JUST LISTS

The beauty and insanity of lists. Post a list, respond to a list. (hide under a pillow to avoid a list...)

Just want to get this off to a good start, when visitors come with 2024 on their minds (care of a facebook post)

A LIST of 2023 AWARD WINNERS

Nobel for Literature - Jon Fosse for body of work.
Pulitzer - Trust by Hernan Diaz and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
National Book Award - Blackouts by Justin Torres
Booker - Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
International Booker - Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
National Book Critics Circle Award - Bliss Montage by Ling Ma
Kirkus Prize - The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Women's Prize for Fiction - Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Giller Prize (Canada) - Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
Miles Franklin Award (Australia) - Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran
Stella Prize (Australia women) - The Jaguar by Sarah Holland-Batt
Irish Book Award - The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
British Book Award - Babel by R.F. Kuang
Goldsmiths Prize - Cuddy by Benjamin Myers
PEN/Faulkner Award - The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
PEN Prize for Debut Fiction - Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
Neustadt International Prize for Literature - Ananda Devi for body of work
International Dublin Lit. Award - Marzahn, Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp
Carol Shields Prize - When We Were Sisters by Fatima Asghar
Edgar Award (crime/mystery) - Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
Nebula Award (sci-fi/fantasy) - Babel by R.F. Kuang
Hugo Award (sci-fi/fantasy) - Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
Bram Stoker Award (horror) - The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

———————

More...

Caine Prize for African Fiction, winner - A Soul of Small Places by Mame Bougouma Diene and Woppa Diallo (husband-wife team)
Aspen Words Literary Prize (fiction, contemporary issues), winner - The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and other stories by Jamil Jan Kochai
National Book Development Award (Philippines), winner - Path by Gundal Vijay Kumar (no touchstone)
South African Literary Award, last English winner - The Promise by Damon Galgut
Arthur C. Clarke Award (sci-fi), winner - Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
CWA Dagger Award (crime), winner - The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green
Rathbones Folio Prize, winner - Constructing a Nervous System A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize (humour), winner - The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer

Not enough?

how about a compilation of press 2023 bests-of lists
https://lithub.com/the-ultimate-best-books-of-2023-list/?utm_source=Sailthru&amp...

And, my inbox today had the Tournament of books short list
https://www.tournamentofbooks.com/the-2024-shortlist

Wow Dan!

How about Book Riot's best science fiction and fantasy of 2022 & 2023, with links to various awards and lists.

Or Isele magazine's best reviewed African books of 2023?

Another list of 2023 year end lists:
https://largeheartedboy.com/2023/11/18/essential-and-interesting-best-of-2023-bo...

>4 markon: thanks Ardene.

>5 ELiz_M: that's so clean and neat. And it's basically a list of lists, which is just lovely. Thanks!

Well, you missed MY favorites: The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and the Wainwright Prize...

>7 WelshBookworm: what do they award for, and who won them? :)

>8 dchaikin: Lucy Caldwell won the 2023 Walter Scott Prize (historical fiction) for These Days

The Wainwright Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of general outdoors, nature and UK-based travel writing. They also award a winner in conservation writing.
The nature writing award in 2023 went to The Flow: Rivers, Water, and Wildness.
The conservation award went to The Lost Rainforests of Britain

>9 WelshBookworm: thanks!

And then there are the entertaining The Worst Books of 2023: Fiction! and The Most Scathing Book Reviews of 2023.

Here's my first list of 2024. I recently finished reading a 1998 edition of the Missouri Review (Volume 21, Number 2 for those keeping score at home). Here is a list of the books reviewed at the end of the magazine:

Night Train by Martin Amis
Riven Rock by T.C. Boyle
The Deep Green Sea by Robert Olin Butler
The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr
All Around Atlantis by Deborah Eisenberg
My Sister Life: The Story of My Sister's Disappearance by Maria Flook
The Next Step in the Dance by Tim Gautreaux
Clemency by Colette Inez
Pretending the Bed is a Raft by Nanci Kincaid
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Mercy Road by Dalia Pagani
Truman Capote by George Plimpton
Orphan Factory by Charles Simic
Life Among the Trolls by Maura Stanton
Herb's Pajamas by Abigail Thomas
The Tent of Orange Mist by Paul West

>12 rocketjk: Interesting to see a list of books from 1998. I recognize many of the authors (and have read other books by some of them), but haven't heard of many of the books. The only one I've read is Charming Billy, which was a prize winner (Pulitzer? I think), and I own Riven Rock (and probably have owned it since 1998 or so), but haven't read it.

>13 arubabookwoman: That's funny, because Charming Billy is the only one I've read, as well. Quite a good book, in fact. Though I'd heard of Night Train, Riven Rock, Orphan Factory and The Angel of Darkness. Regarding Angel of Darkness, it's the sequel, I'm pretty sure, of Carr's The Alienist. I remember well when that book was all the rage (and also reading and enjoying it quite a lot).

>13 arubabookwoman: >14 rocketjk: Same here—Charming Billy is the only one I know for sure that I read. Maybe The Angel of Darkness? Because I also really liked The Alienist—old downtown NYC has always been a big draw for me as a subject.

That really highlights the difference in my reading life before and after I started discussing books online. Now there’s such a… reading zeitgeist, I guess?

Kay/RidgewayGirl and I were discussing making a list of publishers who translate books into English, and lo and behold, thanks to the miracle of the internet and diligence of PEN America, such a list already exists (of course it does).

Publishers of Works in Translation

Transit Books: https://www.transitbooks.org/about
World Editions: https://worldeditions.org/about/
Margellos World Republic of Letters: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/books/series/margellos-world-republic-letters/
Charco Press: https://charcopress.com
Lolli Editions: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/lollieditions

It was, however, created in 2012. Do you see any omissions? I can add them to the end of this post. My favorites are Archipelago Press, NYRB, Europa Editions, Dalkey Archives, and Dedalus Books. What are yours?

>16 labfs39: I would add

Transit Books: https://www.transitbooks.org/about
World Editions: https://worldeditions.org/about/

>16 labfs39: and >17 ELiz_M: My last book of 2023 was by Curaçao author Tip Marugg who wrote in Dutch but was a native Papiamento speaker. It was published by Margellos World Republic of Letters which publishes translated works from around the world.

>17 ELiz_M: Thanks, Liz, I added them to the list in >16 labfs39:.

>18 arubabookwoman: Good call, Deborah. I've read books from this series as well. Technically it's published by Yale University Press, but that isn't on the PEN list either. I added it above.

>18 arubabookwoman: P.S. I recently added like 40 more books to the Margellos World Republic of Letters series page in LibraryThing.

>12 rocketjk: well, how gorgeous is that. Thanks for posting!

>16 labfs39: cool resource!

>16 labfs39: Don't forget Tilted Axis Press!

https://www.tiltedaxispress.com

>22 RidgewayGirl: I didn't add it because it was on the PEN list. I didn't want to replicate the ones they already had.

Every year i keep a note on my phone called “Ideas for reading”, with titles that caught my attention for the moment. Then the next year i thin it out to what i think I’m really still interested in. Here’s what made my 2023 thinned out list. Sources are in parentheses

- Possession- byatt (Booker Prize Book Club on Facebook)
- The Children’s Book - Byatt (Booker Prize Book Club on Facebook)
- Yellowface - RF Kuang (Booker Prize Book Club on Facebook)
- The Sunset Limited - Cormac McCarthy (LT reviews of Stella Maris)
- The Wren, the wren - Anne Enright (Booker Prize Book Club on Facebook)
- Marzahn, Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp (Booker Prize Book Club on Facebook, Dublin award winner)
- Beryl Bainbridge, The Dressmaker (Booker Prize Book Club on Facebook)
- Chretien de Troyes
- Tristan y Isolde
- c1200 Parzival by German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach
- c1200 Mabinogion - Welsh
- c1370 Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight
- c1377 Piers Plowman by William Langland
- c1400 alliterative Morte Arthure (author unknown)
- 1485: Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur
- Joseph Blotner’s biography of Faulkner (dianelouise100)
- Superinfinite: The Unique John Donne by ‪Katherine Rundell‬ (BLBera)
- Noopiming by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Yells)

>2 dchaikin: Thank you. This is such an interesting and practical list!

I highly recommend- - Noopiming by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson - very highly.

ETA: there are some interesting things to know about it too. Like how gender is used in the book. There are some very good articles about it.

Does anyone else have ideas to read lists of any variation….that you want to share?

I read Parzival after reading Matterhorn, then reread Matterhorn. Very interesting things come out of a book written by a Yale-educated Rhodes Scholar and Vietnam Vet.

>27 dchaikin: I keep track of CR BBs so that when I finally get around to reading them, which may be years after, I know why.

The following list is from 2023 and is pretty modest because I didn't spend a lot of time here. Goodness knows how long this year's list will be.

All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg (bragan)
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (RidgewayGirl)
I'm Off Then by Hape Kerkeling (cushlareads)
The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green (wandering_star)
Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson (RidgewayGirl)
The Lighthouse Road by Peter Geye (BLBera)
Dinosaurs A Novel by Lydia Millet (avaland, BLBera)
Broken River by J Robert Lennon (arubabookwoman)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (rachbxl)
Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes (rachbxl)
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes (rachbxl)
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (shadrach_anki and Victorian Tavern)
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton (BLBera)
Sugar Street by Jonathan Dee (arubabookwoman)
Haven by Emma Donoghue (arubabookwoman)
This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear (labsf39)
Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson (wandering_star)
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (wandering_star)
The Employees by Olga Ravn (wandering_star)
A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly (WelshBookworm)
We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (Simone2)
I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai (japaul22)
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Yells)
How Can I Help You by Laura Sims (RidgewayGirl)
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo (Simone2)
All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow (Simone2)
The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn (BLBera)
Kids Run The Show by Delphine de Vigan (Simone2)
Talking To The Dead by Harry Bingham (wandering_star)
Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce (WelshBookworm)
Berlin by Bea Setton (RidgewayGirl)
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue (RidgewayGirl)
Wellness by Nathan Hill (Simone2, RidgewayGirl)
House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J Klune (karspeak, labfs39)
Blackout by Connie Willis (Arubabookwoman)
All Clear by Connie Willis (Arubabookwoman)
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (series)
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (series)

>29 rhian_of_oz: terrific list. I’ll second All the Little Bird-Hearts.

>24 dchaikin: I read The Children's Book in 2013 and really enjoyed it (4½ stars). I can definitely highly recommend it.

>31 Ameise1: thanks! I’m thinking about it as an audiobook.

>32 dchaikin: 😃

>2 dchaikin: Can I add a couple of non-fiction 2023 prize-winners to your list? I seem to be increasingly reading NF these days:

Pulitzer General Non-Fiction - His Name is George Floyd - One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels
The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction- Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World by John Vailant

>34 AlisonY: 👍

Dublie Literary Award longlist

https://www.dublincity.ie/library/blog/2024-literary-award-longlist-announced?fb...

And here are three awards I ran across on the '75ers nonfiction challenge thread this morning that will provide lists of books to read or gift about nature/the environment:

• National Outdoor Book awards (sponsored by the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education, and Idaho State University)


• Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award (sponsored by the Society of Environmental Journalists)


• The Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award (SONWA) (sponsored by the foundation with the same name, webpage is part of Northland College's website)

Whoa

BBC : Gabriel García Márquez, Stephen King and Elif Shafak: 45 of 2024's most anticipated books

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240111-gabriel-garcia-marquez-stephen-king...

Dang it, Dan. How am I supposed to catch up on the books I plan to read if shiny new ones are calling out to me?!

I'll definitely read Knife by Salman Rushdie once I can get my hands on it this spring. I read Joseph Anton, his account of living in hiding after the fatwa that was issued after he wrote Midnight's Children. He was a visiting professor at Emory University in Atlanta, where I completed my residency in pediatrics, and I attended an unforgettable talk in which he discussed and read from his novel The Enchantress of Florence at the nearby Carter Presidential Center several years ago. Hearing him read from the book transported me, my companion, former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn from Georgia, who was two seats from me, to our childhoods when we were transfixed by being read to in grade school. I'm greatly relieved that he survived that horrific attack in upstate New York, and I'll be incredibly eager to read his account of the attack and his recovery.

It gets overwhelming, right? I’m seriously thinking about Knife too.

Ten books that I discovered in 500 Great Books by Women that I probably would not have read/heard of outside of this list:

I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven
Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson
Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan
Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman
Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck
The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
The Street by Ann Petry
Requiem by Shizuko Go

I have the complete list of 508 books tagged in goodreads

>41 ELiz_M: i have The Bone People right here next to me. Haven’t read it

>41 ELiz_M: >42 dchaikin: I loved The Bone People! Since it was a (surprise) Booker Winner, I think you would have heard of it Liz. That said, I do have 500 Great Books by Women on my shelf, and I've discovered many great books there.

Here's my list of interesting titles from Singapore and Malaysia, for those interested. I'm going try and work my way through some of these, this year. This list is all fiction. I built based on online lists, as well as on recommendations from friends and colleagues from these countries.

Singapore

Clarissa Goenawan - Rainbirds (Soho Press, 2018)
Sharlene Teo - Ponti (Simon and Schuster, 2019)
Amanda Lee Koe - Ministry of Moral Panic (Epigram Books, 2016)
Meira Chand - A Different Sky (Vintage Books, 2011)
Balli Kaur Jaswal - Inheritance (Epigram Books, 2008), Sugarbread (Epigram Books, 2016)
Rachel Heng - The Great Reclamation (Riverhead Books, 2023)
Tan Kok Seng - Son of Singapore (Epigram Books, 1972, repub 2014), Three Sisters of Sze (1971, repub 2011)
Ming Cher - Spider Boys (Penguin 1995)
Goh Poh Seng - The Immolation (Heinemann 1977, repub Epigram Books 2011)
O Thiam Chin - Now That It's Over (Epigram Books, 2016)
Sebastian Sim - The Riot Act (Epigram Books, 2018)
Karina Robles Bahrin - The Accidental Malay (Epigram Books, 2022)
Darryl Yam - Kappa Quartet (Epigram Books, 2016)
Akshita Nanda - Nimita's Place (Epigram Books, 2018)
Jing Jing Lee - How We Disappeared (Hanover Square Press, 2019)
Jeremy Tiang - State of Emergency (via >46 labfs39:)

Malaysia
Vanessa Chan - The Storm We Made (Hodder & Stoughton, 2023)
Tash Aw - We the Survivors (4th Estate, 2019), The Harmony Silk Factory (Harper Perennial, 2005)
Tan Twan Eng - The Gift of Rain (Myrmidon Books, 2007); The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books, 2011); The House of Doors (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Rani Manicka - The Rice Mother (Penguin, 2004)
Yangsze Choo - The Ghost Bride (Harper Collins, 2014)
Selina Sian Chin Yoke - The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds (2016)
Li Zi Shu - The Age of Goodbyes (Feminist Press, 2022)
Faisal Tehrani - 1515
Shahnon Ahmed - Stumps (via >47 dchaikin:)

Also:
The Merlin and the Hibiscus: Contemporary Short Stories from Singapore and Malaysia

And a bonus section: books about Singapore and Malaysia, written by writers from elsewhere:
Somerset Maugham - The Casuarina Tree
Nevil Shute - A Town Like Alice
Anthony Burgess - A Time for for a Tiger
Henri Fauconnier - The Soul of Malaya
Han Suyin - And the Rain my Drink
Joseph Conrad - Lord Jim, The Rescue
Peter Carey - My Life as a Fake
James Clavell - King Rat
J.G. Farrell - The Singapore Grip
Jon Cleary - The Long Pursuit \

>45 rv1988: An absolute treasure trove of a list. Thank you for sharing. Tan Twan Eng is a fantastic writer, IMO. I hope you enjoy him too. As I wrote on your thread, you might think about State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang too. I loved it when I read it late last year.

