Shannon (sturlington) 2025 Noncategory Challenge + BingoDOG/ScaredyKIT

Hi, everyone! Shannon here.

I really enjoy participating in this group, but in 2024, I decided not to read to any specific categories. I read what I wanted when I wanted, and I read less than I normally do, but I feel like my reading was more relaxed than it had been in recent years. I read some big books, I reread some old books, and I joined a couple of new book clubs. I followed my impulses and recommendations I got, and I didn't worry about hitting any "numbers."

So this year, I'm going to do something similar. I will only track my BingoDOG and ScaredyKIT reads, and that's only if what I was going to read anyway happens to match a category. Otherwise, I'll just briefly note any reading I do without worrying about numbers and categories. As always, I welcome your comments and discussion.

BingoDOG


1. Place you've never been: Gun Island
3. Writing about writers: The Anatomy of Story
6. Long title: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
7. Nontraditional family: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
9. Sun on cover/in title: Sundown in San Ojuela
10. Child main character: Incidents Around the House
13. Read a CAT/KIT: The House Next Door for ScaredyKIT
14. Totally random: Under the Rainbow
15. Features a birth: Second Class Citizen
17. Features winged creatures: The House on Buzzards Bay (except they're not buzzards; they're ospreys)
18. Profession in title: Dear Writer
19. Travel: The Vaster Wilds
20. Recommended by a friend: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
21. Set in your favorite season: Salem's Lot (autumn, of course)
23. Hollywood!: Tom Lake - One character is a movie star, and a bit takes place in L.A. but I may change if I get a more appropriate read for this category
25. Features fire: Never Flinch - Well, there is a fire at the end.

ScaredyKIT
✔January: Diverse Perspectives - Sundown in San Ojuela and The Woods All Black
✔February: Haunted Houses / Haunted Places - The House Next Door - reread and Incidents Around the House
✔March: Real-life Monsters (True Crime) - Bright Young Women
✔April: Arachnids, Insects, and Reptilia - Absolution
✔May: Out in the Wild - Picnic at Hanging Rock
June: YA and graphic novels
✔July: Ghosts - The Militia House
✔August: Female authors - Diavola
✔September: Stephen King and family - Never Flinch
✔October: Gothic - The House on Buzzards Bay
✔November: Psychological Thrillers - The Compound
✔December: Your Favorite Scary Trope - Salem's Lot

Good list. These will keep you busy.

Enjoy your relaxed and less structured reading in 2025!

Whatever works! Enjoy.

Good luck with your 2025 reading!

Happy reading in 2025.

Ah, simplicity. What a great concept.

Happy reading, Shannon!

Enjoy your reading in 2025!

Happy reading in 2025!

Enjoy your 2025 reading!

I'll be seeing you 'round the ScaredyKits. Happy reading this year!

Happy holidays everyone, and I hope you are having a restful solstice today.

I think I have decided on a general theme for my reading for the upcoming year. I have been feeling a bit nostalgic, and I recently joined a classics book club, so my overarching theme with be Forgotten Fiction of the 20th Century -- that is, books I have read and forgotten so want to reread, books I overlooked before, or authors I just wasn't aware of.

I will still probably read some new fiction, of course, but honestly I am a little tired of reading depressing novels concerning climate change, social media, and AI. I think I'm feeling most nostalgic for a time when people did not carry mini computers with them everywhere they went!

Anyway, I've started an ambitious reading list, and we'll see how far I get.

As someone also trying to move away from assigning myself reading, I'm excited to see how your reading goes in 2025.

>16 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, I'm looking forward to following your reading as well. Even though I am bad about commenting, I always get good book recs from you!

US Map tracking where I'm reading

Lost my map - alas.

