Vestafan's ROOTing still not complete!

ROOTing is probably going backwards as I think I bought more books than I read from my TBR pile in 2022. Still, I am trying for a target of 60 again this year, that's 5 a month. That's easy enough at the beginning of the year when every book I have was bought before 2023 (my definition of a ROOT). It gets harder towards the end of the year when I am tempted by the interesting stuff that's caught my eye in the current year.

Welcome back!

Welcome back, and good luck with your target!

Welcome back and have a great reading year!

Happy ROOTing!

Happy New Year, Sue. And Happy ROOTing in 2023.

Thank you to everyone for their greetings. I have made a good start to the ROOT-ing year with 8 reads this month:

The Creak on the Stairs by E B Aegisdottir
Girls Who Lie by E B Aegisdottir
Night Shadows by E B Aegisdottir
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
Heart of the Original by Steve Aylett
Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker
Local Gone Missing by Fiona Barton
and
You Took the Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston

Hi Sue, nice list of ROOTs read! Two of the links lead me to other books though, number 3 and 5.

>8 connie53: Thanks for letting me know - I've taken the links off.

I hope your reading year has started well.

Seven more ROOTs read this month (not bad as its a short one):

The Power by Naomi Alderman - what if women gained the power to give electric shocks to others?
A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson - a romance set in Austria just before WWII - the setting is interesting but the main female character is an annoyingly perfect domestic goddess
The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell - The effect of hoarding on family dynamics, particularly when exacerbated by a domestic trauma
The Lost Boys by Faye Kellerman - the latest Decker and Lazarus novel
The Museum of Desires by Jonathan Kellerman - another Alex Delaware novel
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp by A L Kennedy - an extended essay about the WWII film by Powell and Pressburger
and
True Crime Story by Joseph Knox - a crime novel set in Manchester where a writer begins investigating a cold case involving the disappearance of a student

A very good ROOT month!

I've read 5 more ROOTs this month:

Local Girl Missing by Claire Douglas - what happened to a woman's best friend when she disappeared? And have her remains been found? - an enjoyable crime novel, but I began to get an inkling of the resolution about halfway through the book
The Katharina Code by Jorn Lier Horst - a Wisting novel which I enjoyed, although Wisting has one of those slightly annoying detective's daughters who are always getting into dangerous situations.
IQ by Joe Ide - the first of a series featuring a young msn in the USA with Sherlock Holmes-like deductive skills - I shall probably look for more by this author
The Seducer's Diary by Soren Kierkegaard - One of the Penguin Great Loves series but I think that's a bit of a misnomer, as this is a description of a man's plan to manipulate a woman and eventually seduce her - all described very coldly.
He Who Hesitates by Ed McBain - a slightly unusual entry in the 87th Precinct series, seen from the criminal's point of view rather than the police.

Six more ROOTs this month:

Cat and Mouse by M J Arlidge - compulsive fast read - a crime novel set in Southampton with one of those incredibly intelligent and unpleasant villains that you hope don't exist in real life
Serious Concerns by Wendy Cope - wryly humorous poems with an undercurrent of melancholy
Spider Woman by Lady Hale - memoir by the first female president of the UK Supreme Court
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller - in adulthood, a woman has to face up to something that happened in her teenage years - all parental authority figures seem to be weak or toxic
The Cabin by Jorn Lier Horst - enjoyable Scandinavian police procedural
and
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim - charming novel about the transformative effects of place

That amount of ROOTs read is amazing. Keep it up, Sue. I had some trouble with the links again.

If you like the book by M.J. Arlidge, all his books are great and easy to read. I know, I have all his books if they are translated (14 in total).

I hope you are doing fine and keep on reading.

>14 connie53: Yes, they are easy reads, and I think I am up to date with the Helen Grace series. I will check the links again!

Six more ROOTs to report this month:

Fall of a Philanderer by Carola Dunn
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
The Inner Darkness by Jorn Lier Horst
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer
The Fallout by Yrsa Sigurdardottir
The Lost Diaries of Nigel Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans

I have four ROOTs to report this month:

The Hills is Lonely by Lilian Beckwith
The Man from Beijing by Henning Mankell
Playing to the Gallery by Grayson Perry - a short an accessible introduction to, and demystification of, modern art.
and
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

You are doing great with your ROOTs, Sue.

I loved the book by Stuart Turton. I hope you did so too.

>18 connie53: Thank you, I did, although I felt the concept was so complicated that no ending could live up to it!

I've managed five ROOTs this month:

The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly
Red Snow by Will Dean
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
The Blessing by Nancy Mitford
and
Summerwater by Sarah Moss

>19 vestafan: True!

Just 2 ROOTs this month (lots of new purchases and library books as well):

Blood on the Tracks edited by Martin Edwards
and
Jigsaw by Ed Mcbain

Five ROOTs this month:

When It Grows Dark by Jorn Lier Horst
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor
Dear Little Corpses by Nicola Upson
Square Haunting by Francesca Wade
Hand Grenade Practice in Peking by Frances Wood

Six more ROOTs during October:

A Winter Book by Tove Jansson
Crudo by Olivia Laing
A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin
Things I Don't Want to Know by Deborah Levy
Circles and Squares by Caroline Maclean
and
Fallen Angels by Gunnar Staalesen

>24 vestafan: Hello, I think you should check your touchstones, carefully. At least three of them do not match

>25 EGBERTINA: Thanks for the tip-off - I'll do that.

Six more ROOTs during October:

A Winter's Book by Tove Jansson
Crudo by Olivia Laing
A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin
Things I Don't Want to Know by Deborah Levy
Circles and Squares by Caroline Maclean
and
Fallen Angels by Gunnar Staalesen

I managed 7 ROOTs this month:

Any Human Heart by William Boyd
The Woman on the Island by Ann Cleeves
Black River by Will Dean
The Text by Claire Douglas
The Tower by Kate London
Difficult Women by Helen Lewis
and
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

To finish the year, I read 4 ROOTs in December:

Death in White Pyjamas and Death Knows No Calendar by John Bude - one of the British Library Crime Classic series, with both novels depending on cunning gadgetry for the murder to be committed
A Question of Guilt by Jorn Lier Horst - another in the enjoyable Wisting series
Sadie When She Died by Ed McBain - another 87th Precinct novel
and
The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart - a romantic mystery written in the 1960s - I hadn't read a book in this genre for ages, but I enjoyed the highly charged atmosphere and the certainty of who the heroine would end up with.

>29 vestafan: I just started reading The Ivy Tree and am enjoying the setting especially (although I had a moment of sadness over the sycamore she mentions).