What's Next? discussion

As we wrap up another year, what was your favorite book? Plans for 2024?

Our group has been quieter this year, with less than half the updates from past years. I've also read half my usual amount.

Please also share suggestions for our group heading into the new year.

2023 has been another interesting reading year for me. I had an unfortunate start, reading a book that I was actually offended by... (!)  Luckily the year got better, and the following is a list of my top 3 favourite books that I read this year.

1. The Catcher in the Rye (modern classic)
2. The Wager: A tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder (by the same author who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon)
3. Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (a new fantasy/folklore series)

To sum up, I am particularly happy with the classics/modern classics which I finally got around to reading, like The Catcher in the Rye, Albert Camus' The Stranger, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, The Godfather, and also Crime and Punishment (this book I read and listened to the audible version at the same time which was a really great experience). As for other fiction, I have again read some recent 'hyped' ones, and I also attempted to read as many shortlisted books from this year's Booker Prize (3 out of 6, excluding the actual winner). One surprise discovery for me was Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, which has just the right balance of charming characters and plot twists. For short story collections, Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So stands out for me as it has an unique theme and background mostly due to the author's southeast asian heritage.

For the non-fiction category, The Wager is a definite winner for me mainly because you can tell how much research has gone into writing such a book, and also the effort to make it reads like a historical fiction. Like the author's previous book Killers of the Flower Moon, this book will also get a movie treatment by Martin Scorsese. Crypto has been so influential in the financial world these last few years, I ended up reading 3 latest books on the topic and they are all quite easy to follow.

For 2024, I really look forward to reading books that came out this year and I already own, some are also sequels/prequels or new fiction written by authors I like, for example Colson Whitehead's Crook Manifesto, Ken Follett's The Armour of light, and also books from series like Mick Heron's Slough House series. I also would like to read some classics written by English writers (notably missing in my 'Read' list in 2023), preferably ones I haven't read any of the authors' other books like Virginia Woolf or Thomas Hardy. 

I am usually influenced by the latest releases or trending topics for my non-fiction books, I think I will still go down this path for the coming year but I would also like to tackle more books on politics, preferably ones that were written by politicians in the form of memoirs, or those written by journalists on their experiences over a certain event or period.

I look forward to hearing what everyone else's reading year has been like and also book recommendations going into 2024!

Thank you both for keeping this group going. Though I don’t post as much anymore, I do try to check out all the updates and fondly recall participating in this group in the dark days of the pandemic. So queue my virtual applause here!

This year, I may fall 3 books short of my 52 (1/wk) book goal for the first time since 2020. I wanted to read 4-5 books a month, of which 1 was non-fiction and 1 was backlist to clear my gargantuan TBR. I also wanted to diversify away from women’s fiction (popular, book club type picks which I do love but inevitably become very repetitive) and read more male authors. I managed to read Spare, Too Big to Fail (5star read for me) and just finished Michael Lewis’s new crypto book and character profile of SBF. I enjoyed the latter since I didn’t follow the original events too closely, but agree with previous posters that the book felt rushed and surface-level.

My favorite books this year follow:
Maame
Romantic Comedy
Too Big to Fail
Pineapple Street
Black Cake

Honorable mentions for The Light Pirate, Everything’a Fine, Somone Else’s Schows

Biggest disappointments were Happt Place and Hello Stranger

Adding that I couldn’t see the final text on my phone as I wrote the last post so apologies for the typos! I’m still shaping my 2024 priority reading list but I just bought How Not to Age by Michael Greger about diets, health, and the physiology of aging; and Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic (about helicopter parenting, mainly). I plan to read these, and The Wager, as part of my non-fiction list. I also forgot to mention I got to Killers of the Flower Moon before the movie came out, and took away quite a bit from that book too.

Happy New Year to all

Greetings from Zurich!

This year, I was hoping to read 40 books but have been totally distracted for no good reasons. So 38 it is then.

Long story short, I am surprised my favourite book for 2023 isn’t a historical fiction nor a murder mystery but a fantasy fiction…. Fourth Wing… I was totally absorbed by the story and finished the book within 2 days.

In 2024, I am planning to pick up French and more French cooking; I’m keen to read “The Women” by Kristin Hannah and I am looking for any good historical fictions recommendations. My next book will be “The Frozen”.