>45 rv1988: this is terrific. Thanks for sharing. If you add more, let us know.

I was in KL in 2019 and picked up a book called Stumps by Shahnon Ahmad. Do you know anything about it? I was looking for a Malaysian perspective novel (i don’t know the ethnic terminology. But I mean not Chinese or Indian or Western, but Malay). I haven’t read it.

>45 rv1988: What great lists! Thank you for sharing those books with us, Rashdar; I definitely look forward to your opinions on the ones you get to.

Let's see...I've read Map of the Invisible World (4½ stars), The Face: Strangers on a Pier (4 stars), and Five Star Billionaire (4 stars), all by Tash Aw; The Gift of Rain, The Garden of Evening Mists, and The House of Doors (4½ stars for each), all by Tan Twan Eng; and The Singapore Grip) (also 4½ stars) by J.G. Farrell. I own A Different Sky by Meira Chand, and The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw, but I haven't read them yet.

>46 labfs39: Thanks. I'm really looking forward to the Tan Twan Eng books. I've added Jeremy Tiang to the list!
>47 dchaikin: I'm afraid I haven't read it, but I've added it to the list. I see what you mean: there's such a diverse and complex background to Malaysian and Singaporean fiction. I was reading up and very interested to see that Malayasian-Chinese writing is a distinct genre on its own, for example.
>48 kidzdoc: You've covered a fair bit of these books already! I'm going to try and catch up with you.

Some lists of the "most anticipated" books of 2024.

BBC, From literary heavyweights and thoughtful non-fiction to crime thrillers, 45 of the most anticipated books of 2024 – including a new Stephen King and a look at how algorithms are shaping our cultureT
The Guardian, From Salman Rushdie to RuPaul: the books to look out for in 2024
Lithub, Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024T
Publishing Post, Translation Releases in 2024v

I'm sure everyone's looking out for different things, but a few that I wanted to highlight:

- Salman Rushdie - Knife - a memoir about the recent incident in which he was attacked and stabbed. He said he wasn't going to write about it in an interview some time back, but he has changed his mind. There's an ongoing legal battle about the publication of this book while the trial of his attacker is ongoing.
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Until August - a lost manuscript, rediscovered and translated by Anne McLean
- Percival Everett - James - a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim
- Alvaro Enrigue - You Dreamed of Empires (translated by Natasha Wimmer) - a historical novel, about Monteczuma, Tenochtitlan, and the colonization of Mexico
- Linnea Axelsson - Aednan (translated by Saskia Vogel) - a Sámi family epic novel, beginning in 1910s and stretching to the present day.
- Gregory Pardlo - Spectral Evidence - Pardlo is a wonderful contemporary American poet, and this is his latest collection
- Witold Gombrowicz - The Possessed (translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) - one of Poland's big contemporary writers, a translation of one of his early works.
- Iman Mersal - Traces of Enayat (translated by Robin Moger) - a novella from one of Egypt's foremost poets, about the life of Egyptian author Enayat al-Zayyat
- Colm Toibin - Long Island (sequel to Brooklyn)
- Dino Buzzati - The Singularity (translated by Anne Milano Appel) - a famous work of Italian science fiction, now translated to English
- Armistead Maupin - Mona of the Manor (tenth in his Tales of the City books)
- Stuart Turton - The Last Murder at the End of the World - I know The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was well-liked here, so perhaps a new book from Turton may be of interest.
- Anita Desai - Rosarita - she hasn't published for adults in a long time, so I am looking forward to this new novel.
- Graeme Macrae Burnet - one of the more interesting crime/thriller writers, a new book from him is automatically on my list.

>49 rv1988: well, i should actually try reading it sometime 🙂 But there is all this -> >50 rv1988: - to read! 😳

>49 rv1988: The Guardian's book recommendations often make my blood pressure go up, as it never fails to list books I want to get to ASAP, whether in lists like this or the Saturday Book Review section. I started to write down books that I was interested in on a 5 x 7 writing pad, but once I got to four pages I knew that I had gone overboard. So, here's my list that I would be willing to sell my mother to the circus to read (sorry, Mom):

Knife, Salman Rushdie: for reasons I mentioned in >39 kidzdoc:
James, Percival Everett: one of my two favorite American novelists, along with Jesmyn Ward
An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Civilization to Independence, by Zeinab Badawi: I loved seeing her insightful reporting and interviews on the BBC, and I'm sure that I will love this book
Long Island, Colm Tóibín: I adored his novel Brooklyn, and this is a follow up to it
The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon, Adam Shatz: I've wanted to learn more about the great African physician, public intellectual and revolutionary, so this will be a must read
Carson McCullers: A Life by Mary V. Dearborn: Carson McCullers is at the top of my list of favorite American novelists — the only author I would place above her off the top of my head is James Baldwin — and I am beyond eager to learn more about her far too short life

I'll add four books by my most favorite authors that are scheduled to be released this year:

Every Wrinkle Has a Story, David Grossman: my favorite Israeli novelist, now that Amos Oz has sadly passed from us
Le dedico mi silencio, Mario Vargas Llosa: my absolute favorite living novelist
The House of Being, Natasha Trethewey: the former poet laureate of the United States and my favorite living American poet, this book is a meditation of her life and how it influenced her writing. I adored her previous book, Memorial Drive, so this is another title that I'll order as soon as it comes out
My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir, Sarah Moss: she is my favorite living British novelist, so this is a no brainer

(apologies for the extreme overuse of the word favorite)

Oh, goodness me! Another thread I've discovered, having just joined CR for the New Year. Just love lists, including keeping a fair number of my own!

>2 dchaikin:
Can I add another three more prizes which I follow closely?

1. The Wolfson History Prize. 2023 winner was Resistance: The Underground War Against Hitler by Halik Kochanski. It has provided very rich pickings for my reading!
2. The Women's Prize for Fiction. 2023 winner was Demon Copperfield. I often find this distinctly more interesting than the Booker, which was very disappointing this year. The WPF team are starting up a Women's Prize for Non-Fiction in 2024, shortlist coming up in February.
3. The Royal Society Trivendi Science Book Prize. 2023 winner was An Immense World by Ed Yong. Very much aimed at promoting good popular science books, and again has provided rich pickings.

>42 dchaikin: >43 arubabookwoman:
Bone People is on my all-time favourites list (currently at just under 150 books, fictio and non-fiction)! Outstanding read from a few years ago, even if it's not one I wanted to go back to anytime soon after. Far too emotionally exhausting for that! However, maybe soon.

>52 kidzdoc:
Carson McCullers is at the top of my list of favorite American novelists — the only author I would place above her off the top of my head is James Baldwin
I've discovered both in the past year or so, having read books by them for my Tour of the USA (another list!): Another Country for New York, and The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter for Georgia. Both brilliant - I have already acquired a Baldwin volume from Library of America, and will be reading more McCullers too.

>27 dchaikin:
Does anyone else have ideas to read lists of any variation….that you want to share?
I've got several, mostly tied in with reading projects (tour of the USA, reading the world), but one specific one I've got is 'doorstoppers to read'. I seem to have largely abandoned big books since lockdown, even though I used to almost prefer big books, so I've put together a list of longer books that I really want to tackle over the next year or two (or three, or four!) I've got a list of fiction and non-fiction, single and multi-volume, but these are the two dozen single volume fiction books on the list (I've only allowed myself one book per author, so some authors will have another books added once the first one has been read - as long as the previous one went OK!)

Cecilia - Frances Burney
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
The Sorrow of Belgium - Hugo Claus
The Mandarins - Simone de Beauvoir
Barnaby Rudge - Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov -Fyodr Dostoevsky
Daniel Deronda- George Eliot
Ducks, Newburyport - Lucy Ellmann
Tom Jones - Henry Fielding
Stalingrad - Vasily Grossman
The Eighth Life - Nino Haratischwili
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
We, The Drowned - Carsten Jensen
Ulysses - James Joyce
Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Life, A User's Manual - Georges Perec
The Good Companions - JB Priestley
Mason and Dixon - Thomas Pynchon
Berlin Finale - Heinz Rein
And Quiet Flows the Don - Mikhail Sholokhov
Tomb of Sand - Geentanjali Shree
Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

>53 Willoyd: Great! Which Library of America volume of Baldwin's works do you have, Will? I have James Baldwin: Collected Essays, but I don't yet own the Early Novels and Stories, or the Later Novels.

If you're interested in reading more of Carson McCullers's work I would highly recommend Carson McCullers: Complete Novels, which was also published by the Library of America. I've read it in full, and I'll certainly read it again in the not too distant future.

Another favorite Southern gothic author of mine is Flannery O'Connor, who was also from Georgia (I lived in Atlanta for 24 years) and died at an early age. Her novels are very good, but her short stories are outstanding, IMO. The Library of America also has a volume dedicated to her, titled Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works.

>54 kidzdoc:
I have Early Novels and Stories. The McCullers LoA volume is high on my want list! I've really discovered LoA in recent years, since I started my tour of the USA. Unfortunately, they stopped taking foreign subscribers during lockdown, and never reinstated, so I mainly have to rely on Blackwell's and Amazon to get hold of copies (even though I'd prefer not to use the latter!), although I've managed the occasional copy from second-hand independents. Willa Cather and Wendell Berry are other personal discoveries doing the tour whose LoA collections I now have (amongst others!).

>55 Willoyd: That stinks that LoA no longer takes subscriptions from abroad. I've seen numerous LoA volumes in the flagship branch of Foyles, and in the London Review Bookshop, but I haven't been to the capital since the pandemic.

>53 Willoyd: oh, beautiful tomes. I’ve read a few and want to read several others

I’ve read these:
The Brothers Karamazov -Fyodr Dostoevsky - a tough one written under censorship scrutiny.
Ducks, Newburyport - Lucy Ellmann - takes some getting used to. But I took to thos
The Eighth Life - Nino Haratischwili - mixed for me
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - entertaining and exhausting
Mason and Dixon - Thomas Pynchon - I’m not a fan. (But I liked GR)

Ones I plan to read eventually:
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
The Mandarins - Simone de Beauvoir
Barnaby Rudge - Charles Dickens - actually never heard of this, but want to read more Dickens
Daniel Deronda- George Eliot
Tom Jones - Henry Fielding
Ulysses - James Joyce
Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
And Quiet Flows the Don - Mikhail Sholokhov

My own intimidating tomes include
- The Search for Modern China - Jonathan Spence
- Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
- Maps of Time : An Introduction to Big History by David Christian
- In Search of Lost Time - Proust

>57 dchaikin:
Barnaby Rudge - Charles Dickens - actually never heard of this, but want to read more Dickens
One of two historical novels he wrote (the other being Tale of Two Cities), based on the Gordon Riots. Not surprised you haven't heard of it. Not many have, unless a Dickens fan (which I am). I'm currently reading Dickens in chronological order of publication, including rereading those I've done before. Looking forward to Bleak House, which is perhaps my favourite!

My own intimidating tomes include....In Search of Lost Time - Proust
Not sure I'll ever revisit that one, but others rave!

>53 Willoyd: Just chiming in to say that We, the Drowned is one of my favorite novels that I've read over the past 15 years or so. And I rate Don Quixote as one of the funniest books I've ever read. I loved it.

Here is a link to the list of the winners of the 73rd National Jewish Book Awards:
https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/73rd-national-jewish-book-award-winne...
You have to scroll down a bit on the above linked page to find the list, which includes both the winners and other finalists.

Of note, as quote from the website:
"Time’s Echo: The Sec­ond World War, the Holo­caust, and the Music of Remem­brance by Jere­my Eich­ler (Alfred A. Knopf), . . . was named the Everett Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion Book of the Year and won both the His­to­ry - Ger­rard and Ella Berman Memo­r­i­al Award and the Holo­caust Award in Mem­o­ry of Ernest W. Michel. In Time’s Echo, Jere­my Eich­ler pays homage to some of the twen­ti­eth century’s most cel­e­brat­ed com­posers who memo­ri­al­ized the Sec­ond World War and the Holo­caust in their music as he uses their com­po­si­tions to illu­mi­nate the land­scape of post­war Europe and Amer­i­ca. With ​“the ears of a crit­ic and the tools of a his­to­ri­an,” Eich­ler intro­duces a new way of under­stand­ing his­to­ry – ​“lis­ten­ing with an under­stand­ing of music as time’s echo.” It is a ​“ground­break­ing achieve­ment in memo­r­i­al his­to­ry,” as not­ed by our judges.

James McBride wins his first two Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards, the JJ Green­berg Memo­r­i­al Award for Fic­tion, and The Miller Fam­i­ly Book Club Award in Mem­o­ry of Helen Dunn Wein­stein and June Keit Miller, for his nov­el The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store."

>60 rocketjk: Thanks for that link. There are several that look interesting, and a reminder that Kantika is on my list.

Random List of Books Purchased at Powell's on January 23, 2009

I finished The Dream by Zola, and pulled the next book in the Rougon Macquart series The Beast Within (only 3 more to go!), off my shelf. Nestled inside was the receipt from Powell's. That was my first trip to Powell's, on a weekend trip down to Portland from Seattle.
Here are the books I bought (I've marked with a star * the ones I've managed to read:

1. The Beast Within by Emile Zola (will be a reread)
*2. Chicago by Alaa al Aswani
*3. Broken April by Ismail Kadare
*4. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
*5. Poor People by William Vollmann
*6. Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
7. Soldiers in Hiding by Richard Wiley
8. Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis Wallant
*9. Boy A by Jonathan Trigell
*10. The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
*11. Isle of Passion by Laura Restrepo
12. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

>62 arubabookwoman: What a nice list and nice memory!

