UPDATE 19/6: This is going terribly. 17 of the 38 books I’ve read so far this year aren’t ones I owned at the start.
In 2022 my goal was to read more books by women than men, because my read list was a sausagefest.
In 2023 it was to read more books in translation than in English to literally broaden my horizons.
Both were really rewarding: they expanded my reading beyond what I’d have otherwise gravitated towards, and they connected me with authors, publishers, imprints, small presses, podcasts, and various other excellent things.
But they also both involved acquiring a lot of new books. Hence my goal for 2024:
Read more books I already own than newly acquired ones.
In theory this should be easy because all the books I have, I have for a reason. But confronting that process by which the appeal of existing books gradually fades away in favour of other books that capture my interest… It’s a daunting prospect!
To gee me up for the year, here’s some of the stuff that’s on the list for 2024. Stuff in red I’m particulary excited to read.
(This ended up WAY longer than I expected it to be (60+ books!) and it’s nowhere near complete 😅)
Unfinished trilogies
The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake (1/3 read)
The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz (1/3 read)
The Tummy Trilogy by Calvin Trillin (0/3 read)
The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula K. Le Guin (3/4 read (not really a trilogy but w/e))
Lord of the Rings (0/3 read)
CB Editions
The German Lottery by Miha Mazzini (squeezed into 2023)
Murmur by Will Eaves
The Queue by Jonathan Barrow
Who Sleeps with Katz by Todd McEwen
Simple Annals by Roy Watkins
War Reporter and New Life by Dan O’Brien
NYRB Classics – book club
The Flanders Road by Claude Simon
Lament for Julia by Susan Taubes
Don’t Look at Me Like That by Diana Athill
My Death by Lisa Tuttle
Skeletons in my Closet by Jean-Patrick Manchette (squeezed into 2023)
The 12 books that arrive in 2024
- Jan: The Unforgivable by Cristina Campo
Feb: The Skin of Dreams by Raymond Queneau- Mar: A Chance Meeting by Rachel Cohen
Apr: A Strange and Sublime Address by Amit Chaudhuri- May: Butterfly of Dinard by Eugenio Montale
- Jun: The Singularity by Dino Buzzati
NYRB Classics – other
Varieties of Exile by Mavis Gallant
Anniverseries by Uwe Johnson
My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley
Wish Her Safe at Home by Stephen Benatar
The Bridge of Beyond by Simon Schwarz-Bart
Fum d’Estampa
London Under Snow by Jordi Llavina
One Day in the Life by Joan Maragall
The Intimate Resistance by Josep Maria Esquirol
Goodbye, Ramona by Montserrat Roig
Summa Kaotica by Ventura Ametller
The yet-to-be-confirmed number of new books I’ll get in my subscription in 2024
- Through the Forest by Laura Alcoba
- Atlantis by Jacint Verdaguer
Unread Paris Review of Books issues
Issues 239 and 240
Poetry
Poetry of the Thirties curated by Robin Skelton
The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry curated by Robert Chandler
Soon by Alba Arikha
Saying Yes in Russian by Caroline Clark
Classics
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
Miscellaneous fiction
Como Agua Para Chocolate by Laura Esquivel (in Spanish 🇪🇸😬)(in prog)
Maribou Stork Nightmares by Irving Welsh
The Butterfly Assassin by Finn Longman
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Ubik by Philip K Dick
Various Red Dwarf books by Grant Naylor
English Pastoral by James Redbanks
Immortality by Milan Kundera
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
Christmas Holiday by W. Somerset Maugham (at Christmas 🎄)
Miscellaneous non-fiction
In a Different Voice by Caroline Gilligan
My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Local by Alastair Humphreys
Regenesis by George Monbiot
Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein
Gibraltar: A History by Maurice Harvey
Musical auto/biographies: Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Dave Grohl, and Bob Dylan
Other auto/biographies: Oliver Sacks, Trevor Noah
Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann