Simon reads in 2022

Hi I'm Simon. I've done this challenge for the last few years & my TBR list has started to shrink - slowly but surely.

Setting myself a target of 20 books in 2022.

2022 Acquistions

All Souls - Javier Marías (✔)
Ways to Disappear - Idra Novey (✔)
Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams
The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
The Canterville Ghost, The Happy Prince And Other Stories - Oscar Wilde (✔)
The Mermaid of Black Couch - Monique Roffey
Little God Ben - J Jeferson Farjeon
Meet Cute Club - Jack Harbon (✔)
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories - HP Lovecraft
A Void - George Perec
How Late It was, How Late - James Kelman (✔)
Solaris - Stanislaw Lem
The Lodger - Marie Belloc Lowndes
Light Years - James Salter
Solo Faces - James Salter
The Big Bow Mystery - Israel Zangwill
Farewell, My Lovely - Raymond Chandler
The High Window - Raymond Chandler
Vinegar Girl - Anne Tyler
A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James
The Mysteries of Udolpho - Ann Radcliffe
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng
Manhatton Beach - Jennifer Egan

Still To Read From 2020/21
An Awfully Big Adventure - Beryl Bainbridge
Zazie in the Metro - Raymond Queneau
New Cardiff - Charles Webb
Pretty Maids All In A Row - Francis Pollini
Blindfold - Lucille Fletcher
The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even - Chris F. Westbury

Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights Volume 2
Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights Volume 3
The Following Story - Cees Nooteboom
The Man Within - Graham Greene

Happy New Year everyone. Good luck with all your bookish challenges!

Hi Simon, good to see you are back for another year of ROOTing. Happy New Year to you too.

Welcome back, and good luck with the ROOTing in 2022!

Welcome back and good luck with your goal!

Happy you are back with us!

Hi Simon, good luck with your reading goals for 2022!

Good luck!

Welcome back, and happy new year!

Happy off-the-shelf reading in 2022.

Happy ROOTing in 2022!

Hi Simon, happy reading in 2022!

Thanks everyone for all the positive messages.

Somehow I've managed to start three books at once. Something I never do - I'm very much a one-book-at-a-time reader. Which has its own frustrations.

1. Forever Ealing by George Perry

History of the film studio. I've used this for reference many times, but never sat down and read it properly until now.

Library Ebook - so not counting....

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
This is a thriller involving Cassie Bowden, the title character, who wakes up after a flight to Dubai next to a dead man. Cassie binge drinks to the point of blackout so her memory is hazy at best. Not reporting the crime she flees back to New York, but that only delays her problems.
While not doing anything original and being unevenly paced this is a mostly enjoyable read.

2.White Teeth by Zadie Smith

!st DNF of the year. Bad timing or just simply not for me!

3. A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

I bought this in 2018 after reading Wind/Pinball; an omnibus edition of the first two novels in this series. Some of the characters from those previous stories reappear, but 'A WIld Sheep Chase' can be read as a stand-alone. The plot revolves around trying to find out where a photograph of sheep grazing by a mountainside was taken, but that only touches on a deeply odd story of ear models, sheep-men and who may actually be running the world.

4. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Penguin Classics edition with notes and an introduction by Robert Mighall. Also included are reviews from the time - of the novel and the original story which 1st appeared in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. And Peter Ackroyd's intro to an earlier Pengiun edition.

Paperback acquired in September 2019.

5. The Beginning Of The World In The Middle Of The Night by Jen Campbell

12 short stories which mix fantasy, horror, humour, memory and odd pieces of information to varying degrees of success. The opening story 'Animals' and the last 'Bright White Hearts' were my favourites.

6. Natural Born Killers
The original screenplay by Quentin Tarantino. Not for me.

Hi Simon, I've been away from LT Threads for a while. Too much going on in my life the last months. I hope you are still going strong with your reading.

>20 si: I've read that when I was in high school and loved it back then!

>22 connie53: Hi Connie. I enjoyed 'Dorian Gray', one of those books I've wanted to read for years but somehow never picked-up. Until now.

