Favourite Fiction of 2024… So Far
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2024
- In which I muse about my six favourite fiction reads in the first six months of 2024.
#bestbooks #favouritebooks #favouritereads #bookwormsunite #bookworm #booktube #reading #readingrecommendations
Books discussed:
Thin Air by Michelle Paver
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
House of Names by Colm Tóibín
Brotherless Night by V V Ganeshananthan
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
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I wish you had been my English Lit teacher. I would have understood so much more. Great choices x😊
She is your lit teacher now.
That’s a lovely compliment. Thank you 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
My faves so far this year.
1. My Government Means to Kill Me - Rasheed Newson
2. Strangers - Taichi Yamada
3. Three Fires - Denise Mina (do on audio!)
4. Another Brooklyn - Jacqueline Woodson
5. The Secret Life of Albert Entwhistle - Matt Cain
6. The Warm Hands of Ghosts - Katherine Arden
7. Lie With Me - Philippe Besson
8. The Reformatory - Tananarive Due
9. Blizzard - Marie Vingtras
10. Eastbound - Maylis De Kerangal
And some crime to round out the list:
11. Helle & Death - Oskar Jensen
12. The Excitements - C J Wray
13. Over My Dead Body - Maz Evans
14. The Collapsing Wave - Doug Johnstone
Ooo. Interesting choices. Some food for thought for me here, as ever 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
Oooh, what a list. We may well have some mutual favourites of the year so far 😉🥳📚
Now wouldn’t that be a thing! 😀❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for sharing these with us, Louise. My favourite books that I have read this year are:
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
In Ascension by Martin McInnes
Burnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
Not a River by Selma Almada
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Happy reading for the second half of the year!!📚
Love Anne Tyler … beautiful book 🙏🙏🙏🩵🩵🩵📚📚📚
My favorite books so far are: 'I have some questions for you' by Rebecca Mekkai, 'Exvangelicals' by Sarah McCammon and 'The Comfort of Crows' by Margaret Renkyl and 'The Storm We Made' by Vanessa Chan. I'd love to recommend Shark Heart by Emily Habeck. It was my absolute favorite book last year and is now my favorite book ever besides 'Poisonwood Bible'.
Oh wow 🤩 @savidgereads was raving about Shark Heart! 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
I’m currently reading The Storm We Made 👍🥹👏🏻
My favourite of this year so far is an oldy but a goody - The Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher. 😊
Ooo. I’ve never read it 🤔🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
I read The Shell Seekers SO many years ago - I know I loved it 🥹
Irish authors lead my fave books of the year every year. This year, debut novelist Alan Murrin is in the #1 position with “The Coast Road” followed closely by Orla Owen’s “Christ on a Bike.” I wasn’t going to bother with “Prophet Song” but you’ve swayed me.
Ooo. Two I haven’t come across. Thanks for sharing 🙏🙏🙏🩵🩵🩵📚📚📚
I really want to read The Coast Road 😌
I just got copy of Prophet Song after hearing your accolades. Cannot wait to read. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Do let me know what you think 🤔 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
Yay to all the Irish! 🎉🇮🇪
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I paused your video and immediately bought Ferdia Lennon’s book. It is one of Waterstones shortlisted books for a debut novel. Recently I was stunned to find that I own SO MANY Irish novels. I have read 7 of them this year. I hope to read more before the year is over. I want to read: Prophet Song, The Bee Sting, The Rachel Incident, and Kala.
They have the gift of the gab 🤩🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
My favourites so far this year
Songs in Ursa Major - Emma Brodie
Bright young women - Jessica Knoll
The Sentence - Louise Erdrich
The way home - Mark Boyle
Assimilation- Sophie Buchaillard
Arcadia - Lauren Groff
Fruit of the drunken tree - Ingrid Rojas Cantreras
The soul of a woman - Isabel Allende
And currently reading The lost flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland 📚📚📚📚📚📚
That list gives me so much food for thought as I haven’t read any of them 🤩🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
@@louisesavidgemuses4135 they were all 5 star 🌟 reads x
Another great video Louise, as usual! I'm glad you've had such a good reading year!
