You could befriend hooksforeverything on Goodreads for the real-time version of this… Where the links are to amazon, they’re affiliate links. I wouldn’t link you to something I didn’t love.
It felt as though I didn’t read much this month, because in election week I couldn’t settle to reading anything long-form. I was so tense and spending so much time looking at articles and opinions from inside my bubble, and I knew it was pointless but I couldn’t stop. And civilisation lost the election, in the end, anyway.
However, it was a lucky month for reading: seven books were five-stars! Well above the odds. I must be getting better at judging by the covers.
- The Observations – narrative marvellous, plot already forgotten
- Future Homemakers Of America – charming culture-clash fluff
- Resting Witch Face – clever style & characters, silly plot
- Murder On Main Street – I don’t think I was paying attention
- One Word Kill – twelve monkeys for people who only read bestsellers
- Still Glides The Stream – gentle tale of landowners and family
- Sudden Traveller ***** – phenomenal writing, felt v meaningful while reading
- In The Dark – clever revenge murder mystery
- Towards Zero – extremely clever murder mystery
- Furyborn – great world, couldn’t care about large cast
- Coven Mitt – matching sequel to ‘clever style & characters, silly plot’
- Randomize – twisty clever short story of clever STEM people
- Ark ***** – delightful short story of clever STEM people as world ends
- Limited Wish – sequel to ‘twelve monkeys for people who only read bestsellers’
- Emergency Skin ***** – short story about bodies & obedience, felt entirely new
- Murder Is Easy – twisty multiple murder mystery from Agatha
- Towards The Midnight Sun – gold rush slow-burn with acceptable politics
- The Psychology Of Time Travel – excellent concept, very slightly too entangled for me
- Ghostland ***** – overthinker travels to process events in his life, does it well
- You Have Arrived At Your Destination – would probably mean more to parents
- Perdido Street Station ***** – the unbearable epic of art dream politics parasites city
- The Sisterhood – supporting cast of nuns stronger than magical girl protagonist
- Death In Fancy Dress – clever murder mystery about romantic obsession
- Saturday Night And Sunday Morning – prettily written slice of underclass
- All You Can Ever Know – was not written for me, but was written well
- Year Of The Monkey ***** – poetry about growth and loss, no I know all poetry is about growth and loss, but this one is amazing
- The Fifth Child – pleasingly unsettling, the ‘world with one small thing changed’
- The Girl In The Plain Brown Wrapper ***** – man of certain skills gets caught up in family of seething dramas
hooks for 