2024 Reading Challenge discussion

100 books to read!

Welcome to the group, Violaine, and good luck with your challenge. :)

Good luck and happy reading!

Good luck with your challenge. I got back to reading after a bit of a break when I got a kindle - I now have a book with me wherever I go!

Jayne wrote: "Good luck with your challenge. I got back to reading after a bit of a break when I got a kindle - I now have a book with me wherever I go!"

I always have a book with me anyway, but usually smaller books, no more than 350 pages as they need to fit in my bag with everything else... I look forward to reading bigger books!

1. Love & Pop by Ryū Murakami
2. La Guerre Commence Au Delà De La Merby Ryū Murakami
3. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

Congrats on finishing your first three books in 2016! I hope you like your kindle - love mine!

4. Consider the Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster Wallace
I quite liked it! It was very interesting to read, I liked some essays better than others - "Up, Simba" was my least favourite, while I really enjoyed the one about Standard English (I forgot the title) and the one about lobsters... I was impressed somebody could be as interesting when writing on a topic such as lobsters - not my first choice of reading usually - but it was informative, critical, witty...

5. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
6. Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates
7. The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays by Chinua Achebe
8. Girls at War and Other Stories by Chinua Achebe

Currently reading My Daughter's Army by Greg Hogben which I received in a giveaway and I like a lot so far.

9. My Daughter's Army by Greg Hogben - won in a giveaway - really enjoyed it, not a perfect book but really good and different from what I usually read.
10. A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin - really great. The writing is gorgeous; the feelings of the narrator feel so real and even though I can't say I relate, I really felt I understood. There are so many quotes from this book I want to copy into my notebook.

Currently reading An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy - so far so good.

11. Not Your Mother's Rules: The New Secrets for Dating by Ellen Fein - such a rubbish book, but it made me so angry that I kept reading.

12. An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy - beautiful.

Now reading,

13. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, which I like so far and I was looking forward to reading.

Update!

14. The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout
15. The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success by Kevin Dutton
16. Histoires Extraordinaires by Edgar Allan Poe - French translation by Charles Baudelaire

Currently reading Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin by Norah Vincent which is certainly different from what I usually read, but so far rather interesting.

Wow. You're doing amazing and some of your books look really interesting. I bet you're going to finish way ahead of the New Year.

Good luck on your reading goal! Looks like you have already read some great books this year! Any standouts so far?

Hannah wrote: "Good luck on your reading goal! Looks like you have already read some great books this year! Any standouts so far?"

I think The Girl on the Train was a fantastic read, I would recommend this one to everyone. I liked my other books too but that one is something I think EVERYONE might like!

Since my last update, I have read

17. Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin, good but imperfect
18. Thinking, Fast and Slow a great book, quite intellectual but at the same time easy to follow and understand. It's so perfectly written that it becomes very accessible, while remaining clever and interesting. Loved it.
19. Petit traité de manipulation à l'usage des honnêtes gens, similar to the previous one but more focused on everyday manipulation, including manipulation done by people who are not aware they are doing it. I really enjoyed it and it was very easy to read as well.

Currently reading,
20. The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells which I won in a giveaway, and I reallly love reading. I love the multiple points of view, the two mothers, the little girl Willa and her dog... It's quite quirky I think and quite moving at the same time, and I really can't wait to finish it to know what happens at the end.

21. The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III’s Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds by Michael K. Jones and Philippa Langley - fantastic book so far. I am really fascinated and I can't wait to get back to this book after work.

So I have been trying to read different books - more international, as I noticed I read mainly UK or US authors, with the occasional French writer when I go home; here is the updated list:

22. Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid
23. Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich
24. The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

And I started keeping a map of my books:
see map here

Great job, Violaine! You're almost a quarter of the way to your goal. :)

Cassandra wrote: "Great job, Violaine! You're almost a quarter of the way to your goal. :)"

I know, I have been good so far!! I usually start well but I think I'll probably slow down later this year.

