Becky's Carefully Curated Reads for 2024

“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”

― James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

Hello, everyone! My name is Becky and I'm looking forward to participating in the group in 2024.

I've decided to put my main focus on decluttering my TBR piles this year and get to those books I've been meaning to, but never quite found the time for (and making space in my personal library for treasured books as an added bonus.)

Current challenges:
HistoryCAT
ScaredyKit
SFFKit
1001 Books to Read Before You Die
The 52 Book Club’s 2024 Reading Challenge
Physical TBR Challenge
Family Read Aloud Challenge

This is quite a bit for me and I most likely won't get to each book for every challenge (and this is the whittled-down version!), but I'm going to have fun trying my darndest.

Happy reading, everyone!

HistoryCat

January - North & South American Wars & Conflicts
February - Georgian/Regency Britain
March - Science & Medicine
April - Riots, Revolution, & Mayhem
May - Middle Ages
June - Historians
July - Spies
August - Byzantine Empire
September - WWI/WWII
October - Disasters
November - Ancient & Classical History
December - Religions & Religious Festivals

ScaredyKit

✔-January - Psychological Thrillers: The Silent Patient
February - Gothic
March - True Crime
April - Witches, Evil Spirits, & Black Magic
May - Graphic Novels & Short Fiction
June - Serial Killers
July - Corporeal Undead
August - Middle grade & YA horror
September - Stephen King & Family
October - Contemporary Horror
November - Things with a Bite (Vampires & Werewolves)
December - Catch Up! Read Something That Fits Any Month's Theme

1001 Books to Read Before You Die

1) The Moonstone by Willkie Collins

The 52 Book Club’s 2024 Reading Challenge

✔-1) Locked-room mystery: The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
✔-2) Bibliosmia: A smelly book: The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis
3) More than 40 chapters
4) Lowercase letters on the spine
5) Magical Realism
6) Women in STEM
7) At least four different POV
8) Features the ocean
9) A character-driven novel
10) Told in non-chronological order
11) Title starting with the letter “K”
12) Title starting with the letter “L”
13) An academic thriller
14) A grieving character
✔-15) Part of a duology: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
16) An omniscient narrator
17) Nominated for The Booker Prize
18) An apostrophe in the title
19) A buddy read
20) A revenge story
21) Written by a ghostwriter
22) A plot similar to another book
23) The other book with the similar plot
24) A cover without people on it
25) An author “everyone” has read except you
26) Hybrid genre
27) By a neurodivergent author
28) A yellow spine
29) Published in a Year of the Dragon
30) Picked without reading the blurb
31) Includes a personal phobia
32) Timeframe spans a week or less
33) An abrupt ending
34) Set in a landlocked country
35) Title matches lyrics from a song
36) Has futuristic technology
37) Palindrome on the cover
38) Published by Hachette
39) Non-fiction recommended by a friend
40) Set during a holiday you don’t celebrate
41) A sticker on the cover
42) Author debut in second half of 2024
43) About finding identity
44) Includes a wedding
45) Chapter headings have dates
46) Featuring Indigenous culture
47) Self-insert by an author
48) The word “secret” in the title
49) Set in a city starting with the letter “M”
50) A musical instrument on the cover
51) Related to the word “Wild”
52) Published in 2024

Physical TBR Challenge (aim for at least one book per month from my physical TBR shelf)

January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

TBR shelf according to Goodreads as of January 1, 2024: 899

TBR shelf according to Goodreads as of December 31, 2024:

Welcome, Becky.

I am adding a link to a Wiki that tells you how to add pictures and other cool things to your thread:

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Basic_HTML_/_How_to_do_Fancy_Things_in_Y...

I usually upload pictures to my Junk Drawer and then post them from there. The best thing is just to fool around with the various suggestions until you are comfortable with it. Have fun.

Welcome, Becky! I look forward to your reviews!

Welcome Becky!
I am also doing the 52 Book Club challenge so looking forward to seeing what you read. And reading, slowly, through the 1001 Books list.

Welcome Becky. Have fun with your challenges and good luck with decluttering your TBR!

Welcome Becky. Good luck with your challenge. I'll be lurking. ;)

Welcome aboard, Becky! Have fun with your challenges.

Welcome and good luck with your reading in 2024.

Welcome! Good luck, that looks like a challenging list.

Welcome! I‘m looking forward to seeing what you choose for HistoryCAT since I‘ll be doing that one as well.

Good luck with the 52 books challenge and happy reading in 2024!

Wishing you good reading in 2024!

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone! Just saw the posts for January's categories. It's finally happening! Now to get to planning. *rubs hands together*

Family Read Aloud Challenge

January -
February -
March -
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Looking forward to seeing how all your category challenges go! Welcome to the group!

SFFKit

January - swords & sorcery/ epic fantasy
February - critters/creatures
March - Space Opera
April - Time Travel
May - Archaeology
June - Monsters
July - First Contact
August - paranormal/space detectives
September - Gods/Mythology
October - Women Authors
November - TBD
December - Bookish Fantasy

Finished The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins this morning. I didn't realize it was a whopper of a book (around 500 pages or so) when I started it, so it took a couple of weeks to get through. It was an enjoyable experience, however, so I'm not complaining!

It's a story about a yellow diamond that goes missing, and throughout the book, you get not only the mysterious aspect but also quite a bit of romance and humor (I really enjoyed the humor!) The narratives provided by all those involved in the case made the story engaging and provided a unique personality for each one, without making it seem too long and drawn out.

A worthy novel to be added to our personal library for my kiddos to enjoy in the future, for sure!

>23 beccac220: Glad to hear you liked this one. It's on my 2024 TBR list. I've read a couple of Collins' books and they were both a tad long, but I still enjoyed them.

Just completed Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Gave it 5 stars. Loved the characters, loved the slow-burn romance, loved the dragons. Violet is a wonderful main character; flawed but fully aware of it. No whining, no complaining, just does what she needs to improve. (I could be more like that in real life.) Xander is hot in all the right ways. And it's enemies-to-lovers. That always gets me. A nice break from the "fae" fantasy I've been reading up until now. On to Book 2!