Zozette: My 2025 Challenge

I actually managed to complete my challenge in 2024 and hopefully I will have the same luck in 2025. I will try to read a minimum of 4 books in each category with a possible exception of one category in which I might read only 2 or 3.

My categories are

1) Speculative fiction
2) Mysteries
3) Science
4) History
5) Flight 571
6) Women Artists
7) Pop Culture and Philosophy
8) Books my Grandmother Read
9) Trains
10) Books in Translation
11) Pastiches/retellings/continuations
12) Australian Books
13) Miscellaneous

I have also given myself some additional challenges

Read book and then watch movie/TV show based on it
Read two books with the same title and compare them
Read a book that somehow matches jigsaw puzzle I am doing

Category One

SPECULATIVE FICTION
Normally I have a Science Fiction category but decided to expand it this year to include an occasionally horror or fantasy read. I don’t read enough of these two genres to give them their own separate category.

1) Tormentor by William Meikle (Horror) 4/5
2) The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Huntby Chelsea Iversen (Fantasy) 3/5
3) God of Neverland (Fantasy) by Gama Ray Martinez 4/5
4) Mickey7 (Sci-fi) by Edward Ashton 4.5/5
5) Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge by Mike Resnick (sci-fi) 4/5
6) Saevus Corax Deals With the Dead by K.J. Parker (fantasy) 4/5
7) City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab (fantasy) 3/5
8) Mockingbird by Walter Tevis (Sci-fi) 5/5
9) The Majestic 311 (Sci-fi/horror) by Keith C Blackmore 4/5
10) Saevus Corax Captures the Castle (fantasy) by KJ Parker 4/5
11) Antimatter Blues (Sci-fi) by Edward Ashton 4.5/5
12) Final Days (sci-fi) by Nathan Hystad and Jasper T Scott 3/5
13) Saevus Corax Gets Away With Murder (fantasy) by KJ Parker 4.5/5
14) Flybot by Dennis E Taylor (sci-fi) by Dennis E Taylor 3.5/5
15) The Hollow Places (horror) by T. Kingfisher 4.5/5
16) The Cautious Guide to the Wasteland (fantasy) by Sarah Brooks 3.5/5
17) Contest by Matthew Reilly (science fiction/horror) 4/5
18) The Kraken Project by Douglas Preston (science fiction) 4/5
19) Mindswap by Robert Sheckley (science fiction) 3.5/5
20) Starfell: Willow Moss and the Lost Day by Dominique Valente 4/5

Category Two

MYSTERIES

1) The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji 4/5
2) The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo 4/5
3) City of Ghosts by Ben Creed 4.5/5
4) A Polluted Font by Mel Starr 4/5
5) The Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz 4/5
6) Dances With Death by Will Thomas 3.5/5
7) Badlands by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child 4/5
8) Never Flinch by Stephen King 3.5/5
9) The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah 4/5
10) Way of the Wicked by Mel Starr 4.5/5
11) How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin 3.5/5

Category Three

HISTORY
As part of this category I plan to read Brief/Little/Short History of ….. books as well as books in the Very Short Introduction series that are history related. I will include the occasional historical novel but only if I can pair it with a non-fiction book that deals with the same topic/time period.

1) Plague: A Very Short Introduction by Paul Slack 4/5
2) Mr and Mrs Gould by Grantlee Kieza 4.5/5
3) Pox Romana by Colin Elliott 4.5/5
4) Flinders by Grantlee Kieza 4.5/5
5) Summer of Blood by Dan Jones 4.5/5
6) England in the Age of Chivalry by Ed Weat 3.5/5
7) The Greatest Nobodies in History by Adrian Bliss 3.5/5
8) Unruly by David Mitchell 4/5
9) The Bone Chests by Cat Jarman 4.5/5
10) The Story Behind by Emily Prokop 3.5/5

Category Four

SCIENCE

1) Mr and Mrs Gould by Grantlee Kieza 4.5/5
2) Chasing New Horizons by Alan Stern 4/5
3) What If? by Randall Monroe 4/5

Category Five

FLIGHT 571

Some people are interested in books about the Titanic while I, on the other hand, am interested in another survival story - that of Flight 571, the plane that crashed in the Andes Mountains in 1972. I have 15 books to choose from so this might end up being a two year project. I will definitely be reading the three books that came out in 1973 ie before ‘’Alive’ was released. I am not sure if I will be rereading ‘Alive’ or ‘Society of the Snow’ in 2025, I might leave them to 2026. I have a copy of all 15 books, 13 in printed format and 2 on Kindle.



1) The Place Where the World Ends by Richard Cunningham 3/5
2) “On the Other Side of the Mountain” by Maria del Carmen Perrier Perez del Castillo (no touchstone) 4.5/5

Category Six

WOMEN ARTISTS - Fiction and non-fiction

At first I will be concentrating of books about or by Leonora Carrington. Leonora was a British-born, naturalised Mexican surrealist painter and novelist. Among the books I plan to read include a biography by her son, and also ‘The Stone Door’ a novel that has recently been republished, it was last released in 1977.

1) Leonora in the Morning Light by Michaela Carter 4/5
2) Mr and Mrs Gould by Grantlee Kieza 4.5/5
3) The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington by Leonora Carrington 4/5

Category Seven

POP CULTURE and PHILOSOPHY
I will definitely be reading about the philosophy in Batman, Game of Thrones, Star Trek and maybe Alice in Wonderland and possibly some other franchises.

