sturlington Embraces the New in 2021

In 2021, my intention is to read new books that I don't know too much about and authors that are new to me. My hope is that venturing into the unknown will lead to reads that are unexpected, surprising, and delightful.

I have made a list of books to draw from based on the Indie Next list I get from my local independent bookstore every month, starting in mid-2019 (so paperbacks can be included). The criteria I used for including a book on the list are: it is fiction but not short stories or part of a series; it is not labeled 'chick-lit' or 'romance' or YA (my personal prejudices); and it is not something I'd already seen hyped to death or by a writer I've already read quite a lot of (excluding personal favorite writers, of course).

I'm going to cycle through the alphabet (first letter of the title) to pick books. I thought about following the AlphaKIT, but I prefer to go through the alphabet in order and see how many times I can make it around. If serendipity allows, I'll match up with KITs or CATs when I pick the selection for each letter. There will be 20 categories total (some combined to account for rare letters).

Starting with...
A - The Animals at Lockwood Manor (Dec/Jan)
B - Bunny (Jan)
C - A Cosmology of Monsters (Jan)
D - Devolution (Jan)
E - skipped
F - Flyaway (Jan)
G - The Glass Hotel (Jan)
H - Hollow Kingdom (Jan)
I
J/K
L
M
N
O
P
Q/R
S
T
U/V
W/X/Y/Z

I hope you'll read along and discover new books with me!

BingoDOG



1. One-word title: Bunny
8. Nature or environment: Devolution
12. Contains a love story: A Cosmology of Monsters
14. Southern hemisphere: Flyaway
15. Made you laugh: Hollow Kingdom
18. Set somewhere you'd like to visit: The Glass Hotel
23. Type of building in the title: The Animals at Lockwood Manor

Where in the world am I?

visited 2 states (4%)
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Texas: A Cosmology of Monsters
Washington: Devolution, Hollow Kingdom


visited 4 states (1.77%)
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Australia: Flyaway
Canada: The Glass Hotel
United Kingdom: The Animals at Lockwood Manor

Reserved for ScaredyKIT and SFFKit Reads

ScaredyKIT Possibles:
Feb / Creepy Nonfiction: Literary Witches
Mar / Short Stories: Tiny Nightmares
Apr / Possession: The Haunting of Tram Car 015
May / Witches: The Familiars or The Mercies
June / Diverse Perspectives: The Only Good Indians or Ring Shout
July / Ghosts: Things in Jars or The Seance
Aug / Adrift: The Deep (Katsu) or The Deep (Solomon)
Sept / Dead and Their Abodes: Graveyard Apartment or Mexican Gothic
Oct / Real-Life Monsters
Nov / King and Fam
Dec / Horror Thrillers: Goodnight Stranger or The Shadows

SFFKit Possibles:
Feb / Sentient Things: The Life Cycle of Software Objects
Mar / Indy Jones in Space: The Luminous Dead
Apr / Series
May / Time Travel: This Is How You Lose the Time War
June / The Journey: To Be Taught, If Fortunate
July / Historical Fantasy: Things in Jars (twofer); Ormeshadow
Aug / Female Authors: pick one I skipped or from the SFF Recommendations list or off the shelf
Sept / Near Future or Alternate Reality: Riot Baby
Oct / Creature Feature: The Monster of Elendhaven
Nov / Short Sisters: Sisters of the Revolution
Dec / Gothic Fantasy: Silver in the Wood or Pine or Bone China

And happy reading to you too! You have an intriguing setup, I'm looking forward to seeing your titles.

>5 VivienneR: Just making it easy on myself. :-)

I will follow along with interest! Looks like fun!

>7 NinieB: Thanks! I hope it will be.

Welcome back! Looks like a neat setup. I like the idea to combine some letters as well :)

I have placed my star and I am looking forward to being introduced to some new authors. :)

Ambitious! Good luck!

This looks like a very interesting project. I hope you discover many wonderful new authors.

Thank you!

I'm thinking that there will be lots of BBs with this setup. New books to entice.

I always take a look at the Goodreads awards which are going on at the moment. I get lots of new books from there.

With this challenge you may discover some new favorite authors!

Thank you for testing out new authors for the rest of us. I’m interested to see who you discover.

I look forward to what new authors you discover!

I'm wishing you good luck with your challenge and I too look forward to seeing your new discoveries!

Thanks for the messages, everyone! I kinda want to start my challenge now. That happens every year.

>21 sturlington: That's why I am afraid to post my 2021 Challenge - the minute I do - I want to start it!

>21 sturlington: - >22 DeltaQueen50: - Me too! I think as soon as the Cats are decided, I'll probably post my challenge for next year.

>21 sturlington: >22 DeltaQueen50: >23 dudes22: Same here! As soon as the CATs are decided I'll give the finishing touches to my plans.

I like your prejudices, and your orderly challenge. Happy reading!

Looks like you'll be a good source of new authors.

Hope you don't mind that I set up a thread for the Lispector read.

Happy reading!

Welcome back! Happy reading in 2021!

