I found this on one of the blogs I follow, Books are the New Black who found it at One Book More. It was originally created by Reviews from the Stacks, and the idea is to spell the month using the first letter of book titles.
January: New (interpret as you wish: new releases, recent acquisitions, “new” in the title, etc.)
January - a new year. So not a bad idea to start with something new. I chose books on my TBR pile that I hope to read during the next year.
JANUARY
J
Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home" - 2017 (Goodreads)
This new telling of the story of Jane's life shows us how and why she lived as she did, examining the places and spaces that mattered to her. It wasn't all country houses and ballrooms, but a life that was often a painful struggle. Jane famously lived a 'life without incident', but with new research and insights, historian Lucy Worsley reveals a passionate woman who fought for her freedom. A woman who far from being a lonely spinster in fact had at least five marriage prospects, but who in the end refused to settle for anything less than Mr Darcy.
A
Barnes, Julian "Arthur & George" - 2005 (Goodreads)
As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later - one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife - their fates become inextricably connected.
N
Walker, Alice "Now is the Time to Open your Heart" - 2004 (Goodreads)
In Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart , Alice Walker has created a work that ranks among her finest the story of a woman’s spiritual adventure that becomes a passage through time, a quest for self, and a collision with love.Kate has always been a wanderer. A well-published author, married many times, she has lived a life rich with explorations of the natural world and the human soul. Now, at fifty-seven, she leaves her lover, Yolo, to embark on a new excursion, one that begins on the Colorado River, proceeds through the past, and flows, inexorably, into the future. As Yolo begins his own parallel voyage, Kate encounters celibates and lovers, shamans and snakes, memories of family disaster and marital discord, and emerges at a place where nothing remains but love.
U
Dallek, Robert "An Unfinished Life - John F. Kennedy 1917-1963" - 2003 (Goodreads)
Drawing on previously unavailable material and never-before-opened archives, An Unfinished Life is packed with revelations large and small - about JFK's health, his love affairs, RFK's appointment as Attorney General, what Joseph Kennedy did to help his son win the White House, and the path JFK would have taken in the Vietnam entanglement had he survived.
Robert Dallek succeeds as no other biographer has done in striking a critical balance - never shying away from JFK's weaknesses, brilliantly exploring his strengths - as he offers up a vivid portrait of a bold, brave, complex, heroic, human Kennedy.
A
Huxley, Aldous "Ape and Essence" - 1948 (Goodreads)
In February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition reaches California at last. It is over a century since the world was devastated by nuclear war, but the blight of radioactivity and disease still gnaws away at the survivors. The expedition expects to find physical destruction but they are quite unprepared for the moral degradation they meet. Ape and Essence is Huxley's vision of the ruin of humanity, told with all his knowledge and imaginative genius.
R
Orwell, George "The Road to Wigan Pier" - 1937
A searing account of George Orwell’s experiences of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire, The Road to Wigan Pier is a brilliant and bitter polemic that has lost none of its political impact over time. His graphically unforgettable descriptions of social injustice, slum housing, mining conditions, squalor, hunger and growing unemployment are written with unblinking honesty, fury and great humanity.
Y
Brooks, Geraldine "Year of Wonders" - 2001 (Goodreads)
Spring 1666: when the Great Plague reaches the quiet Derbyshire village of Eyam, the villagers make an extraordinary decision. They elect to isolate themselves in a fateful quarantine. So begins the Year of Wonders, seen through eighteen-year-old Anna Frith’s eyes as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. Based on a true story, this novel explores love and learning, fear and fanaticism, and the struggles of seventeenth-century science and religion to interpret the world at the cusp of the modern era.
Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home" - 2017 (Goodreads)
This new telling of the story of Jane's life shows us how and why she lived as she did, examining the places and spaces that mattered to her. It wasn't all country houses and ballrooms, but a life that was often a painful struggle. Jane famously lived a 'life without incident', but with new research and insights, historian Lucy Worsley reveals a passionate woman who fought for her freedom. A woman who far from being a lonely spinster in fact had at least five marriage prospects, but who in the end refused to settle for anything less than Mr Darcy.
