2025 Reading Challenge

[avecigrec]

12. Spectregraph by James Tynion IV, Christian Ward & Aditya Bidikar


Top notch psychedelic haunted house horror from an absolute master of the genre. The more Tynion the read, the more I'm convinced he's the best there is presently at writing horror graphic novels and comics. Thoroughly enjoyable with some diabolical visuals!

 

[Bull Shannon]

Book 6: Babel-17, by Samuel Delaney
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Delaney’s loomed in my list of to-reads, particularly his dense opus Dhalgren. This is an early novel from him, a Nebula winner considered his first major work. The ideas certainly fall into the category of mid-century progressive sci-fi, where a lot of for-the-time revolutionary ideas come across as a bit retrograde; for example, spaceships in this world must be piloted by three individuals in a throuple. This may be wild to talk of in the 60s but in 2025 I just don’t care about your polycule.

Book 7: The Shadow of the Torturer, by Gene Wolfe
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Once more on my bullshit, reading the 4-volume Book of the New Sun for the third time, segueing into my second full reading of the 12-volume Solar Cycle.

Book 8: The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Quartet, Book 2), By Elena Ferrante
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Here we are, volume 2 of the Neapolitan Quartet. Ferrante’s prose remains deceptively simple and ultimately exceptional. I’m glad I got a hard copy of this one; there are around a dozen families in the community discussed here, and being able to flip to the character list helped keep things straight.

The book starts a bit slowly, then comes to focus on a specific summer, and the story begins to really hum. It’s a subtly affecting book; I caught myself in a bad mood after reading a passage of struggle for our protagonists. I’m impressed by this saga of two “little” lives, and the expansiveness of experience; it’s deeply meaningful but not overly metaphorical.

Book 9: The Law at Randado, by Elmore Leonard
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I was sick in bed off and on for a week, and wanted something uncomplicated to sink my teeth into. This mid-century tale about a small American West town where the business leaders self-appoint their own judge, jury, and executioner — to circumvent due process and hang cattle rustlers in-town rather than send them to the city — maybe wasn’t as hard a turn from reality as I’d like, but watching the town’s young sheriff deputy hunt down the self-appointed oligarchs was pretty satisfying.

Book 10: Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1), by Marcel Proust

I didn’t think I’d ever try to read Proust. But I dropped into The Strand on a work trip in New York last month, and this “new” (20 years ago) translation jumped out at me. It seemed like the right moment.

This was a pleasure to read, albeit a difficult one. I had to really lock in and focus on what I was reading in order to enjoy it, but when enjoyment came, it was deep. Other times, I’d realize I’d rotely drifted across a page or two; going back would usually reveal those several pages could be distilled into “the morning light in the church was so pretty.”

It’s interesting to read something so verbose and feel it really hum, and exalt in the verbosity. There’s another book I’m struggling through which may appear here, and my exact issue with it is how it uses three paragraphs where a sentence will do; I found myself asking: what’s the difference here? Why does Proust get away with it, thrive at it?

This is extremely on-brand for me, but I correctly guessed midway through this book that Gene Wolfe must be a fan. Proust opens Swann’s Way with the narrator’s musings on the nature of memory, and this notion of a space only existing when/as you are aware of it. It begins with waking, sitting up in bed and rewinding your memories and your understanding of yourself. Wolfe’s Peace opens with a narrator awoken in bed, reeling through the rooms of the childhood home in which they still reside and subsequently remembering every moment of his life, Dewey Cox style.

Book 11: Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

This one’s been bouncing around the thread (though now a search shows perhaps it was only mentioned in the context of the NYT 100 list?), but it wasn’t even my choice to pick it up; my wife grabbed this and I swooped in and read it first because I wanted something with different prose and page count than Swann’s Way.

I’m still sitting with this one; it’s the story of a quiet, semi-alienated life lived from the tail end of the 19th century through the mid-20th century. The volume is deceptively slim and incident-free, but the cumulative effect is both that of how much can change in a lifetime (Grainier’s born in the 1880s, and dies in the late 1960s), and how much living occurs under the surface of a quiet life. My first Denis Johnson book, certainly not the last.

 

[Thackeraye]

A very quick, but great read. LBD are a bunch of guys that use inventive ways to highlight how bad governments are. They were particularly involved during Covid.

 

[mdmost]

Fallen behind on my reading due to too much TV and movie watching. Getting a late start for April.

 

[Selaws]

Book 11: Children Of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit, 2018)

A colleague recommended and lent me this book and I was super impressed with it. Its a sci-fi adventure set over hundreds of years that centres around the terraforming of a planet and the unexpected outcomes.



Book 12: Into Thin Air by John Krakauer (Random House, 1997)

I saw this at the top of a "Non Fiction Books Everyone Should Read" and decided to give it a go. Terrifying, heartbreaking, adventurous, inspiring.....it packs in a lot!

