booklists
New Year – New Me (Or probably same old me)
As ever the dawn of a new year has inspired me to restart my writing career and seven of my sixteen NY resolutions are related to my inevitable domination of the literary world in 2024.
- Write Every Day
- Finish “The Motley Life of Edison Swift”
- Finish “The Book of Lies”
- Finish “The Necromancer’s Son”
- Do something to improve “The Literarium” every day
- Write at least one blog post every week
- Read for at least an hour every day
The last item on this list is to read more, which is an obvious method of improving my writing – as long as I read good things. So I have made a list of 29 fiction books which I will try and read this year. (I hope to add to this list throughout the year up to 52 books) I will also attempt to publish my thoughts on each of these as I tick them off – maybe even start a #booktok channel.
| Title | Author | Added | Started | Finished | Review | |
| 1 | A Desolation Called Peace | Arkady Martine | 1/1/24 | |||
| 2 | Piranesi | Susanna Clarke | 1/1/24 | |||
| 3 | The Midnight Library | Matt Haig | 1/1/24 | |||
| 4 | He Who Drowned The World | Shelley Parker-Chan | 1/1/24 | |||
| 5 | Starling House | Alix E. Harrow | 1/1/24 | |||
| 6 | The Endless War | Danielle L. Jensen | 1/1/24 | |||
| 7 | The Ten Thousand Doors of January | Alix E. Harrow | 1/1/24 | |||
| 8 | My Murder | Katie Williams | 1/1/24 | |||
| 9 | There Is No Antimemetics Division | QNTM | 1/1/24 | 10/1/24 | 14/1/24 | |
| 10 | I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home | Lorrie Moore | 1/1/24 | |||
| 11 | The Saint of Bright Doors | Vajra Chandrasekera | 1/1/24 | |||
| 12 | The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store | James McBride | 1/1/24 | 28/1/24 | ||
| 13 | The Bee Sting | Paul Murray | 1/1/24 | 1/1/24 | 10/1/24 | Review |
| 14 | Old God’s Time | Sebastian Barry | 1/1/24 | |||
| 15 | Yellowface | R. F. Kuang | 1/1/24 | |||
| 16 | Lone Women | Victor LaValle | 1/1/24 | |||
| 17 | Chain-Gang All-Stars | Nana Kwama Adjei-Brenyah | 1/1/24 | |||
| 18 | Prophet Song | Paul Lynch | 1/1/24 | 14/1/24 | 27/1/24 | |
| 19 | Trust | Hernan Diaz | 1/1/24 | |||
| 20 | The Art Thief | Michael Finkel | 1/1/24 | |||
| 21 | The Berry Pickers | Amanda Peters | 1/1/24 | |||
| 22 | Fourth Wing | Rebecca Yarros | 1/1/24 | |||
| 23 | Holly | Stephen King | 1/1/24 | |||
| 24 | Small Mercies | Dennis Lehane | 1/1/24 | |||
| 25 | Mobility | Lydia Kiesling | 1/1/24 | |||
| 26 | Terrace Story | Hilary Leichter | 1/1/24 | |||
| 27 | Lost Places | Sarah Pinsker | 1/1/24 | |||
| 28 | American Dirt | Jeanine Cummins | 1/1/24 | |||
| 29 | Jade City | Fonda Lee | 1/1/24 | |||
| 30 | Skippy Dies | Paul Murray | 11/1/24 | |||
| 31 | Fine Structure | QNTM | 14/1/24 |
These books have been selected from various sources, from reviews to “best of” lists or just books that have been on my radar for a while.
I asked Google’s Bard to pick a random book from this list for me to read first and it’s chosen “The Bee Sting” so I’m off to do some reading.