7. Under My Skin by Sarah Dunant
This is a detective story. The third and final novel featuring Private Eye Hannah Wolfe. I read the first two books in this series many years ago but for some reason not this one.
This dates from 1995 and is set in and around London. The owner of Castle Dean Health Farm hires Hannah to find out who is trying to sabotage her business.

8. Dear Fahrenheit 451 A Librarian's Love Letters and Break-Up Notes To Her Books by Annie Spence

This is a fun way of talking about books in general while offering lots of recommendations and advise on reading. Spence is an American librarian and she talks about all the books that have touched her life, including library books she has to weed out at work, in her brief notes/letters - from a much read copy of Matilda missing a few pages to books which have never been checked out and are heading for the next book sale.

>24 si: I think my TBR pile may have just grown...

>25 Caramellunacy: hope you enjoy it!

Finished a library book, so ROOT total stalled on 8/20.

My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
This isn't a dark, violent thriller as the title might suggest - its original title 'Thicker Than Water' is actually a better description of the main theme of the story.
Set in Lagos, Korede, a nurse, protects her younger sister Ayoola whose boyfriends have a tendency to die suddenly!
Told in very short chapters this is a quick read. Involving and perfectly pitched between drama and black comedy.

I liked that one a lot. The writing had an almost formal tone, which makes it unique. I later read an Amazon Original short story by Braithwaite and liked that too.

>27 mstrust: Hi. I'll look out for that short story.
I'm reading another book at the moment with a first person narrator which unfortunately doesn't ring true. Matching the voice with the character is something you can take for granted in really good books.

I couldn't remember the name so had to look. It's called Treasure and it's a thriller.

>29 mstrust: Thanks!

Still in library mode...
Down The Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos
Translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey.

I didn't care for this story of the son of a Mexican drug lord who spends his days cut off from the world in a compound with only his father's employees ( a tutor, armed guards, servants..) for company.
Told in the voice of 7 year old Tochtli. The true story of his life (and probable future) emerges from the disparity between his view of events and the readers.
Short in length but certainly ambitious.

9. Towards The End Of The Morning by Michael Frayn

9th ROOT. I've owned this paperback copy since 1998.
This is a 1967 comic novel set around a London newspaper; particularly the men working in a dead-end department that gets all the jobs no-one else wants. Of it's time, but still an enjoyable read.

Completed a library book -

Stories of Your Life And Others by Ted Chiang
I don't read a great deal of science fiction but this is a highly rated collection of short stories ( and they made a film of the title story) so I reserved it online and for once it promptly appeared at my local library!

These are 'what if' type stories rather than spaceships and alien invasions and are very interesting if a little worthy.

Stories included are -
Tower of Babylon
Understand
Division by Zero
Story of Your Life
Seventy-Two Letters
The Evolution of Human Science
Hell is the Absence of God
Liking What You See: A Documentary

Good luck with your challenge! I wish you much success, I've done the same thing from time to time... start multiple books... can be tricky keeping track and not mingling the plots and characters all together! Hang in there. If you get the chance try Two IF By Sea by Rick McCann, my book a mystery thriller with some spice. Enjoy your reads!

>34 subguy: Hi Rick, thanks for dropping by. You are welcome to join us - you can open a thread and start a challenge at any time.

10. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Reached the half-way point of my challenge - ahead of schedule! Nice to have a bit of leeway, perhaps for some longer reads.

I read a paperback edition, which I've had for nearly 6 years. Part of me would happily carry straight on with the sequel, but I think I'll wait a while.

Hurray for reaching the halfway point on your challenge!

>37 rabbitprincess: Thanks!

>36 si: Fabulous progress, congrats!

>36 si: Thanks Birgit.

11. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
This is a deep ROOT, dating back to the time of the film version!

Library book:

The Wicked Boy: An Infamous Murder In Victorian London by Kate Summerscale
Non-fiction account of the murder of Emily Coombes in Plaistow, London on the night of the 7th July 1895; the trial that followed and the fate of the people involved.
The story of Emily's oldest son, Robert Coombes, which Summerscale's painstaking research uncovered is totally engrossing.

