Dedication's what you need: the 2025 reading challenge thread

[imposs1904]

1. "Midnight and Blue" - Ian Rankin. Excellent as ever

I was a bit underwhelmed. I read Rebus books at this point 'cos I've always read them and I always will. I thought the original Malcolm Fox series of novels were really promising, and I was a bit disappointed when Rankin brought back Rebus and his John Martyn LPs.

 

[imposs1904]

1/9 W. B. Yeats, A Packet for Ezra Pound. More a booklet than a book, but hey, it was published as a stand-alone volume.

As long as it has an ISBN number.

 

[hitmouse]

1/60 - Susie Dent - Death by Definition

2/60 - Emily St. John Mandel - Sea of Tranquillity (BC)*

*Book club

That was a book club read for me last year (well, just checked and it was actually 2023) as well, was a good one I thought.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

I was a bit underwhelmed. I read Rebus books at this point 'cos I've always read them and I always will. I thought the original Malcolm Fox series of novels were really promising, and I was a bit disappointed when Rankin brought back Rebus and his John Martyn LPs.

I agree, I liked the Malcolm Fox novels and it is a shame Ian Rankin took the character in the direction he did but I do like Rebus

 

[lazythursday]

Going to try to join in with this for the first time ever. I read a fair bit, but not consistently - I'll binge then forget about it for months. This year determined to read more and more variety.

1. A Death in the Family (My Struggle book 1) - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Have been vaguely aware of this controversial six volume autobiographical work for a while, but it's completely not the sort of thing I usually read. But really glad I did, it's an incredible piece of work, you find yourself completely inhabiting the mind of Knausgaard, and it veers from utter banality to moments that are deeply profound. And the aftermath of his father's death is some of the grimmest yet also bleakly funny writing I've ever read. I imagine people either love or hate this though.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

1. "Midnight and Blue" - Ian Rankin

2. "The Blackbird" - Tim Weaver. Slightly pushing the believability at times but very, very readable

 

[marshall]

1/70+
Ravens – George Dawes Green
A couple of low-life scumbags travelling through small-town Georgia overhear that a local family has just won $300m in a lottery…

2/70+
Gabriel’s Moon – William Boyd
Classic Boyd, travel writer in early 60s Cold War Europe is subtly recruited by British intelligence…

3/70+
The Devil Himself – Peter Farris
Deep dark Southern Noir, trafficked teen girl, grizzled moonshiner, narcotics, out in the boonies, not for the faint-hearted…

 

[May Kasahara]

1. Alex Michaelides - The silent patient.

2. Kit Whitfield - Bareback. Another excellent entry in the canon of werewolf novels.

 

[Voley]

I read nothing but travel guides last year so I've made a better start this year already:

1. Knife - Salman Rushdie. Most powerful bit of writing I've come across in a long while. A memoir about the attempt on his life that is ultimately about love. Jaw-dropping in places, a little indulgent in others, but an incredible book.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I tend to read last thing at night so sometimes get very little reading done before sleep. Going to try and make time for more this year.

1. World Prehistory - the basics - Brian M. Fagan and Nadia Durrani

 

[Me76]

1/45 The Cheat Sheet, Sarah Adams - hc

hc - hard copy
dl - dens library
k - kindle
g - google

 

[PursuedByBears]

1. Stephen Davis - Hammer of the Gods: the Led Zeppelin Saga
2. Michael Fleisher, Steve White, Chris Weston, Henry Flint - Rogue Trooper: Friday vol 2

3. Alwyn W Turner - Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s

 

[wtfftw]

1. The Terraformers - Annalee Newitz

 

[hitmouse]

1/45 The Free Association - Moments of Excess

Started 2023 reading a long book by EP Thompson, started 2024 reading a long book by Mario Tronti, started 2025 reading a short book by people who've definitely read Thompson and Tronti. Interesting reading a book written between 2001-2011, which I suppose is now pretty definitively in a different historical period. A very u75 book in some ways, very much comes out of that Class War/RTS/summit-hopping tradition (not that all of those things are the same as each other, of course). Dunno if any of the authors have ever posted on here but I'd be very surprised if they're more than one degree removed. At some points the footnotes were like a little reading list for a very specific tradition of thought (there's Marx, there's Tronti, there's Give Up Activism, oh look there's Beasts of Burden!) But they've read Deleuze & Guattari and I haven't.
Interesting little collection, almost more like philosophy than traditional "political analysis". Could have used a bit more editing in the course of turning a series of articles into a book, as in, if you use the same metaphor or image in three different articles over the course of three or four years then that's completely natural and fine, but if you use it in three chapters in the same book it gets a bit old. But definitely worth reading overall, and not just for the 2000s nostalgia.

