50 Books challenge - 2024 roundup

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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!

Thanks @DuPainDuVinDuFromage - I loved Devices and Desires so I must check out the Bess of Hardwick

Just realised I should have posted my list on here!

1 The Trial – Rob Rinder
2 The Generation Divide: Why we can’t agree and why we should – Bobby Duffy
3 The Fell – Sarah Moss
4 Impossible Creatures – Katherine Rundell
5 Over Sea Under Stone – Susan Cooper
6 Greenwitch – Susan Cooper
7 The Grey King – Susan Cooper
8 Silver on the Tree – Susan Cooper
9 Orlando – Virginia Woolf
10 Liza’s England – Pat Barker
11 Winter – Ali Smith
12 Farewell Fountain Street – Selcuk Altun
13 Hungry – Grace Dent
14 The Shadow Murders – Jussi Adler-Olsen
15 The Wayward Bus – John Steinbeck
16 My Dark Vanessa – Kate Elizabeth Russell
17 Giving Up the Ghost – Hilary Mantel
18 Spook Street – Mick Herron
19 The Waves – Virginia Woolf
20 At Freddie’s – Penelope Fitzgerald
21 Before the Queen Falls Asleep – Huzama Habayeb
22 The Progress of a Crime – Julian Symons
23 Death of a Lesser God – Vaseem Khan
24 Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
25 Green Dot – Madeleine Gray
26 Family Politics – John O’Farrell
27 The Five – Hallie Rubenhold
28 London Rules – Mick Herron
29 The Brightest Night (Wings of Fire 5) – Tui T. Sutherland
30 Joe Country – Mick Herron
31 Spring – Ali Smith
32 Yellowface – Rebecca F. Kuang
33 Sidesplitter – Phil Wang
34 Slough House – Mick Herron
35 Bad Actors – Mick Herron
36 The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree – Nice Nailantei Leng’ete
37 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster – Mirinae Lee
38 A Month in the Country – J. L. Carr
39 The Letters Volume IV: 1929 – 1931 – A Reflection of the Other Person – Virginia Woolf
40 The Truths We Hold – Kamala Harris
41 The Chinese Maze Murders – Robert van Gulik
42 Summer – Ali Smith
43 Virginia Woolf (vol 2) – Quentin Bell
44 Wifedom – Anna Funder
45 Past Lying – Val McDermid
46 The Wind Through the Keyhole – Stephen King
47 L’Etranger – Albert Camus
48 Patchwork – Ellen Banda-Aaku
49 Night Waking – Sarah Moss
50 Traces – Patricia Wiltshire
51 Maskerade – Terry Pratchett
52 The Marrying of Chani Kaufman – Eve Harris
53 Mayflies – Andrew O’Hagan
54 How to Say Babylon – Safiya Sinclair
55 The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra – Vaseem Khan
56 The House of Mirrors – Erin Kelly
57 Clara’s Daughter – Meike Ziervogel
58 Mongrel – Hanako Footman
59 Frankie – Graham Norton
60 Rivals – Jilly Cooper
61 Johnson at 10 – Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell
62 The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years – Shubnum Khan
63 The Lido – Libby Page
64 The Outrun – Amy Liptrot
65 The Dark is Rising – Susan Cooper
66 The Burning – Jane Casey
67 The Raging Storm – Anne Cleeves

I think my top 5 (not necessarily in this order) were:

1. Giovanni's Room - James Baldwin
2. 8 Lives of a Centuries Old Trickster - Mirinae Lee
3. A Month in the Country - J L Carr
4. Traces - Patricia Wiltshire
5. Mayflies - Andrew O'Hagan

I posted my bolds and italics upthread and no change to those.

My final number was 357. Of those, 127 were by men and 225 by women (with the remaining 5 being by both). 118 were on kindle, with 15 audiobooks and 224 physical books (including 30 from the library). 276 were fiction, 59 non fiction, 14 children’s/YA and 8 short stories. 279 were new to me and 78 were rereads.

In 2025 I need to read more non fiction. I’m happy with the male/female author split though.

My final list of 2024 is as follows:

1. TheTwist of a Knife - Anthony Horowitz
2. Hello Beautiful - Ann Napolitano
3. Verdigris - Michele Mari, translated by Brian Robert Moore
4. The Covenant of Water - Abraham Verghese
5. Big Swiss - Jen Beagin
6. The Memory of Animals - Claire Fuller
7. The School at the Chalet - Elinor M Brent Dyer
8. The Biography of X - Catherine Lacey
9. Stone Blind - Natalie Haynes

