler
A Restless Truth - Freya Marske
A Little Luck - Claudia Piñeiro
Network Effect - Martha Wells
Service Model - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Elena Knows - Claudia Piñeiro

Non-fiction:
Before We Were Trans - Kit Heyam
Doppelganger - Naomi Klein
Natives - Akala
Shadows at Noon - Joya Chatterji
Tubes - Andrew Blum
Living With Robots: What Every Anxious Human Needs to Know - Patricia Vargas & Ruth Aylett
Tir - Carwyn Graves
Private Revolutions - Yuan Yang
Thirty Two Words for Field - Manchan Magan
The Creativity Code - Marcus du Sautoy
Failed State - Sam Freedman
A Woman Like Me - Diane Abbot
The Christmas Chronicles - Nigel Slater

A Suitable Boy was definitely my top fiction read of the year. Harder to pick a single title from a great selection of non-fiction but probably Before We Were Trans if I had to name one.

In total I've read 110 books, 72 fiction, 38 non-fiction.

I'm a ruthless DNF-er so no italics.
Format: 41% kindle, 21% audible/spotify, 17% e-library, 14% physical library & 7% my/borrowed paper books.

Not posting full list as no where near 50 books but I will march into 2025 and try again 😁 My bolds for 2024 are as follows

1. The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside by Jessica Ryn

1. All The Lonely people by mike Gayle

5.Paper Cup by Karen Campbell

1. The Maiden by Kate Foster

1. Angel Meadow:Victorian Britains most savage slum by Dean Kirby

Please ignore the numbers I think my best bold of the bolds has been All the Lonely people by Mike Gayle

Just realised I failed to say my lists above are the bolds & missed my chance to edit. Can't face trying to format the full list!

I've read 48 books so far, should finish at least one more, hopefully two. Top ten below in no particular order.

The Short End of the Sonnenallee by Thomas Brussig, translated by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson
Kristin Lavrandatter III: The Cross by Sigrid Undset. Translated by Tiina Nunnally
Sophia, Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary by Anita Anand
The Door by Magda Szabó. Translated by Len Rix
Poor Things by Alasdair Gray
Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi. Translated by Patrick Creagh
King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett
O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
In the Ditch by Buchi Emecheta
The Observations by Jane Harris

Forgot the stats:
Male: 29%, Female: 71%
Translation: 31%
Non-fiction: 10%
Childrens: 20%
Rereads: 2%
Graphic: 23%
Short Stories: 4%
Poetry: 2%