A
Barnes, Julian "Arthur & George" - 2005 (Goodreads)
As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later - one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world’s most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife - their fates become inextricably connected.
N
Walker, Alice "Now is the Time to Open your Heart" - 2004 (Goodreads)
In Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart , Alice Walker has created a work that ranks among her finest the story of a woman’s spiritual adventure that becomes a passage through time, a quest for self, and a collision with love.Kate has always been a wanderer. A well-published author, married many times, she has lived a life rich with explorations of the natural world and the human soul. Now, at fifty-seven, she leaves her lover, Yolo, to embark on a new excursion, one that begins on the Colorado River, proceeds through the past, and flows, inexorably, into the future. As Yolo begins his own parallel voyage, Kate encounters celibates and lovers, shamans and snakes, memories of family disaster and marital discord, and emerges at a place where nothing remains but love.
U
Dallek, Robert "An Unfinished Life - John F. Kennedy 1917-1963" - 2003 (Goodreads)
Drawing on previously unavailable material and never-before-opened archives, An Unfinished Life is packed with revelations large and small - about JFK's health, his love affairs, RFK's appointment as Attorney General, what Joseph Kennedy did to help his son win the White House, and the path JFK would have taken in the Vietnam entanglement had he survived.
Robert Dallek succeeds as no other biographer has done in striking a critical balance - never shying away from JFK's weaknesses, brilliantly exploring his strengths - as he offers up a vivid portrait of a bold, brave, complex, heroic, human Kennedy.
A
Huxley, Aldous "Ape and Essence" - 1948 (Goodreads)
In February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition reaches California at last. It is over a century since the world was devastated by nuclear war, but the blight of radioactivity and disease still gnaws away at the survivors. The expedition expects to find physical destruction but they are quite unprepared for the moral degradation they meet. Ape and Essence is Huxley's vision of the ruin of humanity, told with all his knowledge and imaginative genius.
R
Orwell, George "The Road to Wigan Pier" - 1937
A searing account of George Orwell’s experiences of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire, The Road to Wigan Pier is a brilliant and bitter polemic that has lost none of its political impact over time. His graphically unforgettable descriptions of social injustice, slum housing, mining conditions, squalor, hunger and growing unemployment are written with unblinking honesty, fury and great humanity.
Y
Brooks, Geraldine "Year of Wonders" - 2001 (Goodreads)
Spring 1666: when the Great Plague reaches the quiet Derbyshire village of Eyam, the villagers make an extraordinary decision. They elect to isolate themselves in a fateful quarantine. So begins the Year of Wonders, seen through eighteen-year-old Anna Frith’s eyes as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. Based on a true story, this novel explores love and learning, fear and fanaticism, and the struggles of seventeenth-century science and religion to interpret the world at the cusp of the modern era.
* * *
I hope I will read them all this year. Wish me luck. And:
Happy Reading!
📚 📚 📚
I shall be reading 'Wigan Pier' later in the year. It'll be interesting to compare the Wigan of the inter-war years with the Wigan I knew in my teens & early 20's (1970s/80s).
ReplyDeleteGreat, Kitten. I am looking forward to what you will have to say. I will definitely read "Wigan Pier" for my "Read the Year" challenge because the next year is 1937.
DeleteAn Unfinished Life is on my TBR. Good luck to us!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sarah. I am sure it will be a great read.
DeleteI hope so. In 2016 I started a presidents challenge because I aminly read about Kennedy, Lincoln, and Washington, but I will get to this one this year. I hope so, anyway.
DeleteThat's a good idea, Sarah. I would probably do the same if they had been my presidents. There are not that many about ours or our chancellors. Still, I always read one when I find one.
DeleteI almost went that route too!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about Ape and Essence.
https://wordsandpeace.com/2024/01/08/spell-the-month-in-books-january-2024/
Oh, thanks for that link, Emma. I missed that. Will head over now.
Delete