The Book Thread 2024

[don't get me started]

19. One Day by David Nicholls

This has been cropping up in various contexts, not least in the recent log here by don't get me started, so I surrendered and read it. I enjoyed it, the more so because it didn't pan out as I expected.

Glad you enjoyed it.
TBH, if I hadn't watched the Netflix series, it is not the kind of thing that I'd have picked off a bookshelf. Yeah, the ending was a bit....yeah, no spoilers.

[don't get me started]

1. The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week - Eviatar Zerubavel 206 pp.
2. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster - Rebecca Solint 368 pp.
3. The Language Game: How Improvisation Cteated Language and Changed the World -Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater 349 pp.
4. One Day - David Nichols 480 pp.
5. The Greatest Invention: A history of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts - Silvia Ferarra (Translated by Todd Portnowitz) 289.pp

6. Book Parts - Dennis Duncan & Adam Smyth (Eds.) 320 pp.

I picked this up on a whim and thoroughly enjoyed it. The physical object we call a book is so much more than the words of the author set out plain. This book charts - in chapters by various authors- the development of the diverse components of the modern cultural artifact called a book. The epigrams and epigraphs, addresses to the reader, acknowledgments and front matter. The system of pagination, tables of contents, indexes, dust jackets, blurbs and so on are all described as emerging over centuries of trial and error, what was in fashion, what dropped out of fashion, what was technically possible and what was not at different points of time. I know from my own experiences of publishing (so far papers in academic journals and a few book chapters in edited collections..but a book in the works as I write) that the journey from opening a new file on my computer to the final publication is a long and arduous one. One topic that was not included was the reference list for academic works. I loathe writing reference lists, (I use APA) but so much of my reading these days is guided by reference lists that I am grateful to other authors for being so comprehensive...
Perhaps not to everyone's taste- some of the chapters are rather specialist- but a nice read for this bibliophile.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson

In the author's Jackson Brodie series, this is pretty dark, being about paedophile rings and sex trafficking. It's good, although the ending puzzled me a little. Still, don't let that put you off.

[don't get me started]

1. The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week - Eviatar Zerubavel 206 pp.
2. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster - Rebecca Solint 368 pp.
3. The Language Game: How Improvisation Cteated Language and Changed the World -Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater 349 pp.
4. One Day - David Nichols 480 pp.
5. The Greatest Invention: A history of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts - Silvia Ferarra (Translated by Todd Portnowitz) 289.pp
6. Book Parts - Dennis Duncan & Adam Smyth (Eds.) 320 pp.

7. Language and Time: A Cognitive Linguistics Approach - Vyvyan Evans 266 pp.

A very academic look at the ways that language, cognition, metaphor and perception all work together to express temporal notions. One of the basic observations is that we tend to use spatial frames of reference to express temporality. This could be the moving time metaphor (Christmas is coming up soon) or the moving ego metaphor (I'm coming up to my 40th birthday). Unsurprisingly, people tend to think of now as here, drawing on a spatial location concept to anchor past and future reference. Now, in English we tend to think of the future as being 'ahead' of us and the past as 'behind' us. This draws on our experience of moving through space towards some goal. In the language Aymara spoken in the Bolivian Andes, the situation is reverse and the future is behind the self, and the past is in front. This seems to be based not on the ego moving through space metaphor, but on the field of vision metaphor...the past is available to 'view' (through memory), whilst the future is unknown in the sense of unseen, lying outside our visual field- namely behind us.
Some aspect or temporal expression are based on very basic experiential foundations, but sometimes it is more cultural. English speakers tend to gesture a sequence as moving from left to right- the same direction as writing. But Arabic speakers in one study quoted in the book expressed unfolding sequences of events as going from right to left...matching the writing direction of that language.

There was a lot more in this book besides these points...much of it very technical and expressed in very dense academic prose. I've been reading this book on and off for some weeks...it has been quite a challenge and not at all suitable for the casual reader. Glad I read it- glad I finished reading it.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

The 1987 Booker winner. Not sure what the authorial intent was with the protagonist: I wonder if the reader is supposed to find her flawed but feisty. I found her self obsession pretty loathsome but I really enjoyed the multiple viewpoint narration, which works well in this tale of incest and thwarted love.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler

Had to wait in this morning and read this diverting little tale in more or less a single sitting.

