The Book Thread 2025

[UncertainSloth]

Here’s to hoping I can contribute more this year, rather than just disappearing…

Currently reading: All the Fiends of Hell - Adam Nevill

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And we're off! Thanks for starting this, UncertainSloth: I've stickied it.

1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

This was a good start. Set in an English village during the harsh winter of 1962/3, it features two couples, both of them mismatched. There's a good review here, although it seems I found the novel bleaker than the reviewer did.

[kiore]

OK I'll try seems unlikely my reading list will be completed but as have lots of travel planned for the year with long flights I may read most of my planned ones.
Currently: The Scapegoat, a biography of the Duke of Buckingham, favourite of James I and Charles I by Lucy Hughes-Hallet, one of the 4 books I got for xmas. Author usually a novelist trying her hand at history, had anticipated a narrative style but this 600 + pages seem to be very detailed.

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1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

From the author of A Gentleman in Moscow, this offers wonderful storytelling and interesting characters. Engaging and enjoyable.

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1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
3. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon

Syracuse, 412BCE: two friends, who sound like contemporary Dubliners, decide to stage Euripedes with captured enemy soldiers. It's about human cruelty, friendship, love, art and reconciliation; very good, absorbing, but harrowing in places.

[NamelessFaceless]

1. The Barrens - Rosamond Smith (pseudonym of Joyce Carol Oates)

That's the last of the Rosamond Smith series for JCO. Really not sure why she chose to use a pseudo. The series revolved around twins. I joined a neighborhood Book Club (discussions are on FaceBook) and the first book they chose is The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. I'm about 3 chapters in and remembering why I don't do book clubs. It's just not my kind of book. Everyone keeps talking about how much they cried.

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1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
3. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
4. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

My word, this writer is a great storyteller. Check him out if you haven't already done so.

[kiore]

OK I'll try seems unlikely my reading list will be completed but as have lots of travel planned for the year with long flights I may read most of my planned ones.
Currently: The Scapegoat, a biography of the Duke of Buckingham, favourite of James I and Charles I by Lucy Hughes-Hallet, one of the 4 books I got for xmas. Author usually a novelist trying her hand at history, had anticipated a narrative style but this 600 + pages seem to be very detailed.

Seriously this book was a surprise and for the amateur historians out there, an unexpected bonus. Highly recommended as source materiel.

[kiore]

Next up another xmas gift: The Warrior King and the Invasion of France . Henry V by Desmond Seward. OMG it as if the people that know me think I am interested by medieval history.

[NamelessFaceless]

4. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

My word, this writer is a great storyteller. Check him out if you haven't already done so.

That one's on my list! I read A Gentleman in Moscow last year and loved, loved, loved it! And the mini-series was excellent too!

[NamelessFaceless]

1. The Barrens - Rosamond Smith (pseudonym of Joyce Carol Oates)
2. Native Son - Richard Wright

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1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
3. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
4. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
5. Table for Two by Amor Towles

A novella and several short stories from one of my (now) favourite writers.

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1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
3. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
4. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
5. Table for Two by Amor Towles
6. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler

Woman who has spent her life satisfying the demands of others... I would never normally choose something based on that synopsis, but this is Anne Tyler, so of course it's far better than it sounds.

ETA no spoilers

[Blip]

1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
3. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
4. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
5. Table for Two by Amor Towles
6. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
7. The Beaver Theory by Antti Tuomainen translated by David Hackston

Finnish noir subverted; very good and darkly amusing. I love this author.

[kiore]

OK so a slow start for me this year, all history books:
1) The Scapegoat (the brilliant brief like of the Duke of Buckingham). Lucy Hughes Hallet.
2) The Warrior King and the Invasion of France (Henry V, Agincourt, and the campaign that shaped medieval England). Desmond Seward.
3) The Wide Wide Sea (Imperial ambition, First contact and the fateful final voyage of Cpt James Cook). Hamptom Sides.

[NamelessFaceless]

1. The Barrens - Rosamond Smith (pseudonym of Joyce Carol Oates)
2. Native Son - Richard Wright
3. And Give Up Showbiz? How Fred Levin Beat Big Tobacco, Avoided Two Murder Prosecutions, Became a Chief of Ghana, Earned Boxing Manager of the Year, and Transformed American Law - Josh Young
4. The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah

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1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
3. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
4. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
5. Table for Two by Amor Towles
6. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
7. The Beaver Theory by Antti Tuomainen translated by David Hackston
8. The Burning Stones by Antii Tuomainen translated by David Hackston

Another helping of quirky Finnish noir.

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1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
3. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
4. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
5. Table for Two by Amor Towles
6. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
7. The Beaver Theory by Antti Tuomainen translated by David Hackston
8. The Burning Stones by Antii Tuomainen translated by David Hackston
9. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore translated by Surendranath Tagore

A classic, of course, and justly so, describing political and personal conflict in British-occupied India; of its time (1916) in its depiction of women, obviously in describing their constrained lives, but also in unconvincing cross-gender narration.

[Blip]

1. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
2. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
3. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
4. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
5. Table for Two by Amor Towles
6. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
7. The Beaver Theory by Antti Tuomainen translated by David Hackston
8. The Burning Stones by Antii Tuomainen translated by David Hackston
9. The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore translated by Surendranath Tagore
10. French Exit by Patrick Dewitt

Recommended to me by our very own Felltoearth, this tale of a bankrupt widow who flees to Paris with her adult son and her cat is burlesque, original and really rather dark.