Thin Air and Prophet Song both sound so interesting, I really want to pick them up! I ordered a copy of Glorious Exploits on your recommendation and I'm so excited to read it soon! As an Irish woman, I'm happy to see so much Irish literature represented. 😂😂
Absolutely 👍 The Irish have such a strong storytelling tradition 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
Thanks a lot for your wonderful channel!
My pleasure 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵📚
Lovely list of books. I too read and loved The Brotherless Night and Prophet Song.
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Thank you for sharing. All of these books have been added to my list.
Wonderful! 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
I, too, retired at the end of last year and have read over 50 books so far this year. I really enjoy your reading and it is informing my future reading choices. Thank you!
My pleasure ☺️🙏🙏🙏📚📚🩵🩵🩵
Hi Louise,
My favorite books this year so far have been:
1. Us Against You - Fredik Backman (second book in Beartown series)
2. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson
3. Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir
4. Looking for Jane - Heather Marshall
5. Everyone On This Train is a Suspect - Benajmin Stevenson (fave on this list)
6. Elle r'viendra pas, Camille : Journal d'un amoureux - Guillaume Pineault (French-Canadien book - doubtful this has been translated to English)
What an interesting selection! Thanks for sharing 🙏🙏🙏🩵🩵🩵📚📚📚
I also have a few of your favourites Louise, GE, PS, of which I’ve only read Brotherless Night so far. Always enjoy and appreciate your reviews that have added to my ever growing tbr😊📚
Thank you 🙏 Glad you find them helpful 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
I totally agree with you....Prophet Song will hold a place in my mind and soul for a very long time. Thank you
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Yay! A fellow StoryGraph user!
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Totally with you in prophet son. Absolutely outstanding. Got the others on order from the library. My favourite this year has been The Women by Kristin Hannah. Just fantastic x
Haven’t read any Hannah… yet… ☺️🙏🙏🙏🩵🩵🩵📚📚📚
Fabulous necklace! Please “waffle” away, it’s always so interesting. All 6 sound wonderful, drat! must buy more books! Thank you for your great videos, they’re a highlight of my week….though my pile of to be reads is teetering dangerously….
Apologies for affecting your TBR ☺️ Delighted that you are enjoying my waffling 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
@@louisesavidgemuses4135 I’ve just bought Prophet Song, I may use it in my dystopian novel class. I’ve been having fun reading this genre and trying to pick 10 contemporary novels. Fascinating what’s out there and how different it is from the dystopian novels of our youth!
I have enjoyed reading Carrie Sun's Private Equity-her harrowing account of working at a hedge fund in NYC, pushed by her parents Chinese cultural expectations of being 100% all the time and being at the top of her gain no matter what it costs her. I learned more about the Cultural Revolution in China than I had heard about before through her parents who escaped. Brotherless Night is on my TBR after I finish reading Force of Nature by Jane Harper. I will consider getting Thin Air as it sounds intriguing.
Sun’s book sounds very interesting. Thanks for bringing it to my attention 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
Hi Louise 👋🏻 I really enjoyed your ‘fave fiction so far 2024’ : of your 6 choices I have Ordinary Human Failings on library loan waiting to be read & I found Thin Air in a charity shop (following your previous recommendation 👍)
I just totted up how many books I’ve read so far & it comes to 23, but I’m currently juggling 3 titles!! So, once I’ve finished those, I’ll be on target to read 50 for the year which was my goal. I’ve recently got distracted by the tennis & football, so need to focus more 😂
My top books to date are: Stanley & Elsie (Nicola Upson), The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence), The Essex Serpent (Sarah Perry), North Woods (Daniel Mason), Brotherless Night (V.V. Ganeshananthan) & I also enjoyed 2 of last year’s longlisted titles for the Booker Prize: The House of Doors (Tan Twan Eng) & Old God’s Time (Sebastian Barry). Prophet Song (Paul Lynch) was my winner & you described it perfectly 🥹
I’m looking forward to the longlist announcement (30/7) for this year’s Booker Prize & aim to read a few & definitely the shortlist again 😌 ttfn & tc 😘 x
I really want to get to North Woods and House of Doors 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
I think you’ll like both, esp North Woods 😘
I agree about Brotherless Night; I was so surprised to read the author had studied writing and had not become a doctor! I was sure she had lived the story she told.