1) The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy 4/5
2) Game of Thrones and Philosophy 4.5/5
3) Mad Max and Philosophy 4/5

Category Eight

BOOKS MY GRANDMOTHER READ
We have recently found out my grandmother, Lynda Jane Figg (1897-1971) regularly wrote letters to the Young Folks page in a Tasmanian newspaper. These letters were written between 1911 and 1916 and in the she spoke about her brothers going off to war, trips she took, and books she read. Quite a few of the books she mentions are available on Kindle. I suspect she and I had very different tastes I have decided to only to commit to reading 2 or 3 of these books.

Category 9

TRAINS
Books set on trains or about trains. Fiction and non-fiction. I am excluding the Agatha Christie books that are set on trains but will be reading at least a couple of books from The Railway Detective series by Edward Marston.

1) The High Girders by John Prebble 4/5
2) Fire and Steam by Christian Wolmar 3.5/5
3) The Majestic 311 by Keith C Wolmar 4/5
4) The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wasteland by Sarah Brooks 3,5/5

Category 10

BOOKS IN TRANSLATION
I want about half the books I read in this category to be Japanese books. I will be excluding all of the translated books about Flight 571 from this category.

1) The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji 4/5
2) The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo 4/5
3) Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata 4/5
4) The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki 2.5/5

Category Eleven

PASTICHES/RETELLINGS/CONTINUATIONS
In the past I have read Sherlock, Wonderland, Oz and War of the World pastiches, in 2025 I will probably be including more of these but also expanding to include Peter Pan retellings, the Agatha Christie continuations by Sophie Hannah, as well as other possibilities.

1) God of Neverland by Gm Ray Martinez 4/5
2) The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah 4/5

Category Twelve

AUSTRALIAN BOOKS

1) Mean Streak by Rick Morton 4.5/5
2) Mr and Mrs Gould by Grantlee Kieza 4.5/5
3) Flinders by Grantlee Kieza 4.5/5
4) Who Gives a Figg: Henry Robert Figg by Steven Figg 4/5
5) Death on the Derwent by Robin Bowles 4/5

Category 13

MISCELLANEOUS

Anything that doesn’t fit into the other categories.

1) Granny by Anthony Horowitz 3.5/5

Good luck with your 2025 reading!

Happy reading in 2025! That's a very interesting story about your grandmother, and I'll be curious to see what kind of books you will turn up.

What interesting categories! I’m interested to see the results of your challenge to compare two books with the same name. I’m often intrigued when I come across such books. And I learned about Leonora Carrington only recently and have her The Hearing Trumpet in my TBR. Her paintings are beguiling.

Happy reading in 2025! I'm looking forward to following your reading.

>6 Zozette: I feel that way about the Lizzie Borden case
>8 Zozette: I have a Harry Potter philosophy book
>12 Zozette: I love Beauty and the Beast retellings

>16 MissWatson:

The three books I have penciled in are

False Evidence by E Phillips Oppenheim
The Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne
The Lady of Blossholme by H Rider Haggard

>17 Charon07:

One of the books are will be reading is Letters, Dreams, and Other Writings by Remedios Varo. Remedios was Leonora’s best friend and fellow artist and the character of Camella in The Hearing Trumpet is based on her.

I recommend The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington by Joanna Moorhead, which is a biography written by Leonora’s first cousin once removed.

>19 lowelibrary:

I read a book on Lizzie Borden maybe 20 years ago. Looking through the books on Amazon I can’t determine which book it was.

The Harry Potter and Philosophy was on my long list but was ditched as a possibility early on. There are so many ‘……..and Philosophy books to choose from.

A Beauty and the Beast retelling might be in the future, maybe if I do a Pastiche/retelling category in 2026.

Good reading in 2025. Someone mentioned in another post she was reading some books her mother liked and I plan to do it also. I have her cabinet with her books when she belonged to the Book of the Month Club in the 1950s.

>21 Zozette: I didn’t know that about Remedios Varo! I’ll be interested in your reading about Carrington this year.

>7 Zozette: Following your Leonora Carrington reads with interest and will also be checking on your translated books. I have a Rest of the World category for these this year and have found that my three top countries are France, Italy and Japan. 50% Japanese is definitely doable.

Happy reading!

Ooh, love all your categories. Look forward to seeing what you are reading in 2025 as many of your categories cross over with my own favourites.
Are you, me and >25 pamelad: the only Aussies here? Certainly the only ones I see regularly! I do envy you living in Tassie though - I love it so much and if I see a book set in Tasmania, I will always want to read it!

Happy reading for 2025! Your categories look great :-)

You have some very interesting categories, enjoy your 2025 reading!

Love your creative categories -- good luck in 2025!

I love your categories and I hope you have a great year of reading!

>6 Zozette: Haha, I'm one of those Titanic people! But the story of flight 571 is fascinating as well.

>8 Zozette: This is an unusual and interesting category! I will follow it and am excited to see what you will read.

>9 Zozette: What a fascinating thing to have such a personal story! I have a shelf of books inherited from my grandmother and mean to read more of them.

Happy New Year!
Well, it seems I've stumbled across a little group of disaster "fans" like me. Even though I've read and watched plenty about the Titanic and Flight 571, they still fascinate me. Along with Lizzie Borden, Jack the Ripper and tales of spontaneous human combustion.
>6 Zozette: About a year ago I wrote an article on my Substack about the various books that came out of the Andes crash, but They Lived On Human Flesh is a new one to me. Ha, what a grisly title!

Happy New Year and good luck with your reading.

Hope you have a great year in the books!

Great categories, I have some overlap in terms of translations and women artists. Wishing you a great year of reading.

Your categories look really interesting. I'm looking forward to following you this year. >7 Zozette: Have you read The Story of Art Without Men? I was about half way through when I had to return it. Now I plan to read a chapter each time I go to the library. It's an interesting history of great women artists. Some were known in their time, but were dropped from the art history compendiums. :-( I like a book that brings women back to the story.

>35 beebeereads:

I have just purchased the Kindle version of The Story of Art Without Men. Thanks for the suggestion, I hope I will be able to fit it in this year.

>31 mstrust:

I agree that They Lived on Human Flesh is a grisly title. I do believe it was re-released as The Highest Hell. I did try to find a copy of it as ‘The Highest Hell’ but was unable to locate it so had to buy it under its original title.

>26 JayneCM:

I think there are more Australians here, at least there have been in the past if not now.

>27 susanj67:
>28 DeltaQueen50:
>29 christina_reads:
>30 MissBrangwen:
>32 lowelibrary:
>33 thornton37814:
>34 charl08:

I hope you all have as good a reading year as I plan to have.

I finished my first book of the year last night

Categories - BOOKS IN TRANSLATION and MYSTERY

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

This is the first Japanese murder mystery that I have ever read. It is a homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. 7 university students who are all members of a murder mystery club decide to visit an abandoned island where months before four people had been brutally murdered. Once there, the students start to be murdered one after another. Is the killer among them, or is it someone else? 4/5
I will probably read more in this series but I want to try out some other Japanese mystery writers first.

>36 Zozette: I hope you enjoy it once you get to it.

Second book of the year

Category - AUSTRALIAN BOOKS.

Mean Streak by Rick Morton

This is a book about the Robodebt Scandal in Australia written by a journalist. The book is very detailed and thorough.
The Robodebt Scheme was a debt recovery system brought in the LNP when they were in power. The method used to calculate debt was eventually determined to be both seriously flawed and illegal. However in the years it was in place hundreds of thousands of Australians were issued with debts that they did not owe. Many of these people were vulnerable and poor. People lives were ruined, some had breakdowns and ant least 8 committed suicide. Instead of the government having to prove that there was a debt people had to prove they didn’t.
One politician even said ‘ We’ll find you, we’ll track you down and you will have to repay those debts and you may end up in prison’ and as result of this statement many people were scared and so paid ‘debts’ that they believed they didn’t owe.

This book covers the creation of the scheme, the way public servants dismissed concerns over its legality, the court cases that insured, the class action against the government and the Royal Commission into the scheme.

Late last year, after I finished my challenge I read The Great Post Office Scandal (a British scandal) by Nick Wallis and I noticed the parallels between the two scandals. The absolute disdain the people in power had for the victims was the same, as was the way the lives of innocent people was destroyed.

I listened to the audiobook version of ‘Mean Streaks’ which was narrated by the author. His narration was just OK, ie not as good as it could have been with a professional narrator, and as a result of this I am only giving the book 4.5/5.

Third book

Category - MISCELLANEOUS (or maybe, just maybe Speculative Fiction - Horror)

Granny by Anthony Horowitz.
I have read several mysteries by Horowitz but this is the first middle grade book I have read by him.
I thought my own grandmother was mean but she nowhere close to being as nasty as the grandmother in this book, or should I say the grandmothers in this book. I did enjoy this book but I felt a little guilty every time I laughed. 3.5/5

Book 4

Category - POP CULTURE and PHILOSOPHY

The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy: The Search for Socrates - edited by William Irwin, Kevin S Decker et al.

Published in 2016 this books covers TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT, and all the movies except Star Trek Beyond.
The book consists of 30 essays written by various authors. The chapters/essays I like those most were those covering a) the Borg 2) Q and 3) Artificial intelligence. Some chapters I was bored with but on the whole I enjoyed the book. Because there were a number of authors there was some repetition of ideas. I might have enjoyed the book even more if I had a better knowledge of philosophy overall. 4/5

Book 5

Category - TRAINS

The High Girders by John Prebble.

This book is about the collapse of the Tay Railway Bridge in Scotland in 1879 during a fierce storm. At the time it was built it was the longest railway bridge in the world. The book states that 75 people were killed but that figure was taken for newspaper reports of the disaster and recent research suggests there might have been fewer deaths of around 59 or 60 people.
Even though it was a terrible tragedy it could have been far worse, with a much higher death toll, if it had not occurred on a Sunday evening.
The first part of the books look at the constructions of the bridge and the engineering mistakes made, the middle of the book covers the disaster and the end of the book looks into the investigation and where blame was laid. 4/5

>44 Zozette: Adding this one to the TBR list! I am fascinated by stories of transportation disasters.

>41 Zozette: A government that demonised poor people, aided by overpaid public servant heads of department who prioritised their careers over ethics. I'm hoping that the current political situation in the US will work against the second coming of the Coalition.

>45 rabbitprincess:

I will probably be reading a couple of more books about train disasters this year.

>46 pamelad:

I am so angry that no one is going to be prosecuted for their role in the Robodebt scheme despite the fact that the Royal Commission report had a sealed section in which it recommended those people who should face civil or legal prosecution. The reason given for not persecuting is that was it was not in the public interest, which again proves that the poor mean nothing to those in power.