 

[furluxor]

That was a book club read for me last year (well, just checked and it was actually 2023) as well, was a good one I thought.

And BoatieBird , either of you have read Station Eleven and can tell me how Sea of Tranquility compares with it? (I thought it had some beautiful writing but overall was a bit weak so dunno if it's worth picking up the same author again in the future)

 

[hitmouse]

I liked Sea of Tranquility, thought "I should get around to reading Station Eleven at some point to see how it compares", but haven't got round to it yet. One day.

 

[pseudonarcissus]

Does this include textbooks? I don't mean simply non-fiction books, I mean books that are designed to teach you something, if you know what I mean. I can't put that more coherently at the moment.

Last year HMSO (as was) had 2 books included in the challenge, one being the Highway Code.

 

[BoatieBird]

And BoatieBird , either of you have read Station Eleven and can tell me how Sea of Tranquility compares with it? (I thought it had some beautiful writing but overall was a bit weak so dunno if it's worth picking up the same author again in the future)

I haven't read Station Eleven so can't compare the two.
I'm not a sci fi fan so I wouldn't have read Sea of Tranquillity had it not been a book club pick, but having said that I did enjoy it.

 

[hitmouse]

I had a conversation a while back with someone who said she'd never really read any science fiction but wanted to try some, and I wanted to recommend Sea of Tranquility but couldn't remember who wrote it, so I accidentally managed to recommend Edna St Vincent Millay, who I've never read and definitely did not write Sea of Tranquility. Tbf I think if you call your child Emily St John Mandel, there must be a part of you that deliberately wants people to get her mixed up with Edna St Vincent Millay.

 

[Signal 11]

1/10 - Beyond the Hallowed Sky - Ken MacLeod

 

[rich!]

1. The Terraformers - Annalee Newitz

I really enjoyed that!

 

[rich!]

1/10 - Beyond the Hallowed Sky - Ken MacLeod

and the rest of that trilogy are great, if very space opera with a Scottish accent

 

[nogojones]

1/45 Annalee Newitz - Autonomous

OK. Nothing special.

 

[inva]

Might be a bit ambitious but I'm going to try for 60 this time round

1/60 Outrageous! The Story of Section 28 and Britain's Battle for LGBT Education by Paul Baker
I've wanted to read something on Section 28 for a while as I don't know much about it beyond the very basics of what it was, and it was repealed about half way through my time at secondary school so it must have shaped my school experience quite a bit. Anyway this was not a good book really, very superficial and a lot of reliance on lazy cliches particularly when dealing with the historical context which may be explained by the author seeming to have pretty dismal Labour right politics. Still just about qualified as useful for me, probably a waste of time if you know anything more than the bare minimum about it though.

 

[rubbershoes]

2/39 The Art of Dying by Derik Cavignano - This was so bad it could be by Harlan Coben. I don't know what it is about these type of cop books - the characters just have no nuance to them. The bullying, macho police superintendent is always aggressive to his underlings and never makes a good call about anything. How did he get promoted to superintendent if he's that bad? This is an early contender for this year's shit pile

1/39 Then came the evening by Brian Hart - Damaged people trying to live their lives in the rural midwest, in the shadow of their previous poor decisions. A good start to the year for me, but less so for the characters

 

[belboid]

30 seems a pretty solid target for me. And it looks like I’ll have more choice over my selection this year, as I have only been gifted five books this year as opposed to last years…16 I think it was.

The first of those five was one at least one person read last year, an absolutely cracking thriller about a Nazi war criminal masquerading as a piano tuner. A real page turner, as one my expect, considering the author.

1/30 Emeric Pressburger - The Glass Pearls

 

[marty21]

1/40 A Morning for Flamingos - James Lee Burke

 

[Voley]

1/40 A Morning for Flamingos - James Lee Burke

Any good? I haven't read anything by him for ages.

 

[Serge Forward]

On my 3rd book this year. Currently rereading the Chrysalids by John Wyndham. The other two were Fortunate Son by Caimh McDonnell and Legacy by Nathan Hystad.

 

[zedr]

1/60 - Susie Dent - Death by Definition

2/60 - Emily St. John Mandel - Sea of Tranquillity (BC)*

*Book club

Read this one last year. How did you find it? Took me a while to get into it (found it a bit plodding and listless) but really enjoyed it by the end.