Update -
25. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson - ****

You've read a lot of interesting books Violaine! I haven't read a single one of them, so can't comment in that regard. However, I may read Gone Girl sometime--I wasn't going to, but at Easter my Grandma of all people (91 years old mind you) told me she thought it was great.

Emily wrote: "You've read a lot of interesting books Violaine! I haven't read a single one of them, so can't comment in that regard. However, I may read Gone Girl sometime--I wasn't going to, but at Easter my Gr..."

It is a good book but if you are going to read only one trendy thriller, I would go for "The Girl on the train" which I thought was better written and with a more original narrative!

26. Taipei by Tao Lin **
27. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo ***
28. Add More -Ing to Your Life: A Hip Guide to Happiness by Gabrielle Bernstein **
29. Água Viva by Clarice Lispector ***
30. I Am China by Xiaolu Guo ****
31. Le Crime du comte Neville by Amélie Nothomb **

32. Pétronille by Amélie Nothomb ***
33. La nostalgie heureuse by Amélie Nothomb ****
34. Liquidation by Imre Kertész**
35. Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson ***
36. Palo Alto by James Franco****

37. Ni d'Ève ni d'Adam by Amélie Nothomb **
38. Barbe bleue by Amélie Nothomb ***

39. Office Girl by Joe Meno ****

40. The Room by Jonas Karlsson *****

41. Penser l'islam by Michel Onfray ****
42. Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon *****

43. Self-Help, short stories by Lorrie Moore

44. The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville
45. She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of Medieval England by Helen Castor
46. Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin
47. Friendship by Emily Gould

48. Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag

49. This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More: For Young and Old Alike by Augusten Burroughs

51. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

52. The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan
53. Play it Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible by Alan Rusbridger

54. M Train by Patti Smith - amazing read!!

55. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides *****
56. Maurice Craig: Poems by Maurice Craig ****
57. Love and Summer by William Trevor **

58. Le Silence de la mer by Vercors *****
59. Contes d'Andersen : Tome 1 by Hans Christian Andersen ****
60. Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters by Marilyn Monroe ****
61. Night by Elie Wiesel *****
62. The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane Von Furstenberg **

63. Desperate Remedies, Thomas Hardy
64. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

65. Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice
66. Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak
67. The Doctor's Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
68. Ongoingness: The End of a Diary by Sarah Manguso
69. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
70. Boring Girls by Sara Taylor
71. Les rois maudits, Tome 1: Le Roi de fer / La Reine étranglée ; Les Poisons de la Couronne ; La Loi des mâles by Maurice Druon

72. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō
73. les rois maudits; tome 2 by Maurice Druon
74. Les Poisons de la Couronne by Maurice Druon
75. Les rois maudits - Tome 4 by Maurice Druon
76. Les Rois Maudits tome 5 by Maurice Druon
77. Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life by Joshua Fields Millburn
78. Le Lis et le Lion by Maurice Druon
79. Quand un roi perd la France by Maurice Druon
80. Pour un autre Moyen Age by Jacques Le Goff
81. Wink Murder by Ali Knight
82. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

83. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
84. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson
85. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2 by J.K. Rowling
86. If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley

87. Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin
88. Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
89. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
90. Detrash Your Life in 90 Days: Your Complete Guide to the Art of Zero Waste Living by Katie Patrick
91. Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England by Sarah Wise

92. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
93. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
94. Moonlight Shadow by Banana Yoshimoto
95. De l'obéissance: le régime chromatique: des journées entières sous le signe du B, du C, du W by Sophie Calle
96. Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
97. The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

Challenge over!

98. The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Stephen Grosz
99. Brendan Et Le Secret De Kells Tome 1 by Tomm Moore
100. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Congratulations on reaching your goal Violaine! Hope 2017 is as good a year :)

Congrats!

Thank you!
I can't find where to set a new challenge though, anyone knows?

I assume it'll let one do this in a few hours time, once it's 2017