(no subject)

[skygiants]

Books for 2024! * indicates a reread.


Books:
1. The Stray Lamb, Thorne Smith
2. The Bandit Queens, Parini Shroff
3. Dial A for Aunties, Jesse Q. Sutanto
4. Snowblooded, Emma Sterner-Radley
5. Among You Taking Notes: The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison, Naomi Mitchison
6. Everybody Was So Young: A Lost Generation Love Story, Amanda Vaill
7. You May Well Ask, Naomi Mitchison
8. Cotillion, GFeorgette Heyer*
9. Shadow of the Moon, the Sea of Shadows, Fuyumi Ono
10. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, John le Carre
11. The Water Outlaws, S.L. Huang
12. Menewood, Nicola Griffith
13. The Demonic Child, Fuyumi Ono
14. The Appeal, Janice Hallett
15. The Christmas Appeal, Janice Hallett
16. The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz
17. The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera
18. The Crane Husband, Kelly Barnhill
19. Witch King, Martha Wells
20. Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi
21. Untethered Sky, Fonda Lee
22. Thornhedge, Ursula Vernon
23. Linghun, Ai Jiang
24. The Mimicking of Known Successes, Malka Older
25. Mammoths at the Gates, Nghi Vo
26. The Silence of Bones, June Hur
27. Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN, Carter Alan
28. Letters from an Actor, William Redfield
29. John Gielgud Directs Richard Burton in Hamlet: a Journal of Rehearsals, Richard L. Sterne
30. Vespertine, Margaret Rogerson
31. Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land, Jacob Mikanowski
32. The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman, translated by Melanie Magidow
33. Penance, Eliza Clark
34. The Unknown Ajax, Georgette Heyer*
35. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle*
36. Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson*
37. Double Doom, Josephine Bell
38. My Brother Michael, Mary Stewart
39. Chivalry, Rafael Sabatini
40. Star on the Door, Maggie Teyte
41. A Glisk of Sun: Selected Works of 'Countrywoman' Bessie Skea, Bessie Skea
42. The Republic of Salt, Ariel Kaplan
43. Sea of Wind, Shore of the Labyrinth, Fuyumi Ono*
44. North Continent Ribbon, Ursula Whitcher
45. Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, Judi Dench
46. The Sentence, Louise Erdrich
47. A Thousand Miles of Wind, the Sky at Dawn, Fuyumi Ono*
48. Lonely Castle in the Mirror, Mizuki Tsujimura
49. Quest for a Maid, Frances Mary Hendry*
50. Bringing Down the Duke, Evie Dunmore
51. Sisters of the Vast Black, Lina Rather
52. Strike the Zither, Joan He
53. Portrait of a Scotsman, Evie Dunmore
54. Blood of the Martyrs, Naomi Mitchison
55. A Beleaguered City, Margaret Oliphant
56. Memoirs of a Spacewoman, Naomi Mitchison
57. Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner
58. The Heavenly Official's Blessing, Volume 1, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu*
59. The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, Shubnum Khan
60. Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the End of the World, Yang Erche Namu
61. The Golem of Brooklyn: A Novel, Adam Mansbach
62. Mister Magic, Kiersten White
63. The Warm Hands of Ghosts, Katherine Arden
64. Glorious Exploits, Ferdia Lennon
65. Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett
66. The Robber Girl, Franny Billingsley
67. Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, Ross Perlin
68. The Heavenly Official's Blessing, Volume 2, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu*
69. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, James Hogg
70. The Wounded Name, D.K. Broster
71. The Heavenly Official's Blessing, Volume 3, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu*
72. The Last Gifts of the Universe, Riley August
73. Restoree, Anne McCaffrey
74. Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Heart, Ellis Peters
75. Wilkin's Tooth, Diana Wynne Jones
76. On Actors and the Art of Acting, George Henry Lewes
77. Murder Underground, Mavis Doriel Hay
78. Reflections, Diana Wynne Jones*
79. Rakesfall, Vandra Chandrasekera
80. Eight Days of Luke, Diana Wynne Jones*
81. The Ogre Downstairs, Diana Wynne Jones*
82. A Murder of Quality, John Le Carre
83. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Alexei Yurchak
84. The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. LeGuin*
85. Dogsbody, Diana Wynne Jones*
86. Dark Force Rising, Timothy Zahn
87. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Modern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe
88. Blood Sweat Glitter, Iona Datt Sharma
89. OKPSyche: A Novel, Anya Johanna DeNiro
90. The Friend Zone Experiment, Zen Cho
91. Cart and Cwidder, Diana Wynne Jones*
92. The Owl Service, Alan Garner
93. Power of Three, Diana Wynne Jones*
94. September House, Carissa Orlando
95. Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind, Molly McGhee
96. Charmed Life, Diana Wynne Jones*
97. The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society, C.M. Waggoner
98. Drowned Ammet, Diana Wynne Jones*
99. You Dreamed of Empires, Alvaro Enrigue
100. Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children's Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper, Catherine Butler
101. The Tragedy of Arthur, Arthur Phillips
102. When the King Comes Home, Caroline Stevermer*
103. The Spellcoats, Diana Wynne Jones*
104. The Book of Love, Kelly Link
105. The No-Show, Beth Leary
106. Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, Brian Merchant

Manga:
1. Skull-Faced Bookseller Hondo-San, Volume 1,
2. What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Volumes 1-10
3. Skip and Loafer, Volume 1

Obviously many books on this list that I loved and was looking forward to loving -- huge shout-outs to The Friend Zone Experiment, North Continent Ribbon, Blood Sweat Glitter, Saint of Bright Doors, The Book of Love, and all the Le Carre -- but here's a short list of the books that I had never heard of immediately before reading them and have taken up an outsized place in my psyche since: Mitchison's Among You Taking Notes and Blood of the Martyrs, William Redfield's Letters from an Actor, Mikanowski's Goodbye, Eastern Europe, Lennon's Glorious Exploits, and Perlin's Language City.

As usual, I am hoping to catch up on several of these, but if there's something you'd particularly like me to write up, drop me a comment and I'll either tell you in a comment or prioritize it for a proper post!

Comments

[imbir]

I'd like one The Sentence & one Sisters of the Vast Black, please.

And I wouldn't recommend Severance in the end. The surrealist workplace horror-satire angle turned out to be narrow, and I doubt the droning tone of the unfulfilled-millennial remainder would appeal to you (it didn't to me, I gave up at 40%).

[hwesta]

I would love to hear what you thought of The Mimicking of Known Successes, Malka Older! I really enjoyed it and the worldbuilding, but you've had different takes on other books that I enjoyed from this list.

I'm also interested in your thoughts on Rakesfall - I found Saint of Bright Doors to be A Lot (in a good way!) and want to know if I should prioritize reading Rakesfall too

I read Untethered Sky because of your review and enjoyed it!

[hebethen]

+1 on Rakesfall! I did read it, and I found it also A Lot (lol).

[hwesta]

Good to know, thanks!

[skygiants]

Really unhelpful post on Rakesfall lol

[skygiants]

I'm glad you enjoyed Untethered Sky! I've been meaning to write up Mimicking of Known Successes but I'm also hoping to get to the sequel in the not too distant future, so I might wait until then. Anyway here's my Rakesfall post!

[rachelmanija]

Please tell me about The Crane Husband!

[regshoe]

I'm glad Mitchison has been so memorable—she really is an impressive author. I have The Blood of the Martyrs on my shelf, to read when I feel up to it.

[aella_irene]

I was thinking that I was sure I'd seen you review Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Heart, but no! So please review that. I read the entire series, and I'd really like your opinion on most of the books, which are a long running series where, when it takes three years for the next book to come, the characters have also aged three years (which helps with the number of murders taking place).

[pedanther]

Enthusiastically seconded on all points!

[osprey_archer]

I would love to hear your thoughts on A Beleaguered City and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Oh, and maybe also Black is the Color of My True Love's Heart.

[cyphomandra]

I would love to hear your thoughts on What Did You Eat Yesterday? Whenever I try to take notes on it I always end up listing all the recipes I want to try instead :D

[bookblather]

I JUST read Penance and it kind of rewrote my brain. I'd love to hear what you thought about it!