Book 6

Category - SPECULATIVE FICTION (horror)

Tormentor by William Meikle

Haunted house novella set on the Isle of Skye. I have read several other books by this author and I think this was one of his better ones 4/5

Book 7

Category - FANTASY

The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen

I was expecting a true fantasy about a magical garden when reality is was a historical novel about a woman trying to escape domestic violence at the hands of her father and later her husband with the garden itself being mainly a background ‘character’.
I did not like any of the characters not even Harriet herself. I was also triggered by the depictions of the violence which included sexual assault. I only finished the book because I wanted to find out the fate of the missing father.
Overall I give the book 3/5 but i think I am being slightly generous because I thought narrator the audiobook did a good job.

>41 Zozette: Mean Streak sounds really interesting. The Post Office book is also excellent, so I'm glad you enjoyed it. I was obsessed with the Post Office Inquiry and watched evidence for hours (mostly to use as training points for the young lawyers I had to teach. There were so many lawyers involved in ignoring complaints and persecuting the post office staff, and they should have asked a lot more questions instead of just going along with the "Everuthing is fine" mantra coming from management). I think the final part of the Inquiry has started now, but the police are still investigating whether anyone should be prosecuted.

>50 Zozette: Not what I would expect from the title either.

>52 mnleona:

The garden was magical, or more correctly Harriet was able to control the garden with her magical ability, but as so much of the action took place away from the garden that I think the fantasy element is underwhelming.

Book 8

Category - WOMEN ARTISTS

Leonora in the Morning Light by Michaela Carter.

This is a historical novel about Leonora Carrington’s relationship with German artist Max Ernst. Leonora was 20 years old when she and Max ran off to France together. He was 46. This novel covers the couple of happy years they had together, Max’s arrest by the French when war broke out and their individual escapes to Spain and later to Lisbon after the Nazis invaded France.
The author seems to have researched her topic very well but I am sure that, as a novelisation, there are some liberties with the truth. Overall I liked this book 4/5

Book 9

Categories - PASTICHES and FANTASY

God of Neverland by Gama Ray Martinez

Peter Pan has gone missing and it is up to Michael Darling, now an adult, to find a way to enter Neverland, and find and rescue Pan.
I really enjoyed this book and I will probably read the sequel, Queens of Wonderland very soon as I find the idea of a Wonderland/Neverland mashup to be a must read. 4/5

book 10

Category - HISTORY

Plague: A Very Short Introduction by Paul Slack.

And short it was.
This book only really covered the history of the plague and not the science of the plague. I was OK with that given its title but maybe I should have gone with a more thorough and longer book. I did like that this book did cover the first known occurrence of the plague (Justinian Plague, 6th Century) 4/5

Book 11

Category - SCIENCE FICTION

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

I really enjoyed this book. Mickey Barnes is an expendable, a human who is used on dangerous missions and also for experiments. When he dies his body is cloned again and his consciousness is loaded into it. So far he has died 6 times which is why he is Mickey7. Mickey is more or less immortal, at least for as long as his commanding officer is willing to bring him back. The downside of this immortality is the dying in horrible ways. 4.5/5

The movie of the book, which is titled Mickey17, is being released very soon and will be the first entry in my book/movie challenge.

Book 12

Category - FLIGHT 571

The Place Where the World Ends by Richard Cunningham



This is one of the three books about the crash of Flight 571 that came out in 1973 ie before Alive

Richard Cunningham was/is an American who was living in Chile at the time of the crash. He was married to a Chilean woman and could speak Spanish. In his author’s introduction to this book he mentions that he could not talk to any of the survivors due to a contract that they had signed with Piers Paul Read and his publishers (Read wrote Alive. He states that Read could not speak Spanish. He also mentions that another non-Spanish speaking American was writing a book (I assume that he is talking about Clay Blair jr?).
Because he had no access to the survivors he decided to concentrate on the search from the Chilean side. These are the best sections of the book.

He also decided to fill out the book by including a fictional diary that might have been written by one of the young men if one of them had kept a diary. This portion of the book didn’t work IMO.

I also did not like the chapter in which he talked about the history of cannibalism. I thought it was rather gruesome. The Andes Survivors indulged in survival cannibalism which is quite quite distinct from other forms of cannibalism. Had the chapter concentrated on survival cannibalism (the sinking of the Whaleship Essex, the Donner Party, the Seige of Stalingrad etc) I think it would have been better.

Cunningham made numerous mistakes in the book. For example he said that Fito and Eduardo Strauch were brothers when in fact they were cousins, he listed Gaston Costemalle as the team captain - Marcelo Perez was the captain.

I give this book 3/5. I would have rated it lower if it hadn’t been for the reasonable coverage of the search.

book 13

Category - FLIGHT 571

“On the Other Side the Mountain” by Maria del Carmen Perrier Perez del Castillo. only available on Kindle, no touchstone.

This book is written by the niece of the team captain, Marcelo Perez. Marcelo died on the mountain and this book deals with his family’s grief and the grief of other families who also lost loved ones. It doesn’t cover events on the mountain at all.

This book is very moving. Maria’s mother, Claudia, was only 15 years old when her brother died. The first chapters of this book deals with Claudia’s and her family’s difficulty in coping with the plane’s disappearance, the weeks long search, her hope when she heard the plane had been found and her total despair when she realised her brother wasn’t one of the living.

Other chapters in the book deal with how other families coped and how some of the mother bounded together to create a library called ‘Our Sons’ as a memorial to those who died. 4.5/5

Book 14

Categories - SCIENCE and ART and AUSTRALIA and HISTORY

I think this is the first time I have been ever been able to fit a book into 4 different categories.