Absolutely 👍 🤔🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
I'd really like to pick up Ordinary Human Failings now. After your last video I mentioned that I was reading Beyond The Sea by Paul Lynch, which I finished last night. I almost didn't finish it because it was very dark and not the kind of novel I would ever normally pick up. I am still thinking about what rating I might give it but it certainly fits into that category of a novel taking you somewhere where you would never go and hopefully never experience! - After reading two of his novels now, I think it is very much Paul Lynch's style and that maybe all of his novels are like that? I might have to read more - but not yet - think I need a bit of a break!! So maybe it would appeal to you!
Thank you for your thoughts. I sense that he is a novelist whose work needs to be read at intervals 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
I enjoyed Cleopatra's Daughter, Mona At the Manor and others, it's taking me forever to finish the first Tommy and Tuppence Christie novel, really don't know why, unless it is because I started the others.😅
That might be it 🤣🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
Would you ever consider doing a video on modern takes on the classical world with a look at the myths I would love that so much
I’ll see what I can do 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
These aren't in any order really:
As long as the Lemon Trees grow by Zoulfa Katouh
Murder in the Mill-Race by E.C.R. Lorac
Garlic and the Witch by Bree Paulson
Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu
The Oaken Heart by Margery Allingham
Winter at Cliff's End Cottage by Sheila Norton
These are the one's that I rated the highest, I think. I listened to Murder in the Mill-Race and The Oaken Heart on Audiobook, the narrators very good. I'm enjoying delving into British Murder Mysteries from the British Library's archives. Murder in the Mill-Race was originally published in 1952. I've listened to a number of them and enjoyed many, there is a lot of them on audio and available on eBooks today.
Some interesting picks there. Thanks for sharing 🩵🩵🩵📚📚📚🙏🙏🙏
Glorious Exploits is my favourite book of the year so far (but then I haven't read Brotherless Night yet). I've recently been thinking about re-reading my A Level set texts (just the novels) as next year will be the 40th anniversary of me sitting my exams. I wonder if I'll hate them any less 😂
🤣🤣🤣 Now I really need to know what they were 🤔🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
@@louisesavidgemuses4135 They are: The History Man - Malcolm Bradbury; Emma - Jane Austen; Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy; Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald. (Plus Hamlet, Waiting for Godot, The Prologue and Miller's Tale from the Canterbury Tales and the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, but I'm only re-reading the novels.) I started The History Man yesterday. I found the first few pages intensely irritating, but I'm starting to get into it now. I might end up actually enjoying it!
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What a great list. I too loved Ordinary Human Failings, Thin Air and Brotherless Night. This might be an odd question but when do you read?
I read whenever I can. Always before bed and increasingly when I wake up. Snatched a good hour at lunchtime today 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
Greatly list Louise! I've just finished Clytamestra by Costanza Casili. I'm not familiar enough with the source material to know how faithful it was to canon but ot was a very emotional, human story with a feminist agenda.
I still haven’t got to it but looking forward to it 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵
My favourites so far have been
Pet by Catherine Chidgey
In Memoriam by Alice Winn
I did not enjoy Brotherless Night, I have very mixed feelings about this book, I started off by reading the book, I was finding it a bit flat and laborious so I switched to reading and listening. This was a bit of a mistake because the narration was dreadful, I could only listen for short periods of time.
When I switched to reading I was definitely hearing a different more pleasant voice.
However, the book which covered a fascinating period of history of which I was largely unaware, even though it happened in my lifetime.
The whole history side of it is shocking but the delivery of it was disappointing.
All of the characters were cardboard, lacked depth, personality and I really didn’t care about them.
Such a shame because some of the scenes could have been very moving
I know I am in the minority here especially as it won the Booker Prize
Reading is so subjective and I love the way we all respond to books so differently. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts 🙏🙏🙏📚📚📚🩵🩵🩵