Books on the Oceanic shelves at McNally Jackson Bookstore (1 per author):

Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Waking Romeo by Kathryn Barker
New Animal by Ella Baxter
The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop
The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks
Book of Colours by Robyn Cadwallader
Shanghai Dancing by Brian Castro
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
The Mannequin Makers by Craig Cliff
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Our Magic Hour by Jennifer Down
Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser
Careful He Might Hear You by Sumner Locke Elliott
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan
Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
The Book of Ayn by Lexi Freiman
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
Weyward by Emilia Hart
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
The Glass Canoe by David Ireland
The Stone Road by Trent Jamieson
The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox
Crossings by Alex Landragin
The Swimmers by Chloe Lane
Gunk Baby by Jamie Marina Lau
The Boat by Nam Le
Others Were Emeralds by Lang Leav
All That's Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
Madelaine Lucas by Madelaine Lucas
Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko
Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
Strange Bliss: Essential Stories by Katherine Mansfield
Walkabout by James Vance Marshall
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
The White Earth by Andrew McGahan
The Passage of Love by Alex Miller
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
Homecoming by Kate Morton
Stream System: The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane by Gerald Murnane
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Here Until August: Stories by Josephine Rowe
A Room Called Earth by Madeleine Ryan
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith
A Little Tea, a Little Chat by Christina Stead
Tourmaline by Randolph Stow
The Performance by Claire Thomas
Here Goes Nothing by Steve Toltz
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
The Inland Sea by Madeleine Watts
Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White
To Name Those Lost by Rohan Wilson
The Yield by Tara June Winch
Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
I for Isobel by Amy Witting
City of Crows by Chris Womersley
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood

>64 ELiz_M: that’s a great list!. How did you do that?

>65 dianeham: The old-fashioned way -- I took photos of the shelves and typed in the titles. :)

>66 ELiz_M: Oh wow! Thanks for doing that! I was imagining you standing there jotting them all down. I had to stop clicking on titles because I already got so many bb from it. I will definitely return to this list.

>64 ELiz_M: Immediately I have to count how many of these I've read. Is counting books a compulsion? I've read 6 and have a few more on my shelves, plus I've read a couple of the authors, but not the book you list. Were you thinking of your Oceania list on storygraph?

>68 labfs39: I was researching for it, yes. I think all of these books are Australia/New Zealand focused (author and/or setting). I think the M-J books in Brooklyn where I purchased They Who Do Not Grieve had a slightly larger/different selection.

>64 ELiz_M: Thanks for this list. I’ve read only about half a dozen. Definitely recommend Helen Garner. I’m currently reading Enchanted April but do not count Elizabeth Van Arnin as Australian, as though she was born in Australia she left shortly after and never lived there. But I’m enjoying her book. V English.

>62 arubabookwoman: >64 ELiz_M: two lists in one day! Fun discovery Deborah, and cool list Liz.

>69 ELiz_M: i was thinking it felt very Australian

>62 arubabookwoman:

Here are 45 books I bought at a Houston Public Library book sale on April 17, 2009. 12 are childrens books, as my kids were then ages 4 & 2. Of the other 33, I've read one - No Country for Old Men

Animal's People by Indra Sinha
Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by Conrad Aiken
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Atonement by Ian McEwan discarded 2022
Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Jim the Boy by Tony Earley
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy ==> read in 2015
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
The Sea by John Banville
Acts of Faith by Philip Caputo
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber ==> discarded 2015
Wolves of the Crescent Moon by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well by Tod Wodicka
The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart by M. Glenn Taylor
Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
Love Marriage by V. V. Ganeshanathan ==> discarded 2022
Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Music & Silence by Rose Tremain
Thud! by Terry Pratchett
Cat's Eyewitness by Rita Mae Brown
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Lucky by Alice Sebold ==> discarded 2013
Fool by Christopher Moore

children's books:
Bing: Paint Day (Bing Bunny) by Ted Dewan ==> discarded 2011
There's a Wocket in my Pocket! by Dr. Seuss
Dolphins (Endangered!) by Casey Horton ==> discarded 2013
White Wave: A Chinese Tale by Diane Wolkstein
Tuesday by David Wiesner ==> discarded 2022
Rumpelstiltskin by Marie-Louise Gay ==> discarded 2022
Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 by Bill Jr. Martin ==> discarded 2014
Draw Me A Star by Eric Carle ==> discarded 2014
I Love Boats by Flora McDonnell ==> discarded 2014
The Starry Night by Neil Waldman
The Heart of Cool by Jamie McEwan ==> discard 2011
The Pop-Up Book: Step-by-Step Instructions for Creating Over 100 Original Paper Projects by Paul Jackson

>72 dchaikin: Interesting list. There are a few books there I’d recommend. Waiting for the Barbarians, The sea, Mister Pip and Disgrace for starters.

>64 ELiz_M: I've read seven, plus I saw the stage version of Cloudstreet.

I can highly recommend The Natural Way of Things.

>72 dchaikin:
An intriguing list. Two favourites there: Cold Comfort Farm, wonderful spoof/satire on a whole strain of writing. I found it funny in itself having said that. Also Ella Minnow Pea - very clever!

>72 dchaikin: Such an interesting list. Did you make any of the paper projects? I am reading a book by V. V. Ganeshananthan right now.

>72 dchaikin: Of the "grown-up" books on your list Dan, of the ones i've read, the ones I'd recommend you get to immediately are: Animal's People (about the effects of the Bhopal chemical leak on the poor people living in the surrounding area), We Need To Talk About Kevin (the mother of a school shooter looks back); and I, Claudius (Historical Fiction I read after watching the PBS miniseries). There are lots of other good ones on the list too.
More about books on Dan's list:
>73 kjuliff: >75 Willoyd: I read and reviewed The Sea last year. I found it ok, but nothing special. I absolutely hated Cold Comfort Farm, but I probably just don't get that brand of British humor. But I did really like Ella Minnow Pea, and agree it's very clever.

>64 ELiz_M: I've read 16 of these and have 3 on my TBR shelves. Of these I'd especially recommend Riders in the Chariot (or basically anything by Patrick White, though Riders is my favorite). Many years ago (somewhere maybe 2011-2013 or thereabouts) CR did a year long focus on Patrick White which was quite interesting.
Other books on the list I loved are Careful He Might Hear You and The Bone People, which was a surprise Booker winner. Scary Monsters was one of the last books I read in 2023 and I reviewed it. I didn't much care for it. And everyone should read On the Beach (although I read it many years ago and perhaps it doesn't hold up?).

>77 arubabookwoman: I think On the Beach wouldn’t hold up. I saw the movie but didn’t read the book. The movie was quite good, at the time. I think I was a young child and it scared hell out of me as it was set in my home town.

For SF/fantasy/horror readers, Locus Magazine's annual recommended reading list is always a valuable resource. The 2023 recommendations are out:

https://locusmag.com/2024/02/2023-recommended-reading-list

On someone's thread (Lisa's?) there was discussion about women authors who write nonfiction. I read lots of nonfiction by women. Here are some of my favorites. I could go on and on, but I stopped with my 5 and 4.5 star reads that I thought would have widest appeal.

Authors who I've read several books by:
Jill Lepore - Book of Ages: the Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin is a favorite
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich - A Midwife's Tale is a must-read in my opinion!
Laura Hillenbrand - loved Unbroken
Isabel Wilkerson - The Warmth of Other Suns
Lucy Worsley - Jane Austen at Home
Claire Tomalin - Jane Austen: A Life (she's written several author bios)
Antonia Fraser - I think Mary, Queen of Scots is my favorite so far - she's written lots of history bios
Barbara Tuchman - loved A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
Anne Applebaum - Gulag: A History
Megan Marshall - I loved both of her books, but especially The Peabody Sisters
Doris Kearns Goodwin - Team of Rivals is excellent

Biographies:
Georgina Howell - Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations
Harriet O'Brien - Queen Emma and the Vikings
Janice Hadlow - A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III
Laura Hillenbrand - loved Unbroken
Isabel Wilkerson - The Warmth of Other Suns
Jung Chang - Wild Swans
Helene Cooper - The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (a president of Liberia)

Caroline Moorehead - A Train in Winter
Tiya Miles - All That She Carried
Jennifer Homans - Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet
Mary Wellesley - The Gilded Page
Laura Cumming - The Vanishing Velazquez
Michelle Alexander - The New Jim Crow
Barbara Demick - Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
Elizabeth Kolbert - The Sixth Extinction

>77 arubabookwoman:
Cold Comfort Farm is about as peculiarly English (not British) as they come. It parodies a very specific genre of writing prevalent in the 1930s - although it has a pretty good go at the rural memoir typified by Lark Rise to Candleford or Cider With Rosie (which IMO is a sitting target). The English still have a rather odd approach to the countryside: idolise it, romanticise about it, and yet are determined to trash it. - we are one of the most nature depleted countries in the world.

>81 japaul22: good stuff. Lepore has a lot of books. i would add Stacy Schiff, although I find her books hit and miss. I’ll have to gosee what others I can add.

>83 dchaikin: Yes, I've read two of Stacy Schiff's books, but I didn't love them enough to put them on this list. This list is only 5 and 4.5 star reads, which I'm stingy with for nonfiction.

I also realized that I only looked under my books tagged nonfiction, so if I have books tagged under a more specific category, I missed them in that list. Like Rebecca Solnit, whose essays I love.

4/5 star NF by women from my library. I kinda like the randomness of the subjects they cover:

James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon, Julie Phillips
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President, Candice Millard
Let Me Clear My Throat: Essays, Elena Passarello
Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, Dana Stevens
Vested Interests: Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety, Marjorie Garber
The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries, Marilyn Johnson
One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, Rebecca Mead
In the Land of Invented Languages, Arika Okrent
Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, Rachel Maddow
Year of Wonder: Classical Music to Enjoy Day by Day, Clemency Burton-Hill
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, Gretchen McCulloch
Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind, Margalit Fox
The Library Book, Susan Orlean

...and the work of Mary Roach (with the exception of Spook, which I think is by far her least successful book).

So I started a list of books that I have read and would recommend: Club Read's Recommended Nonfiction Written by Women. Please feel free to add books you would recommend, and we'll see if we can't create a nice resource. Keith has already found it and added some great books.

P.S. I didn't add memoirs, wasn't sure if we wanted to include those. What do folks think?

>87 labfs39: Whoops, I added a couple of memoirs and then got up to Becoming (in my NF books) and realised it wasn't already on the list and maybe we weren't including memoirs.

I'll leave the ones I've added in there but won't add any more until someone decides one way or the other.

>87 labfs39: what about authors who identify as non-binary like Masha Gessen?

>79 KeithChaffee: I was stopping by to post it and saw that you beat me to it. :)

>64 ELiz_M: Nice to see a Patrick White novel on those oceanic shelves. Here is a list of Patrick White books I have read and my ratings:

Voss - 5 stars
The Vivisector - 5stars
The Twyborn Affair - 5 stars
Tree of Man - 5 stars
A fringe of Leaves - 4.5 stars
The Solid Mandala - 4 stars
Riders in the Chariot - 4 stars
The Burnt Ones - 4 stars
The Living and the Dead - 4 stars
The Aunts Story - 4 stars
Eye of the Storm - 3 stars

>91 baswood: So, read pretty much any Patrick White?

>91 baswood: Patrick White is a favorite of mine too Barry. Were you a member of Club Read 10 or so years ago when there was a focus on reading him, sort of "author of the year"? My overall favorite of his is Riders in the Chariot. These are the ones I've read:

The Vivisector
Riders in the Chariot
The Solid Mandala
A Fringe of Leaves
Voss
The Tree of Man
Eye of the Storm
The Living and the Dead

I have on my shelf unread The Hanging Garden

Taking note of from your list:

The Twyborn Affair
The Burnt Ones
The Aunt's Story

I read Voss a few years back. I had to fight my way through parts of it, but I'm very glad I read it all in all.

>87 labfs39: I just went in and added 23 books to this list, although I did not see the "no memoirs" proviso. Memoirs count as non-fiction to me, but I can go back and remove those few memoirs I added if folks would prefer that.

>95 rocketjk: I think memoirs are fine, Jerry. At first I asked the group what everyone thought, but I'm not sure why I singled out memoirs to ask about. It's okay if women write biographies, but writing about themselves is less worthy of inclusion? Whoa, that brought me up short. So I did an about face in my own mind, and it was never something that wasn't "allowed". It's a list for Club Read so add away!

>96 labfs39: fyi: the books I added were:

Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kate Clifford Larson
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander**
The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir by Samantha Power
The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World―and Globalization Began by Valerie Hansen
Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism by Patricia Hill Collins
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather C. McGhee
Scoundrel Time by Lilian Hellman
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby
Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life by Louise Aronson
Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein
The Norton Book of Women's Lives edited by Phyllis Rose
Women, Race, and Class by Angela Y. Davis
Canaries in the Mineshaft: Essays on Politics and Media by Renata Adler
The Incredible Human Journey by Alice Roberts
West with the Night by Beryl Markham
Still Talking by Joan Rivers
When Tenants Claimed the City: The Struggle for Citizenship in New York City Housing by Roberta Gold
Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions by Lisa Randall
Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 by Madeleine K. Albright
The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama by Gwen Ifill
An Inn Near Kyoto: Writing by American Women Abroad edited by Kathleen Coskran
Madame Curie: A Biography by Eve Curie

There are all books I've read in the past 10 years or so, listed in no particular order. I left out all the Mary Roach books since they'd already been included.

** I'm not sure I'm the first to list this book here.

Club Read's Recommended Nonfiction Written by Women is going great guns: 180 books by 13 members. The books cover a wide variety of topics. Only 48 are in my library or even wish listed, so I know that I personally will be able to find some new works and authors. I hope others find it a good resource as well. Some non-Club Read members seem to have found it already. A nice addition to the list section of LT. Thanks all!

>98 labfs39: I asked a question in >89 dianeham: about non-binary - specifically Masha Gessen.

>99 dianeham: Sorry to have missed your question, Diane. I would be okay with including nonbinary authors, perhaps put a note in the "explain your choice" field? As I've said I think of this list as a Club Read list, not my own, so I'm happy with whatever direction it takes. More is better to my mind.

>100 labfs39: Thanks. I just went and added memoirs and books about myths and folklore plus a few female catholic mystics. Now I want to scan it for books to read. I love it.

> 98 Have added around 100 or so female authored non-fiction books that have scored well with me. The Pax Britannica trilogy and Venice were authored by Jan Morris under her male name of James, as these were published either side of her transition (see Conundrum).

>91 baswood: I loved these books but read them a long time ago. Have you read any of them recently, and if so, how do they stand up?

Does anyone know of a list of books published 1920-35? Or between the wars books.

>104 kjuliff: there is a list here on LT - Best Books of 1926-1935 - https://www.librarything.com/list/11841/Best-Books-of-1926-1935

>98 labfs39: Thanks for setting this up - I have added a few.

Some lists via recent book awards (shortlists/longlists):

THE NERO BOOK AWARDS
These were set up to replace the Costa Book Awards, which were awarded for English language writing between 1971 and 2005 before being taken over by Coca Cola, and in their infinite corporate wisdom, shut down.

Winner, Nonfiction: Fern Brady - Strong Female Character
Shortlisted: Freya Bromley - The Tidal Year; Natasha Carthew - Undertow; Victoria Smith - Hags

Winner, Fiction: Paul Murray - The Bee Sting
Shortlisted: Eleanor Catton - Birnam Wood; Megan Nolan - Ordinary Human Failings; Karen Powell - Fifteen Wild Decembers

Winner, Debut Fiction: Michael Magee - Close to Home
Shortlisted: Stephen Buoro - The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa; Tom Crewe - The New Life; Chloe Michelle Howarth - Sunburn

Republic of Consciousness Prize
The prize is focused on fiction published by small independent presses. This year's longlist:
Cross Stitch, by Jazmina Barrera, translated by Christina MacSweeney (Two Lines Press)
The Long Form, by Kate Briggs (Dorothy)
Two Sherpas, by Sebastián Martínez Daniell, translated by Jennifer Croft (Charco Press)
Breaking and Entering, by Don Gillmor (Biblioasis)
Your Love is Not Good, by Johanna Hedva (And Other Stories)
Landscapes, by Christine Lai (Two Dollar Radio)
The Birthday Party, by Laurent Mauvignier, translated by Daniel Levin Becker (Transit Books)
Lojman, by Ebru Ojen, translated by Aron Aji and Selin Gökcesu (City Lights)
The Box, by Mandy-Suzanne Wong (Graywolf Press)
The Sorrows of Others, by Ada Zhang (A Public Space)

>107 rv1988: thanks. I wasn’t aware of the Republic of Consciousness Prize. I’m happy it exists and hope they manage it well. I’ll curious who wins.

>100 labfs39: Or Anyone who can answer this question. I just spent some time adding books to the list. I understand a green check means it's in my library. What does it mean if there is a heart placed on the book? What does it mean if there is a triangle composed of dots placed on the book cover?
Also, it says that books are listed in order of rank. The books I entered appeared in the exact order I entered them, although widely scattered among books already entered. I can't believe that the order in which I entered them exactly matched their rank. (And BTW, what ranking is that? It doesn't appear to be by stars or by number of LTers who have the book in their library.)

>109 arubabookwoman: I can answer some of this: the green check is for a book in your library, a purple heart is for a book on your wishlist, and a blue person holding a book is for a book that is in your Read but Unowned collection. The grey circle with three dots means it's in a collection you created (for instance, it my case it's on a book that I have in my LT account as being in Katie's Library).

>105 dianeham: Thank you SO much. I’m currently interested in this period as there are some very interesting novelists here, some I’ve only just stumbled upon.

>109 arubabookwoman: And I found this to answer your question about how list rankings work: How is 'score' calculated on lists?

>112 labfs39: Thanks Lisa for looking into this. Unfortunately the explanation was way too complicated for me to understand, and I don't think it can explain why the 100+ books I added appear in the exact order in which I entered them. I entered some very popular/well known books near the end (and they appear near the end of the list) and vice versa--some less well-known books entered near the beginning and appearing near the beginning. Just doesn't make sense. Don't waste any more time on this. I was just mildly curious about what the explanation was.

>110 labfs39: which are you interested in?

>113 arubabookwoman: if you enter a book that someone else also added then the book gets a higher "score" and moves higher up the list.

I have also tried the lists feature a few times and been frustrated by them. Maybe I’ll try again but they seem clunky.

You can go in to the list after you add them, click on your own list, and rank your entries. It will also say what the "global ranking" is. So my top rank would be A Midwife's Tale but globally it's 22. So I think the overall list compiles how everyone ranks their books to create an order. That of course assumes everyone has taken the time rank the books they've added. You can also click on anyone's name and see their personal list - I assume the way they've ranked them.

>115 dianeham: Except that I deliberately did not enter any books that were already on the list.

>117 japaul22: I did not rank my entries. I don't know how to do that, but maybe they thought I was ranking them in the order I entered them? This all seems way too complicated for everyday use.

>118 arubabookwoman: Are the ones you did not enter in your library? You can see all the books on the list that are in your library and add any to "your" list. This doesn't add the book again, but merely adds you as a nominator.

I think you can just ignore the rankings, I am, and simply sort by author or title and browse.

This is what I added to the CR Women Nonfiction list, not in any order

General Nonfiction
The Sea Around Us Rachel Carson
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us Alice Roberts
Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity Prue Shaw
A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf
The Secret History of Wonder Woman Jill Lepore
The Odyssey of Homer (The Great Courses) Elizabeth Vandiver
The Iliad of Homer (The Great Courses) Elizabeth Vandiver
The Story of America: Essays on Origins Jill Lepore
The Drunken Botanist : The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks Amy Stewart
Voices from Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich
All Joy and No Fun : The Paradox of Modern Parenthood Jennifer Senior
Being Wrong : Adventures in the Margin of Error Kathryn Schulz
Mythology : Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes Edith Hamilton
Miami Joan Didion
Unfamiliar fishes Sarah Vowell
The Guns of August Barbara Wertheim Tuchman
Stonehenge (Wonders of the World) Rosemary Hill
The Everglades : River of Grass Marjory Stoneman Douglas
In the Rainforest: Report from a Strange, Beautiful, Imperiled World Catherine Caufield
The Warmth of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson

Biographies
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century Beverly Gage
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life Ruth Franklin
Véra : Mrs Vladimir Nabokov Stacy Schiff
Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Sarah Vowell
A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America Stacy Schiff
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition Frances A. Yates
Woman of Rome : A Life of Elsa Morante Lily Tuck
The Shadow Man Mary Gordon
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Knock at the Door: A Journey Through the Darkness of the Armenian Genocide Margaret Ajemian Ahnert
Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China, 1898-1976 Han Suyin

Here is what I did not add, because I was afraid to add memoirs, but these are all really good:

Memoirs not added
These Precious Days: Essays Ann Patchett
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books Azar Nafisi
The Yellow House Sarah M. Broom
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson
Becoming Michelle Obama
Real American A Memoir Julie Lythcott-Haims
Lab Girl Hope Jahren
I Feel Bad About My Neck : And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman Nora Ephron
I Remember Nothing : And Other Reflections Nora Ephron
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. Viv Albertine
The Liars' Club Mary Karr
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage Ann Patchett
Anne Frank Remembered : The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family Miep Gies
The Linen Way Melissa Green
Space : A Memoir Jesse Lee Kercheval
How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less Sarah Glidden
Just Kids Patti Smith
Persepolis Marjane Satrapi
Cross Creek Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Lizards on the Mantel, Burros at the Door: A Big Bend Memoir Etta Koch
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou

>123 dchaikin: Don't be afraid, Dan! Add away!

>124 labfs39: done. :)

I've just added the following:

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn
Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction by Lisa Kröger
Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right by Anne Nelson
If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir by Ilana Kurshan
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro

Society of Authors (UK) Translation Prizes for 2023:

- Japanese: Alison Watts for translating The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase
- Swedish: Saskia Vogel for a translation of Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm
- Spanish: William Rowe and Helen Dimos for a translation of Trilce - Translations and Glosses by César Vallejo
- Arabic: Luke Leafgren for a translation of Mister N by Najwa Barakat
- German: Jamie Bulloch for a translation of Hinterland by Arno Geiger
- French: Frank Wynne for a translation of Standing Heavy by GauZ’
- First Translation Prize: Sophie Collins and editor Marigold Atkey for a translation from Dutch of The Opposite of a Person by Lieke Marsman
- Goethe Institut Prize for new and emerging translators: Rob Myatt

https://www2.societyofauthors.org/2024/02/07/alison-watts-wins-inaugural-great-b...

>127 rv1988: wow. Thanks for sharing!

>103 kjuliff: The last time I read a Patrick White novel was 11 years ago, in fact I read most of them 11 years ago. I have no idea if my tastes have changed over that period of time.

There is a very good Biography Patrick White: A life but I read this eleven years ago as well

>129 baswood: That must have been when CR was doing its year long focus on Patrick White. That's when I read many of his books too.

The 2024 Pen/Faulkner Award longlist. I haven't read any of these!

- Witness by Jamel Brinkley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- The Guest by Emma Cline (Random House)
- Monica by Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics)
- Open Throat by Henry Hoke (MCD)
- The Best Possible Experience by Nishanth Injam (Pantheon)
- What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jimenez (Grand Central)
- Biography of X by Catherine Lacey (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (Riverhead)
- Absolution by Alice McDermott (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- Users by Colin Winnette (Soft Skull)

https://www.penfaulkner.org/2024/02/06/announcing-the-longlist-for-the-2024-pen-...

And (it's like they knew we were talking about it) the Women's Prize just announced its first ever long list of nonfiction by women authors. I've read All That She Carried and recommend it. I also already had Eve and How to Say Babylon on hold at the library. The rest are new to me and several look appealing.

https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-non-fiction/

>132 japaul22: the list

-Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood by Lucy Jones (320p, 11 hrs on audio)
-Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein (398p, 14:47 on audio)
-How to Say Babylon : A Jamaican Memoir by Safiya Sinclair (349p, 16:46 on audio)
-Intervals by Marianne Brooker (US release is Feb 28 (?), 192p, no audio)
-All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family’s Keepsake by Tiya Miles (377p, 9:29 on audio)
-Wifedom : Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder (464p, 12:39 on audio)
-Shadows at Noon : The South Asian Twentieth Century by Joya Chatterji (864p, no audio)
-Code Dependent : Living in the Shadow of AI by Madhumita Murgia ( US release june 18, 304p, 9:30 on audio )
-Eve : How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon (596, 15:54 on audio)
-A Flat Place : A Memoir by Noreen Masud (253p, no audio)
-Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in the Philippines by Patricia Evangelista (433p, 11:25 on audio)
-Thunderclap : A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death by Laura Cumming - (12 October 1654 gunpowder explosion in Delft and painter Carel Fabritius) (273p, 7:39 on audio)
-The Dictionary People : The Unsung Heroes who created the Oxford English Dictionary by Sarah Ogilvie (371p, 11:08 on audio)
-Vulture Capitalism : Corporate Crime, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom by Grace Blakeley (US release date March 12, 379p, 10:30 on audio)
-Young Queens: The Intertwined Lives of Catherine De’ Medici, Elisabeth De Valois and Mary, Queen of Scotts by Leah Redmond Chang (490p, 18:28 on audio)
-The Britannias : An Island Quest by Alice Albinia (US release date feb 27, 512p, no audio)

It’s a really appealing list of titles. I think I’m most interested in Shadows at Noon for India history, Eve for the geology, Some People Need Killing for the immersive journalism and The Britannias for the trivia.

I enjoyed The Dictionary People, but whilst I hugely admired the research it wasn't my favourite non-fiction last year. That was Amy-Jane Beer's The Flow. Thunderclap was a Christmas present from my OH, and having dipped in to it and loved On Chapel Sands, I can't wait to read it. I've also dipped into Eve, on my TBR shelf, and that also looks very strong. Same with the Masud. But then it looks a strong list. Over here, the Funder has received a lot of attention, including being Book Of The Week on Radio 4.

I added page numbers, audio availability and length, and US release dates (per amazon). Shadows at Noon is the longest.

>135 Willoyd: cool info. Thanks!

Fyi - i tried to read Alice Albinia’s book on Pakistan, Empires of the Indus, but couldn’t get that interested in it. It was a sort of travelogue journalism.

>135 Willoyd: You need to check your touchstones.

I'm currently reading, and thoroughly enjoying (though the treatment of Eileen is making me cross so maybe enjoying isn't the word) Wifedom. The Dictionary People is on my TBR shelves so I might add it to the planned reading list for March.

>137 dianeham:
Will do, and thanks. Unfortunately, they don't render properly on my phone, so I have to edit them when back at my desktop.

Later edit:Have done now - only one of the four was correct! I'm probably not handling them properly, but I do wonder what sort of algorithm is being used where one types in "The Dictionary People", but "Chambers Encyclopedia" is preferred to "The Dictionary People" as the initial option.

>136 dchaikin: I have that one on kindle app, and pick at it a little at a time (over several years). It's geographical travel on the Indus, and I'd hoped for something more coherent chronologically than just her travels and bits of history here and there.

>133 dchaikin: This is such an interesting list. I'm dreading what this will do to the looming TBR pile.

>141 rv1988: they’re all tempting to me 🙂

>140 markon: me too. I tried to get into it. Maybe in a different mindset I would have.

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2024 longlist

THE NEW LIFE Tom Crewe (Chatto & Windus)

A debut novel of forbidden love and new ways of living in 1890s London, with themes of love, guilt, shame and freedom at its heart, as men and women daringly re-shape the personal and political world in which they live

A BETTER PLACE Stephen Daisley (Text Publishing) - one copy on LY

New Zealand twin brothers Roy and Tony Mitchell are sent to fight in WWII in this melancholy novel exploring fraternal and romantic love and the brutal effects of war

HUNGRY GHOSTS Kevin Jared Hosein (Bloomsbury)

A Trinidadian novel about violence and religion, family and class in 1940s Trinidad, playing with traditional storytelling techniques, set around an evocative house on a hill and the people who live in the village below

FOR THY GREAT PAIN, HAVE MERCY ON MY LITTLE PAIN Victoria MacKenzie (Bloomsbury)

An exploration of grief, trauma and revelation through this epic yet intimate study of the hidden lives of two extraordinary women, Margery and Julian, whose meeting will change everything

MUSIC IN THE DARK Sally Magnusson (John Murray)

A story of unlooked-for love in later life, told through the brutality of the Highland Clearances and their lasting effects, this is a novel about resilience memory, resurrection, and the parts of us that nobody can take away

CUDDY Benjamin Myers (Bloomsbury)

A bold and experimental retelling of the story of St Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England — told in four parts, spanning the seventh century to present day

MY FATHER’S HOUSE Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker)

A novel about faith, love, sacrifice and humanity in the most extreme circumstances, it tells the moving story of Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish priest in Vatican City who rescued victims of the Nazis under the nose of his SS officer nemesis Paul Hauptmann

THE FRAUD Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton)

An exploration of the nature of truth, and how to find it, in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, framed by the Tichborne Trial and told through the lives and testimonies of Mrs Touchet and Andrew Bogle

MISTER TIMELESS BLYTH Alan Spence (Tuttle)

A fictional autobiography of Reginald Horace Blyth, which straddles literature and philosophy, expressed through Blyth’s passions of hard work, books, music, spiritual questioning and a quest for inner peace and the essence of being alive

THE HOUSE OF DOORS Tan Twan Eng (Canongate)

An atmospheric tale of love, betrayal and morality in 1920s Penang, with Willie Somerset Maugham at its centre, exploring the vagaries of his life, his unique creativity, and the personal and political tensions at play in the sultry colony

IN THE UPPER COUNTRY Kai Thomas (Penguin Canada)

A sweeping debut telling the stories of two women — one at the beginning of a journey of self-discovery, the other fulfilling one last, vital act — set in the Black communities of Ontario, the last stop on the infamous Underground Railroad stretching from the south

ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER Rose Tremain (Chatto & Windus)

A short novel exploring themes of thwarted love, true friendship and fate, through the parallel lives of teenage sweethearts Marianne Clifford and Simon Hurst, with Petronella, Marianne’s courageous Scottish friend, always by Marianne’s side

>143 dchaikin: thats an interesting list

>143 dchaikin: Thanks for posting this. I see the Tom Crewe book is getting a lot of good reviews, looks interesting, as does Zadie Smith's.