Mr and Mrs Gould by Grantlee Kieza

This is a biography of John and Elizabeth Gould. He was an English naturalist who published the seven volume series Birds of Australia. Many of the illustrations were by his wife.

Example of Elizabeth’s work



Kieza’s depiction of John Gould is of a somewhat insecure man who was sometimes neglectful of those who worked for him. He did however truly loved his wife and was devastated when she died, aged 37, of puerperal fever after the birth of their 8th child. He named the Gouldian Finch after her



I really enjoyed this book especially the part that covered his, and his wife, time in Australia. 4.5/5

I have been trying to choose which books of the same title I will be trying to read next month. I have these three books



and i have two books, one an audiobook and the other a paperback, titled ‘City of Ghosts’ - one is a mystery set in 1950s Russia (by Ben Creed), while the other is a middle-grade fantasy (by V.E Schwab) - so very different from each other.

>61 Zozette: That's a lot of shivering! I haven't heard of any of them, so I'm no help here.

Love the illustrations and the photo of the finch. Greenfinch and goldfinch visiting the garden here for seed - beautiful birds but that one is just in another dimension.

>60 Zozette: What beautiful illustrations! I'm in awe of her talent (and of the gorgeous Australian birds. Those colours are off the scale!).

>60 Zozette: Thank you for sharing these beautiful pictures! I'm taking a BB for Mr and Mrs Gould.

Book 15

Category - SCIENCE FICTION.

Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge by Mick Resnick

This book, published in 1994, won both a Nebula and Hugo Award for best novella.

A group of aliens arrive on Earth to research artefacts left by humankind who is now extinct. Among their numbers is a psychic who can read each artefact and tell the story behind it. Seven different stories are told from seven different time periods of Earth’s history 4/5

Book 16

Category POP CULTURE AND PHILOSOPHY

Game of Thrones and Philosophy edited by Henry Jacoby.

I listened to the audiobook version and I regret somewhat that I didn’t instead read the updated The Ultimate Game of Thrones and Philosophy which is available as an ebook.

The book I listened to was published in in 2012 and covered the 5 books and the first season of the TV show whereas TUGoTaP covers the show up to and including season 6.

However I did enjoy this audiobook and it views on the moral stance of several of the characters in GoT especially of those of Ned, Cersei, Tyrion and to an lesser extent Sansa, Arya, Jon and Daenerys. 4.5/5

>65 Zozette: Taking a book bullet for this one!

Book 17

Categories - BOOKS IN TRANSLATION and MYSTERY

The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo.
This book, which was published in 1951. The patriarch of a rich and notable family dies and he leaves a will that cannot not be read until his grandson returns from fighting in the war. After the grandson returns the divisive will and read and angers many of the family members, it isn’t long before one of them is murdered.
I enjoyed this novel slightly more than the Japanese mystery I read in January and I definitely will read another of this author’s mysteries this year. 4/5

The next Japanese book I read will not be a mystery, and the next mystery I read will not be Japanese.

Book 18

Category - HISTORY

Pox Romana by Colin Elliott

This book has been on my very long TBR list for a while but after reading SusanJ67 review I decided decided to jump it to the top of my list.

I haven’t read much Ancient Rome history (as I mainly concentrate on medieval and Australian history) but I found this book to be very interesting and reading it has encouraged me try to read some more Roman history. I do have a book about Nero on my list for this year.

This book, concentrates of the historical and cultural impact of plague, as little is known about actually disease itself. The actually disease has never been scientifically identified but might have been smallpox or the measles.

I do find books about diseases fascinating. In the past I have read books about yellow fever, the Spanish flu, rabies , the bubonic plague and cholera and I still have a book about polio to read.

I have given Pox Romana 4.5/5

>61 Zozette: I'll add one more of the same title- Shiver a graphic novel of stories by Japanese author Junji Ito. But it's shivering from the terror rather than the cold ;-D

>70 mstrust:

I have added it to my list of possibilities.

Book 19

Saevus Corax Deals With the Dead by K.J. Parker.

Saevus Corax runs a company of battlefield salvagers. They salvage arrows and other weapons, armour, clothing and other possessions off the dead after battles. They also tend to the wounded and dispose of the dead.
Saevus has to keep an eye out for assassins as his wealthy family - his father, sister and brother - want him dead and have put a reward on his head.
This is a fantasy book devoid of any magic or supernatural themes. I think that is why I enjoyed it more than many fantasy books. It is the first book in a trilogy and I hope to read the second book sometime this year.
I thought I had found a new author when I selected a book by KJ Parker but I later found out that Parker is a pseudonym for Tom Holt who books I have read before. 4/5

Book 20

Categories - HISTORY and AUSTRALIA

Flinders by Grantlee Kieza

Matthew Flinders was an English naval officer. In 1798, he lead an expedition that was the first to circumnavigate Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) and prove that it was an island. In 1802/1803, he circumnavigated Australia and proved that it was a single land mass. On this voyage he was accompanied by Bungaree who became the first indigenous Australian to circumnavigate the continent. Also Flinders’ cat, Trim, was the first cat to accomplish this feat. In his writing Flinders made it obvious how much he loved his cat.


Statue of Flinders and Trim

Flinders married his wife, Ann, in 1801, just before he left to make his second trip to Australia. On his return journey he was captured and imprisoned by the French and husband and wife were not to be reunited until 1810.

I really enjoyed this book, Grantlee Kieza has quickly become my favourite Australian historian. 4.5/5

>69 Zozette: Glad you enjoyed it!

