My favorite heroic dose book for this year was The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (fiction). I'm still thinking about it six months later.
Gotta be honest with you, if your aim is to get people to read more, announcing that you read 54 books last year just makes me want to crawl into a hole and watch TV. How is it possible? I presume you don’t mean audio books, which at least seems reasonable
Haha nooo I don’t want these numbers to have that effect. This does include audiobooks. I read a mix of print, ebooks, and audiobooks and some of these books were quite short—like The Cuck.
It comes out to about a book a week.
I also often listen go audiobooks at 1.5-2x depending on the narrator’s speed.
Thank you for your honest reply! I am on a bit of a mission to keep the word “read” for actual “reading”, which isn’t the same as “listening” (no value judgement here, not better, not worse, just different); I think it is a bit misleading. I wonder what verb could be used. You “took in” 54 books, or “absorbed”, or “consumed” … ?
I appreciate the creative way you presented the books you read through categories. It was a fun read. Looks like you read from a variety of genres. I think I might break out into fiction this year. Although I have so many books I’m wanting to read lying on the shelf. How do you find time to read? Do you always read at the same time a day? I think I must be a slow reader. I’d love to read 52 books. But, that’s probably unrealistic for me at this time.
I love this question so much that I think it warrants a whole post response. Going to share this soon! Thank you! And in brief-yes-I read usually at the same times every day, but not always.
Ok I LOVE how you’ve broken these down into the MABAM categories, and I’d read every book on this list! Starting with Big Swiss cause I need laughs and have admired that they snagged a pretty interesting painter’s painting for that book cover.
My favorite heroic dose book for this year was The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (fiction). I'm still thinking about it six months later.
Ooh I want to read this! Been hearing good things.
Gotta be honest with you, if your aim is to get people to read more, announcing that you read 54 books last year just makes me want to crawl into a hole and watch TV. How is it possible? I presume you don’t mean audio books, which at least seems reasonable
Haha nooo I don’t want these numbers to have that effect. This does include audiobooks. I read a mix of print, ebooks, and audiobooks and some of these books were quite short—like The Cuck.
It comes out to about a book a week.
I also often listen go audiobooks at 1.5-2x depending on the narrator’s speed.
Thank you for your honest reply! I am on a bit of a mission to keep the word “read” for actual “reading”, which isn’t the same as “listening” (no value judgement here, not better, not worse, just different); I think it is a bit misleading. I wonder what verb could be used. You “took in” 54 books, or “absorbed”, or “consumed” … ?
I appreciate the creative way you presented the books you read through categories. It was a fun read. Looks like you read from a variety of genres. I think I might break out into fiction this year. Although I have so many books I’m wanting to read lying on the shelf. How do you find time to read? Do you always read at the same time a day? I think I must be a slow reader. I’d love to read 52 books. But, that’s probably unrealistic for me at this time.
I love this question so much that I think it warrants a whole post response. Going to share this soon! Thank you! And in brief-yes-I read usually at the same times every day, but not always.
Great. I love forward to reading more of your work.
Great post and book recommendations, thank you! Here are some of my 2024 books, using your taxonomy for the categories:
HEROIC DOSE
- Eileen
-- by Ottessa Moshfeg
- Convenience Store Woman: A Novel
- Earthlings: A Novel
-- both by Sayaka Murata
- Kafka on the Shore
-- by Haruki Murakami
HEART OPENER
- Klara and the Sun
- The Remains of the Day
-- both by Kazuo Ishiguro
CHEEK HURTER
- Big Swiss
-- by Jen Beagin
MIND FLUK
- The Fact of the Moon Is Stranger Than Most Dreams
-- by Jacob Daniel Palmer
SOLID DOSE
- The Bell
-- by Iris Murdoch
- Little, Big
-- by John Crowley
- The Count of Monte Cristo
-- by Alexandre Dumas
- Wonder Boys
-- by Michael Chabon
BODY HIGHS:
- Bunny
-- by Mona Awad
- Titanium Noir
-- by Nick Harkaway
Ok I LOVE how you’ve broken these down into the MABAM categories, and I’d read every book on this list! Starting with Big Swiss cause I need laughs and have admired that they snagged a pretty interesting painter’s painting for that book cover.