 

[Selaws]

On a side note, I usually try to have a non-fiction E-book on my phone at all times that I read on the train, waiting for the bus, etc. Anyone got any recommendations that really impressed them?

 

[mdmost]

On a side note, I usually try to have a non-fiction E-book on my phone at all times that I read on the train, waiting for the bus, etc. Anyone got any recommendations that really impressed them?

 

[ayayrawn]

On a side note, I usually try to have a non-fiction E-book on my phone at all times that I read on the train, waiting for the bus, etc. Anyone got any recommendations that really impressed them?

 

[LeSamourai]

On a side note, I usually try to have a non-fiction E-book on my phone at all times that I read on the train, waiting for the bus, etc. Anyone got any recommendations that really impressed them?

Say Nothing is great.

Gangsters of Capitalism by Jonathan M. Katz is about Smedley Butler, a U.S. marine who ended up deployed in Cuba, Mexico, China, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, and Nicaragua (I'm sure I'm forgetting some), then as he got older came to regret becoming a "gangster for capitalism," and even blew the whistle on the Business Plot to coup FDR. It's both a biography of one guy's crazy life and the story of how the US came to become interventionist in other countries to further business interests, and the author visits the places and sees the legacy of these "little wars" that the US doesn't even bother to remember today.

 

[Thackeraye]

On a side note, I usually try to have a non-fiction E-book on my phone at all times that I read on the train, waiting for the bus, etc. Anyone got any recommendations that really impressed them?

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson, if you want to continue your mountaineering disaster thread.

Chernobyl by Serhii Plokhy - one of the books that inspired the TV show.

 

[Rowan]

On a side note, I usually try to have a non-fiction E-book on my phone at all times that I read on the train, waiting for the bus, etc. Anyone got any recommendations that really impressed them?

The Darkest White by Eric Bleim is fantastic

 

[ranbalam]

Book 11: Children Of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit, 2018)

A colleague recommended and lent me this book and I was super impressed with it. Its a sci-fi adventure set over hundreds of years that centres around the terraforming of a planet and the unexpected outcomes.

View attachment 232900

Book 12: Into Thin Air by John Krakauer (Random House, 1997)

I saw this at the top of a "Non Fiction Books Everyone Should Read" and decided to give it a go. Terrifying, heartbreaking, adventurous, inspiring.....it packs in a lot!

View attachment 232901

That's an all-timer for me, I loved that Krakauer book. Cool timing too, I was just talking about it yesterday with a co-worker.

As far as recommendations, have you read The Wager by David Grann? One of my favorites of last year.

 

[Rowan]

Book 11 - Hiromi Kawakami - Under the Eye of the Big Bird


I kind of get why people are raving about this. It actually reads like a collection of vaguely connected shorts that are loosely connected to the same dystopian future. I’ve read just about everything that Kawakami has put out that’s been translated to English and it’s definitely a departure. Possibly quite prescient in current times too. It’s possibly one of the more lighter hearted end of the world books I’ve read recently too so extra points for not making the end of humanity a massive bummer

 

[Selaws]

Book 13: The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian (HarperCollins Publishers, 1975)

I bought a bunch of older-looking books at my local carboot sale the other week and decided to give this one a try. I really enjoyed it, so much fun and a proper spy caper. Reminds me of the early Bond film, cheesy at times, but with enough action and intrigue to make it forgivable. I need to watch the Clint Eastwood film next!

 

[Thackeraye]

Book 13: The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian (HarperCollins Publishers, 1975)

I bought a bunch of older-looking books at my local carboot sale the other week and decided to give this one a try. I really enjoyed it, so much fun and a proper spy caper. Reminds me of the early Bond film, cheesy at times, but with enough action and intrigue to make it forgivable. I need to watch the Clint Eastwood film next!

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Hot take - old school paperbacks are the right size. I think a trade paperback is just a little too big, and in Oz we mostly get airport size paperbacks, which are far too big!

 

[Selaws]

Hot take - old school paperbacks are the right size. I think a trade paperback is just a little too big, and in Oz we mostly get airport size paperbacks, which are far too big!

I agree! Much easier to carry around

 

[Thackeraye]

My fist Murakami proper, having only read a short story before. Really enjoyed it, although I unexpectedly smashed into the ending, as I wasn’t checking my progress on the Kimble, so didn’t know I had nearly finished it. Will definitely read more of his stuff.

 

[WhiteDahlias]

A bit late on posting my April reads, but I had a library book I was so close to finishing and wanted to add it to this list.

Book 12. All Girls - Emily Layden

This was a YA book that follows the students at an all-girls boarding school during a scandal surrounding a sexual misconduct lawsuit and how it seems like the school is trying to cover it up. I liked all the different perspectives and getting to see how each of the girls handled the situation. One thing I had an issue with was that a lot of the characters had very similar names and they were all friends with each other so they would pop up (Bryce, Brie, Becca, etc). Also, one of the characters had my name which was very jarring to see every time it showed up in the text, that doesn't happen very often. This definitely read like YA, but I thought it was interesting so I'd recommend it.