English PEN's translation award winners:

- Mammoth by Eva Baltasar (Spain), translated from the Catalan by Julia Sanches (And Other Stories).
- From Savagery by Alejandra Banca (Spain), translated from the Spanish by Katie Brown (Selkies House).
- Submarines in the Night by Chuncheng Chen (China), translated from the Chinese by Jack Hargreaves (Honford Star).
- Wolf Sanctuary by Zdravka Evtimova (Bulgaria), translated from the Bulgarian by Yana Ellis (Héloïse Press).
- My Favourite by Sarah Jollien-Fardel (Switzerland), translated from the French by Holly James (The Indigo Press).
- Tongueless by Yee-Wa Lau (Hong Kong), translated from the Cantonese by Jennifer Feeley (Serpent’s Tail).
- Why Did You Come Back Every Summer? by Belén López Peiró (Argentina), translated from the Spanish by Maureen Shaughnessy (Charco Press).
- Anomaly by Andrej Nikolaidis (Montenegro), translated from the Montenegrin by Will Firth (Peirene Press).
- Holy Winter by Maria Stepanova (Germany), translated from the Russian by Sasha Dugdale (Bloodaxe Books).
- Purity by Andrzej Tichý (Sweden), translated from the Swedish by Nichola Smalley (And Other Stories).
- Rocket by Loranne Vella (Belgium), translated from the Maltese by Kat Storace (Praspar Press).
- A Programme of Absolute Disorder: Decolonising the Museum by Françoise Vergès (Reunion), translated from the French by Melissa Thackway (Pluto Press).

https://www.englishpen.org/posts/news/pen-translates-winners-announced-4/

>146 rv1988: Cool!

Busy awards week. Tomorrow is the Women’s Prize longlist. Pulitzers come out March 8, and the international booker prize longlist comes March 11.

The Stella Prize is a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing. The $60,000 prize is awarded annually to one outstanding book deemed to be original, excellent, and engaging

The longlist was announced today:

https://stella.org.au/2024-stella-prize/?fbclid=IwAR2P5LWW9C6o17BLLPwzro-jr62IKG...

>147 dchaikin: I enjoy reading these lists, but I dread what they end up doing to my TBR...

>148 dchaikin: The book covers alone are interesting.

The Women’s Prize Fiction longlist was released today

https://womensprize.com/announcing-the-2024-womens-prize-for-fiction-longlist/

Hangman by Maya Binyam, published by ONE, Pushkin Press
In Defence of the Act by Effie Black, published by époque press
And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott, published by Allen & Unwin
The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright, published by Jonathan Cape
The Maiden by Kate Foster, published by Mantle
Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, published by Viking
Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville, published by Canongate Books
Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, published by Jonathan Cape
Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, published by Faber & Faber
8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee, published by Virago
The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord, published by Gollancz
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, published by Picador
Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie, published by Oneworld
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan, published by Jonathan Cape
River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure, published by Duckworth Books
A Trace of Sun by Pam Williams, published by Legend Press - No touchstone

>151 dchaikin: I think this is the first time in the decade or so that I've been following this prize that I haven't read a single book on the long list. And honestly, only one or two were even on my radar. Kind of exciting!

>152 japaul22: I’m intrigued. I plan to read Western Lane next month - it will be my last from the Booker longlist. There’s a lot of chatter about The Wren, the Wren for the 2024 upcoming Booker. The only author i’ve read is Kate Grenville, but not that new book. Maybe it’s time I read Ganeshananthan. Everything else is completely new - author and title.

I think Rasdhar reviewed Brotherless Night.

Thanks for posting the list Dan. I’ve read the Enright (I read her books ever since The Gathering). I was able to get 1 from Libby, Western Lane, and request 2 for a 21 week wait, but the rest weren’t available and I don’t think I’ve even heard of any of them.

>151 dchaikin: I tried to go to their website yesterday and got a warning that it was unsafe. Thanks for posting, Dan.

>156 dianeham: they were concerned about your tbr? (Seriously, that’s weird. Hope the page is safe. I spent some time there. )

>157 dchaikin: I didn’t get the warning today. That first book The Hangman (how did you find the touchstone for that?) I started but didn’t finish. Maybe I’ll go back to it.

I posted the USA Republic of Consciousness Prize longlist above (an award for fiction from small/independent presses). The Prize originates from the UK. Today the UK and Ireland shortlist is out as well. https://www.republicofconsciousness.com/2024-shortlist

- Out of Earth by Sheyla Smanioto (Translated by Laura Garmeson & Sophie Lewis, Boiler House Press)
- Avenues by Train by Farai Mudzingwa (Cassava Republic)
- Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia (Translated by Zoë Perry, Charco Press )
- The Zekameron by Maxim Znak (Translated by Jim & Ella Dingley, Scotland Street Press)
- The End of August by Yu Miri (Translated by Morgan Giles, Tilted Axis Press)

For those interested, the 2024 Audie Awards (best audiobooks in the USA) were awarded this week. List of awards, including finalists, is here.

>147 dchaikin: whoops. Pulitzer isn’t out until May 8 (not March). Hope i didn’t make anyone too excited….

>161 dchaikin: I was anticipating it but I’ll live.

>159 rv1988: They're all going into my whishlist!

Copied from Lisa's thread (because some non-award lists are nice):

Books to read on Chinese history:

famine (1958-1962)
Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikötter
Hungry Ghosts by Jasper Becker (rec by mabith)
Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962 (rec by SassyLassy)
The corpse walker : real life stories, China from the bottom up by Liao Yiwu (rec by SassyLassy)

general
The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980 by Jonathan Spence
The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence
Leaden Wings by Jie Zhang (rec by Eliz_M)
Zhou Enlai : the last perfect revolutionary by Wenqian Gao (rec by SassyLassy)

memoirs/bios
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (rec by mabith, rec by cindydavid4)
Big Sister, Red Sister, Little Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China by Jung Chang (rec by mabith)
Half of Man is Woman by Xianliang Zhang (rec by Eliz_M)
No Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison by Xu Hongci (rec by lilisin)
Bullets and Opium: Real-Life Stories of China After the Tiananmen Square Massacre by Yiwu Liao (rec by lilisin)
A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu (graphic novel) (rec by avatiakh)
Feather in the storm : a childhood lost in chaos by Emily Wu
No tears for Mao : growing up in the Cultural Revolution by Niu-niu
Colors of the mountain by Da Chen
Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China by Zhang XinXin
Red Scarf Girl : A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang

earlier
Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang (on shelves, rec by mabith)
Two Years in the Forbidden City by Princess Der Ling (rec by lilisin)

historical fiction
A Dictionary of Maqiao by Shaogong Han
Naked Earth by Eileen Chang (rec by SassyLassy)
Raise the red lantern : three novellas by Tong Su (rec by steven03tx)
Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
The Concert by Ismail Kadare

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction’s longlist includes 15 authors from the United States and Canada, spanning novels, short story collections, and fiction in translation. On May 13, one of these writers will win the $150,000 USD grand prize, generously presented by BMO Financial Group.

Lisa Alward
Cocktail: Stories (Biblioasis)

Eleanor Catton
Birnam Wood: A Novel (McClelland & Stewart)

Nicole Cuffy
Dances: A Novel (One World)

Claudia Dey
Daughter: A Novel (Doubleday Canada)

Kim Coleman Foote
Coleman Hill (SJP Lit)

V. V. Ganeshananthan
Brotherless Night (Random House)

Aisha Abdel Gawad
Between Two Moons (Doubleday)

Tania James
Loot: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf)

Juliana Lamy
You Were Watching from the Sand: Short Stories (Red Hen Press)

Catherine Leroux
The Future, translated by Susan Ouriou (Biblioasis)

Rebecca Makkai
I Have Some Questions for You: A Novel (Viking)

Janika Oza
A History of Burning: A Novel (McClelland & Stewart)

Mona Susan Power
A Council of Dolls: A Novel (Mariner Books)

Anuja Varghese
Chrysalis: Stories (House of Anansi)

C Pam Zhang
Land of Milk and Honey: A Novel (Riverhead Books

>151 dchaikin:
I usually find a fair bit exciting in the Women's Prize, but absolutely nothing inspires this year, unlike the first-time Non-fiction long list, which is riddled with 'must reads'.

>164 ELiz_M: Goodness, let me just say that this list is not meant to be definitive of anything, just a list of suggestions and books that I have on my shelves to read.

>164 ELiz_M: wow. And a list is a list. Add Red Star Over China for Communist China mythology ??

>165 dianeham: very interesting. Now We’ve seen Brotherless Night twice. I couldn’t finish A Council of Dolls. Just wasn’t enough going on there for me.

>167 labfs39: that works. I’m behind in your thread so seeing it here 1st.

Books on Edith Wharton, checked out today from my library

>169 dchaikin: That’s a lot of books.

Left stack, top down

After the fall: The Demeter-Persephone Myth in Wharton, Cather, and Glasgow (1989) by Josephine Donovan
Edith Wharton: matters of mind and spirit (1995) by Carol J. Singley
Edith Wharton’s prisoners of consciousness: a study of theme and technique in the tales (1994) by Evelyn E. Fracasso
Felicitous space: the imaginative structures of Edith Wharton and Willa Cather (1986) by Judith Fryer
Edith Wharton (2007) by Hermione Lee
Edith Wharton: An Extraordinary Life: An Illustrated Biography (1994) by Eleanor Dwight

Right stack - left to right

The brave escape of Edith Wharton: a biography (2010) by Connie Nordheim Woolridge
Edith Wharton: sex, satire and the older woman (2011) by Avril Horner and Janet Beer
Edith Wharton in context (2012) edited by Laura Rattrey
The gilded age: Edith Wharton and her contemporaries (1995) by Eleanor Dwight
Edith Wharton: Revised Edition (Twayne’s United States authors series) (c1976, 1991) by Margaret B. McDowell
not in sisterhood: Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Zona Gale, and the politics of female authorship (2001) by Deborah Lindsay Williams

The International Book Longlist came out this morning (well, after GMT). Here is the list with my extra notes

Maybe helpful info:

Not a River by Setlva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott
- original language: Spanish
- OPD: 2021
- Number of pages: 104
- Audio: none
- birthplace: Villa Elisa, Argentina 1973

Simpatía by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón, translated by Noel Hernández González and Daniel Hahn
- original language: Spanish
- OPD: 2021?
- Number of pages: 240
- Audio: none
- birthplace: Caracas, Venezuela 1981

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann
- original language: German
- OPD: 2021
- Number of pages: 336
- Audio: 10:25
- birthplace: East Berlin 1967

The Details by Ia Genberg, translated by Kira Josefsson
- original language: Swedish
- OPD: ??
- Number of pages: 144
- Audio: 3:54
- Nationality: Swedish ?, born 1967

White Nights by Urszula Honek, translated by Kate Webster
- original language: Polish
- OPD: 2022
- Number of pages: 162
- Audio: none
- Note: not on amazon. I couldn’t find a US release
- birthplace: Racławice, Poland in 1987

Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong, translated by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae
- original language: Korean
- OPD: 2020
- Number of pages: 555
- Audio: none
- Nationality: South Korean, born in Xinjing (today Changchun), Manchukuo, China, during the period of Japanese rule in 1943

A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare, translated by John Hodgson
- original language: Albanian
- OPD: ??
- Number of pages: 240
- Audio: none
- birthplace: Gjirokastër in the Kingdom of Albania during the reign of King Zog I 1936
- Note: While not a proper sequel, this latest work is “in direct conversation with” his early novel Twilight of the Eastern Gods (1978), based on his time in Moscow from 1958 to 1960.

The Silver Bone: The Kyiv Mysteries by Andrey Kurkov, translated from Russian by Boris Dralyuk
- original language: Russian
- OPD: ??
- Number of pages: 304
- Audio: 8:50
- Nationality: Ukranian, born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Russia in 1961)

What l'd Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma, translated by Sarah Timmer Havey
- original language: Dutch
- OPD: 2020
- Number of pages: 224
- Audio: none
- birthplace: Enschede, Netherlands 1974

Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo, translated by Leah Janeczko
- original language: Italian
- OPD: 2022
- Number of pages: 224
- Audio: 4:55
- birthplace: Rome 1978

The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone, translated by Oonagh Stransky
- original language: Italian
- OPD: 2000
- Number of pages: 480
- Audio: none
- birthplace: Saviano, near Naples, 1943

Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior, translated by Johnny Lorenz
- original language: Portuguese
- OPD: 2018
- Number of pages: 288
- Audio: none
- birthplace: Salvador, Brazil in 1979.

Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener, translated by Julia Sanches
- original language: Spanish
- OPD: 2022?
- Number of pages: 192
- Audio: 4:10
- birthplace: Lima, Peru 1975

The older Booker International was awarded to an author - not a specific book. Anyone know why they changed it?

>173 dianeham: https://thebookerprizes.com/international-booker-prize/the-international-booker-... ties the change to the expanded scope of the Booker award.

PS: The initial rules for the Booker were "Commonwealth, Irish, and South African (and later Zimbabwean) citizens" only -- which sent everyone else into the International. When that changed to open the Booker to all English-language ones, the International one remained for translations only - and it made sense to move towards book-based and not author-based award (that way translators can be recognized as well).

Plus - a single work is a lot lower bar than body of work when translations are involved and a lot more open to diverse authors.

>174 AnnieMod: Thanks Annie. I’ve miss you.

I think they kept the name but for a completely different award. They politely canned the Booker Nobel. 🙂 And then added a terrific award in its place.

>172 dchaikin: Thanks for posting this detailed rundown. Very useful.

>172 dchaikin: Kairos (Erpenbeck) is on my TBR, and I've requested The silver bone (Kurkow) at my library. Not sure why it's still in cataloging since it was published March 5, but I'm the only patron on the waiting list so far.

The GREAT American NOVELS - per The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/03/best-books-american-fiction/67...

>179 dchaikin: These lists always make me scratch my head a bit.

>179 dchaikin: I was surprised to see so many graphic novels on that list. It's not that I don't take them seriously -- it's an art form in its own right, with legitimate masterpieces that can stand alongside the best works in any other form -- but despite the name, a graphic novel isn't a novel.