Alabama: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
California: Sundown in San Ojuela
Florida: Bright Young Women and Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
Georgia: The House Next Door
Kansas: Under the Rainbow
Kentucky: The Woods All Black
Maryland: Big Time
Massachusets: The House on Buzzards Bay
Michigan: Incidents Around the House and Tom Lake
Pennsylvania: Where You End
Tennessee: Now Is Not the Time to Panic
Virginia: The Vaster Wilds

Some loose categories -- I will try to read one per category per month:

1. Scary books -- for ScaredyKIT >3 sturlington:
2. Classics -- mainly for book club >3 sturlington:
3. 20th-century women writers
4. 21st-century women writers
5. Southern (U.S.) writers and settings

Happy new year!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and good luck with your reading.

Have a great year in books!

Happy 2025 and good luck with your intentions.

End-of-Year Meme - based on books I read in 2024
Describe yourself: Gone Girl

Describe how you feel: Grievers

Describe where you currently live: The September House

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Looking Glass Sound

Your favourite form of transportation is: The Catcher in the Rye

Your favourite food is: The Cherry Robbers

Your favourite time of day is: Twelve Nights at Rotter House

Your best friend is: The Better Liar

You and your friends are: Kindred

What’s the weather like: The Metamorphosis

You fear: The Future

What is the best advice you have to give: Cackle

Thought for the day: All the Sinners Bleed

What is life for you: I Have Some Questions for You

How you would like to die: Horror Movie

Your soul’s present condition: You Like It Darker

What was 2024 like for you? Passing

What do you want from 2025? Never Saw Me Coming

You have some interesting meme answers there!

Happy reading, Shannon!

1. Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh

Categories: First book of the year had to come off the TBR
BingoDOG: Features place(s) I've never been

2. Sundown in San Ojuela by M. M. Olivas

Categories: Scary Books
ScaredyKIT: January - Diverse Perspectives
BingoDOG: Sun in title/on cover

3. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons

Categories: Scary books; Southern fiction; 20th-century women writers
ScaredyKIT: February topic -- haunted places

Isn't it fun to spend a snowy weekend doing nothing but reading? I was planning to read this for next month's ScaredyKIT, but I wanted something familiar and absorbing, and this one called to me, so I've read it early.

>29 sturlington: Often with first novels, I come away thinking that the book was flawed, but that the author was one to watch.

>30 sturlington: I have never read anything by Anne Rivers Siddons, but you've got me with this review. I'll look for a copy.

>31 RidgewayGirl: It is old, but Stephen King has repopularized it, and it has also appeared on some lists, like NPR's Top 100 Horror. The funny thing is that Siddons is primarily known for her women-focused novels; this was way out of her genre comfort zone. I think you in particular will appreciate the understated social commentary throughout. Hope I didn't spoil anything, though!

Grady Hendrix has also championed that book many times and talked about how scary it is. I haven't read it yet, so thanks for reminding me.

>30 sturlington: This sounds good! Adding it to The List.

I too am doing an unstructured challenge this year, and I really like your theme of revisiting older books. I continue to be a sucker for all the new awards lists, but lately, I've been discovering more new-to-me authors from earlier decades and rereading books from my shelves.

>35 mathgirl40: I was inspired by the classics book club I joined, so I made a list of 20th-century women I'd like to read, and I'm trying to do one a month. That way, I can balance with the shiny, new books. I'm also trying to reread a handful of older books from my shelves that I never reviewed on LibraryThing. There are so many good books out there!

4. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

Categories: Southern fiction; 20th-century women writers
RandomKIT: January theme - Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
BingoDOG: Nontraditional family

5. Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta

Categories: Classics book club; 20th-century women writers
BingoDOG: Features a birth

6. The Anatomy of Story by John Truby

BingoDOG: Writing about writers

7. Under the Rainbow by Celia Laskey

Categories: 21st-century women authors
BingoDOG: Totally random

8. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

Categories: 20th-century women authors
BingoDOG: Long title

>41 sturlington: I'm reading a book first published in 1960, but set during the war and the amount of casual racism and sexism is impressive.

>42 RidgewayGirl: It does make it more difficult to enjoy older fiction, especially when it's clear the author thinks there's nothing wrong with it.

>43 sturlington: It does change how I react to a character. In my case, the main character has some really unfortunate views, which tempers my feelings for her.