10. American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld 11. The First Bad Man - Miranda July 12. The New Life - Tom Crew 13. North Woods - Daniel Mason 14. Western Lane - Chetna Maroon 15. Lublin - Manya Wilkinson 16. Tom Lake -Anne Patchett 17. A Visit From The Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan 18. The Candy House - Jennifer Egan 19. I Have Some Questions For You - Rebecca Makkai 20. Hungry Ghosts - Kevin Jared Hosein 21. Eight Detectives - Alex Pavesi 22. Jo Returns to The Chalet School 23. In defence of the Act - Effie Black 24. Scrap - Calla Henkel 25. Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? - Nicci French 26. Our Wives Under The Sea - Julia Armfield 27. Open Throat - Henry Hoke 28. And Then She Fell - Alicia Elliot 29. Slow Horses - Mick Herron 30. The Fury - Alex Michaelides 31. River East, River West - Aube Rey Lescure 32. Mayflies - Andrew O'Hagan 33. Enter Ghost - Isabella Hammad 34. Cuddy - Benjamin Myers 35. Brotherless Nights - V.V Ganeshantanan 36. Bunny - Mona Awad 37. Come And Get it - Kiley Reid 38. The Mess We're In - Annie McManus 39. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin 40. The Raging Storm - Anne Cleeves 41. Greenwich Park - Katherine Faulkner 42. You Are Here - David Nicholls 43. Ordinary Human Failings - Megan Nolan 44. Scary Monsters - Michelle De Kretser 45. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus 46. Mammoth - Eva Baltasar 47. Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros 48. A Court Of Thorn and Roses - Sarah J Maas 49. A Court of Mist and Fury - Sarah J Maas 50. A Court Of Wings and Ruin - Sarah J Maas 51. A Court of Frost and Starlight - Sarah J Maas 52. Pearl - Sian Hughes 53. A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J Maas 54. Martyr! - Kaveh Akbar 55. Thunderclap - Laura Cumming 56. Brooklyn - Colm Toibin 57. Helle & Death - Oskar Jensen 58. Mongrel - Hanako Footman 59. We All Want Impossible Things - Catherine Newman 60. Caledonian Road - Andrew O'Hagan 61. There There - Tommy Orange 62. The Safe Keep - Yael van der Wouden 63. All Fours - Miranda July 64. Enlightenment - Sarah Perry 65. The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich 66. Summer Sisters - Judy Blume 67. Greta & Valdin - Rebecca K Riley 68. My Friends - Hisham Matar 69. Iron Flame - Rebecca Yarros 70. Family Lore - Elizabeth Acevedo 71. The Housemaid - Freida McFadden 72. Borderline - Mishell Barker 73. How to Say Babylon - Safiya Sinclair 74. The Song Of Achilles - Madeleine Miller 75. A Thousand Ships - Natalie Haynes 76. The Kellerby Code - Jonny Sweet 77. Hidden in Snow - Viveca Sten 78. Hidden in Shadows - Viveca Sten 79. Orbital - Samantha Harvey. 80. Sandwich - Catherine Newman 81. Creation Lake - Rachel Kushner 82. Butter - Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton 83. Case Histories - Kate Atkinson 84. One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson 85. When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson 86. Started Early, Took My Dog - Kate Atkinson 87. Nightbloom - Peace Adzo Medie 87. A Flat Place - Noreen Masud 88. The Coast Road - Alan Murrin 89. All The Colours of the Dark - Chris Whitaker 90. Desperate Characters - Paula byFox 91. Borrowed Finery - Paula Fox 92. Playground - Richard Powers 93. The Cracked Mirror - Chris Brookmyre 94. Rivals - Jilly Cooper 95. Polo - Jilly Cooper 96. James - Percival Everett 97. The Fell - Sarah Moss CDs 98. Caraval - Stephanie Garber 99. The Echoes - Evie Wyld 100. Wandering Stars - Tommy Orange 101. Our Evenings - Alan Hollinghurst 102. The God of the Woods - Liz Moore 103. Long Island - Colm Toíbin 104. Guilty by Definition - Susie Dent 105. The Most Secret Memory of Men - Mohammed Mbougar Sarr, translated by Lara Vergnaud 106. Shy Creatures - Clare Chambers 107. The Spoiled Heart - Sanjeev Sahota 108. Whale Fall - Elizabeth O' Connor 109. There are Rivers in the Sky- Elif Shafak 110. Mr Lovermam - Bernadette Evaristo 111. They Were Sisters - Dorothy Whipple 112. The Atlas Six - Olivie Blake 113. Animal Life - Audur Ava Ólafsdóttir, translated by Brian Fitzgibbon 114. Small Bomb At Dimperley - Lissa Evans 115. Madwoman - Chelsea Bieker 116. The Proof of My Innocence - Jonathan Coe 117. West Heart Kill - Dann McGorman

Just waiting for Storygraph to give me my final stats....

My top reads this year:
The Covenant of Water, Abraham Veghese
The Familiars, Stacey Halls
The Clockwork Girl, Anna Mazzola
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
A Fine Balance, Vikram Seth
Six Suspects, Vilkas Swarup

I checked earlier @MamaNewtNewt and the last Patrick Rothfuss book was published in 2011, with various rumours since then but no actual book - so no conclusion to the (supposed) trilogy either he's a complete perfectionist and is really taking his time, or his writer's block is terrible...