>72 Zozette:, >73 Zozette: Those both look good too, and the library has Flinders as an ebook via BorrowBox. I love the cover that LT has for it, too :-)

Book 21 and 22 books are two books with the same title. They were very different from each other.

Category - SPECULATIVE FICTION - FANTASY

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

This is a middle-grade fantasy.

In it a girl called Cass almost drowns. She is saved by a young ghost named Jacob. After her rescue not only can she see Jacob while she is in this world but she is able to pass through the veil into the ghost world.
Her parents are paranormal researchers who believe that Jacob is imaginary. The family travel to Edinburgh where her parents are filming a TV show.

I found the ghost world of Edinburgh to be interesting but I found Cass herself to be a bit dull. 3/5

Category - MYSTERY

City of Ghosts by Ben Creed. My favourite of the two titles.

Set in Leningrad in 1951. Revol Rossel had been a talented violinist until he was arrested and tortured. Some of his fingers were amputated during his interrogation, others were broken. As a result he can no longer play the violin.

Five mutilated bodies are found placed over the railway tracks and Rossel, now a policeman, has to investigate the murders.
This books does a very good job in portrayal how fearful it was to live under the Stalinist regime.

Some people might be put off by the strong language, and certain themes, found in this book. 4.5/5

Book 23 - my first 5 star read of the year

Category - SPECULATIVE FICTION - SCI-FI

Mockingbird by Walter Tevis.

Set a few hundred years in a future in which humanity is dying out. Most of the people spend their days drugged. Privacy is seen as the most important thing and it is taken to levels of absurdity. People rarely even talk to each other. There is no art, literature or children being born. Most of the work is done by mindless robots.

Reading had been made illegal in a long forgotten past and now people aren’t even aware of reading or books.

A man called Paul Bentley finds some flash cards and three learning to read books for children. He is fascinated by them and starts to teach himself to read.

Spofforth is an advance robot, the most perfect machine ever made.

This story tells about the relationship between Bentley, Spofforth and a young woman called Mary Lou.

The author only ever wrote 6 books. Three of which are sci-fi, the best known is The Man Who Fell to Earth.

His other books are The Hustler which was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, its sequel The Color of Money which was made into movie starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, and The Queen’s Gambit which has recently been made into a miniseries. I have read none of these books and the only one of the movies I have seen is ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ and that was a long, long time ago.

I enjoyed ‘Mockingbird so much that I plan to read more of Tevis’ books.

Book 24

Categories - TRAINS and HISTORY

Fire and Steam by Christian Wolmar.

This was an interesting book. However I think the topic was too broad to be covered in a single book. The parts of the books I found most interesting was the social changes that came about due the trains. For example, certain foods such as fish finally became available to poorer people in London because once trains came along fish could be shipped into the city before it spoiled. I also liked the discussion on holiday trains etc etc. There were discussions of the dangers of travelling by train, the discomfort that the users of the earlier trains had to endure etc etc. I gave this book 3.5/5=0.7

Book 25

Category - SCIENCE

Chasing New Horizons by Alan Stern. A book about the first, and so far, the only mission to Pluto. Fascinating book though it wasn’t until the last quarter of the book that the Horizon probe actually left Earth. One downside of the book it wasn’t written in 2018, three years after it did its flyby of Pluto but before its discovery of many interesting objects in the Kuiper Belt. 4/5

Book 26

category - TRAINS and SPECULATIVE FICTION

The Majestic 311 by Keith C Blackmore

This book started out as a western. Seven Canadian train robbers board a train to steal a valuable payroll. However the train they board isn’t the train they were expecting instead it is a train that mysteriously disappeared several years before. At this stage the book goes from being a western in a horror story. Half way through it takes a turn into being more of science fiction story. Strong language throughout. I enjoyed this book but it was weird. 4/5

Book 27

Category - SPECULATIVE FICTION (Fantasy)

Saevus Corax Captures the Castle

Second book in the Corax trilogy. Another adventure with the battleground scavenger and his crew. Several of his men are captured and Saevus is told they will killed unless he captures a castle. He does not know the reasons why the kidnappers want the castle for but he is loyal to his employees so he has to come up with a plan to save their lives. Not quite as good as the first book but I am looking forward to the third and last book. 4/5

I'm taking a BB for Flinders and I'll tell my husband about the Saevus Corax trilogy - I think it might be something he will like!

Book 28 and 29

Category - MYSTERY

A Polluted Font by Mel Starr.
16th book in the Hugh de Singleton series. My favourite medieval mystery series. Good, as usual. 4/5

The Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz. Third book in the Susan Ryeland series. A book within a book mystery. This time a new author has been asked to continue the Atticus Pund series and Susan is again selected to edit the books. As in the previous books I enjoyed the Atticus mystery more than I did the ‘real life’ story. 4/5

While I was reading this I was also watching the TV adaption of the second book (Moonflower Murders)

>82 Zozette: I have the first two Susan Ryeland books on my shelf but haven't read them yet. I am really looking forward to them since I enjoy the Hawthorne & Horowitz series very much. I didn't know that the Susan Ryeland books are 'books within books'.

>83 MissBrangwen:

I have read the first Hawthorne and Horowitz book and it made me think that maybe I should have a category next year in which authors are main characters in books.

Books 30 and 31

Category - SPECULATIVE FICTION - SCIENCE FICTION

Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton.