I thought it was pretty strong up to about 1980 or so. Last 10 years made no sense to me

>182 dchaikin: last 10 years was weird.

For SFF fans, here are the Nebula Award finalists. Note that Martha Wells was nominated for System Collapse but withdrew, apparently saying the Murderbot series "has already received incredible praise from her industry peers and she wanted to open the floor to highlight other works within the community.” https://lithub.com/here-are-the-finalists-for-the-59th-annual-nebula-awards/

Best Novel
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
The Water Outlaws by S. L. Huang (Tordotcom and Solaris UK)
Translation State by Ann Leckie (Orbit US and Orbit UK)
The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz (Tor and Orbit UK)
Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi (DAW and Gollancz)
Witch King by Martha Wells (Tordotcom)

Best Novella
The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill (Tordotcom)
Linghun by Ai Jiang (Linghun, Dark Matter INK)
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor; Titan UK)
Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee (Tordotcom)
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older (Tordotcom)
Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)

Best Novelette
A Short Biography of a Conscious Chair”, Renan Bernardo (Samovar 2/23) http://samovar.strangehorizons.com/2023/02/27/a-short-biography-of-a-conscious-c...
I Am AI, Ai Jiang (Shortwave)
“The Year Without Sunshine”, Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny 11-12/23) https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-year-without-sunshine/
“Imagine: Purple-Haired Girl Shooting Down The Moon”, Angela Liu (Clarkesworld 6/23) https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_06_23/
“Saturday’s Song”, Wole Talabi (Lightspeed 5/23) https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/saturdays-song/
“Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge”, Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 9-10/23) https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/six-versions-of-my-brother-found-under-t...

Best Short Story
“Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont”, P.A. Cornell (Fantasy 10/23) https://www.fantasy-magazine.com/fm/fiction/once-upon-a-time-at-the-oakmont/
“Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200”, R.S.A Garcia (Uncanny 7-8/23) https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/tantie-merle-and-the-farmhand-4200/
“Window Boy”, Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld 8/23) https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ha_08_23/
“The Sound of Children Screaming”, Rachael K. Jones (Nightmare 10/23) https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/the-sound-of-children-screaming/
“Better Living Through Algorithms”, Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld 5/23) https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_05_23/
“Bad Doors”, John Wiswell (Uncanny 1-2/23) https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/bad-doors/

Andre Norton Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)
The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern, J. Dianne Dotson (Android)
Liberty’s Daughter Naomi Kritzer (Fairwood)
The Ghost Job, Greg van Eekhout (Harper)

Best Game Writing
The Bread Must Rise, Stewart C Baker, James Beamon (Choice of Games)
Alan Wake II, Sam Lake, Clay Murphy, Tyler Burton Smith, Sinikka Annala (Remedy Entertainment, Epic Games Publishing)
Ninefox Gambit: Machineries of Empire Roleplaying Game, Yoon Ha Lee, Marie Brennan(Android)
Dredge, Joel Mason (Black Salt Games, Team 17)
Chants of Sennaar, Julien Moya, Thomas Panuel (Rundisc, Focus Entertainment)
Baldur’s Gate 3, Adam Smith, Adrienne Law, Baudelaire Welch, Chrystal Ding, Ella McConnell, Ine Van Hamme, Jan Van Dosselaer, John Corcoran, Kevin VanOrd, Lawrence Schick, Martin Docherty, Rachel Quirke, Ruairí Moore, Sarah Baylus, Stephen Rooney, Swen Vincke (Larian Studios)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Nimona, Robert L. Baird, Lloyd Taylor, Pamela Ribon, Marc Haimes, Nick Bruno, Troy Quane, Keith Bunin, Nate Stevenson (Annapurna Animation, Annapurna Pictures)
The Last of Us: “Long, Long Time”, Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin (HBOMax)
Barbie, Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach (Warner Bros., Heyday Films, LuckyChap Entertainment)
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Michael Gilio, Chris McKay (Paramount Pictures, Entertainment One, Allspark Pictures)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Dave Callaham (Columbia Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Avi Arad Productions)
The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli, Toho Company)

>184 rv1988: Martha Wells was nominated for System Collapse but withdrew, apparently saying the Murderbot series "has already received incredible praise from her industry peers and she wanted to open the floor to highlight other works within the community.”

How interesting (and considerate). I love the series. I looked it up and she has won four Hugos and two Nebula Awards for Murderbot.

>184 rv1988: I wonder what her publisher thought of that decision. I was under the impression from a lot of the discussion around the Hugos that publishers tend to frown on authors rejecting awards like this.

>186 Julie_in_the_Library: Well, she will get plenty of publicity for turning the award down, particularly for the inclusiveness inherent in her reasoning. Plus they can still publicize the book as being the committee's choice for the award, or some wording like that.

>187 rocketjk: That's a good point. I can't imagine that she did it without at least warning the publisher first, either, so they must be at least okay enough with it not to have stopped her.

>186 Julie_in_the_Library: They would not print "the series won X Nebulas" and it already has one so the publisher is just fine. I suspect that the publisher was consulted long before she did it and they are on board with it.

Plus, that will possibly influence the position of Witch King - some people may decide to give it a boost because the Murderbot novel is missing from the list.

>189 AnnieMod: That does track.

Following up on >36 dchaikin:, the Dublin Literary Award shortlist was released today. Six books

Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry
Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter
Haven by Emma Donoghue
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright

Page link
https://dublinliteraryaward.ie/features/news/discover-the-2024-dublin-literary-a...

Of these, I've only read the Escoffery, which I thought was good but not great.

>192 rocketjk: yeah, that inclusion discouraged me too. I’ve also listened to Old God’s Time, which is strong.

I started a list of great history books by journalists on my thread, and SassyLassy added a couple of names. Who would you suggest?

Hiroshima by John Hersey
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine by Jasper Becker
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam

SassyLassy:
Joan Didion
I.F. Stone
David Halberstam
Gary Wills

Dispatches by Michael Herr (Jerry/rocketjk)

Rick Perlstein (KeithChaffee)

Eliz_M:
The 1619 Project
Empire of Pain
Random Family
The Omnivore's Dilemma
The Sixth Extinction
The Warmth of Other Suns
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Willoyd:
Pretty much anything by Max Hastings, but particularly enjoyed his history of WW2, All Hell Let Loose
The Pax Britannica trilogy by James Morris - a bit old-fashioned but eminently readable
Under Another Sky by Charlotte Higgins
Thunderclap by Laura Cumming (art history)
High Minds, The Age of Decadence and Staring at Godby Simon Heffer
The Making of the Modern Middle East by Jeremy Bowen
Empire, The English, On Royalty by Jeremy Paxman
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer
A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed
The History of Modern Britain, The Making of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr (lightweight but very readable)
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
The Birth of the Modern, A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
Hiroshima by John Hersey

Nominees for the 2024 Lambda Literary Awards have been announced. There are 26 different categories, so I'm not going to enter them all here, but you can see the full list at their website:

https://lambdaliterary.org/awards/current-finalists/

>194 labfs39: The Vietnam War memoir Dispatches by Michael Herr comes to mind.

>196 rocketjk: That's one that I have, but have not read. I need to get to it.

>197 labfs39: The movie Full Metal Jacket is, at least in part, based on Herr's memoir.

>194 labfs39: Rick Perlstein's superb books on the history of the American conservative moment from Goldwater to Reagan: Before the Storm; Nixonland; The Invisible Bridge; and Reaganland.

Women’s Prize Nonfiction Shortlist

Thunderclap, Laura Cumming
Doppelganger, Naomi Klein
A Flat Place, Noreen Masud
All That She Carried, Tiya Miles
Code Dependent, Madhumita Murgia
How to Say Babylon, Safiya Sinclair.

https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-non-fiction/

>194 labfs39: if i have time, I’ll come back to this

>194 labfs39: The 1619 Project

ETA:
Empire of Pain
Random Family
The Omnivore's Dilemma
The Sixth Extinction
The Warmth of Other Suns
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Thanks for the suggestions. We are going to end up with another nice list.

>202 ELiz_M: The only one I've read is Spirit Catches You. It was excellent.

>194 labfs39:

A few off the top of my head:
Pretty much anything by Max Hastings, but particularly enjoyed his history of WW2, All Hell Let Loose
The Pax Britannica trilogy by James Morris - a bit old-fashioned but eminently readable
Under Another Sky by Charlotte Higgins
Thunderclap by Laura Cumming (art history)
High Minds, The Age of Decadence and Staring at God by Simon Heffer
The Making of the Modern Middle East by Jeremy Bowen
Empire, The English, On Royalty by Jeremy Paxman
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer
A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed
The History of Modern Britain, The Making of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr (lightweight but very readable)
The Ghose Map by Steven Johnson
The Birth of the Modern, A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
Hiroshima by John Hersey

>151 dchaikin: I just finished Brotherless Night which I reviewed here

ok. It's my birthday. Here's what I just ordered, 16 books (thoroughly mashing all TBR plans)

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers => not ordered. I bought this at a used bookstore.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight => Simon Armitage translation
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
A Backward Glance by Edith Wharton
Treasures of Time by Penelope Lively
Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
Possession by A. S. Byatt
The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy
Giving Up the Ghost : A Memoir by Hilary Mantel
There But For The by Ali Smith
Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner
Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie
Knife by Salmon Rushdie => preordered, no touchstone
Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener
Not a River by Setlva Almada => preordered

>206 dchaikin: Happy birthday! And what a nice present for yourself. Happy reading.

>206 dchaikin: My favorite type of list. I have, but have not read, Giving Up the Ghost. I'll look forward to your thoughts on it and Knife when you get to them.

Great haul! And a very happy birthday to you.

>206 dchaikin: Excellent! That sounds like a well-deserved haul. At least four favourites of mine there, too.

>148 dchaikin: The shortlist for the Stella Prize is out

https://stella.org.au/announcing-the-2024-stella-prize-shortlist/

The Swift Dark Tide by Katia Ariel
Body Friend by Katherine Brabon
Feast by Emily O’Grady
Hospital by Sanya Rushdi (Translated by Arunava Sinha)
Abandon Every Hope: Essays for the Dead by Hayley Singer
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright

>172 dchaikin: the International Booker Prize shortlist was announced today

https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/six-things-you-need-to-k...

I’m excited that I’ve read two (The Details and Kairos) and have Crooked Plow on library loan and Not a River pre-ordered. That covers 4 of 6… The other two are Mater 2-10 and What I’d Rather Not Think About

I subscribe to the usually entertaining blog, Crime Reads. Here is their list of Best Psychological Thrillers of April:

Sara Koffi, While We Were Burning
K.T. Nguyen, You Know What You Did
Laura McHugh, Safe and Sound
Kellye Garrett, Missing White Woman
Alyssa Cole, One of Us Knows
Megan Miranda, Daughter of Mine

Link, including short descriptions of the books, here:
https://crimereads.com/the-best-psychological-thrillers-of-april-2024/

>212 dchaikin: As I mentioned on my thread I'll finish The Details this morning (I'm on page 93 of 137), I'll start What I'd Rather Not Think About later today (I fetched the copy I ordered from my nearest branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia yesterday afternoon), Kairos is on my Kindle, and I placed a hold for Crooked Plow from the same library. The UK edition of What I'd Rather Not Think About, the one I have, has 203 pages, with a smaller than usual font size, but the chapters are short, so it shouldn't take more than two days to read.

>212 dchaikin: I had The Details in my tbr and have read Kairos. Unfortunately for me none of the others have been published in English in audio. :(

Compiled by the books and entertainment writers of The Los Angeles Times, a list of the 50 best Hollywood books:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2024-04-08/the-50-best-ho...

>212 dchaikin:
Read Not A River as my book for Argentina in Reading the World. Fascinating read - I'm not surprised it made the shortlist.

>216 KeithChaffee: Pay wall. Is James Elroy on the list?

>218 SassyLassy: Sorry; I didn't realize it was a paywalled article. Yes, Ellory's L.A. Confidential is at #30.

>212 dchaikin: I’ve been waiting for Crooked Plow ebook from the library. I read the sample and really liked it. Today the kindle book was only $7.99 so I bought it.

>220 dianeham: I wish I could read Crooked Plow Maybe now it’s on the international Booker longlist it might get published in audio.

Women’s Prize for fiction shortlist

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/24/womens-prize-for-fiction-shortlist...

>222 dchaikin: Paywall :(

Paywall for The Guardian? Hmm

Here’s another link: https://womensprize.com/announcing-the-2024-womens-prize-for-fiction-shortlist/

>224 dchaikin: Thanks. So pleased to see that Brotherless Night is there. It just has to win.

>223 kjuliff:
Paywall? The Guardian doesn't have paywalls. Just clicked on that link and took me straight through.

>223 kjuliff: >226 Willoyd: It looks like a paywall but allows you to opt out of it and still read the article (unlike a lot of other newspapers).

One Thing After Another: A Reading List for Lovers & Makers of Lists
Five stories celebrating the power and beauty of lists.

>226 Willoyd: >227 AnnieMod: The Guardian definitely does have a paywall in the USA at least.. It allows you to read 20 articles a month. Once you reach that you have to wait or pay. This is where the link given takes me.

>228 lisapeet: nice!

>229 kjuliff: I think it is an app limit and not the website itself - I had not done it in the last few weeks but I had been through more than 20 articles in a single day in the past.

>231 AnnieMod: Oh, I see. Yes I have the app. I might delete it as I rely a lot on The Guardian for news and book reviews. Thanks for clarifying.

>232 kjuliff: You can try at least - worst case scenario you hit the limit on the website as well and then we all know? :)

>233 AnnieMod: Yes, it worked. Instead of clicking, I copied the url and pasted into the browser’s address bat and it worked fine. Now I feel a bit silly….

>233 AnnieMod: I spoke/posted too soon. As the guardian link worked - well it delivered the Women’s Prize List information - I answered you in >232 kjuliff:. Then, thinking I’d read more of the Guardian I looked for the menu and found I’d been redirected to
https://womensprize.com/announcing-the-2024-womens-prize-for-fiction-shortlist/
Not a Guardian page. I’ve since tried typing in the guardian.com blah blah, but it’s hard to navigate after using the app and keeps defaulting to the app with the limit exceeded page anyway. I’ll probably use the url when necessary and go to the webpage after my article limit is reached. The solution I suppose is to delete the app but I like it.

Fivebooks.com is a website of lists made by various authors. Each list features five books that the authors deem to be the best about a given subject and their explanation as to why. You may find new books to read this way or see what established authors have said about books you like or dislike.

>236 icepatton: Fivebooks is fun. I've browsed through quite a lot of their lists.

>236 icepatton: I'm excited that i've read all five of The Best 20th-Century American Novels, well, according to David Hering : https://fivebooks.com/best-books/best-twentieth-century-american-novels-david-he...

