British Author Challenge 2024 planning thread

It's time to start planning the next BAC! Next year will mark our tenth (!!) BAC; any authors or themes you'd like to revisit?

I'll post the list here as the selections are finalized.

January: Joan Aiken & Arthur Conan Doyle https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8298833
February: Emma Newman & Ronald Firbank https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8299478
March: Welsh Authors https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8300182
April: Barbara Pym & Anthony Trollope https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8300781
May: Portal Fantasy https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8300854
June: Kiran Millwood Hargrave & DH Lawrence https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8302489
July: Animal Tales https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8302547
August: KJ Charles & Winston Churchill https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8303996
September: The 1980s https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8304090
October: Gothic fiction https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8305275
November: EM Delafield & TH White https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8307447
December: Books Acquired in 2024 https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8308369
Wildcard: Blast from the Past https://www.librarything.com/topic/355015#8308382

Here's the list of past authors and themes.

BAC 2015
January: Penelope Lively & Kazuo Ishiguro
February: Sarah Waters & Evelyn Waugh
March: Daphne du Maurier & China Miéville
April: Angela Carter & W. Somerset Maugham
May: Margaret Drabble & Martin Amis
June: Beryl Bainbridge & Anthony Burgess
July: Virginia Woolf & B.S. Johnson
August: Iris Murdoch & Graham Greene
September: Andrea Levy & Salman Rushdie
October: Helen Dunmore & David Mitchell
November: Muriel Spark & William Boyd
December: Hilary Mantel & P.G. Wodehouse
Wildcard: Bernice Rubens & Aldous Huxley

BAC 2016
January: Susan Hill & Barry Unsworth
February: Agatha Christie & William Dalrymple
March: Ali Smith & Thomas Hardy
April: George Eliot & Hanif Kureishi
May: Jane Gardam & Robert Goddard
June: Antonia Fraser & Joseph Conrad
July: Bernice Rubens & H.G. Wells
August: Diana Wynne-Jones & Ian McEwan
September: Doris Lessing & Laurie Lee
October: Kate Atkinson & William Golding
November: Rebecca West & Len Deighton
December: West Yorkshire writers
Wildcard: Rumer Godden and George Orwell

BAC 2017
January: Elizabeth Bowen & Brian Moore
February: Mary Stewart & Terry Pratchett
March: The Swinging Sixties
April: A. S. Byatt & Bruce Chatwin
May: Before Queen Victoria
June: Georgette Heyer & Simon Schama
July: D. E. Stevenson & Robert Louis Stevenson
August: Winifred Holtby & Robert Graves
September: The New Millennium
October: Jo Walton & Roald Dahl
November: The Poets Laureate
December: Elizabeth Gaskell & Neil Gaiman

BAC 2018
January: Debut Novels
February: The 1970s
March: Classic Thrillers
April: Folklore, Fables, and Legends
May: Queens of Crime
June: Travel Writing
July: The Angry Young Men
August: British Science Fiction
September: Historical Fiction
October: Comedic Novels
November: World War One
December: British Series
Wildcard: The Romantics

2019 British Isles Challenge
January: The Natural World
February: Pat Barker & Peter F. Hamilton
March: The Murderous Scots (Scottish Crime Novels)
April: Rosamond Lehmann and John Boyne
May: The Edwardian Era (1901-1913)
June: Nicola Barker & Wilkie Collins
July: Young Adult Fantasy Series
August: Anita Brookner & Jim Crace
September: Biography and Memoir
October: Rose Tremain & Louis de Bernières
November: The Jewish Contribution
December: Zadie Smith & Michael Morpurgo
Wildcard: Penelope Lively & Kazuo Ishiguro

BAC 2020
January: Jeanette Winterson & Graham Swift
February: The 1990s
March: Jane Austen & Walter Scott
April: Bernardine Evaristo & Caryl Phillips
May: Michael Moorcock, J. G. Ballard, & Brian Aldiss
June: Penelope Fitzgerald & Patrick Gale
July: Elly Griffiths & Winston Graham
August: The Brontë Sisters: Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, & Emily Brontë
September: World War Two
October: Joanne Harris & George Orwell
November: Fay Weldon & John le Carré
December: The 2010s
Wildcard: Playwrights

