All About Books discussion

I’ve been absent from Goodreads for a while - it’s been a difficult year for our family with the death of my father and my husband’s year-long life-threatening illness - and my reading has suffered ... I need a plan!

My intention is to list 60+ books here, in the hope that I’ll have read all of them by the end of the year. Swopping listed titles for others that come to appeal more is totally permitted, but part of the point of the list is to push me to read more of the books I already own.

I am sorry to hear about your loss of your father and your husband's illness. It can be hard to concentrate on books under such difficult circumstances - good luck with your reading & best wishes for a better year in 2019.

Leslie wrote: "I am sorry to hear about your loss of your father and your husband's illness. It can be hard to concentrate on books under such difficult circumstances ..."

Thank you so much for your kind comment :-)

Sorry to hear you had an awful year, Annie. I hope 2019 will be much better for you, and that you'll get to read wonderful books.

Marina (Sonnenbarke) wrote: "Sorry to hear you had an awful year, Annie. I hope 2019 will be much better for you, and that you'll get to read wonderful books."

Thank you Marina. Fingers crossed that it will be :-)

Possible (largely) non-fiction reading list. Aiming for 52+

01 - Seán Lysaght Eagle Country
02 READ NONFICTION - Tim Dee Landfill
The Wainwright Golden Beer Prize Longlist 2019
03 - Thom Van Dooren Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction
04 - Jedediah Purdy This Land Is Our Land: The Struggle for a New Commonwealth
05 READING NONFICTION - Mark Cocker Our Place: Can We Save Britain’s Wildlife Before It Is Too Late? A
The Wainwright Golden Beer Prize Shortlist 2019
06 - David Wallace-Wells The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming K
07 READ NONFICTION - Robert Bringhurst & Jan Zwicky Learning to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis
08 - Richard Skelton Landings
09 READ NONFICTION (OTHER) - Amanda Harman A Fluid Landscape
10 - Paul Evans Herbaceous
11 READ POETRY - Ted Hughes Moortown Diary
12 READ NONFICTION - Chris Drury & Kay Syrad Exchange
13 - John Hanson Mitchell Wildest Place on Earth
14 - Peter Davidson The Last of the Light: About Twilight
15 - Anne Wroe Six Facets Of Light
16 - Tom Blass The Naked Shore of the North Sea
17 - Peter Davidson The Idea of North
18 READ NONFICTION (OTHER) - Autumn Richardson Heart of Winter
19 READ NONFICTION - Nancy Campbell The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate
20 - Fiona Sampson Limestone Country
21 - Benjamin Myers Under The Rock: The Poetry of a Place K
22 - Justin Hopper The Old Weird Albion
23 - Dan Richards Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth
24 - María Sonia Cristoff False Calm: A Journey Through the Ghost Towns of Patagonia, translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver
25 - Kate Brown Dispatches from Dystopia: Histories of Places Not Yet Forgotten K
26 - Hetty Saunders My House of Sky: A Life of J A Baker
27 - Lorna Cumming On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons K
The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlist 2019
28 - John Kaag American Philosophy: A Love Story
29 - John Kaag Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are
30 - Han Byung-Chul The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering
31 - Andy Miller The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life
32 - Brian Dillon Essayism
33 - Mary Oliver Upstream: Select Essays
34 - Maggie Nelson Bluets
35 READ POETRY - Tobias Hill Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow
36 READ POETRY - Paul Hetherington It Feels Like Disbelief
37 - Kate Innes Flocks of Words
International Rubery Book Award for Poetry Shortlist 2018
38 READ NONFICTION (MEMOIR) - Anne Truitt Daybook: The Journal of an Artist
39 READ NONFICTION - Mark Doty Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy
40 READ NONFICTION (ESSAYS) - Kate Fletcher Wild Dress: Clothing and the Natural World
41 - a re-read - Eleanor Morgan Gossamer Days: Spiders, Humans and Their Threads
42 - Julia Blackburn Time Song: Searching for Doggerland
The Wainwright Golden Beer Prize Shortlist 2019