>235 kjuliff: Make sure you copied the URL from Message 222 https://www.librarything.com/topic/356056#8517544 and not from Message 224 https://www.librarything.com/topic/356056#8517885 (the latter is the non-Guardian link that Dan posted as a response to you).

>239 AnnieMod: Thanks, but I can’t test the url now as I am back able to view the Guardian articles now anyway, as my limit was rest - it’s reset monthly.

>240 kjuliff: Well, later in the month then :) If you can get into articles now, it is all good :)

>241 AnnieMod: it’s later in the month already. I can’t use the app anymore but the url w. I was using the incorrect url as you suspected. Thanks or your help on this and accessing The Guardian generally.

Couple of recent prize lists:

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2024
Winner: A Mask, the Colour of the Sky by Basim Khandaqji

Shorlist:
Osama Al-Eissa, The Seventh Heaven of Jerusalem
Eissa Nasiri - The Mosaicist
Rima Bali - Suleima's Ring
Ahmed al-Morsi - Gambling on the Honour of Lady Mitzi
Raja Alem - Bahbel: Makkah Multiverse 1945-2009

The RSL Ondaatje Prize 2024
( instituted in 2004 to celebrate outstanding works of fiction, non-fiction or poetry that best evoke the spirit of a place)

Shortlist:
Falling Animals – Sheila Armstrong (Bloomsbury)
Enter Ghost – Isabella Hammad (Vintage)
A Flat Place – Noreen Masud (Penguin Random House)
Cuddy – Benjamin Myers (Bloomsbury)
No Man’s Land – David Nash (Dedalus)
Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors – Ian Penman (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

EBRD Literature Prize finalists 2024
"awarded to the year's best work of literary fiction translated into English, originally written in any language of the regions in which the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development currently invests and published for the first time by a European (including UK) or North American publisher in the period in question"
Finalists:
Barcode, by Tóth Krisztina (tr. Peter Sherwood)
The End, by Bartis Attila (tr. Judith Sollosy)
The Wounded Age, by Ferit Edgü (tr. Aron Aji)

>229 kjuliff:
Well, that's certainly improved my learning - including your subsequent efforts! Apologies though for my misunderstandings and assumptions.

The Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize shortlist 2024:

"The Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize is for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language. It aims to honour the craft of translation, and to recognise its cultural importance. It was founded by Lord Weidenfeld and is supported by New College, The Queen’s College, and St Anne’s College, Oxford."

The Living and the Rest by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated from the Portuguese (Angola) by Daniel Hahn (MacLehose)
Historiae by Antonella Anedda, translated from the Italian by Patrizio Ceccagnoli and Susan Stewart (New York Review of Books)
The Remains by Margo Glantz, translated from the Spanish (Mexico) by Ellen Jones (Charco Press)
Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia, translated from the Portuguese (Brazil) by Zoë Perry (Charco Press)
Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante, translated from the Italian by Jenny McPhee (New York Review of Books)
Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated from the French (Rwanda) by Mark Polizzotti (Daunt Books)
The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone, translated from the Italian by Oonagh Stransky (Europa Editions)
Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior, translated from the Portuguese (Brazil) by Johnny Lorenz (Verso Books)

https://occt.web.ox.ac.uk/the-oxford-weidenfeld-prize#collapse4833356

What books would you take onto a deserted island?

Well, it's not exactly a deserted island but I'm leaving for a one week beach vacation this Friday in the Philippines. I will be swimming and reading, and that's it. That's my only intention. So I created a TBR and this should be the pile of books I bring with me.

Kayleen Schaefer : But You're Still So Young: How Thirtysomethings Are Redefining Adulthood
David Grann : Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
J.-M. Machado de Assis : L'Aliéniste
Victor Hugo : Lucrèce Borgia
Marguerite Yourcenar : L'Oeuvre au noir
Jules Verne : Deux ans de vacances
Ranpo Edogawa : La bête aveugle
沙耶香 村田 : 消滅世界

A mix of languages, of genres, and of lengths, aiming at about a book a day. I'm feeling like I should put one more book on the pile but I haven't quite decided what I could add.

>246 lilisin: Ooh, good question. I would be torn between choosing books on my TBR that need concentration and some favorite books to reread while basking in the shade.

>200 dchaikin:
Women’s Prize Nonfiction Shortlist
Thunderclap - Laura Cumming
Doppelganger - Naomi Klein
A Flat Place - Noreen Masud
All That She Carried - Tiya Miles
Code Dependent - Madhumita Murgia
How to Say Babylon - Safiya Sinclair.

>222 dchaikin:
Women’s Prize for fiction shortlist
The Wren, The Wren - Anne Enright
Brotherless Night - V.V. Ganenshananthan
Restless Dolly Maunder - Kate Grenville
Enter Ghost - Isabella Hammad
Soldier, Sailor - Claire Kilroy
River East, River West - Aube Rey Lescure

And the winners are:
Naomi Klein and V.V. Ganenshananthan

The New York Times is putting out a list of the top 100 books of the 21st century (so far!). They surveyed 100s of "literary types" for their top ten books in any genre published since 2000. They also have opened this up to readers to submit their own list. I'm going to submit a list. Here's what I have so far, but I need to sleep on it. I've read over 600 books published since 2000, so it's incredibly hard to narrow it down to ten. What would yours be?

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
North Woods by Daniel Mason
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
John Adams by David McCullough
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguru
Circe by Madeline Miller

Edited: to remove The Great Believers and add Never Let Me Go - such hard decisions . . .

Ooh, fantastic idea, Jennifer. I do love lists. My list is a work in progress. I currently have 11 titles, with three published in 2010. But where is Fredrik Backman and Kim Thuy? Ugh...

2000 Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
2006 The lost : a search for six of six million by Daniel Mendelsohn
2007 Brodeck by Philippe Claudel
2009 Translation is a Love Affair by Jacques Poulin
2010 Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder
2010 Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
2010 Beneath the lion's gaze by Maaza Mengiste
2011 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
2012 Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
2018 I Will Never See the World Again by Ahmet Altan
2018 At night all blood is black by David Diop

>250 labfs39: it’s so hard to pick just ten!!

My list would have several Atwood, Murakami, Ishiguro, among others.

>250 labfs39: no overlap, though we do have some author overlap! I'd love to see the Club Read version of the NYT list . . .

>252 dianeham: I wanted to get some Atwood on there, but my favorite books were published before 2000. Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go is hovering for me, and I still might add it and take out either The Great Believers or Circe. Still thinking . . .

>253 japaul22: love Never Let Me Go. Think I’ve read it 3 times.

>249 japaul22: OK, here's a list from someone who is most definitely not an NYT-approved "literary type." I imagine I'll be forgiven...

2000: Observatory Mansions, Edward Carey
2002: Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang
2003: The Little Women, Katharine Weber
2008: Tigerheart, Peter David
2008: Pictures at a Revolution, Mark Harris
2011: Embassytown, China Mieville
2011: Destiny of the Republic, Candice Millard
2012: Let Me Clear My Throat, Elena Passarello
2012: Redshirts, John Scalzi
2019: Middlegame, Seanan McGuire

I thought very hard about including the 2021 collection The Best of R. A. Lafferty, but decided it would be a cheat, since all of the stories were originally published in the 20th century. Damn good book, though.

>255 KeithChaffee: Love it! The only one of yours I've read is Destiny of the Republic. I'm excited to explore these.

I didn't give it any thought as I put that list together, but it's interesting to look at it as a whole and see what themes/ideas recur. Three different riffs on existing literary works, which doesn't surprise me much; that's a favorite mini-genre of mine. But I'm surprised to note how much of the list is in some way about communication or storytelling.

>257 KeithChaffee: My system for my list was to use my LT catalog, where I tag books by the decade they were published in. I pulled up my tagged books for the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s, and chose from among the 5 star reads. Since my starring system is pretty random and not scientific, I'm sure I missed some great books that I should have considered.

>258 japaul22: That’s the problem with numerical/star ranking. With me it can depend on my mood with an average deviation of 1 ⭐️ .

>258 japaul22: Oh, I know I've overlooked things. My "what I've read" record keeping was very erratic before I came to LT.

2024 Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
2021 Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies (Indigenous Americas) by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
2020 The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid
2018 Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
2016 The Schooldays of Jesus by J. M. Coetzee
2015 Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann
2013 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
2013 Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
2012 The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
2009 Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
2009 Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
2005 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
2002 At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill
2001 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
2001 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

>261 dianeham: great list! Some I really liked on there - Bel Canto, The Blind Assassin, Cutting for Stone . . .

I have never read Colum McCann somehow, but I have Let the Great World Spin on my shelves - I'll have to get to it soon. Adding a few more to my TBR list - Martyr! looks really interesting.

Martyr is interesting. >262 japaul22:

>258 japaul22: I used the Publication Date feature in my LT profile under Charts and Graphs. It allowed me to sort by decade and then rating. I scrabbled through my five star ratings and picked those that stand out most in my mind. Not all are Literary Stars, but they did make a huge impression on me. As Kate says (>259 kjuliff:) My rating system is highly mood driven, so I'm sure I missed some excellent titles in the 4.5* range. Trying to only pick 10, however, made me want to limit my choices!

>261 dianeham: Ooh, some good ones there. Cutting for Stone, Bel Canto, Never Let Me Go, and Murakami are ones I enjoyed too.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and The City & the City by China Miéville
The She-Devil in the Mirror by Horacio Castellanos Moya
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
Subdivision by J. Robert Lennon
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (Also A Manual for Cleaning Women which I eliminated as most of the stories were originally published before the 2000s)
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Most of these I rated 4.5 or 5. However, there are books that I absolutely loved that I did not include, choosing to bump up a couple of 4-star books that I found innovative as so many of the the books I love incorporate non-traditional methods of storytelling.

Well, this is a toughie. I'm starting with a list of just the novels I've read that were published from 2000 forward, and I've only gotten it down to 13. Sue me.

The Prophets – Robert Jones, Jr. - 2021
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong – 2020
Milkman – Anna Burns – 2018
Voroshilovgrad – Serhii Zhadan – 2016
We, the Drowned – Carsten Jensen – 2010
The Ghosts of Belfast – Stuart Neville – 2009
The Informers – Juan Gabriel Vasquez – 2008
Sepharad – Antonio Munoz Molina - 2008
Thirteen Moons – Charles Frazier – 2006
Graceland – Chris Abani – 2005
Gilead – Marilynne Robinson – 2004
The Appointment – Herta Muller – 2002
The Human Stain – Philip Roth – 2000

I'll try to come up with a list of "any genres" in the next day or two.

Great idea, Jennifer! Only one of the 100 books the "esteemed" NYT panel chose appeared on my top 10 list, although I had read 25 of them. In no particular, my Best of the Best are:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Outlaws by Javier Cercas
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
My Struggle, Book One by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

To me, what stands out in my list is that half of the books were not originally written in English, and that seven of them are set outside of the traditional English speaking world.

These are some additional books that I found painful to lead off of the above list, a Best of the Rest as it were:

White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddharta Mukherjee
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
The Glass Room by Simon Mayer
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh
Travelling with Djinns by Jamal Mahjoub
A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson (my all time favorite collection of poems)
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

>265 ELiz_M: >266 rocketjk: >267 kidzdoc: So many of my favorites on your lists!

>265 ELiz_M: I hated not having Margaret Atwood on my list, by my favorite books from her were published in the 90s. And I loved Ducks, Newburyport.

>266 rocketjk: I have We, the Drowned on my kindle, cued up to read soon, so I'm glad to see you loved it. I was really surprised Milkman wasn't on the NYT list. It didn't work for me, but I appreciated it and thought it was so innovative that it should be on a list like this.

>267 kidzdoc: I also loved Feast of the Goat and am a big Kamila Shamsie fan. Wait, was Cutting for Stone not on their list??? That was such a good book, plus widely read. And how could I not include Tan Twan Eng??

You know, the good thing about this exercise of putting together these list is that I'm realizing how many really amazing books have been written in the last 25 years!

Esquire offers a list of "the 75 best sci-fi books of all time." Seems to me an odd selection, severely distorted by recency bias.

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g39358054/best-sci-fi-books/

Going with fiction here - I always think I don't read much contemporary fiction, so looking over the list for the 21stC, I was surprised to see how many books I had read, and how much many of them had stuck in my mind. Here is my bloated list:

Broken April - actually 1982, but the NYT did say "in English", so going with the translation year, 2007
Due Preparations for the Plague by Janette Turner Hospital - 2003
War Trash by Ha Jin - 2004
The Reluctant Fundamentalist - by Mohsin Hamid - 2007
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson - 2007
Beijing Coma by Ma Jian - 2008
We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen - 2010
Like a Fading Shadow by Antonio Munoz Molina - 2014 trans 2017
Foregone by Russell Banks - 2021
Phenotypes by Paolo Scott - 2022

for a round dozen, two from Newfoundland in 2010:
February by Lisa Moore
Galore by Michael Crummy

following the lead of kidzdoc, best of the rest:
The Door by Magda Szabo - trans 2005
All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski - 2006
Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - 2012
Sudden Death by Alvaro Enrique - trans 2016

>270 SassyLassy: Yea, another We, the Drowned fan. I also loved Sudden Death and so did my wife. I must have missed that one when I was skimming down my list of post-1999 LT books.

>267 kidzdoc: Hard to believe both A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry and A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips were left off. In fact I hardly ever see CarylPhillips mentioned in any lists and he’s such a great writer. I also liked his Higher Ground

>272 kjuliff: I’ll forgive them omitting A Fine Balance as it was published in 1995

Winners of the PEN UK Translation awards. Interesting to see that they have a translation from Greenlandic - I don't think I've ever read anything from that language before.

- This Mouth Is Mine by Yásnaya Elena A. Gil (Mexico), translated from the Spanish and Mixe by Ellen Jones(Charco Press).
- Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda (Mexico), translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches (Scribe UK).
- Delicious Hunger by Hai Fan (Singapore), translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang (Tilted Axis Press).
- The Weasel and the Whore by Martha Luisa Hernández Cadenas (Cuba), translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches and Jennifer Shyue (Héloïse Press).
- The Congress of the Disappeared by Bernardo Kucinski (Brazil), translated from the Portuguese by Tom Gatehouse (Latin America Bureau).
- A Man with No Title by Xavier Le Clerc (France), translated from the French by William Rodarmor (Saqi Books).
- The Aquatics by Osvalde Lewat (Cameroon), translated from the French by Maren Baudet-Lackner (Cassava Republic Press).
- On the Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis (Egypt/UK), translated from the Arabic by Katharine Halls (Peirene Press).
- Short stories by Banu Mushtaq (India), translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi (And Other Stories).
- Water: A Chronicle by Ngọc Tư Nguyễn (Vietnam), translated from the Vietnamese by Nguyễn An Lý (Major Books).
- The Wild Ones by Antonio Ramos Revillas (Mexico), translated from the Spanish by Claire Storey (HopeRoad).
- Jellyfish Have No Ears by Adèle Rosenfeld (France), translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman (MacLehose Press).
- Samahani by Abdel Aziz Baraka Sakin (Sudan/Austria), translated from the Arabic by Mayada Ibrahim and Adil Ibrahim Babikir (Foundry Editions).
- Zombieland by Sørine Steenholdt (Greenland), translated from the Greenlandic by Charlotte Barslund (Norvik Press).
- Elevator In Saigon by Thuận (Vietnam/France), translated from the Vietnamese by Nguyễn An Lý (Tilted Axis Press).
- Iran + 100 by various authors, translated from the Farsi by various translators (Comma Press).

https://www.englishpen.org/posts/news/pen-translates-winners-announced-5/

Edit: and here's a Paris Review interview with one of the translators (Deepa Bhasthi, who translated Banu Mushtaq's book. Mushtaq actually writes in a mixture of Kannada, a South Indian language and Dakhni, a rare dialect that is spoken less and less these days). https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/07/22/anthe-on-translating-kannada/

>274 rv1988: A fantastic list and source for reading ideas. Have you read any of these titles?

