Which books will you be reading in the new year this 2025?

Previous thread:

R1 I've read "Confessions of a Fox." It was well written and enlightening.

Primed for January 2025 reads: Louis Bayard's "The Wildes"; Ernst Junger's "On the Marble Cliffs," an allegory about the rise of fascism: Cynthia Reeves's "The Last Whaler"; Boris Akunin's "The Coronation"; Christopher Bollen's well-reviewed mystery/thriller "Havoc"; Lily Tuck's "The Rest Is Memory".

I want to read the new Hollinghurst novel.

The Celestine Prophecy, The Secret, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Dianetics.

Finishing James and then Greta and Valdin, Tiepolo Blue (thanks to the earlier recommendation, and one due in February, Mutual Interest.

I also added Tiepolo Blue to my list, thanks to the poster in the previous thread.

I hear the new Christopher Bollen novel is superb until the final chapters when it all falls miserably apart.

I'm reading EAST OF EDEN which was one of the first adult books I read as a young teen. I've forgotten most of it (my teens years were over 50 years ago!), and I don't know the film very well. But I'm just loving Steinbeck's prose - what a master storyteller!

I believe there will be a new miniseries of the book which will include all the early family history that the Kazan film left out. I think Mike Faist is playing the James Dean role. It will be sure to bring the novel's popularity back into prominence again.

Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy by Tom Nichols

r2, does one need to have read the earlier Boris Akunin Fandorin mysteries in the series to appreciate The Coronation?

R10 No. They are stand-alone.

Havoc by Chris Bollen.

r12, please come back when you finish it and let us know what you think. I hear, after a brilliant start, it doesn't end well.

The new vook coming out about Vivien Leigh from “A Streetcar Named Desire” to her death from tuberculosis in 1965. These were the years when her bi-polarism took over her life.

R14, what's it called? I'm a big Vivien Leigh fan

"Natalie Woods' Fatal Voyage"---Dylan Howard.

Read "What is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life" by the poet/scholar Mark Doty.

He explores Whitman's gay inventions, visions, and sensibilities, and how they intertwined with Doty's own history as a gay man and poet growing up in the 70s etc. Highly recommended. Some of it highly erotic.

Want to finish reading 100 years of Solitude , Invisible Man Anna Karenina

"Queer: How a Closeted Homosexual Found Himself Ousted by the World's Richest Man," by Usha Vance.

"Fifty and Fucking Fabulous: Thirst Traps For All Y'all," by Ryan Phillippe.

"Ten Abs and Zero Fucks: Killing an Epic Asshole," by Luigi Mangione.

"Helen Lawson Exposed: Sixty Years of Eschewing Booze & Dope," by Helen Lawson.

Continuing from the last thread:

Douglas Stuart's [italic]Shuggie Bain[/italic] and [italic]Young Mungo[/italic] were not the same book. The former was about a young gay child's parentification while dealing with his alcoholic mother. [italic]Young Mungo[/italic] was a contrast of gay romantic love with man-on-boy sexual abuse, showing how the family conspired to support same-sex abuse by default and how afraid it was of same-sex love. That's why I consider Stuart an excellent gay writer. People who think they are the same book need to get out more to accumulate some discernment to get beyond the Glaswegian backdrop (which deserved representation anyway).

(And yes, that last sentence was a run-on. Deal.)

Tropic of Cancer. Fiona Shaw's weirdo character was reading it in Bad Sisters and now I'm curious.

In the last thread I only suggested that the reason YOUNG MUNGO might not have had more success nor received more attention was because Stuart's second book was not enough of a departure from SHUGGIE BAIN. Same setting, same issues, virtually the same characters with different names, same themes. The main difference was the lead character who is a child in the first book and a teenager in the follow-up. Not a criticism, just an observation.

I never said they were the same book. I read both, enjoyed both, but probably would recommend SHUGGIE over MUNGO if someone wanted to read just one.

We were discussing Douglas Stuart in the context of gay lit/gay authors, not general audiences.

OK, r24, so the reason gay readers might not have clamored for YOUNG MUNGO is....because of the same reasons I cited at r23 (and the in the previous thread).

R23 has made sense about Stuart's two books. I am unclear what R24 is on about. Were they the same book? No, duh. Did they both deal with the same setting, with the same class, with the same sexual identity foci, with the same alcohol and violence... yes. But more importantly to me, the story telling and writing in the second book did not match the first. The whole kidnapping, man/boy thing just didn't seem as authentic as Shuggie Bain's story. We can disagree, certainly.