The Extracted trilogy was an unexpected hit for me too, not usually my cup of tea but much better than anticipated!

Final stats :

117 books by 102 authors - 27% male. Only 2 non fiction, 20% from ethnic minorities, 5% in translation, 9% rereads.

I did top books earlier on the thread but would like to add:

There Are Rivers in The Sky - Elif Shafak
They were Sisters - Dorothy Whipple

@Stowickthevast
Impressed by the level of overlap in our reading lists and bold choices. I think we have 4 shared bolds just from this year's reading, and quite a lot more shared reads. I also have qI also loved Tom Lake in 2023 and The Night Watchman in the year I read it (perhaps 2021?). I think I've read and enjoyed all Dorothy Whipple's novels and still have two collections of short stories to go - this isn't a lack of enthusiasm for short stories but I have a lot of anthologies and short story collections in my owned TBRs and several library ones to catch up with too, not to mention wishlists! I liked several more of your bolds very much but not quite on my bold list, including My Friends and There Are Rivers in the Sky. And I have a few more TBR.

@Stowickthevast
Impressed by the level of overlap in our reading lists and bold choices. I think we have 4 shared bolds just from this year's reading, and quite a lot more shared reads. I also loved Tom Lake in 2023 and The Night Watchman in the year I read it (perhaps 2021?). I think I've read and enjoyed all Dorothy Whipple's novels and still have two collections of short stories to go - this isn't a lack of enthusiasm for short stories but I have a lot of anthologies and short story collections in my owned TBRs and several library ones to catch up with too, not to mention wishlists! I liked several more of your bolds very much but not quite on my bold list, including My Friends and There Are Rivers in the Sky. And I have a few more TBR.

I also loved Louise Erdrich's next novel The Sentence (no series connection) and am looking forward to her new one, The Mighty Red - currently borrowed from the library but I keep having to prioritise other books.

Oops, sorry for duplicate rambly post, think I was getting a bit distracted by offline conversations

@Hellohah I was also very disappointed with Tomorrow x 3

@Owlbookend all the best💐

@Resitinas we are all like that lol. I’ve got worse since joining the thread 😁

My full list:

1 Enough - Cassidy Hutchinson
2 Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
3 Kim JiYoung, Born 1982 - Cho Nam-Joo trans Jamie Chang
4 The Menopause Reset - Dr Mindy Pelz
5 Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day - Winifred Wilson
6 Past Lying - Val McDermid
7 The Winter List - SG MacLean
8 The Seeker - SG MacLean
9 Cross Roads - Val McDermid
10 Mythos - Stephen Fry
11 The Bookseller of Inverness - SG MacLean
12 Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat
13 Terms of Restitution - Denzil Meyrick
14 Standing Still - Caro Ramsay
15 The Black Friar - SG MacLean
16 The Rabbit Girls - Anna Ellory
17 How To Kill Your Family - Bella Mackie
18 A Litter of Bones - JD Kirk
19 Blood and Sugar - Laura Shepherd-Robinson
20 Bridges to Burn - Marion Todd
21 The Gathering Storm - Lynne McEwan
22 Destroying Angel - SG MacLean
23 The House of Lamentations - SG MacLean
24 A Treachery of Spies - Manda Scott
25 Tackle - Jilly Cooper
26 The Dubrovnik Book Club - Eva Glyn
27 The Suffering of Strangers - Caro Ramsay
28 Giggling Squid, Tantilising Thai to Cook at Home - Pranee
29 The Sideman - Caro Ramsay
30 The Red, Red Snow - Caro Ramsay
31 On An Outgoing Tide - Caro Ramsay
32 The Silent Conversation - Caro Ramsay
33 The Silk Code - Deborah Swift
34 The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths
35 In A Good Light - Clare Chambers
36 The Stranger Diaries - Elly Griffiths
37 Dead in the Water - Ed James
38 Murder Most Royal - SJ Bennett
39 Enter Ghost - Isabella Hammad
40 The Burning - Jane Casey
41 The Butterfly Room - Lucinda Riley
42 The Murder at Fleat House - Lucinda Riley
43 The Reading List - Sara Nisha Adams
44 The Curious Secrets of Yesterday - Namrata Patel
45 The Summer Skies - Jenny Colgan
46 Marple- various
47 The Stolen Weekend - Fern Britton
48 The Hopes and Dreams of Libby Quinn - Freya Kennedy
49 The Merchant's House - Kate Ellis
50 The Armada Boy - Kate Ellis
51 In Pursut of Happiness - Freya Kennedy
52 The Recipe for Hope - Fiona Valpy
53 The Season of Dreams - Fiona Valpy
54 Don’t Stop Believing - Freya Kennedy
55 Empty Nets and Promises - Denzil Meyrick
56 The Janus Stone - Elly Griffiths
57 The Postscript Murders - Elly Griffiths
58 Edinburgh Twilight - Carole Lawrence
59 Edinburgh Dusk - Carole Lawrence
60 Edinburgh Midnight - Carole Lawrence
61 Bleeding Heart Yard - Elly Griffiths
62 The House at Sea's End - Elly Griffiths
63 Trespasses - Louise Kennedy
64 Forever Home - Graham Norton
65 A Room Full of Bones - Elly Griffiths
66 The Maiden - Kate Foster
67 The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shafak
68 Soldier, Sailor - Claire Kilroy
69 The Last Word - Elly Griffiths
70 The Secret Adversary - Agatha Christie
71 Luckenbooth - Jenni Fagan
72 Squeaky Clean - Calum McSorley
73 Whites Bones - Graham Masterton
74 How Britain Ends - Gavin Esler
75 The House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz
76 Forty Rules of Love - Elif Shafak
77 The Shadow Network - Deborah Swift
78 Death and Croissants - Ian Moore
79 A Line to Kill - Anthony Horowitz
80 Caledonian Road - Andrew O'Hagan
81 The Crow Trap - Ann Cleeves
82 The King's Sister - Anne O'Brien
83 The 45% Hangover - Stuart McBride
84 Midnight at Malabar House - Vaseem Khan
85 Restless Dolly Maunder - Kate Grenville
86 The Garden of Weapons - John Gardner
87 The Dying Day - Vaseem Khan
88 One Minute Later - Susan Lewis
89 The Ballroom Café - Ann O'Laughlin
90 The Holy Island - LJ Ross
91 Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
92 The Estate - Denzil Meyrick
93 Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi trans Geoffrey Trousselot
94 Dying Fall - Elly Griffiths
95 When the Dust Settles - Lucy Easthope
96 That Bonesetter Woman - Frances Quinn
97 David Copperfield - Charles Dicken
98 Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent
99 How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water - Angie Cruz
100 Motherwell - Deborah Orr
101 The Outcast Dead - Elly Griffiths
102 The Ghost Fields - Elly Griffiths
103 The Woman in Blue - Elly Griffiths
104 Dead Lions - Mick Heron
105 Ask No Questions - Claire Allan
106 Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
107 The Chalk Pit - Elly Griffiths
108 Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe
109 Midnight and Blue - Iain Rankin
110 Brotherless Night - VV Ganeshananthan
111 The Secrets of Blythwood Square - Sara Sheridan
112 The Dark Angel - Elly Griffiths
113 Before and After - Andrew Shanaman
114 The Stone Circle - Elly Griffiths
115 The Lantern Men - Elly Griffiths
116 Twas The Nightshift Before Christmas - Adam Key
117 Real Tigers - Mick Heron
118 Weyward - Emilia Hart
119 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
120 Down Cemetery Road - Mick Heron

My favourite Audible book this year was Project Hail Mary.
Favourite non fiction was When the Dust Settles
I cant choose between Brotherless Night, Hamnet, Strange Sally Diamond and The Island of Missing Trees as my favourite fiction.

Stats:
Bolds 10%
Women 77%, men 23%
Fiction 93%, non fiction 7%
BME 12%
LGBT 5%
trans 1.67%
Book breakdown: Audible 10.7%, Physical books 10%, Kindle/Borrowbox 56%, Library 22.5%. Kindle and Audible 0.8%

The amount of Kindle books I have read reflects my plan to get my TBR pile down. This year, I still plan to work on it, however the current number of 38 is far more manageable and as I read 65 (plus 2 on Borrowbox, but I dont like the formatting). That said, I want to read my physical TBR too. I plan to get more books out of the library, especially when I see all the great recommendations on here :)

Stats:
33 books read – 78% by women, 42% non-fiction, 55% on audible, 64% authors I’d never read before.
Shamefully 0 books in French – not quite sure what happened there. And not a single classic this year either.

Favourite fiction:

• Amy & Isabelle – Elisabeth Strout
• Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
• Tom Lake – Ann Patchett
• Hamnett – Maggie O’Farrell
• Mother’s Boy – Patrick Gale

Favourite non-fiction:

• A heart that works – Rob Delaney
• The Sober Diaries – Clare Pooley
• Learn Spanish – Paul Noble

One stinker: Sober curious – Ruby Warrington

Full list:

• Confessions of a forty-something **-up – Alexandra Potter
• Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race – Reni Eddo-lodge
• A heart that works – Rob Delaney
• Really good, actually – Monica Heisey
• 52 ways to Walk – Annabel Streets
• Amy & Isabelle – Elisabeth Strout
• Islands of mercy – Rose Tremain
• From miniskirt to hijab – Jacqueline Saper
• Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
• The Sober Diaries – Clare Pooley
• The Lost Words – Robert Macfarlane & Jackie Morris
• Tom Lake – Ann Patchett
• The Strawberry Thief - Joanne Harris
• The village by the sea – Anita Desai
• Soldier, Sailor – Claire Kilroy
• Sober curious – Ruby Warrington
• 500 miles from you – Jenny Colgan
• 0 Caledonia – Elspeth Barker
• The Winners – Frederik Backman
• Learn Spanish – Paul Noble
• Fire Rush – Jacqueline Crooks
• Hamnett – Maggie O’Farrell
• Wild – Cheryl Strayed
• The Outrun – Amy Liptrot
• The cellist of Sarajevo – Steven Calloway
• Angels – Marian Keyes
• Four thousand weeks – Oliver Burkeman
• Miranda Hart – I haven’t been entirely honest with you
• The Wrong Knickers – Bryony Gordon
• Abide with me – Elizabeth Strout
• Mother’s Boy – Patrick Gale
• Much more to come – Eleanor Mills
• Close Knit – Jenny Colgan

@nowanearlyNicemum
I've not read it yet but my copy of O Caledonia is a publisher classics reprint type edition (well, it's Kindle but it's in the W&N Essentials series with an introduction by Maggie O'Farrell. And the Amazon description of the Anita Desai book suggests a classic children's book. So that's 2 of your 33.

@elkiedee - interesting! After all, how do we define a classic?!

Big question which could have a thread to itself. But I don't think classics have to be either written in the 19th century or be really hard to read (or both, though the two don't go together - some 19th century work is very readable and some 20th century (and 21st century) works are rather challenging for a variety of reasons.

I can’t remember all the books I read last year, but here are some of them:

Lisa Jewell - The House We Grew Up In
Tove Jansson - Sculptor’s Daughter
Vladimir Nabakov - Lolita
Graham Greene - The Quiet American
Joyce Carol Oates - 48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister
E M Forster - A Room with a View
Graham Swift - Last Orders
Charlotte Mendelson - The Exhibitionist

I nearly gave up on Lolita as the story is so stomach-churning, but I can see why Nabokov is often cited as one of the best writers in the English language (even though he peppers his writing with French).

If you’d like a Booker prize winner which is unpretentious and easy to read, yet sometimes profound, then you could do a lot worse than Last Orders.

I was surprised by how well Tove Jansson wrote for adults. Sculptor’s Daughter made me wish I was in 1920s Finland, hanging out with Tove and her bohemian family.

But I think my read of the year was The Quiet American, as it might be the most thought-provoking novel I’ve ever read.

We don’t really get to know the young Vietnamese character, Phuong, which feels a bit sexist, but maybe that’s the point - the British and American men in the story were from a very different culture and didn’t really understand her. The main character’s dilemma is one that plays on my mind. Did he do the right thing in the end and was it for the right reasons?

Squeaking in under the wire!

Hoping the formatting works out now I've reordered: by author surname (then book series order) rather than chronologically.
A = audiobook
R = reread (decided to count only rereads of books last read more than 10 years ago, to bring my total down below 200)

Fiction:

1. Ben Aaronovitch - The Masquerades of Spring
2. Joe Abercrombie - Red Country A
3. Joe Abercrombie - Sharp Ends (stories) A
4. Joe Abercrombie - A Little Hatred A
5. Leila Aboulela - River Spirit
6. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Chain-Gang All-Stars
7. Selva Almada - Not a River (tr. Annie McDermott)
8. Lucy Ashe - Clara and Olivia
9. Mona Awad - Rouge
10. Lynn Reid Banks - The L-Shaped Room
11. D.V. Bishop - Ritual of Fire A
12. D.V. Bishop - A Divine Fury A
13. Effie Black - In Defence of the Act
14. Margaret Bonham - The Casino (stories)
15. Andrew Boryga - Victim
16. Graham Brack - Death in Delft
17. Graham Brack - Untrue ’Til Death
18. Graham Brack - Dishonour and Obey
19. Alan Bradley - What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust A
20. Kaliane Bradley - The Ministry of Time
21. Rita Bullwinkel - Headshot
22. C.J. Carey - Widowland
23. Jane Casey - The Burning
24. Shannon Chakraborty - The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
25. Vajra Chandrasekera - The Saint of Bright Doors
26. Mavis Cheek - Aunt Margaret’s Lover
27. Kirstin Chen - Counterfeit
28. Cho Nam-Joo - Miss Kim Knows and other stories (tr. Jamie Chang)
29. Zen Cho - Black Water Sister
30. Susanna Clarke - The Wood at Midwinter
31. Jonathan Coe - The Proof of My Innocence
32. Barbara Comyns - Mr Fox
33. E. M. Delafield - Messalina of the Suburbs
34. Patrick deWitt - The Librarianist
35. Kay Dick - They
36. Charles Dickens - Little Dorrit
37. Monica Dickens - Τhe Fancy
38. Clara Dupont-Monod - The Revolt (tr. Ruth Diver)
39. Alice Thomas Ellis - The Inn at the Edge of the World
40. Lissa Evans - Small Bomb at Dimperley
41. Rupert Everett - James
42. Tana French - The Wych Elm A
43. V.V. Ganeshananthan - Brotherless Night
44. Ia Genberg - The Details (tr. Kira Josefsson)
45. Kazuki Kaneshiro - Go (tr. Takami Nieda)
46. Kate Grenville - Restless Dolly Maunder
47. Kate Grenville - The Secret River
48. Elly Griffiths - The Great Deceiver A
49. Elly Griffiths - The Last Word A
50. Paul Griffiths - let me tell you
51. Paul Griffiths - let me go on
52. Johana Gustawsson - The Bleeding (tr. David Warriner)
53. Janice Hallett - The Christmas Appeal
54. Janice Hallett - The Examiner
55. Isabella Hammad - Enter Ghost
56. Chris Hammer - Opal Country
57. Jo Hamya - The Hypocrite
58. Han Kang - Greek Lessons (tr. Deborah Smith, Emily Yae Won)
59. Elodie Harper - The Wolf Den
60. Elodie Harper - The House with the Golden Door
61. Elodie Harper - The Temple of Fortuna
62. Samantha Harvey - Orbital
63. Shirley Hazzard - The Transit of Venus
64. Mick Herron - Τhe Secret Hours
65. Keigo Higashino - A Death in Tokyo (tr. Giles Murray)
66. Inez Holden - Blitz Writing (ed. Kristin Bluemel)
67. Anthony Horowitz - A Twist of the Knife A
68. Anthony Horowitz - Close to Death A
69. Cara Hunter - Murder in the Family
70. Hwang Bo-Reum - Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop (tr. Shanna Tan)
71. Eva Ibbotson - A Glove Shop in Vienna and other winter stories
72. Natsuko Imamura - The Woman in the Purple Skirt (tr. Lucy North)
73. Raymond Jean - Reader for Hire (tr. Adriana Hunter)
74. Lisa Jewell - None of This is True A
75. Philip Gwynne Jones - The Venetian Game
76. Erich Kästner - Emil and the Detectives R
77. Hiromi Kawakami - The Third Love (tr. Ted Goossen)
78. Claire Keegan - Foster
79. Philip Kerr - March Violets
80. Vaseem Khan - The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra
81. Claire Kilroy- Soldier Sailor
82. Stephen King - The Dark Half
83. T. Kingfisher - Minor Mage
84. Rachel Kushner - Creation Lake
85. Mirinae Lee - 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster
86. Aube Rey Lescure - River East, River West
87. Cixin Liu - The Wandering Earth and other stories (tr. Ken Liu, et al.)
88. Martin MacInnes - In Ascension
89. Sally Magnusson- Music in the Dark
90. Rebecca Makkai - I Have Some Questions For You A
91. Chetna Maroo - Western Lane
92. Anthony Marra - Mercury Pictures Presents
93. Hisham Matar - My Friends
94. F.M. Mayor - The Rector’s Daughter
95. Val McDermid - Past Lying A
96. C.K. McDonnell - Relight My Fire
97. Callum McSorley - Squeaky Clean A
98. Simon Michael - The Brief A
99. Leonora Nattrass - Blue Water
100. Leonora Nattrass - Scarlet Town
101. Megan Nolan - Ordinary Human Failings
102. Naomi Novik - Buried Deep and other stories
103. Sigrid Nunez - The Vulnerables
104. Edna O’Brien - The Country Girls
105. Caroline O’Donoghue - All Our Hidden Gifts
106. Caroline O’Donoghue - The Rachel Incident
107. Yōko Ogawa - Mina’s Matchbox (tr. Stephen B. Snyder)
108. Anthony Quinn - Curtain Call
109. Ann Patchett - Tom Lake A
110. Jane Pek - The Verifiers
111. Sarah Perry - Enlightenment
112. Claudia Piñeiro - All Yours (tr. Miranda France)
113. Claudia Piñeiro - Betty Boo (tr. Miranda France)
114. Jocelyn Playfair - A House in the Country
115. Jente Posthuma - What I’d Rather Not Think About (tr. Sarah Timmer Harvey)
116. Emeric Pressburger - The Glass Pearls
117. Veronica Raimo - Lost on Me (tr. Leah Janeczko)
118. Rob Rinder - The Suspect
119. Monique Roffey - Passiontide
120. Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi - The Centre
121. Barbara Sleigh - Carbonel R
122. Barbara Sleigh - The Kingdom of Carbonel R
123. Ali Smith - Gliff
124. Benjamin Stevenson - Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone A
125. Noel Streatfeild - The House in Cornwall
126. Noel Streatfeild - The Winter is Past
127. Ann Swinfen - The Bookseller’s Tale
128. Ann Swinfen - The Novice’s Tale
129. Ann Swinfen - The Huntsman’s Tale
130. Ann Swinfen - The Merchant’s Tale
131. Ann Swinfen - The Troubadour’s Tale
132. Andrew Taylor - Shadows of London A
133. Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time
134. Emily Tesh - Some Desperate Glory
135. Olga Tokarczuk - The Empusium (tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones)
136. Francesca de Tores - Saltblood
137. Amor Towles - Rules of Civility A R
138. Amor Towles - Table for Two A
139. Rose Tremain - Absolutely and Forever
140. Tiffany Tsao - The Majesties
141. Antti Tuomainen - Τhe Rabbit Factor (tr. David Hackston)
142. Sigrid Undset - The Wreath (tr. Tiina Nunnally)
143. Nicola Upson - Dear Little Corpses A
144. Itamar Vieira Júnior - Crooked Plow (tr. Johnny Lorenz)
145. Katy Watson - The Three Dahlias
146. Edith Wharton - The Old Maid
147. Martha Wells - System Collapse
148. Martha Wells - Witch King
149. Charlotte Wood - Stone Yard Devotional
150. Yael van der Wouden - The Safekeep
151. Asako Yuzuki - Butter (tr. Polly Barton)
152. Gabrielle Zevin - Young Jane Young