>275 labfs39: I haven't read any yet, but I'm trying to get a copy of the Banu Mushtaq book.

The Washington Post asked readers of its Book Club newsletter to name the most overrated books in the literary canon, and to suggest replacements. The most frequently suggested books are listed in this article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/07/20/classic-novels-new-list/

>277 KeithChaffee: You need a subscription to read this article...

>277 KeithChaffee: Interesting lists. I"ve definitely read many more on the replacement classics list that on the list of titles suggested for removal.

>278 AnnieMod: As you do for a lot of links people post here.

With most sites, when you're a subscriber, they don't make it very clear which of their articles they're putting behind a paywall for non-subscribers and which they aren't. There are ways to get around paywalls, so I think it's worth providing the link even if it turns out to be paywalled. If I'd known it was paywalled, I would have added a note to that effect.

>278 AnnieMod: you should be able to read this link.
https://wapo.st/3YggDwf

>280 KeithChaffee: I am aware that it is not always clear so I posted about it when I hit the paywall -- that's all...

Browsing through both the 'experts' and 'readers' NYT lists, I'm struck by (a) how few I've read and (b) how many of those I rated at 2 stars or less. Off the experts list, I've read just 11, of which 6 I rated low (over half!), whilst off the readers list, I've read 19, of which 9 I've rated low. So, slightly more in tune with the readers list (and there are quite a few on that list I want to read too). I have to say, I do think the list is rather America centred (with exceptions!).

So, a list from a rather more British perspective. I am really enjoying reading further afield (especially doing the global challenge), but most of those I've rated most highly from other countries have been pre-2000 books, so no real presence here I'm afraid; the list (and supporting acts) is not deliberately so though - but does rather reflect my reading for most of the century.

Crow Country by Mark Cocker - natural history
The Sea Road by Margaret Elphinstone
Girl, Woman Other by Bernardine Evaristo
The House By The Lake by Thomas Harding - micro-history
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (and the rest of the trilogy!)
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
East-West Street by Philippe Sands - history/family biography (and legal history!)
This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson

Bubbling under (4 of each fiction and non-fiction)
To The Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
The Trees by Percival Everett
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Stasiland by Anna Funder
The Outrun by Amy Liptrot
Wilding by Isabella Tree
The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

(Edited later to reduce multiple fiction/non-fiction lists and 'near misses' down to one list - i.e. streamlining a rather indulgent post!)

>283 Willoyd: I have been so impressed with both of the Eowyn Ivey books I've read. I wish she were more prolific. I just purchased a copy of East-West Street last month, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

Here is my baker's dozen list of my favorite English translation books originally published since 2000. The dates in parenthesis are original publication date followed by English translation date. Arranged by original publication date.

Brodeck by Phillipe Claudel (2007, 2010) French-France
The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah (2007, 2010) French-Mauritius
The German mujahid by Boualem Sansal (2008, 2009) French-Algeria
Translation is a Love Affair by Jacques Poulin (2009) French-Canada
HHhH by Laurent Binet (2009, 2012) French-France
The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (2009) Persian-Iran
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami (2013, 2014) Japanese
Capitaine Rosalie by Timothée de Fombelle (2014, 2018) French-France
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman (2015, 2016) Swedish
I will never see the world again : the memoir of an imprisoned writer by Almet Altan (2018, 2019) Turkish
At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (2018, 2020) French-France
The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa (2019, 2024) Arabic-Kuwait
Em by Kim Thuy (2020, 2021) French-Canada

And excluded because originally published in 1994, but darn, it's good:
The Blue Sky by Galsan Tschinag (1994, 2006) German-Mongolia

I found the nytime list strange. Actually i liked the top. But the rest was a mess. However, it was a lot better than the readers list. Anytime the “best” is determined by vote, it becomes a matter of which books have been read by the most people.

Has anyone read Austerlitz?

Here’s my list:

1. Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante (2014) - novel
2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (2009) - novel
3. Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli (2019) - novel
4. When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant (2000) - novel
5. Just Kids by Patti Smith (2010) - memoir
6. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (2010) - nonfiction
7. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2003) - graphic memoir
8. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2004) - novel
9. White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000) - novel
10. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (2014) - science

The Booker Prize longlist comes out Tuesday (morning in Western Hemisphere times).

>286 dchaikin: I have read Austerlitz, why? It was interesting for it's meshing of the visual and the written, but the story itself didn't move me. Was it on one of the lists?

>288 labfs39: it was top ten on the NY Times list and I don't know anything about it. Take it not your 21st century top ten. ??

>286 dchaikin: I started to read Austerlitz earlier this year but didn’t take to it at all. I can’t remember why, and it’s true that recently I’ve had trouble with reading, but this was some months ago.

>289 dchaikin: I read it back in 2018 and had this to say:

Structurally this novel is quite interesting. The two main characters meet by chance in a railway station and strike up a conversation about architectural history. The narrator of the novel is a nameless scholar entranced by the man he meets, Jacques Austerlitz, whose narration of his life is the substance of the book. Hence the entire book is a story within a story. Another unusual structural device is the inclusion of photographs, maps, and the like; both creating a sense that the novel is nonfiction and also reflecting the interest Austerlitz has in photography. This method of "fixing" the story in reality and history contradicts the surreal and detached atmosphere of the narration. Finally the physical structure of the language used to tell the story is unhampered by paragraphs and sentence length. Instead the story flows uninterrupted.

The plot is the story of Austerlitz's life as his repressed memories slowly unfold. In a sense, the reader discovers the story of his life at the same time as the man himself does. A child brought to England on a Kindertransport from mainland Europe in 1939, Austerlitz is raised by a strict Welsh minister and his wife, who do not encourage the boy to remember his former life. Eventually, the boy remembers nothing of who he is. It is only as a middle-aged adult that fleeting memories begin to return, and Austerlitz wanders down the path to his own identity.

In simple terms, the novel is a reflection on the Holocaust and its effects on the people who survived it. Because of its unusual structure and surreal atmosphere, however, the book is not one to appeal to every reader, even those interested in the Holocaust. One has to detach from expectations and history itself in order to flow with the narration. I found it to be an unusual reading experience.

Mark/thorold really liked it, Liz/ELiz_M did not.

Thanks Lisa. That’s terrific info. I’m intrigued

>286 dchaikin: I found the nytime list strange. Actually i liked the top. But the rest was a mess. However, it was a lot better than the readers list. Anytime the “best” is determined by vote, it becomes a matter of which books have been read by the most people.
I'd agree with all that - although I was perhaps less struck by much of the top than you were. At least though they put Demon Copperhead at#61 rather than #1 - the most overrated book I think I've read this century rather than one of the best! Any list that includes Gone Girl has to be dodgy IMO too! I must give Elena Ferrante another try - I was underwhelmed by The Lying Life of Adults when my book group read it, but others in the group said that I shouldn't take that as a model.

Has anyone read Austerlitz?
No, but I have read The Rings of Saturn and can fully see why that would be ranked - except for the fact it was written in 1995!

BTW, I've edited my last post down to one list - it was all really a bit OTT!

>293 Willoyd: I liked the first in the Neapolitan series, but didn't consider it earth-shattering, and the series dragged. I'm rather tired of hearing about her, to be honest.

>294 labfs39: oh, and i gave it my #1. I feel bad now. At least i was the only one. A book that is loved and also not.

>295 dchaikin:
Interesting - thank you. One day I might actually come to terms with the fact that all our reading tastes are different, and just because many/most people like/rave about a book or author, doesn't mean I need to (only reached my mid-sixties to work that one out!!). In fact, the word 'bestseller' should be a warning sign (it is!). I've just finished my first Alice Munro (Runaway), and, in spite of her reputation (and the quality of her writing is obvious), my first reaction is 'Was that it?'. More to do with the short stories I think though - only Katherine Mansfield has so far ever made me go 'wow' in that sphere. Maybe I might just leave Ferrante alone (at least for now!).

>295 dchaikin: I remember how much you enjoyed the series, Dan. You were the reason I persevered with the next two! I do think the first was the best. But then there are books I loved that you didn't. We entice each other out of our silos and sometimes we find wonderful new books and authors we never would have discovered otherwise. Sometimes not. It's all good!

An Australian bookstore counters the NYT top 100 with the best Australian books of the 21st century:

https://www.readings.com.au/news/best-australian-books-of-the-21st-century

Booker Long List, just announced:

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
Wild Houses by Colin Barrett
Held by Anne Michaels
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud
Playground by Richard Powers
Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
James by Percival Everett
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
My Friends by Hisham Matar
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel

So, it'll be a new winner this year. Four have been shortlisted before: Percival Everett, Hisham Matar, Rachel Kushner, Richard Powers (twice); Samantha Harvey and Claire Messud have both been long-listed.

>299 Willoyd: i’ve been obsessing over this. Finally out. Nothing overwhelming long, but most are mildly long. Feels doable. I’ve read Wandering Stars (unimpressed review on my thread)

>299 Willoyd: I'm reading James now, I bought a copy of My Friends a month or two ago, and I'll be on the lookout for the others, especially Wandering Stars, Orbital and Enlightenment.

ETA: Orbital and Wandering Stars are both available in my county's library system, so I'll probably read them after I finish James and before I start My Friends.

>299 Willoyd: Not that big on Booker, but there are a couple of elevated genre novels that sound really interesting in the list. Orbital was available at the library and has a compelling start to a hard scifi.

>298 ELiz_M: Interesting. Let's see, I've read:

2. The Book Thief
6. Narrow Road to the Deep North (stalled)
20. Year of Wonders
25. Dictionary of Lost Words

I liked the Book Thief, but am surprised it's second. I heartily disliked Year of Wonders and wish they had picked any of her other books.

I have books by a few others. Have you read many, Liz?

Edited to fix error

>298 ELiz_M: Interesting - I’ll take a look. Readings was my favorite bookstore in Melbourne.

>303 labfs39: I’ve read a few of Best Australian books of the 21st century.

I was a bit surprised that I’d read so few of the 30 listed to date.

#1 The Slap by the truly great Greek- Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas
#6 The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan - 5 stars
#14 Stasiland which I reviewed by Anna Funder Reviewd
#21 Joe Cinque's Consolation A must read by Helen Garner
#27 The Dry by Jane Harper - not a fan but I know Rasdhar appreciates this writer for a light read

>302 stretch:
Funnily enough, nor am I. Regularly manages to disappoint, and has gone downhill big time IMO since opening up to American authors. No objections to them at all, but there was a uniqueness and a character to the Booker that it has now lost - there are sufficient American prizes to explore. I find other prizes (including Booker International) more rewarding for reading ideas nowadays, but put long list up as it remains one of the biggest. Having said that, there are rather more of interest this year than usual (especially compared to last year!).

>300 dchaikin:
One or two definitely appeal. I have James and Enlightenment lined up ready to read (having read both authors and loved the respective books). >301 kidzdoc:'s list of choices closely reflects the list of others I'm attracted to!

>298 ELiz_M: >303 labfs39: >305 kjuliff:
A really interesting list. However, cannot agree with their #1, a book I disliked intensely and was unable to bring myself to finish.

Of the others I've read, Burial Rites and Stasiland are my standouts, both just missing out on my 21stC top 10, but enjoyed several others:
The Dictionary of Lost Words - another near miss
The Secret River
Year of Wonders - have to disagree with you Lisa I'm afraid!
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
The True History of the Kelly Gang

I'm not much of a list maker—something about it feels like work—but I really like reading everyone else's! So much good stuff here, more than a few books that had just fallen off my radar and I'd forgotten about. So these are good reminders.

>284 labfs39: Eowyn Ivey has a new book coming out in February, Black Woods, Blue Sky. I don't know anything about it beyond the publisher's blurb, but that sure is a pretty cover.

>307 Willoyd: I think #1 The Slap is a very Australian novel. It’s set in my home town of Melbourne and examines the reactions to a social event by different “classes” of people who reside in suburbs typical of the stereotypical classes they represent: Greek second generation immigrant, Muslim mother, working-class socialist, what used to be called trendies and so on. It raises a number of moral questions, and the reader changes “sides” as the different sub-cultures clash.

Interestingly The Slap was made into a very good tv mini-series in Australia, and later an American version which turned out to be less popular was produced.

I saw both and was interested in how they transposed the locations. The city chosen was NYC, the working-class suburb Long Island City in Queens, the trendies SoHo in Manhattan, the Greek immigrants Astoria, Queens and so on.

I know this list is well overdue for a continuation. I was going to use the Booker longlist but Willoyd beat me to it. 🙂 Now I’m tempted to start a Booker thread. In the meantime, I need a continuation list. Thinking…

>298 ELiz_M: Thanks for this! I was just thinking to myself that I have never really explored Australian literature, apart from the occasional 'outback thriller' novel. I will be adding to my TBR from this.

Edit: It turns out I have read a few from this list:

1) Christos Tsolkias - The Slap
2) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
6) The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
27) The Dry by Jane Harper

I hope no one minds that I went ahead and created a part 2 to the JUST LISTS thread as it had surpassed the 300 posts mark.

>312 lilisin: thank you!

>294 labfs39: I didn't like it at all, and have no interest in reading anything else by her.

>285 labfs39:
You may have just solved my Kuwait problem (for Reading the World) - and confirmed Mongolia TBR! The former looked quite tricky to get hold of here in UK, but looks like Blackwell's can provide a copy. Thank you!

>314 WelshBookworm: Yeah, me neither, Laurel. I gave it the old college try with 2.5 books. She's just not the author for me.

>315 Willoyd: The Book Censor's Library is very recently published in English. I read an advance readers copy. I'm glad you can get it though, as it was very good. I'm anxiously awaiting the last volume in the Blue Sky trilogy by Tschinag. The first is about his boyhood on the steppe, and the second his schooling.