>44 RidgewayGirl: In the case of Miss Pettigrew, most of the racism is very casual anti-Semitism on the part of the titular character. Considering when it was published, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

9. Where You End by Abbott Kahler

Category: Scary books

10. The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo

Categories: Southern fiction; Scary books
ScaredyKIT: January theme - Diverse perspectives
CoverCAT: February theme - Trees on cover

11. Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

Categories: Scary books
ScaredyKIT: Feburary theme: Haunted places
BingoDOG: Child main character

12. Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

Categories: Southern fiction

Also, there was a strangely specific (and funny) off-the-cuff reference to the tiny town where I currently live, which can only mean bonus points for the author.

>49 sturlington: This was just fantastic. Thanks for reminding me of it.

>11 VivienneR:, Oh, good to hear you enjoyed this one! I won it in a promotional giveaway and have yet to get around to it, but I'll have to move it up the TBR!

13. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Categories: 21st-century women authors
BingoDOG: Hollywood!

14. Big Time by Ben H. Winters

RandomKIT: Playing With Time

15. Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

ScaredyKIT: Real-Life Monsters
Other categories: 21st-century Women Writers

I need to read that one. I read The Five, which was a non-fiction about the women who were the victims of Jack the Ripper. The author did an amazing job with her research.

16. Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer

ScaredyKIT: Arachnids, insects, and reptilia
Confession: I skimmed the last bit

17. Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

Category: 21st-century women writers

This one keeps coming up on my IG feed but I hadn't read a review before. Thanks! I'll probably end up reading it because I have to read something that sounds that crazy.

>58 mstrust: It is bonkers, so if that's what you're looking for, it's a good choice.

18. Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

Category: 20th-century women writers
ScaredyKIT: Out in the Wild

Been in a bit of a slump Read three books that I haven't posted yet and I didn't write in-depth reviews, but here they are.

19. The Militia House by John Milas - I will count this for my ScaredyKIT - Ghosts read.
20. Dear Writer by Maggie Smith - By a poet; writing-advice nuggets. Category: 21st-century women writers.
21. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix - vacation read. Category: Southern writers.

22. The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

Categories: 21st-century women writers

23. Diavola by Jennifer Thorne

Categories: 21st-century women writers
ScaredyKIT: Women writers (August)

>63 sturlington: Well, darn it, I already bought this as an audiobook. I was a sucker again for an intriguing cover.

>63 sturlington: LOL, never a good sign when the devil is the most sympathetic character!

>64 Charon07: Maybe it will be a better read for you. The reviews are generally positive, but it just wasn't the right one for me.

>65 christina_reads: Ha ha, at least she wasn't passive-aggressive. Just aggressive-aggressive.

24. Never Flinch by Stephen King

ScaredyKIT: Stephen King month (September)

25. The House on Buzzards Bay by Dwyer Murphy

ScaredyKIT: Gothic (October)

>67 sturlington: Yes, this felt like a regular detective series, where nothing bad will happen to any of the regular characters and with the Barbara sub-plot, a lot of wish fulfillment.

>69 RidgewayGirl: No kidding on the wish fulfillment!

26. The Compound by Aisling Rawle

ScaredyKit: Pyschological Thriller (November)

27. Ending the year with a reread of Salem's Lot by Stephen King.

ScaredyKIT: Favorite Trope (December)

Review: A rewarding reread, even if some aspects of the characters and setting come off as a bit dated now. I love the trope of the haunted small town, and I think even more so than being a nice reworking of Dracula, this story excellently conveys the ultimate corruption of a town that was, in a sense, already dead in many ways. King does not flinch when it comes to showing the petty evils of ordinary folk, but he balances that with his everyman heroes, who are also ordinary but are able to become extraordinary when called to it. I can't remember seeing Mark Petrie reappear in any of his later books or stories--I wonder whatever happened to him?

I am going to start James but don't know if I'll finish it by January 1.

I hate to say it, but I've never read Salem's Lot.

>73 mstrust: It's a slow burn but rewarding. I think King said it was one of his favorites.