BAC 2021
January: Children's Classics
February: LGBT+ History Month
March: Vaseem Khan & Eleanor Hibbert
April: Love is in the Air
May: V. S. Naipaul & Na'ima B. Robert
June: The Victorian Era (1837-1901)
July: Don't judge a book by its movie
August: Bernard Cornwell & Helen Oyeyemi
September: She Blinded Me with Science
October: Narrative Poetry
November: Tade Thompson & Elizabeth Taylor
December: Awards & Honors
Wildcard: Books off your shelves

BAC 2022
January: Children's Classics
February: Mary Renault & Timothy Mo
March: The Interwar Period (11 November 1918-1 September 1939)
April: Kamila Shamsie & Clive Barker
May: Comic Books/Graphic Novels & Audiobooks
June: Jackie Kay & E. F. Benson
July: The Georgian Era (1714-1837)
August: Espionage
September: Retellings, Continuations, and Non-Series Prequels & Sequels
October: Aminatta Forna & Lawrence Durrell
November: Arthurian Legend
December: Books about books
Wildcard I: Read the movies
Wildcard II: Rereads

BAC 2023
January: Rosemary Sutcliff & Fred D'Aguiar
February: Short Stories & Novellas
March: Vita Sackville-West & Tariq Ali
April: British Queens (non-fiction)
May: Jan Morris & R.F. Delderfield
June: Time Travel & Alternate History
July: Nadifa Mohamed & Tom Holt/KJ Parker
August: Seafaring Stories
September: School Stories
October: Monica Ali & Dennis Wheatley
November: Pre-Tudor Era Works (before 1486)
December: Malorie Blackman & E. M. Forster
Wildcard: Doorstops

Here's my rough draft for next year. Obviously it's still open to change.

January: Emma Newman & Ronald Welch
February: Autobiography, memoirs, diaries, and letters
March: Welsh authors
April: Anthony Trollope & ??
May: Animal Stories
June: Portal fantasy
July: Shiva Naipaul & Sarah Moss
August: 1980s
September: KJ Charles & Winston Churchill (Love him or loathe him, he is an important figure in British history and I think it's worth reading something by him.)
October: Gothic Novels
November: Beryl Gilroy & T. H. White
December: Books acquired in 2024
Wildcard: BAC Retrospective

I'm here, hope to participate more in '24!

I will definitely participate, Amanda. Need a day or so to think of possible authors or themes for suggestion purposes.

>3 amanda4242: Had I a pick for next year I would have probably had a look at some of the forgotten men and women of the middle part of the last century. People like Henry Green, Ronald Firbank, Patrick Hamilton, Barbara Comyns, Barbara Pym

>4 fuzzi: Always a pleasure when you drop by!

>6 PaulCranswick: I actually had penciled in Firbank and Pym in an earlier draft!

I'll suggest Margaret Kennedy (1896-1967) and second Paul's Barbara Pym. I think either could be nicely paired with Trollope in April.

>9 kac522: I like that idea, Kathy!
>8 amanda4242: My post was an obviously selfish post as I have plenty of books by those writers on the shelves!

>9 kac522: Noted!

>10 PaulCranswick: I also favor authors whose works I own or can easily lay hands on!

I don't see Arthur Conan Doyle on any of the lists....

>12 kac522: How have we not featured him?!

>13 amanda4242: Elementary, my dear Amanda!

>13 amanda4242:, >14 PaulCranswick: Common enough to possibly catch the eye of new participants to the BAC, who otherwise may not recognize some authors on the list.

>15 kac522: Good point.

>15 kac522: agreed.

The only authors I recognize for 2024 are TH White and Winston Churchill, though Anthony Trollope looks vaguely familiar.

I'm trying to read down my shelves, so I've not been participating much in the author months.