ROOT:

12. The West End Horror by Nicholas Meyer
Meyer's second Sherlock Holmes mystery. Set in London in 1895. A less troubled Holmes than in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution investigates the murder of a theatre critic.
As in the first book real-life people mix with the fictional. Here we meet George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde (just before he's jailed), Bram Stoker (secretly writing a novel) and so on.
Less interesting than The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and fairly short; I finished it in a day. But its enjoyable and diverting.

13. Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey

ROOT. A recent buy. 10 May.
The disappearance of a writer in Brazil is the impetus her American translator needs to leave snow-bound Pittsburgh and her dull boyfriend and head for Rio.
While not exactly the book I was expecting - it turns into a more bittersweet tale than the fast-paced comedy/mystery/romance opening - I loved the final few chapters.

14. A Fool's Alphabet by Sebastian Faulks

finished library ebook -

Fleabag The Special Edition by Phoebe Waller-Bridge
This is the original play which inspired the tv show.

Morning, Simon!
You've read some good ones, and I had no idea that Fleabag had been a play.

>46 mstrust: Hi Jennifer. I don't think I was aware of the play either when I watched to tv series.

15. Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
Translated from Japanese by Alfred Birnbaum

Four years after the events in A Wild Sheep Chase, our unnamed narrator returns to the Dolphin Hotel hoping to find some answers!
Not a patch unfortunately on the previous book. It has its moments but meanders all over the place for nearly 400 pages.

Hi Simon. I've been neglecting the ROOTers for some time. Live, sunny days, babysitting the grandkids and doing volunteer work for the library at Lonne's school. And reading of course. Today is a rainy day with some thunderstrokes. A perfect Sunday for reading al those neglected threads.

Good to read you have reached the halfway point! A bit late with my congratulations, but that's a real good job!

>49 connie53:. Thanks Connie, hope you're having a good week-end.

No ROOTs to report. Enjoying (abet slowly) an Oscar Wilde short story collection. Hope to finish this month.

I have finished two library books -
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. This was pipped this week by The Book of Form And Emptiness for 'The Women's Prize for Fiction'. I really enjoyed it. It takes a while to decide where it wants to go, but the second half is the most moving thing I've read this year.

Also read an essay on nature. Walking by Henry David Thoreau. Found a Ebook via the library. Alternatively you can find this on Project Gutenberg. Based on a speech first given in 1851. A little dull in parts and rambling - excuse the pun - but worth the effect for his descriptions of the nature world.

>51 si: I read Walden by Thoreau and think 'a little dull in parts and rambling' sums up his writing perfectly. I desperately wanted more nature description and less philosophising.

>52 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie. Thankfully walking is fairly short.

16. The Canterville Ghost, The Happy Prince and Other Stories

Unwieldy title for a 'best of' collection of Oscar Wilde's short fiction. The Fisherman and His Soul overstays its welcome but otherwise really good.
Stories included -
The Happy Prince
The Nightingale and the Rose
The Selfish Giant
The Devoted Friend
The Remarkable Rocket
The Young King
The Birthday of the Infanta
The Fisherman and His Soul
The Star-Child
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
The Sphinx Without a Secret
The Canterville Ghost
The Model Millionaire

17th Root -

All Souls by Javier Marias Translated from Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa.
I have some later books by Marias in which some characters, settings, etc reappear from this book. Probably not necessary to read this first, but knowing inevitably lead to looking for, and finding lead to buying!

This is a campus novel about a Spanish lecturer looking back at his time living and working in Oxford in the 1980s and his affair with the wife of a fellow Professor.
An interesting, if overly world weary, outsider's viewpoint and a morbid dark humour make for an engaging read.

18. The Island of Doctor Moreau and Other Stories by H G Wells

In addition to the title story this volume includes Aepyornis Island, The Sea Raiders & The Empire of the Ants.
Its been a long time since I've read any HG Wells. These stories are all pretty dark; Moreau particularly is unsettling, even a 100+ years on from its 1st publication.