20 Award winners and/or award nominees, for Book Vipers 2019 Challenge

43 READ FICTION - Carlos Maria Dominguez (Argentine/Uruguay) The Paper House, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor
Foundación Lolita Rubial (Uruguay) winner 2005
44 READ NON FICTION - Patrick McGuinness Other People's Countries: A Journey into Memory
Duff Cooper Prize winner 2014, & Wales Book of the Year winner 2015, & James Tait Black Memorial Prize Shortlist 2015, & PEN Ackerley Prize Shortlist 2015, & Thwaites Wainwright Prize Longlist 2014
45 READ POETRY - Jane Clarke The River
Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry winner 2016, RSL Ondaatje Prize Shortlist 2016
46 READ CRIME (FICTION) - Olga Tokarczuk Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Man Booker International Prize Shortlist 2019, & Transatlantyk Award 2018 winner, translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones
47 READ HISTORY - Svetlana Alexievich (Nobel Laureate 2015) Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future, translated from the Russian by Anna Gunin and Arch Tait
Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding 1998, & National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction 2005
48 READ DEBUT (POETRY) - Niall Campbell Moontide
Saltire First Book Award winner 2014, & Edwin Morgan Poetry Award winner 2014, & Forward Prize for Best First Collection Shortlist 2014, Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2014, & Michael Murphy Memorial Prize Shortlist 2015
49 READ SHORTLISTED (TRAVEL/MEMOIR) - Andrew Grieg At the Loch of the Green Corrie
Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year (Non-fiction) Shortlist 2011, & Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award Shortlist 2010
50 READ SHORTLISTED (POETRY/retelling) - Matthew Francis The Mabinogi
The Roland Mathias Poetry Award Shortlist 2018
51 READ NATURAL HISTORY (POETRY) - Kathleen Jamie The Tree House
Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection) 2004 & T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry nominee 2004
52 READ SHORTLISTED (ESSAYS) - Mary Ruefle Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures
National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism Shortlist 2012
53 READ SHORTLISTED (POETRY) - Roger Robinson A Portable Paradise
The T. S. Eliot Prize Shortlist 2019
54 READ MEMOIR - Elizabeth Tova Bailey The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for Nonfiction winner 2012 & John Burroughs Medal winner 2011
55 READ TRANSLATED (FICTION) - Edgardo Franzosini (Italy) The Animal Gazer, translated from the Italian by Michael F. Moore
From the cover: “… won two distinguished Italian literary awards in 2016, the Premio Comisso and the Premio Dessi.”
56a READ LONGLISTED (TRAVEL/MEMOIR) - Emmanuel Iduma A Stranger's Pose
The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize Longlist 2019
AND
56b READ LONGLISTED (FICTION) Pedro Mairal The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor
BTBA Best Translated Book Award (Fiction) Longlist 2014
57 READ SCIENCE - Brad Watson Miss Jane
National Book Award Fiction Shortlist 2016, & Wellcome Book Prize Longlist 2017 (slight cheat as only longlisted for a science prize)
58 READ NOBEL WINNER (FICTION) - JM Coetzee (Nobel Laureate 2003) The Lives of Animals
The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, delivered at Princeton University, October 15 & 16, 1977
59 READ LONGLISTED (TRAVEL/MEMOIR) - Robert Macfarlane & Dan Richards, illustrated by Stanley Donwood Holloway
The Wainwright Golden Beer Prize Longlist 2014
60 READ TRAVEL (FICTION) - Charif Majdalani Moving the Palace, translated from the French by Edward Gauvin
Académie Française François Mauriac Prize winner 2008, & the Prix Tropiques 2008

I'm sorry to hear about your year. I wish you all the best with your reading this year.

Alannah wrote: "I'm sorry to hear about your year. I wish you all the best with your reading this year."

Thank you Allanah. And happy reading to you too :-)

Wow! Some very interesting sounding books there. I have a "thing" for bird titles myself. And I put all the Wainwright nominees on my to be read shelf every year, but since I live in the US it is difficult to get them, so I haven't read very many. I follow the Walter Scott list too....

I hope 2019 will be a better year for you!

Fiction TBR (overlaps with list in post above) - in recent years I’ve hardly read any fiction, but this year that seems to have changed …