>17 fuzzi: I do like to feature less famous authors, but I do sometimes over-correct and suggest authors so obscure nobody's even heard of them.

bump

Any authors or themes you'd like to revisit?

Besides Doyle, I don't think we've done Charles Dickens or Daniel Defoe. What is it about "D" authors, anyway?

I like the general idea for next year, though the only names I recognise are T. H. White, Winston Churchill and Anthony Trollope and I wouldn't mind one or two more authors I know of as I'm more likely to join in then. (Having said that the last year's been disastrous in terms of reading and I can't promise next year will be any better.)

Arabella, in THE FICTION CLASS, is listening intently

("Who ever thought that the story of Britain finding its soul could be so romantic?")

as her new lover reads to her from Churchill's wartime memoirs...

>21 kac522: 2021's Victorian Era theme was my way of allowing for Dickens without actually having to feature him as I am not a fan.

I will be including Doyle next year.

>22 PawsforThought: I'm adding a few names that should be familiar to more people.

>23 m.belljackson: Well, now we should definitely read Churchill!

bump

I’ve never participated in the BAC but I’ll stop by to check out the choices and maybe give it a shot. I recently finished the Erik Larson book about Churchill and the home front during WW2 and would love to read something by Churchill himself. Perhaps other British authors as well.

>28 lindapanzo: Welcome! Feel free to drop in whenever the mood strikes!

Would anyone be interested in including D. H. Lawrence? Lady Chatterley's Lover enters US public domain next year, so it struck me as a good time to feature him.

I'm going to start making final selections on Friday, so don't wait to make suggestions!

>30 amanda4242: I am of that rare breed that actually loves the books of Lawrence. I would be up for reading Chatterley.

I am up for reading Lawrence as well.

>26 amanda4242: Well, here's a vote from Ivan Doig's RIDE WITH ME, MARIAH MONTANA:

"When is a person ever fit to speak for his native patch of ground?

Old Churchill must have been something beyond a human being."

>34 m.belljackson: Ivan Doig is not a British author by any stretch of the imagination Marianne.

>34 m.belljackson:, >35 PaulCranswick: I think Marianne is saying that Doig's quote is an endorsement for Winston Churchill.

>35 PaulCranswick: Spoiler to follow.

duh.

>36 kac522: Hi - How is a spoiler set up? I can't find that information anywhere on site.

>38 m.belljackson: How to do spoilers is the very last topic on this page:

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Basic_HTML_/_How_to_do_Fancy_Things_in_Y...

>39 kac522: Thank you!

>32 PaulCranswick: I enjoyed Lady Chatterley, but haven't read any of his other books. A good excuse to rectify that!

>33 Kristelh: And another vote for Lawrence!

>34 m.belljackson: It appears authors like name dropping Churchill!

>35 PaulCranswick: Paul. this year, I have read, reviewed and re-read, in order of favorites,

the following books:

1. The Whistling Season
2. English Creek
3. Bucking the Sun
4. The Bartender's Tale
5. Dancing at the Rascal Fair
6. Prairie Nocturne
7. Ride With Me, Mariah Montana
8. Work Song

and have now started This House of Sky,
with Winter Brothers
and Heart Earth

soon to follow.

No stretch of the imagination that The British would be proud to claim this author!

Last call for suggestions.

>42 amanda4242: Ride with me, Mariah Montana

also mentions that main character, Jick McCaskill, is reading The Collected Eloquence of Winston Churchill.

January: Joan Aiken & Arthur Conan Doyle



Joan Aiken was born on 4 September 1924 in Rye, Sussex to Jessie MacDonald and Conrad Aiken, an American writer. She started writing at an early age, publishing her first short story at seventeen. She worked for the United Nations Information Centre from 1943 to 1949 and later for the magazine Argosy, where she served in various editorial roles and had some of her short stories published.

Following the publication of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase in 1962, Aiken was able to write full-time; she authored scores of books for children and adults, in addition to numerous short stories and articles. She died on 4 January 2004.