Hi Simon. Just popping in to say HI!

finished one library book - Autumn & one ROOT -

19. The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
First of the Sally Lockhart series. I remember buying this on holiday way back in 2004. I can still picture the bookshop. Very dark for a children's book - more Y/A I guess than middle-grade. Quiet a lot of loose ends, but very well written as you'd expect from Philip Pullman.

>56 si: I read that just about three or four years ago and was surprised by how disturbing it still is. I also read Empire of the Ants and was disappointed that it was nothing like the movie ;-D

>59 mstrust: I have a soft spot for B-movie horror films. And while Empire of the Ants perhaps looses some of H G Wells's ecological message it does have Joan Collins being attacked by giant killer ants!

20. A Very Private Life by Michael Frayn
4th novel from Michael Frayn published in 1968; I picked up a paperback edition back in 1997.
This is a dystopian story told in the form of a fable with a lot of elements which are all to familiar. From people working from home via computer screens to mood controlling drugs. An interesting read. Perhaps would be better known but for the bland title.

20th ROOT means I've hit my target for the year!

Congratulations!

>60 si: And Sgt. Getraer getting what he deserved too! What a movie!

Congratulations on reaching your goal!

>62 MissWatson: Thanks Birgit. Good luck with A Greater Place of Safety, it looks ridiculously long.

>63 mstrust: Hi. Wow! Long time since I watched CHiPs. Not a connection I'd automatically make

>64 Henrik_Madsen:. Thanks. Looks like you're reading a lot of interesting books.

>66 si: Thanks for the good wishes. My heart sank a little when I looked at the page count, and unless it turns out to be absolutely riveting I'll probably take breaks to read other stuff.

>61 si: Congrats on reaching your target!

>69 rabbitprincess: Thanks.

ROOT 21.
The Woman in the Fifth by Douglas Kennedy
© 2007. 422pp
Harry Ricks arrives in Paris having runaway from the nightmare his life in America has become. Illness & a series of bad decisions further complicate his life and he finds himself broke and working as a night-watchman for a criminal gang. Meeting the mysterious Margit Kadar at a party offers a glimmer of hope, but then people around him start to die.

Reader's opinions of this book seem to tip one way or another depending how they react to the change of direction the story takes after the arrival of Margit. Having seen the film adaption I missed out on the surprise elements of the plot, but I still enjoyed the novel; which has some significant differences to the film.

22. The Memoirs of a Survivor

Doris Lessing's dystopian novel from 1974. I acquired my paperback copy in 1991. I've try to read this before so its good to have finally finished this book.

also completed a library book - The Man Who Died Twice; an enjoyable sequel.

23. How Late It Was, How Late

James Kelman's 1994 Booker Prize winner.

Sammy Samuels is the seriously unreliable narrator of this stream of consciousness novel, wriiten in Scottish dialect at a helter skelter, headache inducing pace. I won't attempt the plot as everything Sammy says is questionable and absolutely nothing is resolved at the end. Strangely compelling.

Congrats on reaching your goal!

>73 connie53:. Thank you and congratulations on reaching your own target.

Thanks!

Completed a library book -

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot
I've been meaning to read this for a few years. Glad I finally picked it up. This is a memoir which won the Wainwright Prize for nature writing n 2016. This year's winners have recently been announced - The Instant made the short list.

>76 si: I really loved this book. The Instant is on my wishlist - she's a fabulous writer.

>77 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie. The Instant does sound intriguing. One more for the wishlist indeed!

Read a couple of short stories and an overlong novel - none of which count as Roots!

Treasure by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Thanks to >29 mstrust: for the recommendation. Also read another of her short stories called 'One Chance' (a short horror story by..) which I found via the author's own website.

And I finally finished The Living Dead by George A Romero & Daniel Kraus.