[don't get me started]

1. The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week - Eviatar Zerubavel 206 pp.
2. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster - Rebecca Solint 368 pp.
3. The Language Game: How Improvisation Cteated Language and Changed the World -Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater 349 pp.
4. One Day - David Nichols 480 pp.
5. The Greatest Invention: A history of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts - Silvia Ferarra (Translated by Todd Portnowitz) 289.pp
6. Book Parts - Dennis Duncan & Adam Smyth (Eds.) 320 pp.
7. Language and Time: A Cognitive Linguistics Approach - Vyvyan Evans 266 pp.

8. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World - Catherine Nixey - 305 pp.

Well that was grim reading. The author maps out in meticulous and well-footnoted detail the destruction wrought by the rise of Christianity following the conversion of Constantine. The sheer level of savagery is astounding. Mobs of Christians smashing temples and statuary that had stood for a millennium. Whole libraries going up in smoke as lunatic extremists sought to obliterate any kind of thought other than Christianity. Some scholars estimate that only about 1% of Latin literature survived the assault. There is the ever increasing repression and the bloody lawlessness of monks and zealots as they murdered almost at will those they deemed demonic. (The murder of the Alexandrian philosopher Hypatia in 415 by a mob of crazed Christians who beat her to death and then dismembered her in public is one of the best known instances, but far from a rarity.)

The full scale descent into irrationality, narrow minded piety, the celebration of ignorance and emotionalism is all detailed in measured prose along with the establishment of the misogyny, homophobia, anti-Jewishenss and other hatreds that remained the legacy of the Christian takeover for centuries to come.

In addition to the repressive and tyrannical ways that the church fathers set about cementing their rule, the author also details the post-hoc whitewashing of the rise of Christianity. The tales of those martyred in the Roman era persecutions are hugely overblown- while the much more violent persecutions of pagans that took place after Christianity gained the upper hand is just not part of the story. Similarly, the notion that it was the monks and monasteries that were the repositories of classical learning is a self-serving lie. The classical legacy that survived was more by chance than design, and the church itself was responsible for more destruction of the classical intellectual heritage than the Germanic invasions. And, as the author grimly summarizes at the end, perhaps the greatest lie and disservice is the way in which the church implied that the spread of Christianity was done more or less with the active consent of the peoples of the empire. "Christianity told the generations that followed that their victory over the old world was celebrated by all, and the generations that followed believed it." (p.246).

In interesting book and a timely warning, perhaps, of the fate of civilizations once extremist followers of this absolutist desert cult get their hands on the reins of power.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood

I should know better by now; I am not the target audience for a novel such as this.

[don't get me started]

1. The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week - Eviatar Zerubavel 206 pp.
2. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster - Rebecca Solint 368 pp.
3. The Language Game: How Improvisation Cteated Language and Changed the World -Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater 349 pp.
4. One Day - David Nichols 480 pp.
5. The Greatest Invention: A history of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts - Silvia Ferarra (Translated by Todd Portnowitz) 289.pp
6. Book Parts - Dennis Duncan & Adam Smyth (Eds.) 320 pp.
7. Language and Time: A Cognitive Linguistics Approach - Vyvyan Evans 266 pp.
8. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World - Catherine Nixey - 305 pp.

9. Existential Sentences: Their structure and meaning -Michael Lumsden 256 pp.

"I should know better by now; I am not the target audience for a linguistics book such as this."

Yep, generative, honky-chomsky linguistics. There was a lot of stuff here that I flat out disagreed with and a lot of stuff about existential statements that I thought would have been interesting avenues for investigation that were not mentioned.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
24. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx

Much more my cup of tea, yarns from the Texas Panhandle with a wide cast of characters and an ecological message.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
24. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
25. Barkskins by Annie Proulx

Dynastic saga, featuring a north American logging company over several centuries, about human destruction of the earth's forests, displacement of indigenous people, and more.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
24. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
25. Barkskins by Annie Proulx
26. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

An affair between a teacher and a pupil is used, unwisely, by local drama students as the basis of a production. There's more to this undoubtedly original debut novel than that: take a look at The Guardian's review for additional info. I probably wasn't quite as impressed as the reviewer, but nonetheless this is an interesting read.