Selected works
Wolves Chronicles
Arabel and Mortimer series
Jane Austen by Joan Aiken series
A Necklace of Raindrops and Other Stories
Felix Brooke series
The Cockatrice Boys
Castle Barebane
The Monkey's Wedding and Other Stories
Night Fall
The Silence of Herondale

---

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh on 22 May 1859. He was educated in England and spent a year in Austria before going on to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1876; he started writing at medical school, producing academic works and his first short stories.

Doyle graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery in 1881, completed his MD in 1885, and then began to study ophthalmology. He was unable to establish a successful medical practice, but he was on the road to becoming one of Britain's most famous writers when A Study in Scarlet was published in 1879.

A prolific writer, Doyle would write over 200 stories and articles, as well as several novels, plays, poetry collections, and non-fiction books. He died on 7 July 1930.

Selected works
Sherlock Holmes series
Professor Challenger series
The Doings of Raffles Haw
Brigadier Gerard series
The White Company
Sir Nigel
The Narrative of John Smith
The Great Boer War
The Crime of the Congo
The Coming of the Fairies

Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/69

One book I found fascinating and can highly recommend is Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure. Taking a break from medical school in 1880, Conan Doyle joined an Arctic whaling expedition as ship's surgeon. He turned 21 on the journey. His responsibilities included keeping the ship's logs. This book has a complete facsimile of the diary he kept, as well as the full printed transcription. There are numerous sketches he made on the journey, including the cover above. There's also background information on his life and several stories Conan Doyle published that included his arctic experience. Very different from anything else he wrote, with great insight into his younger self.

>47 kac522: Cool! Thanks for the rec!

February: Emma Newman & Ronald Firbank



Emma Newman is an award winning science fiction and fantasy writer. With her husband, she is the co-creator of the award winning podcast Tea and Jeopardy. She is also an audiobook narrator.

Selected works
The Split Worlds series
Planetfall series
Industrial Magic series
The Unkindest Cut

---

Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank was born in Westminster on 17 January 1886 to Sir Thomas Firbank and Lady Firbank. He attended Trinity Hall, Cambridge, but left without a degree.

Firbank was openly gay; he converted to Catholicism in 1907. He died of lung disease on 21 May 1926 in Rome.

Selected works
Vainglory
Caprice
Valmouth
The Flower Beneath The Foot
Sorrow in Sunlight (The repugnant US title for this one is due to his American publisher.)
Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli

Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/50114

Emma Newman's A Split Worlds Omnibus, which contains the first three books of The Split Worlds series, is currently $3.99 from various retailers.

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-split-worlds-omnibus

>43 m.belljackson: Au contraire, Marianne - I love Doig. Don't forget you could hardly get a more Scottish surname that Doig.

>49 amanda4242: Newman will be a new woman to me, Amanda!

>51 PaulCranswick: :) I've only read Planetfall and After Atlas, but I enjoyed both of them very much.

March: Welsh Authors

Wales has one of the oldest unbroken literary traditions in Europe, stretching back to the sixth century CE. It is a land renowned for its poetry and the source of the earliest mentions of King Arthur.

Why celebrate Welsh authors in March? Because the feast day of the patron saint of Wales, St. David, is on 1 March.

Suggested authors
The Mabinogion Author
Dylan Thomas
Ken Follett
Jo Walton
Gillian Clarke
Cynan Jones
Kate Roberts
Jenny Sullivan
Robin Llywelyn
David Llewellyn
Angharad Price
William Owen Roberts
Mihangel Morgan
Carys Davies
Hanan Issa (current National Poet of Wales)

I have The Penguin Book of Welsh Short Stories I might read. A few names in this collection (not on your list) are Gwyn Jones 1908-1999), Emyr Humphries (1919-2020) and Rhys Davies (1901-1978)

I've also wanted to read A Welsh Witch (1902) by Allen Raine (1836-1908), pen name of Anne Adalisa Puddicombe.

April: Barbara Pym & Anthony Trollope



Barbara Pym was born on 2 June 1913 in Oswestry, Shropshire. She attended St Hilda's College, Oxford and received a degree in English Language and Literature in 1934. During World War Two Pym worked for the Censorship Department and later joined the Women's Royal Naval Service.