Sequel to Mickey7. I won’t too much about this book as I don’t want to give any spoilers for the first book. I did however enjoy this book even more than the first book. I missed the movie Mickey17 at the cinema and now will have to wait until it is streaming. 4.5/5

category - BOOKS IN TRANSLATION (Japanese)

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

36 year old Keiko enjoys working in a convenience store. She has never been on a date and that worry her at all. However her family and friends have an issue with both and pressure her to look for another job and to find a man before it is too late.
Though it is not stated in the book I think Keiko is autistic. She does have trouble fitting in but has learnt how to cope. 4/5

I am so excited. The biography of my great grandfather, Henry Robert Figg, which was written by my half second cousin once removed (Steven Figg) arrived today. Henry who was born in 1835 was married twice, fathered 20 children and had 96 grandchildren including my father. I will be reading this book very soon.

>86 Zozette: How exciting!

>86 Zozette: wow, that's an impressive number of grandchildren!! How wonderful to have this record of (part of) your family and heritage.

>86 Zozette: Wow, that is such a special book!

I am about half way through the book on my family history. There are so many relatives to learn about and I am still on the children of his first marriage.

But I have been reading other books as well and I have managed to finish two.

Books 32 and 33

Category - SPECULATIVE FICTION - SCIENCE FICTION

Final Days by Nathan Hystad and Jasper T Scott.
The world is ending - multiple volcanic eruptions, deadly storms, acid rain. The main character’s young daughter is missing and he searches for her.
I think this story is average and though I finished the book I am not interested enough to continue with the series. 3/5

Category - HISTORY

Summer of Blood by Dan Jones.
An excellent account of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Though I had a passing knowledge of this event in English history this book really broaden my understanding of the conditions and events that led up to it, the Revolt itself and what occurred after the revolt had been suppressed. 4.5/5

>86 Zozette: I love the title! Hope it continues to be an enjoyable read.

Book 34

Category - AUSTRALIAN

I finished ‘Who Gives a Figg - Henry Robert Figg’ by Steven Figg and thoroughly enjoyed it. My name was even mentioned in the chapter about my grandmother.

However the chapter I enjoyed the most was the chapter about two of my grandmother’s full brothers who both died in their mid-20s.

Leslie Figg drowned on New Years Day 1916 aged 25. He had attended an employee’s picnic and decided to go on a yacht cruise. As they were nearing shore the yacht capsized and though the majority on board were rescued Leslie and a young woman died.

In 1912, 42 miners died in the Mt Lyell Disaster. It seems that Leslie bravely tried to rescue those trapped. A newspaper report said ‘At 9.30 o’clock on Saturday night that Les. Figg, a fine-looking young man, made an attempt to reach the plat on the No 1 drive but was overcome with the smoke. He was carried to the candle house, where after an hour or so he had recovered himself’.

Roy Figg alias Roy McDermott was an original ANZAC, arriving at Gallipoli late in the afternoon of 25 April 1915. Accompanying him was his best friend Martial Lawson who had enrolled at the same time as Roy.

On the 29 May while advancing on the Turks, Roy was hit by a rifle bullet in the lower third of his leg. His tibia was shattered. Martial was critically injured and died 2 days later.

Roy was sent home. Because of his injury he had to wear a raised boot and walk with a cane. The Army determined that he only had 25% work capacity and awarded him a pension. In August 1916 he turned his full pension over to his widowed mother and his dependant brothers, who were twins.

In 1918, Roy decided to go to the Mainland looking for work. It was the last time his family heard from him. His mother and his sisters hired a private detective to look for him but to no avail. The family came to believe that Roy must have died during the Great Flu Epidemic.

I started to research the family tree in the 1980s and eventually came across a death of a Roy McDermott at Ballarat in 1919 that I thought might be our Roy. Roy had started to use the surname McDermott because he hated his father and didn’t want to use the Figg surname. One of his half-sisters had married into the McDermott family.

Once it became easier to do family history online my sister, who lives in South Australia was able to take over the family history research from me and it was she that was able to find the proof the Roy who died in Ballarat was indeed our Roy. It took around 90 years for his fate to be proved and his family was correct, he had died of the Spanish Flu aged 27.

We are very proud to have one of the original ANZACs in our family. Other Australians will fully understand this pride. My dad was named after Roy.



Photo of Roy Figg, there is no known image of Leslie Figg

>92 Zozette: What a good-looking young man he was. How sad that these two brothers died so young. But how nice that their stories will be remembered and that you now have such a complete history of your family!

Have t posted for a while because I have been ill. However I did listen to 7 audio books and one printed book during that time, most were light reads.

Category - SPECULATIVE FICTION - FANTASY

Saevus Corax Gets Away With Murder by KJ Parker.
Third book in the trilogy about battlefield scavenger, Saevus Corax, and his crew. I am sorry to be saying goodbye to one of my favourite antiheroes. 8 think I enjoyed this book most out of the three. 4.5/5

Category - MYSTERY

Dance With Death by Will Thomas. 12th book in the Barker and Llewellyn series. After the 11th book they stopped releasing these books in Australia so I was unable to get the audio or ebook. I finally was able to track down a cheap secondhand copy.
This wasn’t the best in the series but maybe I just missed the audio narrator. I am not sure if I will continue the series, I guess it depends if I can find affordable copies. 3.5/5

Category - HISTORY

England in the Age of Chivalry by Ed West. One of the books A Very, Very Short History of England series. It was OK but contained little that wasn’t to be found in other books I have read. I often thought the humour missed the mark. I picked up the whole series for about $2 a book so I have another 4 to read. 3.5/5.

