Q1 FAVOURITE READS

Time does fly by unnoticed, so here we are suddenly at the end of Q1.

What were your favourite reads over this first quarter of the year? Did they live up to January 1st expectations, or are you slumping?

I've had a very promising first quarter of reading. I'm enjoying my year of serendipitous reading, although I have fallen into a rabbit warren of late with a sudden interest in Chinese history.

Favorite character and series: Murderbot by Martha Wells
Favorite biography: Chekhov by Henri Troyat
Favorite reread: Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Favorite book featuring a camel: Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov
Favorite memoir: Grass Soup by Zhang Xianliang
Favorite history: Hungry Ghosts by Jasper Becker

The Jinn-bot of Shantiport was without question my favorite read of the quarter. It had some believability issues but the characters were wonderful. I also liked Paladin of Souls very much.

No question for me - my best was Eastbound reviewed HERE.

Thinking it over, if I had to pick three that I really liked this quarter, they would be:

- Eileen Chang - The Rouge of the North (translated from the Chinese)
- Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Velvet Was the Night
- Élisa Shua Dusapin - 'Vladivostok Circus (translated from the Russian)

I feel that I read quite a lot of good stuff in Q1, but it’s tricky to identify the ones that really stand out. I ended up listing quite a large proportion of what I read…

Excellent novels from authors I know that delivered exactly what I was hoping for:
- House of day, house of night by Olga Tokarczuk
- The flounder by Günter Grass
- Number eleven by Jonathan Coe

Interesting new-to-me authors:
- Good will come from the sea by Christos Ikonomou
- James by Percival Everett
- Jugend ohne Gott by Ödön von Horváth

Quirky finds:
- Via Bodenbach by Ferenc Körmendi

Solid non-fiction:
- A history of pictures by David Hockney and Martin Gayford
- Holy sh*t by Melissa Mohr

I'll pick one: Yasushi Inoue's Asunaro.

I'll highlight one re-read, Charles Yu's How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and one new-to-me book, Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire.

I decided this year to maintain a quarterly top 5 as I went and this is what I ended up with for Q1.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Wifedom by Anna Funder
The Future by Naomi Alderman
Fury by Kathryn Heyman
Hel's Eight by Stark Holborn

Well, let's see. I finished 13 books during the year's first quarter, to that puts me on a pace for 52, just a touch north of my annual goal of 50 books. Six of those 13 were already on my shelves, which puts me on a pace for only 24 "off the shelf" books, which would, once again, be short of my annual, evidently quixotic, goal to read 30 such books during the year.

As to favorites, when it comes to novels, these three are basically a toss-up:
The Manor by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.

As for non-fiction, my favorite was:
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America by Russell Shorto
Coming up a near second:
Death in the Making by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and Chim

Happy reading, everyone!

I read 22 books this quarter, four of them non fiction

TOP FICTION

lessons in chemistry

how to make a boat

wyrd sisters

glimpses of the moon

Spectator bird

twilight sleeping

NON FICTION

wifedom

elizabeths german garden

the brave escape of Edith Wharton

a stroke of the pen

This quarter ive enjoyed reading Edith Wharton. Id read house of mirth and age of innocencein college but never was interested in the rest of her work. But I read old new york last year and was hooked!

Here is my summary from my longer summary of books for the quarter:

Best for Quarter:

Fiction: The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith
Non-Fiction: The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Short Work: Space and Dimensionality by Thomas K. Simpson (an alternative is The Jilting of Granny Weatherall by Katherine Anne Porter because the Simpson work is difficult to find).

I only finished four books in the first quarter of 2024, but all earned at least 4½ stars from me:

5 stars:
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison

4½ stars:
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
The Upcycled Self: A Memoir on the Art of Becoming Who We Are by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter

My favorite read of 1Q24 was Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward.

5 favorites so far in the order l read them -

Have You seen Luis Velez?, Ryan
Winter Solstice, Pilcher
The Frozen River, Lawhon
When I Found You, Ryan
Skylarks’ War, McKay

Huh, I usually pick out the books I rated four-and-a-half or five stars for threads like this, but looking back on the first quarter of 2024, I see I didn't have any! A fair number of 4-star reads I enjoyed, but apparently no huge standouts. Well, at least I did manage to start with one for April, so I'll have something more to report next time.

Of the 4-star books from this quarter, I think, if I'm completely honest, my favorite was that one about the making of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. :)

A top five of a sorts

1. Canterbury Tales*
2. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
3. How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney
4. Pearl by Siân Hughes
5. How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair

* although i haven’t finished, it’s my best book by far

My favorite reads completed in Appril.
Mantel Pieces - Hilary Mantel - Reviewed
Waiting for the Mahatma - R. K. Naryan - Reviewed
The Trees - Percival Everett - Reviewed