2024 reading list

I do not have a reading goal this year, because this year I’m tired af and the reading challenge is a little bit moot at this point. This year we are reading sporadically and letting the chips fall where they may.

#readmyshelf2024 challenge created by Esther Fung.

Currently Reading

  1. Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  2. My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-Wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me – Caleb Carr
  3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

#ReadMyShelf2024 Challenge

Quick note on this TBR: While the original challenge set by Esther was to read at least 20 books I already have, I am giving myself a list of 50. This will give me some wiggle room, as my goal is to read 30 of the 50 on the list. On the off chance that anybody actually reading this list is unfamiliar with me, I don’t like being told what to do (even by myself), I like having options, and I love making lists.

In going through my inventory, I have decided to prioritize the books that have been living on my shelves for years, particularly those that are most frequently in danger during unhauls. I am not including books either purchased or received during the last two years. This list is a bare minimum in terms of books I want to finally read; I am not, for instance, including the books of Babel, which would otherwise take up three slots.

Updates

  • 3/13/24: I’ve been unhauling like crazy and am still going, and there is a decent chance that is going to affect my #RMS2024 TBR, though it hasn’t so far. In the event that it does, I will delete the unhauls from the list and replace them with others, even if I have to start dipping into the more recent books.
  • 3/14/24: I knew it. Five books have been replaced on the list.

Challenge Read Count: 7   |   Challenge DNF Count: 1

  1. The Bear and the Nightingale – Katherine Arden
  2. A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman
  3. Spill Simmer Falter Wither – Sara Baume
  4. Pond – Claire-Louise Bennett
  5. Daughter of Black Lake – Cathy Marie Buchanan
  6. Silent Winds, Dry Seas – Vinod Busjeet
  7. Parable of the Sower – Octavia E. Butler
  8. Dragon Springs Road – Janie Chang
  9. The Library of Legends – Janie Chang
  10. The Widow Queen – Elżbieta Cherezińska
  11. Piranesi – Susanna Clarke
  12. All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
  13. Burnt Sugar – Avni Doshi
  14. The Death of Vivek Oji – Akwaeke Emezi
  15. Silence – Shūsaku Endō
  16. Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey – Elena Ferrante
  17. The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde
  18. Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch – Rivka Galchen
  19. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
  20. Jason & Medeia – John Gardner
  21. Dead Souls – Nikolai Gogol
  22. These Violent Delights – Chloe Gong
  23. Our Violent Ends – Chloe Gong
  24. The Witch’s Heart – Genevieve Gornichec
  25. Transcendent Kingdom – Yaa Gyasi
  26. The Library of the Unwritten – A.J. Hackwith
  27. A Dictionary of Maqiao – Han Shaogong
  28. Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro
  29. Little Gods – Meng Jin
  30. The Luster of Lost Things – Sophie Chen Keller
  31. The House on the Cerulean Sea – T.J. Klune
  32. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America – Erik Larson
  33. Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things – Jenny Lawson
  34. A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing – Eimear McBride
  35. The Mercies – Kiran Millwood Hargrave
  36. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
  37. I Am a Cat – Sōseki Natsume
  38. She Who Became the Sun – Shelley Parker-Chan
  39. The Forgotten Kingdom – Signe Pike
  40. A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II – Sonia Purnell
  41. Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship – Catherine Raven
  42. Half Sick of Shadows – Laura Sebastian
  43. The Cartographers – Peng Shepherd
  44. The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography – Simon Singh
  45. The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
  46. The Magician – Colm Tóibín
  47. The Color of Air – Gail Tsukiyama
  48. Madam – Phoebe Wynne
  49. Crying in HMart – Michelle Zauner
  50. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

Finished

  1. Twilight Falls – Juneau Black
  2. An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark! – Florence Hazrat
  3. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America – Erik Larson
  4. The Bear and the Nightingale – Katherine Arden
  5. The League of Lady Poisoners: Illustrated True Stories of Dangerous Women – Lisa Perrin
  6. Evergreen Chase: A Shady Hollow Mystery Short Story – Juneau Black
  7. Phantom Pond: A Shady Hollow Halloween Short Story – Juneau Black
  8. These Violent Delights – Chloe Gong
  9. The Fox Wife – Yangsze Choo
  10. Cat + Gamer 1 – Wataru Nadatani
  11. Cat + Gamer 2 – Wataru Nadatani
  12. Cat + Gamer 3 – Wataru Nadatani
  13. Cat + Gamer 4 – Wataru Nadatani
  14. The Girl in the Tower – Katherine Arden
  15. Spy x Family 11 – Tatsuya Endo
  16. The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich – Deya Muniz
  17. Our Violent Ends – Chloe Gong
  18. How to Argue with a Cat: A Human’s Guide to the Art of Persuasion – Jay Heinrichs
  19. The Winter of the Witch – Katherine Arden
  20. Tales of the Celestial Kingdom – Sue Lynn Tan
  21. The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
  22. The Man Who Died Twice – Richard Osman
  23. I Am a Cat – Sōseki Natsume
  24. Sideways Stories from Wayside School – Louis Sachar
  25. Wayside School Is Falling Down – Louis Sachar
  26. Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger – Louis Sachar
  27. Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom – Louis Sachar
  28. The Princess Bride – William Goldman
  29. Foul Lady Fortune – Chloe Gong
  30. Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton
  31. Goblins & Greatcoats – Travis Baldree
  32. Cat + Gamer 5 – Wataru Nadatani
  33. Black Sun – Rebecca Roanhorse
  34. A Dictionary of Maqiao – Han Shaogong
  35. Summers End – Juneau Black
  36. Fantastic Mr. Fox – Roald Dahl
  37. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
  38. Matilda – Roald Dahl
  39. The Pagemaster – David Casci, David Kirschner, and Ernie Contreras
  40. Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees – Aimee Nezhukumatathil
  41. Fevered Star – Rebecca Roanhorse
  42. Into the Wild – Erin Hunter
  43. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
  44. Mirrored Heavens – Rebecca Roanhorse
  45. Black Butler 33 – Yana Toboso
  46. Spy x Family 12 – Tatsuya Endo
  47. The Cartographers – Peng Shepherd
  48. Shady Hollow – Juneau Black
  49. Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree
  50. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
  51. Cold Clay – Juneau Black
  52. Mirror Lake – Juneau Black
  53. House of Hunger – Alexis Henderson
  54. Fire & Blood – George R.R. Martin
  55. Cat + Gamer 6 – Wataru Nadatani
  56. Bruce Coville’s Book of Nightmares: Tales to Make You Scream – Bruce Coville et al.
  57. Legends & Lattes – Travis Baldree
  58. The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist’s Search for the Origin and Frontiers of Life – Nathalie A. Cabrol
  59. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
  60. Impossible Creatures – Katherine Rundell
  61. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J.K. Rowling
  62. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Suzanne Collins
  63. Curiosity Thrilled the Cat – Sofie Kelly

DNF

  1. The Widow Queen (Elżbieta Cherezińska) – DNF’d 2/3/24 on page 66, funnily enough a year to the day since my first 2023 DNF. I can’t. I can’t keep up with all these names Cherezińska keeps throwing at me, as if I too am intimately familiar with European politics in the 990s. The five chapters I’ve read can also get very lecture-y when Cherezińska is trying to get us up to speed on how the characters got where they are, and the writing is awful. I don’t know if this is Cherezińska’s usual style or if it’s the translator, but please normalize paragraph breaks. I was so hoping to love this book, but I have to admit this is disappointing rather than surprising. I will not be giving this a second chance, this is going into the unhaul box.
  2. Jade City (Fonda Lee) – DNF’d 2/16/24 on page 73. The book is not bad. I’m just really not feeling it for some reason, and I’m not in the mood to start a new series when I know each of the Green Bone books is so long. I might try again later, but for now this one’s going back to the library.
  3. Godkiller (Hannah Kaner) – DNF’d 2/16/24 on page 78. The reading gods do not smile on me today, I am currently 0 for 2. This one was really a surprise, because I love the premise and I love what I’ve seen of Skedi, I mean, he is literally a rabbit-faced squirrel-sized god of white lies, what a cute thing to be a god of. But I’m bored and I don’t care about anyone or anything that’s happening, and I most likely will not be revisiting this series.