2024 Reading Challenges

It's drizzling today, so we've had a bit of everything in the past 3 days; high winds and torrential rain on Xmas Day, balmy conditions yesterday (even though we did lose power for about 3 minutes in the early evening while we were watching It Happened One Night. I think it might have been turned off for a reset, but that's just speculation on my part) and then drizzle (so far) today.

I'm going to take the dogs out for a quick walk shortly but first, here are my Reading Challenges for 2024 and possible first books to start them off.

12 + 4 Reading Challenge - The Books of Ursula K. LeGuin

I've been enjoying LeGuin's writing piecemeal for a few years now and have been building up a collection of her books. So I hope this year, Earthsea fantasy series and the Hainish books, plus some others of her writing. I've selected 16 books I have on my shelf and plan to start with, Rocannon's World, the 1st book in her Hainish series.

1. Rocannon's World (Hainish #1 / 1966).

"This debut novel from preeminent science-fiction writer Ursula LeGuin introduces her brilliant Hainish series, set in a galaxy seeded by the planet Hain with a variety of humanoid species, including that of Earth. Over the centuries, the Hainish colonies have evolved into physically and culturally unique peoples, joined by a League of All Worlds. Earth-scientist Rocannon has been leading an ethnological survey on a remote world populated by three native peoples, the cavern-dwelling Gdemiar, the elvish Fiia, and the warrior clan, Liuar. But when the technologically primitive planet is suddenly invaded by a fleet of ships from the stars, rebels against the League of All Worlds, Rocannon is the only survey member left alive. Marooned among alien peoples, he leads the battle to free this newly discovered world and finds that legends grow around him as he fights."

Series - Start One, Work on One, Finish One, All of the Above!

Obviously, I'll be working on some series specifically during the year (see the LeGuin challenge above or my Monthly Focus still to come) but this will be my catch-all for all other series; some I hope to start, or to continue or maybe even finish. My first book will probably be a carry-over from 2023 as I don't think I'll be able to finish it this year.. But we'll see.

1. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (Oxford Time Travel #1 / 1992). I'll record only those pages completed in 2024 for my 2024 stats.

"For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received.

But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin--barely of age herself--finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's darkest hours.

Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit."

Non-Series of any Genre

This is wide-open, basically any book that's not part of a series. Simple, yeah?

1. The Fall of the Sparrow by Nigel Balchin (Mystery / 1955) I read Balchin's The Small Back Room a few years ago, about WWII bomb disposal men and thought it was excellent. I hope this is as interesting.

"What made Jason Pellew - a sensitive man whose unconscious charm excused many failings - turn to a career of sordid crime?

Son of a peppery colonel who died in a lunatic asylum. Sensuously dominated by elder boys at public school.

An amiable eccentric at University. A breaker-up of fascist meetings. Volunteer in the Spanish Civil War.

Lover of a Jewish girl tortured by the Gestapo. Recklessly gallant combat officer. 

Brilliant cloak - and - dagger boy. Married to a wealthy nymphomaniac.

Where and when did this cherub with the shy smile take the wrong road?"

Tomes (Books over 500 pages)

I do have quite a few sitting on my bookshelf. Hope to read at least 10 this year.

1. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon (Non-Fiction / 2023) (624 pages).

"THE REAL ORIGIN OF OUR SPECIES: a myth-busting, eye-opening landmark account of how humans evolved, offering a paradigm shift in our thinking about what the female body is, how it came to be, and how this evolution still shapes all our lives today

How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution?
• Why do women live longer than men?
• Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s?
• Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet?
• Is sexism useful for evolution?
• And why, seriously why, do women have to sweat through our sheets every night when we hit menopause?

These questions are producing some truly exciting science – and in Eve, with boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Cat Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex: “We need a kind of user's manual for the female mammal. A no-nonsense, hard-hitting, seriously researched (but readable) account of what we are. How female bodies evolved, how they work, what it really means to biologically be a woman. Something that would rewrite the story of womanhood. This book is that story. We have to put the female body in the picture. If we don't, it's not just feminism that's compromised. Modern medicine, neurobiology, paleoanthropology, even evolutionary biology all take a hit when we ignore the fact that half of us have breasts. So it's time we talk about breasts. Breasts, and blood, and fat, and vaginas, and wombs—all of it. How they came to be and how we live with them now, no matter how weird or hilarious the truth is.”

Eve is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it’s an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long. Picking up where Sapiens left off, Eve will completely change what you think you know about evolution and why Homo sapiens has become such a successful and dominant species."

Monthly Focus - Series / Non-Series (Most shelved books by author)

I have quite a few books by various authors, as it turns out they all write one or more series, and each month I'll focus on one of them and hope to knock two or three, at least, of their books off. I'll start with my January focus author.

January Focus - Agatha Christie. (I've got 16 of her books on my shelf to attempt and will start with a Hercule Poirot mystery)

1. The Big Four (Hercule Poirot #5 / 1927)

"The Queen of Mystery has come to Harper Collins! Agatha Christie, the acknowledged mistress of suspense—creator of indomitable sleuth Miss Marple, meticulous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and so many other unforgettable characters—brings her entire oeuvre of ingenious whodunits, locked room mysteries, and perplexing puzzles to Harper Paperbacks. In her classic The Big Four, the great Poirot is caught up in a deadly game of international intrigue as he races to uncover the strange mystery of Number Four."

I hope you enjoy your 2024 reading selections.