There are authors who seem to write the same story over and over. F. Scott Fitzgerald has one story. Charlotte Bronte. John Grisham. Robert Heinlein. P.G. Wodehouse. Dan Brown. Barbara Pym. et. al. I think there are some authors whose "first version of his one and only story" is the best (Dan Brown) and others whose each subsequent iteration of their one and only story is just as amusing or impactful.

I look forward to Stuart's next book.

As part of a 2025 reading challenge, I'm starting off with a Victorian novel, [italic]New Grub Street[/italic] by George Gissing. Mixed reviews, but audio narration seems good early on. Doing a modern Japanese read along with it that's working out well: [italic]The North Light[/italic] by Hideo Yokoyama.

YA story [italic]Thirteen Reasons Why[/italic] has me keeping my expectations low, but it's a tough category to fill for me. I'm far more optimistic about Bernice Rubens' [italic]Sunday Best[/italic] and L. P. Hartley's [italic]The Harness Room[/italic].

Finally, I've got [italic]Sapiens[/italic] on my list (as a translated book), if you've read it: approachable ... or geared towards intellectuals?

I loved New Grub Street. Enjoy, r27!

Tried to read a few of Bernice Rubens' books, as her apparent quirkiness seemed right up my alley. But could never quite get into her. But I don't think Sunday Best was one of them - if you finish it, please let us know what you think.

MARTYR! has appeared on virtually every Best list for 2024, but I just couldn't get into it after about 100 pages. Anyone else, yea or nay?

I usually read nonfiction about current events. This year I'm switching to light murder mysteries. I remember reading Dorothy Sayers long ago, so I'll start with those.

I liked Rubens' [italic]A Five Year Sentence[/italic], R28, so decided to try another.

R30: I'm going to go waaaaay out on a limb here regarding light murder mysteries. Consider the Colonel Bainbridge series (set c. 1900) by Evelyn James ([italic]The Gentleman Detective[/italic] being first). In the Wilde-Bosie era of prosecuting sodomy this one strikes me as Don't Ask, Don't Tell: the Colonel's (business) partner was murdered just as the series opened, they shared a house together, Colonel is given condolences due a surviving significant other from those who knew the pair, reader is told he's suffering great grief. His niece has arrived fleeing her insufferable mother, his sister; that snobbish lady and the Colonel have been long estranged.

r27, IIRC the Rubens books I read were The Waiting Game and The Elected Member, neither of which quite did it for me.

I've finished Higginbotham's "Challenger."; it was very good, but not as compelling as "Chernobyl." For all the hundreds of pages of lead-up and background, I would have liked to have more on the disaster itself and the aftermath.

Anyway, I want to try some recent popular fiction next. Should I read "All the Colors of the Dark" or "God of the Woods"? Convince me.

Night Clit

I read Confessions of a Fox when it first came out. It found it insufferable. Too clever by half. You can feel the author's smugness oozing out of every single obnoxiously pretentious footnote.

Pale Fire, it's not.

Fox Fire by Avon

The God of the Woods is truly brilliant modern fiction, a wonderfully complex story told over several decades, that literally grabs you on the first page and engages you to the last unexpected revelation. Not quite a thriller and not quite a whodunnit, but more a generational epic tale with unforgettable characters and complicated relationships caught in the tragedy of life. I also highly recommend Liz Moore's The Unseen World and Heft.

All the Colors of the Dark begins in somewhat the same way, a lost child whose disappearance seems to affect a small, layered community but takes forever to get going. To tell the truth, I bought it after my high with The God of the Woods and read 100 pages before giving up. I just didn't care enough about the characters to find out what happened. The author is not American though the story is set here and his lack of knowledge of certain details occasionally reveals itself. It's about as deep as an old movie of the week. Its popularity baffles me,

I very much enjoyed Whitaker's We Begin at the End..

R37 Thank you. I've downloaded samples of both, and I could tell that something was "off" about the depiction of America in 1975 in "All the Colors.." I thought perhaps the author was simply too young, but his being British makes sense as well.

Brave new world

I bought -- but haven't started yet -- Stendhal's The Red and the Black.

R41 I've been trying to "finish" The Red and the Black for over 50 years.

What about it did you find impenetrable r42?

R43 I am admitting my own ADHD, dilettante nature, and lack of discipline. Short chapters, simple prose. It's me, not Stendhal. It was mom's paperback copy and is old and beat up.... I like to have hard copy. Book poseur.

I also tried reading The Red and the Black a few years ago. Promising start, and I read quite a bit (maybe 150 pages?) but got to a point where I realized I didn't care what happened next. Same with The Way of All Flesh.