24. The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill
After appearing in a serial form in 'The Star' newspaper this whodunnit was first published as a novel in 1892. In his own introduction Zangwill admits he likes to write with a lot of humour, so this mystery lacks any real tension until the end and the story gives you little in the way of clues to the culpit. But the writing is good and still funny at times. And at 160 pages is a fairly quick read.

>80 si: Interesting! I've got a couple of Zangwill books but haven't read any of them yet. Is the one you read written originally in English or is it translated?

>81 rocketjk: Hi. No mention of a translator on the copy I have. I assumed it was written in English. Looks like this is his only crime novel.
His Wikipedia page makes for interesting reading. His family background suggests he probably grow up in a multi-lingual environment.

25. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H P Lovecraft

I bought this in 2017.
This is a story of the occult told in painstaking detail and at a steady, often very slow pace. It starts with the title character disappearing from a hospital for the insane, cira 1928, after which his doctor, Marinus Bicknell Willett, take us through the previous events as he has come to see them, based on letters, eyewitnesses, various historical sources and Ward's own actions and testimonies. Oddly hypnotic if a tad over-long.

I read that one a few years ago. I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to Lovecraft, but it develops into a somewhat disturbing story that fits in with his catalog of work.

>84 mstrust:. Hi Jennifer, hope you are enjoying the run up to Halloween!

Thanks, I am, though I'm busy busy busy!

At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison

Library Book.
New to me writer. Story of various people who find themselves in a present-day, small rural English village. The focus is on their every day problems - relationships, work, etc. And the changing face of village life.

Will look out for her other books.

also finished ebook of -
Xingu which is a fun quick read

>87 si: Oh I love Melissa Harrison, she's a terrific writer. Her non-fic is great too.

>88 Jackie_K: Hi. I don't read enough non-fiction. With Non-Fiction November on the horizon maybe I'll try another Melissa Harrison. Famous last words and all that...

ETA: As predicted I've had no lucky finding anything by Melissa Harrison I'm drawn to at the moment. My local library's website drives my to distraction at times.

Finished one book, not a root -
Fun Home, Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir.

non-root:
Silent Nights Christmas Mysteries compiled by Martin Edwards
15 Christmas themed short story mysteries.

ROOT 26.
Control by William Goldman
Of all the books I can put a date to this is/was my longest standing unread book. It's a ex-library book I acquired back in 1985.
This is a thriller with a really clever sci-fi/horror conceit which when revealed pulls a lot of disparate elements together for a fairly tense finish.

Congrats on finally getting to Control and finding it was a good one!

>91 mstrust: thanks!

Hope to read one more ROOT before the year's end, but for now I have a few library books on the go. One of which I've just finished -

Voices. Fifth book in Arnaldur Indridson series of crime novels. Translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder. Its the week before Christmas and a hotel's Santa Clause has been murdered!
Not as bleak as previous books in the series, but does continue running themes of domestic abuse and childhood trauma.

Couple of non-roots to add, both non-fiction and both very enjoyable...

Rain: four Walks in English Weather by Melissa Harrison

Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are Old and Wise by Katherine Rundell

>93 si: I enjoyed Rain: four walks in English Weather very much too. The last section, where she scatters her mum's ashes, was really moving.

I've not read anything by Katherine Rundell, but she recently won the Baillie Gifford Prize, and her latest book The Golden Mole and Other Living Treasure looks fantastic, I really want to get hold of that.

>94 Jackie_K: Hi Jackie.

ROOT 27. Cards on the Table

Although primary a Poirot mystery this story does include some of Agatha Christie's other recurring characters - Ariadne Oliver, Superintendent Battle & Colonel Race - who help out with the investigation.

Hi Simon! I want to wish you and yours all the best for 2023 and Happy Holidays!
See you with the ROOTers in 2023.

>96 connie53:. Happy Christmas Connie!

Merry Christmas Everyone. Best wishes for the festive season.

28. If Morning Ever Comes

Anne Tyler's debut novel from 1964. Set in New York & North Carolina. Family drama about the Hawkes family; particularly Ben Joe who is struggling with life away from his mom & six sisters.