Years ago, like about 30, I "read the alphabet" using the letter for the authors last name. Everyone I told made terrible fun of me and I've never understood it! Obviously I needed LT way back then. I still remember the choices I made... A was Sherwood Anderson, B was Enid Bagnold, C was Wilkie Collins...I think I remember them all. They were all authors I had never read before. I hope you have as much fun as I did, I look forward to seeing who you choose.

>28 clue: That sounds like a great project! And obviously, a memorable one.

>28 clue: - That's the way I do the Alpha Kit too. This year in addition to the last names starting with the letter, I'm only going to read books in a series - either one I already read or starting a new one that's been recommended.

I decided to start 2021 a week early because, well, I don't need any more 2020. My first read of this challenge was a good one.

The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey

The premise of this story introduced me to a bit of history I hadn't known: that much of the contents of the British Museum was evacuated to safer locations in the countryside during the Blitz. The "animals" of the title refers to the museum's mammal collection, whose most valuable specimens were relocated to a country estate, Lockwood Manor, along with their director, Hetty Cartwright. The house is huge, maze-like, and rumored to be haunted, and strange things start happening almost immediately as one of the exhibits, a stuffed jaguar, disappears, and others are moved from their places during the night. Hetty feels out of her element trying to care for her charges, and her only friend is Major Lockwood's daughter, Lucy, who suffers from anxiety and terrible nightmares. This story has a deliciously gothic atmosphere--with echoes of Rebecca and Jane Eyre--as well as a sweet romance and a mystery at the center: Who or what is the menace roaming the halls of Lockwood Manor? Highly enjoyable.

>31 sturlington: Good idea to start the 2021 challenge early! I totally agree, no need for more 2020.

>31 sturlington: - I've started my first book for 2021 too, Shannon, but I don't expect to finish it until next year. I have a book club book I'm also trying to finish.

Wishing you a happy 2021! You're off to a good start!

Happy New Year and happy reading wishes to you!

Happy New Year! Popping in to follow a few people's threads, but I'm afraid there may be too many to keep up. So, I may or may not continue throughout the year! Happy reading!

I had to skip my B book because it hadn't arrived yet, so I jumped ahead to C and will read B next.

A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill

When he is six years old, Noah Turner hears a scratching outside the window and discovers a monster outside his bedroom--a monster he comes to think of as My Friend. That monster becomes his companion as he grows up and his family is plagued by tragedy, until something happens that forces Noah to question who his friend is exactly and what it wants with his family. This is an engaging first novel--all at once a family story, a coming-of-age story, a love story, and a horror story with a very dark secret. It's also a tribute to Lovecraft and to those haunted-house attractions that pop up near small towns around Halloween. A great read, and I look forward to more from this author.

Excellent review - I added my thumb to it. Adding that one to The List.

>37 sturlington: I've taken a book bullet for Cosmology of Monsters.

>37 sturlington: a BB for me

Bunny by Mona Awad

In case you need yet another warning never to enter an MFA program, here's Bunny. Samantha is a creative writing student at a prestigious unnamed university in New England where the professors are pretentious blowhards and her four fellow students are the epitome of Mean Girls. She even has appropriate nicknames for each of them--Cupcake, Creepy Doll, Vignette, and the Duchess--but collectively they are the Bunnies, because that's what they call each other in their sickly sweet little-girl voices. Samantha, on the other hand, is a bit of a loner loser who only has one friend, a manic-pixie-girl type named Ava. They get drunk together a lot and dance the tango on Ava's roof. Things change, though, when the Bunnies invite Samantha to join them one evening. And by "change," I mean that they get progressively weirder and weirder, until reality isn't clear anymore. If you're up for this, this is a wild ride about the process of creation and what we're willing to do in order to belong. I thought it was bizarre fun.

*touchstone not working

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks

Well, I read this is about a day and a night. A small, technology-based commune is living the good life out in the wilderness of Washington state when Mt. Rainier erupts, cutting them off from civilization and unprepared to survive. Then, as the wildlife flees from the eruption, something discovers their community--something that has long lived in the woods undiscovered. This is a fun, exciting monster story cinematically told, with a narrator you can root for and some interesting underlying themes about humanity's relationship to nature and our propensity to "devolve" when the chips go down. I would really love to see Brooks explore those themes more in a future book. Recommended if you're looking for a page turner.

This sounds like a worthwhile read. Especially because right now I feel like the book market is flooded with science fiction stories warning us about the danger of technology, virtual realities etc. - to read a story about "devolvement" and explore the question of what happens if we are deprived of these technologies is an idea I really like.

>43 MissBrangwen: There's a strong technology theme, too, about our tendency to think it solves all our problems, but I do think it has a different view than a lot of the current science fiction. Interestingly, Max Brooks is not only Mel Brooks's son but is also a fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, and you can tell he's given a lot of thought to these issues.

I skipped my planned E book: The Escape Room by Megan Goldin. I started it but the writing was so awful that I had to put it down. I've been reading such good prose lately that I didn't want to ruin my streak. I put it at the back of my to read pile and maybe I'll return to it at some point, or it will go in the Little Free Library. It's probably a perfectly serviceable thriller, and I didn't give it much of a chance, but that first chapter was just a nope for me.

Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings

This is a lovely book. The cover is just gorgeous. The setting of a tiny, out-of-time town in the middle of nowhere, Australia, is well drawn and seems perfect for this fanciful folkloric story. Bettina (Tina) is a prim, rather mousy young woman who lives alone with her fragile but domineering mother. One afternoon she finds a word, "Monsters," scrawled on her fence and a strange note in her mailbox, which sends on a quest to find her missing brothers. Turns out, she hasn't always been this mousy, and she can't really remember a lot of what happened before they went missing, or the night her father left. Her story is interspersed with other stories narrated by other characters, many drawing from folk and fairy tales--a shapeshifting creature, a Pied Piper-type story, a boy who made three wishes--that all come together at the end. I enjoyed the poetic writing, but sometimes I felt somewhat confused about who all the characters were and what were their family histories, which were all important; the lovely writing was not always as clear as I'd like. I suspect this short book would benefit greatly from a second reading.

Just getting to your thread now and looking forward to following your reading again this year. I like the idea of adding a map of the US to your tracking. I may steal that idea at some point.

Bunny is on my wishlist. Thanks for reminding me of it.

I gave my husband a copy of the Max Brooks novel for Christmas and he devoured it. He had a low opinion of their survival skills, but he's a hiker/camping guy.

>47 RidgewayGirl: Hi, Kay! I like the visual tracking of my reading that the map provides, and sometimes things fortuitously connect to make a little road trip. Hope you enjoy Bunny. I couldn't figure out what state it was supposed to be taking place in, somewhere in New England.

Devolution was a very quick and fun read. I don't think the author had a high opinion of his characters' survival skills either.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

I have only read one other book by Emily St. John Mandel--Station Eleven, which I loved--and this novel is very similar in that it follows a number of different characters, and it flits around in time and point of view, gradually weaving together the various storylines into a composed whole. Mandel is such a gifted writer that she makes this difficult achievement look effortless, and not once did I feel lost or confused while reading this. I was quite enthralled, actually. However, the story of a Ponzi scheme a la Bernie Madoff and the people who are affected by its eventual, inevitable exposure did not seem to me as compelling as the story of Station Eleven. I found it intellectually fascinating, but it didn't really speak to my soul. Only the glass hotel itself, an island of wealth and luxury in an isolated, wilderness setting, really sang to me, and there wasn't enough of it in a book that is named for it. Therefore, although I think Mandel's writing is impeccable, I couldn't rate this book as highly as Station Eleven, which was a favorite read of the year for me.

>49 sturlington: - I loved Station Eleven too but have put off this book as I have seen a few reactions like yours. I'm sure I'll get to it sometime, just not now.

>50 dudes22: It's worth reading, don't get me wrong. It's just difficult not to compare it to Station Eleven.

Oh boy. I'm thinking of redoing my challenge. I should at least wait until I get through my current stack of books. That will likely get me almost to the end of the alphabet. So I should wait, right? Right?

If you feel like redoing your challenge, go for it!

>52 sturlington: I'm with >53 rabbitprincess: -- if you want to change it, go ahead. But waiting until you finish the alphabet works too. And you could always redo the alphabet with author's last names or some such variation if you don't feel up to coming up with a completely different challenge right now.

>53 rabbitprincess: and >54 leslie.98: I'll probably wait until I get through the stack of books I have to read now, since I know I'm going to read them anyway. At least then I would have finished my initial challenge. Thanks for the encouragement!

I had to change last year after about 2-3 weeks when I wasn't having any fun. Go for it!

>56 Tess_W: Yes, I originally devised my challenge to get out of my reading slump, which I think I have done. Now I have some projects I want to pursue, and I'm finding the original challenge too limiting for that. I may set up a new thread for February and start fresh. I did read some great books this month, though! Definitely out of the slump.

>57 sturlington: Yay for being out of the slump! :)

Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton

This is a zombie-apocalypse story, as narrated (mostly) by a crow. That's because all the people have turned into zombies, so only animals are left to tell the tale. This crow was a house pet who is now reluctantly returning to his roots. His name is (profanity hidden under spoiler) Shit Turd, or ST for short. If you find that hilarious, this is the book for you. If you find the whole idea of (possibly upsetting info hidden under spoiler) zombies eating their dogs and other sweet animals getting killed in horrible ways), then this is most emphatically not the book for you.

I liked this, for the most part. ST's voice was interesting and very often amusing, especially as he tried to reconnect to his essential crow nature. I enjoyed the interspersing chapters from various other animal viewpoints, some of them poetry, and also the whole idea of the natural world as a network. Did this book hit the reader over the head a bit too ferociously and didactically with its ideas? Yes, yes, it did. Perhaps we are all too into our phones these days, but really? Was there a bit too much animal mayhem? Maybe... This could be a real problem for a lot of readers. Is there an awesome cat? Yes. On the whole, this is a fresh take on the whole zombie thing, which is hard to find, and it's a quick, entertaining, and ultimately uplifting read.

I've restarted my challenge in a new thread here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/329214