Both have great titles if nothing else.

Well, there just isn't much blue in The Red and the Black.

...And Stendahl would ruin the plan of attack.

Hoping to get into Faulkner bthis coming year. Ive started and stopped the following: Absalom! Absalom! , As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, Light In August-- and got to only a few pages before putting it down

I recently placed an order for Snopes and figured I will begin with that instead.

Have you read Thomas Payne’s - Common Sense?

R 15, It’s called WHERE MADNESS LIES, it comes out January 7.

r50, don't put a space between the letter and the number.

R48. I used to teach Faulkner—with As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury, it helps to read it aloud—or get an audiobook. Avoid James Franco’s films of them.

I think “”The Bear,” while challenging, can be a good entry—as is the whole volume, Go Down, Moses. Intruder in the Dust is Faulkner’s murder mystery (he wrote short mystery stories, too, collected as Knight’s Gambit), but it still has some of his thematic and stylistic characteristics. There’s a good film of it. I like The Reivers a lot, but it feels more like Mark Twain than Faulkner.

I’ve been trying to read all the books that everyone else read in high school. I read Martian Chronicles and a couple of Shirley Jackson novels, and I’m now reading Frankenstein.

I’d always heard the movies changed a lot, and it’s easy to see why!

Getting through any Faulkner is a major accomplishment, at least for me. I recently read Middlemarch and Magic Mountain, notoriously difficult reads, and they were as easy as Stephen King next to Absalom! Absalom!

r54 both Middlemarch and The Magic Mountain have long been on my list. I started Middlemarch and made it maybe 100 pages in before getting distracted by something.

Buddenbrooks is one of my favorite novels.

Highly recommended.

Why not read Thomas Payne - Common Sense??

Reading the Reverend Richard Coles's [italic]Murder Under The Mistletoe[/italic] while on a long flight. He's the one who became an out gay Anglican priest after his music career in The Communards, and is a bit of a media personality in the UK. It's very British and churchy, but in a more erudite [italic] Vicar of Dibley[/italic] way. Not sure many of you would like it, but it's cosy murder mystery fun.

I can only do "classics" as audiobooks, print copies seem intimidating. I have a poor memory for plot details, but retain an impression of how I felt about the books ...

"Middlemarch" was one I'm glad I tackled, but could see why others had trouble with it. We read "Light in August" for college lit class, which was enough Faulkner for me.

R53: we read Wharton's [italic]Ethan Frome[/italic] in high school, largely hating it.

I swear Balzac's inspiration for [italic]Cousin Bette[/italic] was, "Let me try a story with those Dataloungers as the target audience!" Lizzie Eustace of Trollope's [italic]The Eustace Diamonds[/italic] would be another DL icon chaezcter; his [italic]The Way We Live Now[/italic] is a huge soap opera, including the trope of "the one woman I ever loved got away, so as a young man it was a lifetime of celibacy ahead." (roll eyes here)

I, for one, LOVED Ethan Frome and The Way We Live Now, two of my favorite reads of my adulthood. Middlemarch was a challenge about 20 years ago, but I got through it. Thinking it'll deserve a re-read before I die when I hope it'll have more emotional resonance (but maybe it's more of a woman's book.

I remember now what I was forgetting earlier Somerset Maugham's [italic]The Painted Veil[/italic] is a must-read, for the "salad" scene alone!

White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller & Paul Waldman. I'm trying to understand how we got to this place and how we might get out of it.

Placed an order for 2 of Chris Hedges' books: America the Farewell Tour and Empire of Illusions. Like R62, Im searching for answers

Ethan Frome: Saddest Story Ever Told (pretty much). It makes The House of Mirth seem like a screwball comedy.

I think I got halfway through Middlemarch in my... twenties? and just stopped with an OK, I GET IT already. I didn't hate it, I'd just had enough (er, sufficient).

THE PAINTED VEIL is indeed excellent, and I hope someday soon to reread OF HUMAN BONDAGE which I read when I was a teenager, most of it probably going over my head). But I couldn't get through THE RAZOR'S EDGE which some say was his masterpiece.

Also, great in that VEIL vein is A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh, about upper crust Brits brought down by the perils of exotic climes. Never been able to get into uch more of Waugh, though repeatedly tried.

R58,

Richard Coles told people he was HIV positive when he was not. Drama queen.

Harvey Fierstein's autobiography is going to get my second read.

R65, I have a few collections of Waugh short stories. I love them

Coles owned up to it very publicly and got his karmic payback by losing a husband to alcoholism.