Book 13. Hell Bent - Leigh Bardugo

So this was another one from my pile of unfinished things. I started this last year around Halloween thinking it would be some spooky fun. I thought I remembered liking the first one, but after finishing this I feel like I might have misremembered that because I was really happy when it was over. The pacing was off, and the big thing they were gearing up for ended up being very anticlimactic. I think I'm done with this series when the next one comes out even if this one ended on a cliffhanger.

Book 14. All The Names They Used for God - Anjali Sachdeva

This short story collection was beautifully written, but none of the stories really stood out to me unfortunately. They were set in all different time periods and most of them had some very slight magical elements (very slight). I wish I had more to say about them, they weren't bad but the collection was just kind of meh.

Book 15. Bellies - Nicola Dinan

I grabbed this at the public library last weekend and finished it in a few days.The story follows two character that meet at a drag party during university and date and though the course of the novel one of them comes out as trans. Both of the main characters are wonderfully flawed and I really enjoyed this. The plots are very different, but I had some similar feelings reading this as I did about Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, just a lot of good characters and ideas about friendship and identity. I saw the author is releasing another book this year so I might have to read that once it comes out.

That's all for April, when I was at the library I also grabbed Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima but I'm only a chapter in so far, plus I started reading An Immense World by Ed Yong as an ebook but that is a bit slow going at the moment.

 

[Mr Moore]

April, 2025

Book 16: Don Delillo - Ratner's Star (1976)

Largely disappointing foray into science fiction from Don. A group of eggheads are collected in a top notch laboratory to try and decrypt an alien signal dispatched from Ratner’s Star. A teenage maths prodigy is the last hope but, he seems more fixated on his burgeoning sexuality. The razor sharp dialogue and some comedic moments made it worth reading through but, definitely one for the quickly forgotten pile.

Book 17: Danya Kukafka - Notes on an Execution (2022)

This was a really excellent thriller, all told with the benefit of hindsight as the killer awaits his pending execution in the last few hours of his cell. Kukafka pens a sympathetic view from those the victims left behind and details and deconstructs the life of the killer. It’s uncomfortable reading at times in the normalcy and matter-of-fact nature of the events coupled with the moral questions surrounding effects of troubled upbringing and capital punishment.

Book 18: Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

I’ve struggled a bit with some of the ‘classics’ recently but fortunately, this one was really easy to read and really good to boot. While the title is somewhat ubiquitous, I had no idea what it was about and certainly not that it was a horror story of sorts. The writing is tip-top and the story, a fascinating commentary on the lives of Victorian men, wealth, vanity, dandyism and sexual repression all through the lens of a supernatural narrative.

Book 19: Tessa Hadley - The London Train (2011)

This one improved as it went on as two seemingly unrelated stories came together aboard the titular London train. Unfortunately, while the writing was good, both plot lines were just too much about too ordinary people in too ordinary situations that I struggled to maintain interest in any of them and it was all a bit underwhelming.

 

[ranbalam]

April, 2025

Book 16: Don Delillo - Ratner's Star (1976)
View attachment 233591
Largely disappointing foray into science fiction from Don. A group of eggheads are collected in a top notch laboratory to try and decrypt an alien signal dispatched from Ratner’s Star. A teenage maths prodigy is the last hope but, he seems more fixated on his burgeoning sexuality. The razor sharp dialogue and some comedic moments made it worth reading through but, definitely one for the quickly forgotten pile.

Book 17: Danya Kukafka - Notes on an Execution (2022)
View attachment 233592
This was a really excellent thriller, all told with the benefit of hindsight as the killer awaits his pending execution in the last few hours of his cell. Kukafka pens a sympathetic view from the those the victims left behind and details and deconstructs the life of the killer. It’s uncomfortable reading at times in the normalcy and matter-of-fact nature of the events coupled with the moral questions surrounding effects of troubled upbringing and capital punishment.

Book 18: Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
View attachment 233593
I’ve struggled a bit with some of the ‘classics’ recently but fortunately, this one was really easy to read and really good to boot. While the title is somewhat ubiquitous, I had no idea what it was about and certainly not that it was a horror story of sorts. The writing is tip-top and the story, a fascinating commentary on the lives of Victorian men, wealth, vanity, dandyism and sexual repression all through the lens of a supernatural narrative.

Book 19: Tessa Hadley - The London Train (2011)
View attachment 233594
This one improved as it went on as two seemingly unrelated stories came together aboard the titular London train. Unfortunately, while the writing was good, both plot lines were just too much about too ordinary people in too ordinary situations that I struggled to maintain interest in any of them and it was all a bit underwhelming.

Notes on an Execution just made my list.

I started Dorian a few years ago and put it down early on, and never got back to it. I see it on so many people's lists of favorite or essential reading, it makes me want to go back to it.