EDITORIAL COMMENT: I found this sitting in my drafts, poor thing, titled “May Month in Review”. That was back in 2017. You know the story by now. I got busy, and this blog is quite low on my priorities list. I’m only really publishing this just to say that I did finish my challenge. It was hard, especially towards the end. I don’t know how people do it every year. Less screen time, I guess. I have left in the one and a half reviews I found in this draft, and have included the rest of the complete list.

Sorry if you were really enjoying reading these every month. I may (may) come back and talk about my opinions on some of these books in the future. After all, I always have opinions.

BOOK EIGHTEEN – On Writing by Stephen King

This was the challenge’s first (and only – ed.) re-read, but it was one that I felt I needed. This book taught me a lot at university, but I last read it seven years ago and it merits revisiting to refresh the lessons it has to teach. On top of this, the autobiographical section of the book, that King titles “C.V.”, is a moving, heart-warming tale of accepting sense before foolishness, and accepting that art is sometimes unknowable. King finally lays out the definitive answer to “where do your ideas come from”, which is in short, “the muse.” The second section of the book gets a bit more technical, but parts one and three are worth reading even if you have no interest in writing your own stories.

BOOK NINETEEN – Spectacles by Sue Perkins

Perkins sets out at the beginning to this memoir that she wants it to be an open and honest, wart-and-all style book. True to her promise, Perkins The hopeful end was a little sad to read in light of the recent cancellation of GBBO

BOOK TWENTY – The Wicked + The Divine vol. 3 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

BOOK TWENTY-ONE – The Rise of the Dungeon Master by David Kushner and Koren Shadmi

BOOK TWENTY-TWO – Why I Write by George Orwell

BOOK TWENTY-THREE – The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

BOOK TWENTY-FOUR – The Night Manager by John le Carré

BOOK TWENTY-FIVE – The Wicked + The Divine vol. 4 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

BOOK TWENTY-SIX – Lost at Sea by Brian Lee O’Malley 

BOOK TWENTY-SEVEN – Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher

BOOK TWENTY-EIGHT – The Power by Naomi Alderman 

Just want to say quickly here that The Power is a strong contender for my favourite read on this list. Go read it if you haven’t.

BOOK TWENTY-NINE – The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace

BOOK THIRTY – The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman 

BOOK THIRTY-ONE – The Wicked + The Divine vol. 5 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

BOOK THIRTY-TWO – Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli

BOOK THIRTY-THREE – The Myth Gap by Alex Evans

BOOK THIRTY-FOUR – Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett 

BOOK THIRTY-FIVE – The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carré

BOOK THIRTY-SIX – Witches, Sluts, Feminists by Kristen J. Sollee

BOOK THIRTY-SEVEN – Darkness Visible by William Styron

BOOK THIRTY-EIGHT – Eight Ghost Stories from The National Trust

BOOK THIRTY-NINE – The Anthology of English Folk Tales from The History Press

BOOK FORTY – Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli

Despite being very different to Alderman’s thoughtful sci-fi thriller, this non-fiction account of scientific history is my other contender for favourite read of 2017. An absolute must.

BOOK FORTY-ONE – Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

BOOK FORTY-TWO – DC Bombshells vol. 1 by Marguerite Bennett et al.

BOOK FORTY-THREE – Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

BOOK FORTY-FOUR – On the Shortness of Life by Seneca

BOOK FORTY-FIVE – The Outsider by Albert Camus

BOOK FORTY-SIX – On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

BOOK FORTY-SEVEN – If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

BOOK FORTY-EIGHT – On Liberty by Virginia Woolf 

BOOK FORTY-NINE – The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

BOOK FIFTY – Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

BOOK FIFTY-ONE – The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

BOOK FIFTY-TWO – It Devours! by Joseph Fink and Jeffery Cranor

Whew. That was a lot easier when I was only typing four or so of those a month.