Nonfiction:

1. Cat Arney - Rebel Cell
2. Carol Atherton - Reading Lessons
3. Gary J. Bass - Judgement at Tokyo
4. Anna Beer - Eve Bites Back A
5. Julia Boyd - A Village in the Third Reich
6. Tania Branigan - Red Memory
7. Satya Doyle Byock - Quarterlife
8. Rory Carroll - Killing Thatcher A
9. Leah Redmond Chang - Young Queens A
10. Jane Cholmeley - A Bookshop of One’s Own
11. Laura Cumming - Thunderclap
12. Grace Dent - Comfort Eating
13. Anna Funder - Wifedom
14. Nanako Hanada - The Bookshop Woman (tr. Cat Anderson)
15. Haas de Hein - How Migration Really Works A
16. Becky Holmes - Keanu Reeves is Not in Love with You
17. Mishal Husain - Broken Threads A
18. Sam Leith - The Haunted Wood
19. Marisa Meltzer - Glossy
20. Sarah Moss - My Good Bright Wolf
21. Rory Muir - Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen
22. Sarah Ogilvy - The Dictionary People
23. Herman Pontzer - Burn
24. Aarathi Prasad - Silk
25. Diane Purkiss - English Food
26. Jay Rayner - Nights Out at Home
27. Peter Ross - A Tomb with a View
28. Marcus du Sautoy - Around the World in 80 Games
29. Jason Shreier - Blood, Sweat and Pixels
30. Safiya Sinclair - How to Say Babylon
31. Charles Spicer - Coffee with Hitler
32. Rebecca Struthers - Hands of Time
33. John Vaillant - Fire Weather A
34. Pen Vogler - Scoff
35. Nick Wallis - The Great Post Office Scandal
36. Louise Willder - Blurb Your Enthusiasm
37. Yuan Yang - Private Revolutions
38. Yepoka Yeebo - Anansi’s Gold

Revised total: 190, by 167 authors (72% female)
80% fiction
13% translated
15% audio
16% bold, 7% italic i.e. majority middling, on which I blame:
51% new releases (pub. 2023-24) 😮
Longest: Little Dorrit (1021 pages)
Shortest: The Wood at Midwinter (64, and mostly pictures at that)

On the full list I kept all bolds based on my feelings at time of reading, but top 5:
Vajra Chandrasekera - The Saint of Bright Doors
Paul Griffiths - let me go on
Anthony Marra - Mercury Pictures Presents
Olga Tokarczuk - The Empusium
Laura Cumming - Thunderclap (NF)

Favourite audio: Ann Patchett - Tom Lake, read by Meryl Streep
Favourite series (also audio): Joe Abercrombie, The First Law with one bold and two near-bolds. Several other series I read went off the boil this year, but two with excellent new entries were Leonora Nattrass, Laurence Jago and Mick Herron, Slough House.

@elkiedee nice to have a book twin!!

I loved The Sentence too. I didn't realise she had a new one out so will add it to the wishlist for when I allow myself to buy more books!

Thanks @RomanMum

My totals for 2024
88 books + 1 DNF
23 non-fiction; 66 fiction
45 female authors; 44 male
27 books in translation
Audiobooks (mostly Libby/Borrowbox):16; Library books: 20; Bought or owned books: 53

Fiction bolds (18)
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingslover
The Testament of Mary - Colm Toibin
Under Milk Wood & A Child's Christmas in Wales - Dylan Thomas
Foster - Claire Keegan
Autumn - Ali Smith
Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
Zikora - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chess - Stefan Zweig trans Anthea Bell
Katalin Street - Magda Szabo trans Len Rix
Yugoslavia - My Fatherland - Goran Vojnović trans Noah Charney
Persuasion - Jane Austen
Meet Me at the Museum - Anne Youngson
My Friends - Hiram Matar
Milkman - Anna Burns
King of Shadows - Susan Cooper
Girl, Women, Other - Bernadine Evaristo
Enter Ghost - Isabella Hammad
Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell

Non-Fiction bolds (4)
Notes on Grief - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This Boy - Alan Johnson
A Heart that Works - Rob Delaney
When the Dust Settles - Lucy Easthope

Absolute favourites of the year were probably Demon Copperhead and Hamnet

Percentage of bolds that were on my radar mostly thanks to the 50 bookers : 36%

TBR pile
Beginning of 2024: Physical books (58) Kindle (57)
End of 2024: Physical books (52) Kindle (201) (!!)

2024 50 BOOKERS ROUNDUP – buckle up, it’s a long’un

Firstly thanks go to the contributors: AgualusasLover, AlmanbyRoadtrip, BestIsWest, bibliomania, biedrona, BlueFairyBugsBooks, Boiledeggandtoast, cassandre, Cattenberg, Ceruleanmoon, Cherrypi, ChessieFL, ClaraTheImpossibleGirl, CornishLizard, CutFlowers, DesdamonasHandkerchief, DuPainDuVinDuFromage, EineReiseDurchDieZeit, elkiedee, FortunaMajor, FuzzyCaoraDhubh, GrannieMainland, Hellohah, highlandcoo, inaptonym, InTheCludgie, JaninaDuszejko, Kinsters, LadybirdDaphne, MamaNewtNewt, MegBusset, Midnightstar76, mugglewump, noodlezoodle, nowanearlyNicemum, Owlbookend, PermanentTemporary, Piggywaspushed, RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie, RomanMum, Sadik, SheilaFentiman, Southeastdweller, steponacrackbreakyourmothersback, Stowickthevast, StrangewaysHereWeCome, Tarahumara, Tarragon123, TattiePants, Terpsichore, TimeforaGandT, ÚlldemoShúl, Welshwabbit. Sorry if I’ve missed anyone out!

As with last year, this is only based on bolds (and stinkers), but these in themselves came to 970 lines representing 779 titles from the 50 Bookers above.

The Booker/Women’s Prize etc. longlists influenced the results, as well as thread recommendations throughout the year. It was really interesting to see the range of books listed, and I have definitely, definitely not reserved any from my local library on the strength of this exercise…

74% of bolds were fiction, 26% nonfiction, slightly higher than last year so we are reading more fiction, or at any rate more likely to recommend fiction. 61% were by women authors, 36% by male authors, and the remainder by other. Fiction by female authors was again the most popular combo.

Top Fictions in order of popularity:
'1. Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

'2. Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan
My Friends by Hisham Matar
Soldier Sailer by Claire Kilroy

'3. Foster by Claire Keegan
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
Rivals by Jilly Cooper
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

'4. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Paper Cup by Karen Campbell
River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure
Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans
You Are Here by David Nicholls

'5. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
A Month in the Country by JL Carr
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Falling Animals by Sheila Armstrong
Madensky Square by Eva Ibbotson
Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Top Non-Fictions in order of popularity:
'1. When the Dust Settles by Lucy Easthope

'2. My Good Bright Wolf by Sarah Moss
Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming
Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder

'3. Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein

'4. A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney
A Village in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd and Angelika Patel
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam
Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein
The Great Post Office Scandal by Nick Wallis
Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall by Helena Merriman

So well done to Tarragon123 who predicted the top non-fiction.

In terms of the Duds, Disappointments and Downright Stinkers, congratulations to The Maiden by Kate Foster which topped the list, runners up being Broken Light by Joanne Harris and The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley.

The Bloody Boring Butler prize for the top divisive reads for this year, which some of us counted as bold, and some loathed, went to:

• 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee
• Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
• How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
• I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
• Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
• Orbital by Samantha Harvey
• The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
• The Maiden by Kate Foster
• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
• Ultraprocessed People by Chris van Tulleken
• Under Her Roof by A A Chaudhuri

The most popular authors who did not appear on the above lists were Mick Herron, Elizabeth Strout and Jonathan Stroud. We loved their work as a whole, just not one single book enough. On the other hand, there were some authors whose written work, according to these results, could either be outstanding or a load of twaddle (just for Remus) depending on which book you picked up, what I like to call ‘the Ben Myers collective’: Agatha Christie, Genevieve Cogman, Kate Atkinson, Liane Moriarty, Lisa Jewell, Nigel Slater, Richard Osman and Stephen King.

That’s all folks! I'm off for a lie down and a restorative… damn, it’s dry January.

Oh well done @RomanMum

Got one of two there on TBR I haven't read yet so that's promising

Arf at the Bloody Boring Butler award.

Sterling work there @RomanMum. I am going to screenshot and save for when I’m desperate for something to read.

@RomanMum you're a star 🌟
Well done for doing that job! I really enjoyed the analysis 👏
I particularly like the Bloody Boring Butler award 😄
I'm going to copy the list now...

Thanks very much @RomanMum ! Very interesting 😊