Nick FBooks read in October 2022
#Books read in February / March 2023
(Not pictured: "Primeval" by Olga Tokarczuk - I read the eBook)
#Books read in April 2023
This was a good month, with some pleasing accidental colour coordination going on (it seems I was only reading grey and orange books).
Station Eleven was a re-read, for a book club.
#Books read in June 2023
Started several books, but only finished these two (one novel, one book of poetry). Enjoyed both.
#Books read in August 2023
The Hidden Spring was the one I enjoyed most: a very interesting take on what consciousness is and how it arises in the brain that I found quite compelling. tldr: consciousness has its roots in feeling, not cognition.
#Books read in September 2023
Hollow - weird, evocative novel set in the paintings of Bosch and Bruegel
The Premonitions Bureau - non-fiction account of a 1960s investigation into precognition
Calling Bullshit - a useful and entertaining guide to the numerous ways scientific-sounding language can be used to mislead, misinform, and generally bullshit
#Books read in October 2023
These were all excellent!
Super-Infinite - great biography of John Donne, about whom I knew nothing (recommended by a friend)
The Wych Elm - compelling and dark crime thriller (I read another by Tana French earlier in the year and loved it).
Doppelganger - probably my favourite of the lot: rich, strange, genre-defying and extremely timely look at the "Mirror World" of conspiracy thinking and the figure of the doppelganger.
#Books read in November 2023
Got through quite a stack this month, partly thanks to my local public library.
My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley in particular was a really excellent (though quite bleak and brutal) novel.
#Books read in January 2024
The Golden Mole by Katherine Rundell was the highlight: essays on animals, full of fascinating detail, but also just some of the best writing I've read in a while. Funny, evocative, strange. Highly recommended!
#Books read in February and March 2024
Bullshit Jobs was a highlight: some studies suggest ~30% of people are doing jobs they consider largely or entirely pointless. David Graeber asks how this has happened, and what the social and psychological implications are.
Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark is an excellent set of tips and tools for improving your writing.
#Books read in April 2024
The highlight was "Brothers" by the German writer Jackie Thomae. This won a few awards in Germany, and just came out in English translation.
Full disclosure: the translator is a friend of a friend, which is how I ended up reading it, but I thought it was genuinely excellent. A complex, interesting book that was a much quicker read than its size would lead you to expect. Highly recommended.
I keep forgetting to update this thread, but I'm going to update it now mainly because I enjoy scrolling back through it...
#Books read in May 2024
Study for Obedience has a Kafka-esque sense of "offness" all the way through. I find it hard not to like a book that describes a man like this:
> My brother was a tall man, strong and fit at that time, with good eyesight and a high level of reading comprehension.
long way to a small angry planet - fun sci-fi but a little too cosy for my tastes
#Books read in June 2024
This was an *excellent* month.
Fifty Sounds warrants a special mention though: it's by someone who studied philosophy, got particularly immersed in late Wittgenstein, then, after university went to teach English for several years on an island in a remote corner of Japan, while wrangling intensively with the Japanese language. All of which also describes me, so this was uncannily like reading an autobiography written by a doppelganger. I loved it.
Jay@nickautomatic oh, nice idea!
I’ve been photographing book covers when I start and finish them, because I never remember to update Goodreads
@jaygooby Oh, please feel free to copy it if you like! :)
Tbh, part of the reason I started this thread is because it's the kind of thing I would love to see other people post... always interested in what people are reading!