[don't get me started]

1. The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week - Eviatar Zerubavel 206 pp.
2. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster - Rebecca Solint 368 pp.
3. The Language Game: How Improvisation Cteated Language and Changed the World -Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater 349 pp.
4. One Day - David Nichols 480 pp.
5. The Greatest Invention: A history of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts - Silvia Ferarra (Translated by Todd Portnowitz) 289.pp
6. Book Parts - Dennis Duncan & Adam Smyth (Eds.) 320 pp.
7. Language and Time: A Cognitive Linguistics Approach - Vyvyan Evans 266 pp.
8. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World - Catherine Nixey - 305 pp.
9. Existential Sentences: Their structure and meaning -Michael Lumsden 256 pp.

10. Memory's Legion - James S.A. Corey 422. pp

A collection of short stories based in the universe of 'The Expanse'. I loved the show and really enjoyed reading this. This is good, thoughtful and mature SF.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
24. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
25. Barkskins by Annie Proulx
26. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
27. The House at the Edge of the Woods by Rachel Hancox

I bought this because it's partly set near here, but there wasn't much sense of place, so that was disappointing. Also I can't help feeling the author takes some liberties with her characterisations to put the reader off the scent. Still, it's not a bad whodunnit.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
24. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
25. Barkskins by Annie Proulx
26. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
27. The House at the Edge of the Woods by Rachel Hancox
28. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This is really rather good. I gather it's considered a modern classic of its genre - psychological thrillers, I suppose - and I can see why. Gripping stuff.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
24. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
25. Barkskins by Annie Proulx
26. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
27. The House at the Edge of the Woods by Rachel Hancox
28. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
29. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

Learned about this, and my previous read, from an article about female thriller writers. Not as outstanding as the Flynn, in my view, but contains a pleasing twist.

[don't get me started]

1. The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week - Eviatar Zerubavel 206 pp.
2. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster - Rebecca Solint 368 pp.
3. The Language Game: How Improvisation Cteated Language and Changed the World -Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater 349 pp.
4. One Day - David Nichols 480 pp.
5. The Greatest Invention: A history of the World in Nine Mysterious Scripts - Silvia Ferarra (Translated by Todd Portnowitz) 289.pp
6. Book Parts - Dennis Duncan & Adam Smyth (Eds.) 320 pp.
7. Language and Time: A Cognitive Linguistics Approach - Vyvyan Evans 266 pp.
8. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World - Catherine Nixey - 305 pp.
9. Existential Sentences: Their structure and meaning -Michael Lumsden 256 pp.
10. Memory's Legion - James S.A. Corey 422. pp

11. The English Language - by Charles Barber, Joan Beal and Philip Shaw 320 pp.

A very readable and thorough description of the history of the English language, charting the development from Proto Indo-European roots right up to the present day. I was familiar with large parts of the story, but there was much detail here that filled in some gaps in my knowledge.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
24. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
25. Barkskins by Annie Proulx
26. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
27. The House at the Edge of the Woods by Rachel Hancox
28. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
29. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
30. Satantango by László Krasznahorkai translated by George Szirtes with new passages translated by Ottilie Mulzet

Very clever, very postmodern, but I lost interest early on.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
24. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
25. Barkskins by Annie Proulx
26. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
27. The House at the Edge of the Woods by Rachel Hancox
28. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
29. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
30. Satantango by László Krasznahorkai translated by George Szirtes with new passages translated by Ottilie Mulzet
31. The Details by Ia Genberg translated by Kira Josefsson

Well this is an 'international bestseller' and has been shortlisted for this year's International Booker; for me it's a bit of a curate's egg. There are four sections, each describing one of the narrator's significant relationships: two of these I enjoyed, the other two, not so much.

[Blip]

1. Julia by Sandra Newman
2. The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman
3. Lord Jim at Home by Dinah Brooke
4. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
5. The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
6. The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom
7. A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin
8. Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo translated by Douglas J. Weatherford
9. Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
10. The Little Black Book of Artificial Intelligence by Kyle Taylor
11. Loot by Tania James
12. The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
13. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
14. The Shadow Child by Rachel Hancox
15. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
16. The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past by Shaun Walker
17. Fourteen Days edited by Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston
18. The Nix by Nathan Hill
19. One Day by David Nicholls
20. Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
21. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
22. Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
23. The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
24. That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx
25. Barkskins by Annie Proulx
26. The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
27. The House at the Edge of the Woods by Rachel Hancox
28. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
29. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
30. Satantango by László Krasznahorkai translated by George Szirtes with new passages translated by Ottilie Mulzet
31. The Details by Ia Genberg translated by Kira Josefsson
32. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

Precocious pre-teen angst during the apocalypse.