01 READ - Olga Tokarczuk Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones 2009/2018
Man Booker International Prize Shortlist 2019, & Transatlantyk Award 2018 winner, translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones
02 READ - Edgardo Franzosini The Animal Gazer, translated from the Italian by Michael F. Moore 2015/2018
From the cover: “… won two distinguished Italian literary awards in 2016, the Premio Comisso and the Premio Dessi.”
03 READ - JM Coetzee (Nobel Laureate 2003) The Lives of Animals 1977
04 READ - Charif Majdalani Moving the Palace, translated from the French by Edward
Gauvin 2007
Académie Française François Mauriac Prize winner 2008, & the Prix Tropiques 2008
05 READ - a reread … Mick Jackson Bears of England 2009
06 READ - Carlos Maria Dominguez (Argentine/Uruguay) The Paper House, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor 2002/2005
Foundación Lolita Rubial (Uruguay) winner 2005
07 READ - Jean Giono The Man Who Planted Trees 1953
08 - Penelope Fitzgerald The Golden Child 1977
09 - W.G. Sebald The Rings of Saturn
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction winner 1998, & Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for Essai winner 1999, & Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize Shortlist (for Michael Hulse) 1999, & International Dublin Literary Award Shortlist 2000
10 READ - Brad Watson Miss Jane 2016
National Book Award Fiction Shortlist 2016, & Wellcome Book Prize Longlist 2017
11 READ - Vladimir Lorchenkov The Good Life Elsewhere, translated from the Russian by Ross Ufberg 2008/2014
12 READ - Pedro Mairal The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor 2008/2013
13 READ - Max Porter Lanny 2019
Booker Prize Longlist 2019, & The Wainwright Golden Beer Prize Longlist 2019
14 - Jack Robinson An Overcoat: Scenes from the Afterlife of H.B. 2017
Republic of Consciousness Prize Longlist 2018
15 READ - Sylvia Townsend Warner Lolly Willowes K 1926
16 - Marilynne Robinson Housekeeping 1980
PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award 1982, & Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Shortlist 1982, & PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Shortlist 1982, &, Rosenthal Family Foundation Award 1982, & National Book Award Finalist for Fiction 1983
17 READ - Benjamin Myers The Gallows Pole K 2017
Walter Scott Prize 2018, & The Society of Authors' Roger Deakin Award 2016, & Republic of Consciousness Prize Longlist 2018
18 - Russell Hoban Riddley Walker 1980
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 1982, & Nebula Award for Best Novel Shortlist 1982, & National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction Shortlist 1981
19 - Annie Proulx The Shipping News 1993
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner 1994, National Book Award for Fiction winner 1993, Irish Times International Fiction Prize winner 1993, Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction winner 1993, National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction Shortlist 1993
20 READ - Benjamin Myers The Offing K 2019

2019 AAB Group Challenge: Read the Name - (overlaps with all lists above)

E - Chris Drury & Kay Syrad Exchange READ
L - Tim Dee Landfill READ
I - Paul Hetherington It Feels Like Disbelief READ
N - Tobias Hill Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow READ
O - Patrick McGuinness Other People's Countries: A Journey into Memory READ
R - Jane Clarke The River READ

D - Olga Tokarczuk Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones READ
A- Edgardo Franzosini The Animal Gazer, translated from the Italian by Michael F. Moore READ
S - Elizabeth Tova Bailey The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating READ
H - Autumn Richardson Heart of Winter READ
W - Kate Fletcher Wild Dress: Clothing and the Natural World READ
O - Benjamin Myers The Offing K READ
O - Ben Myers/‘Romy Landau’ The Offing: Poems READ
D - Anne Truitt Daybook: The Journal of an Artist READ

What I actually read and re-read in the order I read it:

01 - JM Coetzee The Lives of Animals F
02 - Carlos Maria Dominguez (Argentine/Uruguay) The Paper House, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor F
03 - a reread ... Colin Wright Curation is Creation (Not from the lists above) K NF
04 - Nancy Campbell The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate NF
05 - Autumn Richardson Heart of Winter NF/P
06 - Robert Bringhurst & Jan Zwicky Learning to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis NF/E
07 - Amanda Harman A Fluid Landscape V
08 - Tom Sharp The Mysteries (Limited edition chapbook, a gift from the poet/not from the lists above.) P
09 - Andrew Grieg At the Loch of the Green Corrie M/NF
10 - Edgardo Franzosini (Italy) The Animal Gazer, translated from the Italian by Michael F. Moore F
11 - Jean Giono The Man Who Planted Trees (A used book shop find/not from the lists above.) F
12 - Emmanuel Iduma A Stranger's Pose M/NF
13 - Jane Clarke The River P
14 - a reread … Richard Skelton/Findings of the Notional Research Group for Cultural Artefacts Ferae naturae: Unidex Volume One (Was lost and then recently found/not from the lists above.) NF/P
15 - Philip Hughes, June Hill, Jennifer Harris, & Primmy Chorley Primmy Chorley (Book of the current Primmy Chorley exhibition at Ruthin Craft Centre/not from the lists above.) NF/V
16 - Anne Truitt Daybook: The Journal of an Artist M/NF
17 - Olga Tokarczuk Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones F
18 - Charif Majdalani Moving the Palace, translated from the French by Edward Gauvin F
19 - Robert Macfarlane & Dan Richards, illustrated by Stanley Donwood Holloway M/NF
20 - Chris Drury & Kay Syrad Exchange NF/P
21 - Elizabeth Tova Bailey The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating M/NF
22 - Iain Sarjeant Out of the Ordinary: A Journey Through Everyday Scotland (Artists Book - photography/not from the lists above) V
23 - Mary Ruefle Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures E/NF
24 - Mick Jackson Bears of England F
25 - Pedro Mairal The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor F
26 - Kate Briggs Entertaining Ideas (The Long View) (Not from the lists above) NF/E
27 - Various The New Welsh Reader #120 E/P
28 - Max Porter Lanny F
29 - Benjamin Myers The Gallows Pole K F
30 - Sylvia Townsend Warner Lolly Willowes K F
31 - Vladimir Lorchenkov The Good Life Elsewhere, translated from the Russian by Ross Ufberg F
32 - Tim Dee Landfill NF
33 - Jo Bell Navigation (Not from the lists above) K P
34 - Mark Doty Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy M/NF
35 - Roger Robinson A Portable Paradise P
36 - Svetlana Alexievich Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future, translated from the Russian by Anna Gunin and Arch Tait NF
37 - Tobias Hill Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow P
38 - Paul Hetherington It Feels Like Disbelief P
39 - Matthew Francis The Mabinogi P
40 - Ted Hughes Moortown Diary P
**Huge hiatus here, it’s been a month since I finished a book ... what can I say ... LIFE!**
41 - Lizzy Stewart Walking Distance (Not from the lists above) NF/M V
42 - Kate Fletcher Wild Dress: Clothing and the Natural World NF/E
43 - Greta Thunberg No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference (Not from the lists above) NF/E
44 - Benjamin Myers The Offing K F
45 - Ben Myers/‘Romy Landau’ The Offing: Poems (Not from the lists above) P
46 - Niall Campbell Moontide P
47 - Robert Macfarlane & Stanley Donwood Ness (Not from the lists above) F/P
48 - Jay Griffiths Twilight (Not from the lists above) NF
49 - Kathleen Jamie The Tree House K P
50 - Joanna Hruby When I Was Furthest From Water (Not from the lists above) P
51 - Dylan Thomas A Child's Christmas In Wales (Not from the lists above) P
52 - Brad Watson Miss Jane F
53 - Patrick McGuinness Other People's Countries: A Journey into Memory K NF


Fiction F / Nonfiction NF / Essays E / Memoir M / Poetry P / Visual Arts V / Kindle K / Audible AU

My 2019 favourites - all read or reread this year/not all published this year ...
My book of the year: Kate Fletcher Wild Dress: Clothing and the Natural World (subjectively, for its importance to me, rather than necessarily objectively, although her prose is beautiful.)
My nonfiction book of the year: Mark Doty Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy
My fiction book of the year: Vladimir Lorchenkov The Good Life Elsewhere, translated from the Russian by Ross Ufberg, also my funniest book of the year.
My poetry book of the year: Ted Hughes Moortown Diary
My poet of the year: Roger Robinson (and an honourable mention for Paul Hetherington)
My author of the year: Benjamin Myers
Book I’m most likely to insist you read: Svetlana Alexievich Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future, translated from the Russian by Anna Gunin and Arch Tait
Book I’m most likely to give as a gift: Matthew Francis The Mabinogi
Book I most wish I’d written: Matthew Francis The Mabinogi
Book I most (heartily) wish I’d not bothered with: Sylvia Townsend Warner Lolly Willowes

Edit 6 months later … the 3 books that have stayed with me most
Roger Robinson A Portable Paradise P
Matthew Francis The Mabinogi P
Benjamin Myers The Offing K F

Edit 3 years later … a slightly different answer, with only one the same …
Matthew Francis The Mabinogi
Mark Doty Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy
Elizabeth Tova Bailey The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

Tally …
Novels/Fictions (15) , Poetry incl. Collections (14), Nonfiction (24 - incl. Memoir x6 Essay Collections x3, ‘Other’ x4 )
Translated (7) from the … Russian (2) Polish (1) French (1) Italian (1) Spanish (2)
Written by ... Women (23, so 43%) BIPOC/BAME (3, so 5.5%) - was aiming for 40% and 5%, next year I should try for 50% and 10%
Years of publication ... 1926 (1) 1953 (1) 1977 (1) 1982 (1) 1989 (1) 1997 (1) 2001 (1) 2002 (1) 2004 (1) 2006 (1) 2007 (2) 2008 (2) 2009 (2) 2010 (2) 2012 (3) 2014 (3) 2015 (4) 2016 (1) 2017 (2) 2018 (9) 2019 (12)
Print (45) Kindle (8)