2024/180: A Christmas Ghost Story — Kim Newman

2024/180: A Christmas Ghost Story — Kim Newman

‘When I was little, I wanted people to listen... Some did, but they were no help. I told a story. Not one I made up, though everyone said I did. I convinced myself I had made it up. A thing couldn’t have happened, so I decided it hadn’t. I tried to figure out how it got into my head, then gave up. I thought it was done with.' [loc. 790]

Seasonal novella: Angie and her teenage son Russell ('it's Rust, Mum') live in an isolated cottage. Angie is a best-selling author of self-published thrillers: Rust has a podcast about strange phenomena. They share a fascinating array of Christmas customs: Christmas cruels (like carols but nastier: 'Away in a Mangler', 'The Worst Noel'); putting down rotten biscuits for Santa's reindeer so he won't visit Angie's childhood frenemy; mince pies are too-much-mince pies... 

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2024: Year in Review (Staying In -- books read)

See them all on LibraryThing

What I read in 2024...

* 184 books, including a couple of scanned books on Internet Archive; not including most rereads, re-skims, DNFs... or audiobook 'rereads' which I have taken to as an accompaniment to gaming / housewerk / getting to sleep.
* 131 by female writers, 43 by male writers (some collaborations, not all books tagged)
* 4 rereads

My categorisations (some books will have more than one of these tags):
* 62 fantasy, 26 SF, 49 historical (predominantly 19th / 20th century, Roman, or Classical Greek)
* 22 romance (majority non-het romance)
* 8 YA/children's
* 28 non-fiction

My reading challenges:
* 52 books in 52 weeks -- (completed!)
* Annual Non-Fiction Challenge -- (not complete)
* some challenges on Storygraph, which I like more than Goodreads because of graphs and stats and how challenges are done. I'm tamarant4 if you'd like to follow me there.
* Challenge to self: read what you buy! 68 of the books I read this year were acquired a year or more before I read them. I was aiming for at least a third of my reading in 2024, and achieved this goal!

Authors I read most by:
* Louise Penny
* Victoria Goddard
* T Kingfisher

Best five (based on my enjoyment, not their perfection):
*The Mars House by Natasha Pulley
*Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
*Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
*The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts
*Saint Death's Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney

Last year's 'books read' post

2024: Year in Review (Going Out or Watching Stuff)

Everything is reviewed on this blog! (Sometimes rather cursorily.) Check out my monthlyculture tag.

Bracketed figures show range over the last 21 years [see the year-in-summary tag for my Cultural History since 2004].

Note: 'Best' is shorthand for 'not necessarily objectively good but I really enjoyed'.

Film (in cinema): 17 (4-21). Best three = Emilia Perez, Wicked Little Letters, Lee

Film (streamed): 36 (39 last year). Best three that I hadn't already seen = Cold Comfort Farm, Nope, Crew

Theatre (live): 9 (1-26). Best three = Napoleon: Un Petit Pantomime, Doctor Strangelove, Oedipus

Theatre (streamed): 0 (38 in 2020, 16 in 2021, 8 in 2022, 0 in 2023). Must watch more NT@Home, even alone.

Concerts (classical): 9 (2-22). Best three = Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at St Pauls Cathedral, Berlioz/Rachmaninoff/Saint-Saens.

Opera: 9 (0-10). Best three = Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Fidelio, Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Gigs: 7 (0-9). Best three = Sahra Halgan, The Last Dinner Party, Lankum

Art: 4 (0-6) Best was probably 'Accidentally Wes Anderson'

Books: 184.examined here: reviews here

Also in 2024: visited Glasgow (Worldcon), Mallorca, and Cambridge.