1 | Locked-room mystery | Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie |
2 | Bibliosmia: A smelly book | Eric - Terry Pratchett |
3 | More than 40 chapters | The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman |
4 | Lowercase letters on the spine | The Bookbinder of Jericho - |
5 | Magical Realism | The Sinister Booksellers of Bath - Garth Nix |
6 | Women in STEM | Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin |
7 | At least four different POV | The Lonely Hearts Book Club |
8 | Features the ocean | The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett |
9 | A character-driven novel | Alla ni som är tyngda |
10 | Told in non-chronological order | The Art of Baking Blind |
11 | Title starting with the letter “K” | The Kamogawa Food Detectives |
12 | Title starting with the letter “L” | Legends and Lattes |
13 | An academic thriller = | Death on the Cherwell |
14 | A grieving character | The Cat who Caught a Killer |
15 | Part of a duology | The Accidental Further Adventures of the 101-year-old man - Jonas Jonasson |
16 | An omniscient narrator | Death Comes to Pemberley |
17 | Nominated for The Booker Prize | Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo |
18 | An apostrophe in the title | A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking |
19 | A buddy read | We Solve Murders - Richard Osman |
20 | A revenge story | The Princess Bride |
21 | Written by a ghostwriter | The Monograph Murders - 'Agatha Christie' |
22 | A plot similar to another book | Before we Say Goodbye |
23 | The other book with the similar plot | Tales from the Cafe |
24 | A cover without people on it | The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted |
25 | An author “everyone” has read except you | Whose Body – Dorothy L Sayers |
26 | Hybrid genre | A Morbid Taste for Bones - Ellis Peters |
27 | By a neurodivergent author | The Comfort Book by Matt Haig |
28 | A yellow spine | The Girl with the Louding Voice |
29 | Published in a Year of the Dragon | Sourcery - Terry Pratchett |
30 | Picked without reading the blurb | Notes from an Island - Tove Jansson |
31 | Includes a personal phobia | |
32 | Timeframe spans a week or less | Folk med ångest |
33 | An abrupt ending | The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society |
34 | Set in a landlocked country | Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett |
35 | Title matches lyrics from a song | Our Last Summer |
36 | Has futuristic technology | Cinder |
37 | Palindrome on the cover | |
38 | Published by Hachette | Agatha Christie - Lucy Wormesley |
39 | Non-fiction recommended by a friend | No Place for a Lady |
40 | Set during a holiday you don’t celebrate | Once Upon an Eid |
41 | A sticker on the cover | Not another happy ending |
42 | Author debut in second half of 2024 | Guilty by Definition - Susie Dent |
43 | About finding identity | The Red Dragon - Sion Jobbins |
44 | Includes a wedding | Yours Cheerfully - A J Pearce |
45 | Chapter headings have dates | Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies |
46 | Featuring Indigenous culture | Stöld - Ann-Helen Laestadius |
47 | Self-insert by an author | A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens |
48 | The word “secret” in the title | The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett |
49 | Set in a city starting with the letter “M” | The Man with the Silver Saab - Alexander McColl Smith |
50 | A musical instrument on the cover | Midnight Hour Encores |
51 | Related to the word “Wild” | Wild Kingdom |
52 | Published in 2024 | Four Seasons in Japan |
Summary:
41 categories completed
5 categories unfinished
4 categories planned [Nominated for the Booker Prize; Timescale spans a week or less; Published by Hachette; Author debut in second half of 2024]
2 categories unidentified [Includes a personal phobia; Palindrome on the cover]
Overall this has been an enjoyable challenge, even though I've not quite managed to complete it. Through the year I've read far more books than the 46 indicated here, having started a full Discworld re-read, and enjoyed plenty of books which don't tick any boxes here but were simply appealing at the time.
The incomplete books here are unfinished for a mix of reasons:
Stöld was fairly hard-going (available in English as Stolen, by Ann-Helen Laestadius) but I will definitely pick it up and complete. The story focusses on a young sami girl and her community after she discovers her reindeer has been killed by a Swedish man, showing that relations between Sami and Swedish people are still not entirely without their difficulties, and that violence against the the Sami by attacking their reindeer is not just a thing of the past. Uncomfortable reading, for sure - but very well written, and I'll be continuing it as soon as I can find where my copy has got to!
The Man with the Silver Saab was every bit as frustrating and irritating as the first two in the Detective Varg series, so I'm very glad I didn't buy this one but borrowed it as an audiobook from the library instead. Set in Malmö - the need for a book set in a city beginning with M was the only thing that induced me to give this a try - Detective Ulf Varg of the Sensitive Crimes Unit is as uninteresting as ever, and by the time I gave up, I still had no idea what he was going to be investigating. I don't know if it's the very Englishness of the writing, conflicting with its Swedish setting which bothers me, but the characterisation and behaviours are just Not Right. I did my best to get through this in December, but ran out of time and returned the book promptly once the deadline for completion in 2024 had passed.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow seems to be enjoyable so far - this was my book for reading during bus commutes, but I ended up taking the car to work more than expected so didn't manage to finish this. I do now have the audiobook from the library, so will continue. I want to know how things go between Sadie and Sam - whether they can repair their fractured friendship, whether they do develop their videogames together.
Once Upon an Eid is a set of short stories aimed at children - I read several of these, but didn't feel a pressing need to finish the book. I'd have preferred to find an adult book for this category but didn't manage to find one that appealed any time I was looking. This has highlighted the narrowness of the cultures in which my reading is generally set, so is a very useful reminder to me to keep looking wider.
The Comfort Book by Matt Haig isn't a novel, but is a collection of short thoughts based around the theme of supporting and offering comfort and positive ways of thinking for people dealing with difficulties or depression. It's not one to sit and read through solidly, but is a dip-into kind of book. I'll keep it on my bedside table and keep dipping occasionally.
I've generally found this to be an interesting challenge - not in terms of the volume of reading it's asked for, but the range. I knew some categories would be quite difficult, but am a bit surprised by some of the ones left incomplete or unstarted - I hadn't thought that finding a book published by Hachette would be undone, or one with a short timescale. In the end, it came down to time and priorities; other things took precedence over reading. But it was a bit of fun, and certainly encouraged me to think a bit about what I was selecting, and why. I'm in two minds about trying the 2025 challenge - I have a LOT of books which were bought by or for me through the year which I haven't yet picked up as they didn't match the categories I needed to complete, so perhaps this year's challenge should be focussed around tackling my TBR library (it's definitely more than a pile!) rather than anything more tightly defined. Books in the TBR include intriguing titles such as A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks, and Women who Run with the Wolves, as well as two Swedish books which I'm looking forward to - both from authors I like - and a whole host of pretty mainstream novels. And that's not even looking for anything which has been waiting since 2023 or earlier. There's definitely plenty to be going on with there, and I'm sure lots of treasures just waiting to be discovered. Yes, that's it - this year I shall do my own 'Unlimited Book Challenge'!
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