Happy reading 2024!

Happy New Year!

For me, 2023 was about re-establishing my reading routine, which based me towards shorter books. Overall, I’m reading about half of my former volume but with similar balance across fiction and non fiction. I hope to finish my 30th book tomorrow before New Year’s fireworks start.

For this year, my favorites were Black Cake, Prophet Song and This Other Eden. I’ve also started the Slough Horses series, staying one book ahead of the Apple TV show. Note, Blake Cake was also made into a Hulu TV show that is worth watching.

For 2024, I plan to read more award winning books — I’ve fallen behind with recent winners, e.g., Demon Copperhead, Rabbit Hutch and Blackouts — and incorporate more audio books. I’m currently in the middle of my first — Bono’s Surrender — and enjoying it. I also plan to add one large historical fiction per year, e.g., War and Peace, The Count of Monte Cristo and Middlemarch. For this category, recommendations are welcome!

Any suggestions for enhancing this group in 2024?

If we each invite one new member to join, assuming they are semi-active on Goodreads, that could get some more discussion momentum going.

Other than that, maybe a monthlong group read for a book that’s on most of our TBRs? I would say The Wager but some members have already read it (and liked it).

Fyi if you plan to read War and Peace and are on Reddit, there is a subgroup, R/ayearofwarandpeace, where they group read basically a chapter every day. I tried it two years ago but it was not my jam. However, the group read and discussion aspect was interesting.

Thank you. Both are good ideas. This is a public forum so happy to add new members and voices. Perhaps a few more of our existing members could also add views!

I"m open to ideas for shared book reads. Over the years, we've had a few that we've all read together but never proactively.

I would love to group read any books, especially classics like War and Peace or The Count of Monte Cristo!

I sort of 'group read' Crime and Punishment, The Stranger and The Godfather with another friend. After our gym class each week we'd meet for coffee and discussed a bit of what we've read, the characters, other related book recommendations etc.

I read both Middlemarch and Crime and Punishment while listening to the audio book (it is free on audible if you have a subscription) and it has been a really immersive experience for me and I feel like for 'big' books like these it makes me not have to worry about my progress but simply to enjoy reading it. I highly recommend that!

So it’s agreed! How about we first find a less ambitious book that none of us have read to see if the format works ok? We can start a new thread — e.g., “Shared Read - xxxx” — and set targets to share periodic insights. If we are enjoying the approach, we can try a more intimidating read later.

Happy New Year!

I already have a few books to suggest for the "Shared Read" project!

1. North Wood by Daniel Mason (recent fiction)

2. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (modern classic, science fiction, also currently on sale in Kindle store)

3. The Razor's Edge by W.Somerset Maugham (also another modern classic set in the same post WWII period)

Would love to hear about other ideas too!

Thanks! I've not read any of those.

A few more to consider:

1. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, the latest by James McBride.

2. Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders. Winner 2017 Booker Prize.

3. This Must be the Place, by Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet. One of her earlier works.

4. Silver Sparrow, by Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage

5. The Shell Collector, by Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land. His debut novel.

Happy new year! It has been a while. My favorite books last year were:

1) Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World, Irene Vallejo. It's really about the history of reading in the ancient world, a book length often lyrical essay.
2) Dead in the Water, Matthew Campbell. A non-fiction thriller about a ship hijacking and the often lawless world of ocean shipping.
3) The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal. An alternative history about the first "lady astronaut" in the wake of an apocalypse in the 1950s.
4) The Wind Knows My Name, Isabelle Allende. Tales of refugees from different generations, one of a Jew who took a Kindertransport from Austria to England and the other a contemporary Salvadoran separated from her mother at the US border. Yes, the stories dovetail.
5) Babel, R.F Kuang. An exploration of colonialism in a world where translation has magical powers. Trust me on this one.

Thanks Richard. Will check these out!

I've read great reviews on Babel and bought myself a copy of the paperback when I was in London last October. Cannot wait to dive in!

The author's latest book Yellowface also made it into the shortlists of several websites/bookstores' best books of the year, and is even voted the Best Fiction of 2023 on Goodreads, although I've read really mixed reviews and am not too sure about it.