Category - MYSTERY or thriller

Badlands by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. 5th book in the Nora Kelly series.
I think this is about the 40th book I have read by these authors, either writing together as well as their solo works.
I don’t like the Nora Kelly series as much as the Pendergast series. Or the Wyman Ford books and these wasn’t my favourite Nora book either, though I liked that fact the FBI agent Corrie Swanson was in this book as I like her more than Nora. One of the scenes in particular was a little too violent for me. 4/5

Cartegory - History

The Greatest Nobodies in History by Adrian Bliss. I do like Adrian’s short on YouTube so I thought I would give this a go. Most of it was ‘nobodies’ from history being interviewed. My favourite interview was of the personification of the plague. 3.5/5

category - MYSTERY

Never Flinch by Stephen King

Another Holly Gibney mystery. The real mystery is this one was why the murderer was killing people not who he was . I didn’t not particularly like the secondary story in this book and i much preferred Holly when she was with was Bill Hodges. Plus there was a new narrator who wasn’t as good IMO. 3.5/5/

Category - HISTORY

Unruly by DAVID Mitchell.

the third light-hearted history book I read while ill. This time it was written and narrated by English comedian David Mitchell who does have a degree in history.
In covered the Anglo-Saxon kings, as well as the Norman, Plantagenets and Tudor kings and queens. I enjoyed the humour in this book more than the other two and I haven’t dived much into the Anglo- Saxons in the past so I found that part the most interesting 4/5

category - WOMEN ARTISTS

The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington

This book contained 25 short stories. All surreal. Some of them were quite similar so maybe it would have been better if I had read one or two a day instead of all at once. I might have remember the individual stories a bit better. I did enjoy the stories even the really weird ones. 4.5/5

I hope you’re feeling better now!

>94 Zozette: I am sorry to hear about your illness, I hope you are better soon!

I also hope you’re feeling better. History is not my favorite subject, but you’ve read some interesting history books.

I’m am 95% recovered now, still slightly short of breath but that about it.

I finished two books this week. Book number 43 and 44 for the year, which is far less than I usually read :(

Categories - MYSTERY and PASTICHES

the Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah. I have been meaning to get around to the Poirot continuation books for several years and finally finished the first one. I think Hannah was able to catch the spirit of Agatha in her writing which meant I was pleasantly surprised. Now I have to find to fit some more in the series in. 4/5

Category - Speculative FICTION - SCI-FI

Flybot by Dennis E Taylor.

I really hesitated about buying this book because I am trying to cut out on buying from Amazon and this was an Audible. In the end I decided to go to the lowest Audible tier possible (a book every two months) so that I can still get the Audible Only books. Most of the time I am getting my books from Kobo and Xigxag,

This was my least favourite of Dennis E Taylor’s books so far. It wasn’t a bad book but it just didn’t have the same charm to me as his Bobiverse books. 3.5/5

Books 45 and 46/for the year

Category - POP CULTURE AND PHILOSOPHY

Mad Max and Philosophy by Matthew Meyer and others

I started Batman and Philosophy but I soon realised a lot of the book covered the cartoon series which I have not seen so I switched to Mad Max instead because I have seen all four movies though it been a long time since I watched the first three. Luckily I was listening to the Batman book at Everand so I hadn’t wasted money on it.

Each chapter was an essay written by a different writer, some were better than others. I especially like those chapters that dealt with anarchy, and free will. Overall 4/5

Category - SCIENCE

What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Monroe.

What if everyone actually had only one soul mate, a random person somewhere in the world?

What would happen of the Earth and all terrestrial objects suddenly stopped spinning, but the atmosphere retained it velocity?

When, if ever, will Facebook contain more profiles of dead people than of living ones?

How many Lego bricks would it take to build a bridge capable of carrying traffic from London to New York?

I enjoyed this book. 4.5/5

>96 Zozette: I had no idea Mitchell wrote history books, so I'm noting that. I just watched the episode of The Cleaner where he plays a writer who keeps yelling "I must have quiet!"

>100 Zozette: Amazon is hard to avoid because it's so convenient, but I'm trying. Doing better with Facebook.

Books 47 to 50. I am way behind on my reading and I doubt I will get to my target on 100 this year.

Category - BOOKS IN TRANSLATION

The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki.
This sounded like it was going to be a book I would enjoy - talking cats running a coffee shop in Japan giving out advice. However it didn’t live up to my expectations. The so called cats rambled on about people’s astrology charts which bored me senseless. 2.5/5

Luckily the next three books were excellent and I gave them all 4.5/5

Category - MYSTERY

The Way of the Wicked by Mel Starr.
17th and, as of now, the last book in the Hugh de Singleton series. My favourite medieval surgeon was back investigating mysterious deaths. I just hope there are more in the series on the way.

Category - SPECULATIVE FICTION - HORROR

The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher. Portal horror. Kara, nickname Carrot, moves into her eccentric uncle’s museum where she finds a mysterious hole leading to bizarre world in which she ends up being trapped in with her gay friend, Simon.

Category - HISTORY

The Bone Chests by Cat Jarman. Excellent book about the Bone Chests of Winchester Cathedral and the Anglo-Saxon Kings of Wessex and later England whose bones they might be. I knew very little about the Anglo-Saxons except for Alfred the Great and Ethelred the Unready. I really enjoyed the earlier sections of the books but once the topic was about the Danes (Cnut etc) and the Normans it became slightly less interesting as I had covered this kings in other books.

>104 Zozette: I'm taking BBs for both the Hugh de Singleton series and The Bone Chests - both sound right up my alley!

>105 MissBrangwen:

I am now trying to decide on whether to start the Medicus mysteries set in Ancient Rome or a Tudor mystery series.