After the war Pym worked at the International African Institute and became the assistant editor Africa, its scholarly journal. She submitted stories to magazines for many years before her first novel, Some Tame Gazelle, was published in 1950.

Pym wrote five more novels before changing literary tastes found her unable to secure publication; she published nothing between 1962 and 1977, until an article in the Times Literary Supplement sparked a renewal of interest in her work. She died on 11 January 1980.

Selected works
Some Tame Gazelle
Excellent Women
Less than Angels
A Glass of Blessings
Quartet in Autumn
A Few Green Leaves

---

Anthony Trollope was born on 24 April 1815 in London. He attended Harrow School and Winchester College.

In 1834 Trollope became a clerk at the Post Office, although he did not distinguish himself in the role. Despite his subpar work, he was appointed a postal surveyor's clerk in Ireland, a job that required a great deal of travel. Trollope filled the many hours he was obliged to travel by train for his job with writing his earliest novels. He had his first great success in 1855 with The Warden, the first in what would become The Barsetshire Chronicles.

He returned to England in 1859, where he continued both to write and work for the Post Office; he continued his postal work until 1867, when he felt the revenue from his writing was sufficient to offset the loss of the pension he would have received if he had continued to work until he was sixty.

Trollope became a popular and prolific writer of his age; he wrote forty-seven novels, nearly as many short stories, and several works of non-fiction. He died on 6 December 1882.

Selected works
The Barsetshire Chronicles
The Palliser Novels
The Way We Live Now
An Eye for an Eye
He Knew He Was Right
Miss Mackenzie

May: Portal Fantasy

Step through a door into a world of wonder.

Suggestions
The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
David Blaize and the blue door by E. F. Benson
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Piranesi by Susannah Clarke
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
Abarat series by Clive Barker
Arcadia by Iain Pears
Imajica by Clive Barker
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews
Elidor by Alan Garner
The Poison Master by Liz Williams
Die by Kieron Gillen
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

>56 amanda4242: Looking forward to that one! Your list of suggestions contains several of my favourites (Neverwhere, Piranesi, etc.) China Mieville is a favourite but I haven't read Un Lun Dun yet so that is a possibility, but then both Elidor and Dark Lord of Derkholm are enticing too. And I've never heard of the title or author before, but Arcadia sounds very interesting.

And I think I'm the only person on LT who didn't like The Eyre Affair.

I really liked Un Lun Dun, it is YA and very readable for Mieville. I think I might to The Wonderland Collection.

Great selections so far, Amanda - I am pretty much salivating at the prospect of reading some of those authors and themes next year!

>57 PawsforThought: Glad you like it!

>58 Kristelh: Wonderland was what inspired the theme.

>59 PaulCranswick: Thanks!

June: Kiran Millwood Hargrave & DH Lawrence



Kiran Millwood Hargrave was born in 1990 in Surrey. She graduated from both Cambridge and Oxford.

Her debut novel, The Girl of Ink and Stars (US title The Cartographer's Daughter), was published in 2014. She has written a number of children and YA, and two novels for adults.

Hargrave was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.

Selected works
The Girl of Ink and Stars
The Deathless Girls
The Way Past Winter
In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen
The Mercies
The Dance Tree

---

David Herbert Lawrence was born on 11 September 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire. He attended Beauvale Board School and won a scholarship to Nottingham High School; he earned a teaching certificate from University College, Nottingham in 1908.

Lawrence won a short story competition in 1907 and was beginning to see some success with his poetry and short stories; his first novel, The White Peacock, was published in 1911.

His writing often stirred controversy for its frank depictions of sexuality, and several of his works were censored or out-right banned. His 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was the subject of more than one obscenity trial.

In 1912 Lawrence eloped with Frieda Weekley, a married woman with three children; they married after she obtained a divorce and stayed together until his death in 1930.

Selected works
The White Peacock
Sons and Lovers
The Rainbow
Women in Love
Kangaroo
Lady Chatterley's Lover
The Prussian Officer and Other Stories
Birds, Beasts and Flowers
Mornings in Mexico and Etruscan Places

Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/123

July: Animal Tales

July is dedicated to our furry, feathery, scaly, etc. friends.

All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot
Redwall series by Brian Jacques
Doctor Dolittle series by Hugh Lofting
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams
One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
The Rescuers by Margery Sharp
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
Two in the Bush by Gerald Durrell
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
Paddington series by Michael Bond
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
Chu the Panda series by Neil Gaiman
Falcon by Helen Macdonald
The Life of Birds by David Attenborough
James Herriot's Treasury for Children by James Herriot
Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh
Ludo and the Star Horse by Mary Stewart

>62 amanda4242: The best book of its type I have read, I think, is Tarka the Otter.

>62 amanda4242: So many great choices. I will probably pick up where I left off with James Herriot’s books, and definitely some children’s books too. I have most of the Paddington books and have only read a few.
Many of Michael Morpurgo’s books (the ones less famous than War Horse) heavily feature animals. One of my favourites is An Elephant in the Garden.

>63 PaulCranswick: I'll have to see if I can find a copy.

>64 PawsforThought: Herriot's children's books are lovely.

August: KJ Charles & Winston Churchill



KJ Charles spent twenty years as an editor before leaving publishing to become a full-time writer of queer historical novels. She lives in London with her family.

Many of Charles's short stories are available for free on her website, which also contains links to get her novel A Charm of Magpies free from various retailers. https://kjcharleswriter.com/free-reads/

Selected works
A Charm of Magpies series
Lilywhite Boys series
Sins of the Cities series
The Doomsday Books series
Will Darling Adventures series
Spectred Isle
The Henchmen of Zenda
The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
Band Sinister
A Pocketful of Lies

---

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on 30 November 1874 at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, his family's ancestral home. He attended Harrow and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

He joined the army in 1895 and saw action in a number of campaigns, about which he would publish several books. He was a POW during the Boer War, but managed to escape and avoided recapture by stowing away on freight trains.

Churchill decided on a career in politics after leaving the army, and won his first election in 1900. He went on to serve as a Member of Parliament nearly continuously from 1900 until 1964, and would twice serve as Prime Minister.

He was a prolific writer of histories and articles, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.

Churchill died on 24 January 1965 and was given a state funeral.

Selected works
Churchill's The Second World War series
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples series
The World Crisis series
Marlborough: His Life and Times
The River War
Savrola (his only novel)
London to Ladysmith via Pretoria
Ian Hamilton's March
My African Journey
Lord Randolph Churchill
Painting as a Pastime

Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1601

>66 amanda4242: Herriot's books are wonderful full stop!

>67 amanda4242: KJ Charles will be new to me, Churchill is not. I have read the first two of his war 'memoirs'. Brilliant reading if sometimes factually manipulative.

Also I note the clever timing of Churchill to sync with the WW2 Warm Room Challenge in the same month.

>69 PaulCranswick: factually manipulative? Is that a fancy way of saying bullshit?

I had him penciled in for September because that's the month the war started, but it was no trouble to move him to sync up with your choice of having the WWII theme in the month it ended.

September: The 1980s

The Falklands War. The Troubles. The Lockerbie bombing. The 1984-1985 UK miners' strike. The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. The Hillsborough disaster. AIDS. Margaret Thatcher.

To be fair, things weren't all bad in the 80s and the decade did produce some excellent writing.

Suggested works
Discworld series by Terry Pratchett (through Guards! Guards!)
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Oranges are not the only fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
Consider Phlebas by Ian M. Banks
Thornyhold by Mary Stewart
Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
Rites of Passage by William Golding
A Month in the Country by JL Carr

>70 amanda4242: Sort of but more the "economical with the truth" substitute.

>66 amanda4242: I’m sure they are. I’ve only read the All Creatures Great and Small series, which I love and want to read more of. They’re perfect when you’re tired of heavy reads and want a detox.

>72 PaulCranswick: Ah.

>73 PawsforThought: I haven't read much Herriot, but I have enjoyed all I've read.

October: Gothic Fiction

Creepy buildings. Men with secrets. Women who faint a lot. Welcome to Gothic fiction.

The Guardian has some helpful infographics for identifying Gothic novels. https://www.theguardian.com/books/interactive/2014/may/09/reading-gothic-novel-p...

Suggested works
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Caleb Williams by William Godwin
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Orphan of the Rhine by Eleanor Sleath
The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories by Marjorie Bowen
Zofloya, or, The Moor by Charlotte Dacre
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Monk by Matthew Lewis
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Lifted Veil by George Eliot
The Witch of Ravensworth by George Brewer
Affinity by Sarah Waters
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
Asylum by Patrick McGrath
Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt

>75 amanda4242: Oh, that’s perfect. I don’t celebrate Halloween but do love reading eerie things in autumn. I do love Gothic fiction so I’m sure I’ll find some things to read.

The Guardian infographic was fun!

>76 PawsforThought: My Halloween celebration consists of horror movies and novels, and eating large amounts of miniature candies.

November: EM Delafield & TH White



Selected works
Provincial Lady series
Consequences
The Way Things Are
Thank Heaven Fasting
The War-Workers
Faster! Faster!
Late and Soon
Messalina of the Suburbs
Women Are Like That

---

Selected works
The Once and Future King series
Earth Stopped series
Mistress Masham's Repose
The Goshawk
England Have My Bones
Darkness at Pemberley
The Age of Scandal
The Godstone and the Blackymor
The Master: An Adventure Story

December: Books Acquired in 2024

Let's keep the books we will undoubtedly add to our libraries next year from languishing unread on our shelves! Books can be purchased, gifts, prizes, etc. as long as they are acquired and read between 1 January and 31 December 2024.

Wildcard: Blast from the Past

In honor of our tenth BAC I thought we should revisit some of the authors we've previously featured. I've selected ten authors from which to choose.



1. Mary Renault from 2022
2. Bernard Cornwell from 2021
3. Bernardine Evaristo from 2020
4. Peter F. Hamilton from 2019
5. Zadie Smith from 2019
6. Simon Schama from 2017
7. AS Byatt from 2017
8. Hanif Kureishi from 2016
9. Andrea Levy from 2015
10. Salman Rushdie from 2015

I’m looking forward to participating next year. And I hope I will do better than this year!

>80 amanda4242: Glad to see A. S. Byatt on the list...I have a couple of things on the TBR and now I have no excuse.

>71 amanda4242:
Looking at my shelves I may try to read the decade next year:

1980 Nuns and Soldiers by Iris Murdoch
1981 A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd
1982 XPD by Len Deighton
1983 Cal by Bernard McLaverty
1984 The Busconductor Hines by James Kelman
1985 Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd
1986 An Insular Possession by Timothy Mos
1987 The Maid of Buttermere by Melvyn Bragg
1988 The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
1989 Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson

I hope you do not mind if I drop in and out as I can. My participation will depend on what I can get from my local library. I have been taking part in the American Authors challenge for the past couple of years and thought I might expand my horizons somewhat.

>81 EllaTim: Glad to have you! Stop by whenever you can!

>82 kac522: Maybe next year will be the year I finally get around to reading Possession!

>83 PaulCranswick: The only one I've read is Sexing the Cherry; I didn't much care for it, but that's mostly because I'm not a fan of magical realism.

>84 alcottacre: Welcome! Stop by whenever the mood strikes!

>86 amanda4242: I enjoyed Possession when it first came out years ago--probably time for a re-read. Right now I have both The Biographer's Tale and Little Black Book of Stories on my TBR.

>78 amanda4242: I would recommend Mistress Masham's Repose for TH White.

>90 fuzzi: Adding to my tbr list!

I've set up the General, Wildcard, and January threads for the 2024 challenge.

General: https://www.librarything.com/topic/356163
Wildcard: https://www.librarything.com/topic/356165
January: https://www.librarything.com/topic/356166

>53 amanda4242: Roald Dahl was also Welsh.