INTRODUCTIONS

Please take a moment to introduce yourself to others in the group. You might give us your first name, where you are from, what kind of reading you like, and what your reading plans may be in 2023.

If you are not posting your own reading in a thread here on Club Read, but are what we affectionately call regular "lurkers," reading what others post, please consider introducing yourself anyway (and identify yourself as a "lurker").

I will add people as they introduce themselves or create a thread, but if I miss you or make an error, please message me.

AlisonY / Alison / County Down, Northern Ireland
Ameise1 / Barbara / Zurich, Switzerland
amysisson / Amy / Houston, Texas
AnnieMod / Annie / Arizona, USA (from Bulgaria)
arubabookwoman / Deborah / on the move in the Tampa area, Florida, USA
avaland / Lois / southern New Hampshire, USA
avidmom / / southern California, USA
baswood / Barry / Gers, southwest France
BLBera / Beth / Minnesota, USA
bragan / Betty / New Mexico, USA
Cariola / Deborah / Pennsylvania, USA
chlorine / Clémence / Paris, France
cindydavid4 / Cindy / Arizona, USA
cushlareads / Cushla / Wellington, NZ
David-Steel / David and Bonnie / Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
dchaikin / Dan / Houston, Texas, USA
dianeham / Diane / Cape May, New Jersey, USA
dianelouise100 / Diane / Alabama, USA
Dilara86 / Dilara / western France
dukedom_enough / Michael / southern New Hampshire, USA
edwinbcn / Edwin / Heerhugowaard, Netherlands (recently of China)
ELiz_M / Liz / Brooklyn, New York, USA
FlorenceArt / Florence / Paris region, France
Gumpy_Ho / /
lmbix / Leslie / outside Buffalo, New York, USA
japaul22 / Jennifer / DC Suburbs, Northern Virginia, USA
jjmcgaffey / Jennifer / Alameda, California, USA
JoeB1934 / Joe / Denver, Colorado, USA
johnxlibris / John / Los Angeles, California, USA
JorgenHolst / Jörgen / Halmstad, Sweden
Julie_in_the_Library / Julie / Greater Boston area, Massachusetts, USA
Karlou / Karen / UK
karspeak / Karen / Florida panhandle, USA
KeithChaffee / Keith / Los Angeles, California, USA
kidzdoc / Darryl / suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
kjuliff / Kate / Australia and USA
labfs39 / Lisa / Maine, USA
lilisin / Lilisin / currently in Japan
lisapeet / Lisa / Bronx, New York, USA
liz4444 / Lizetta / South Carolina, USA
LolaWalser / Lola / Toronto, Canada
markon / Ardene / near Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Milda-TX / Milda / Texas, USA
MissBrangwen / Mirjam / Bremerhaven, Germany
NanaCC / Colleen / south shore of Massachusetts, USA
nancyewhite / Nancy / Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Nickelini / Joyce / Vancouver, BC, Canada
OscarWilde87 / / near Cologne, Germany
pmarshall / Penny / Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
qebo / Katherine / Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
rachbxl / Rachel / Belgium
raidergirl3 / Elizabeth / Prince Edward Island, Canada
raton-liseur / / Brittany, France
RidgewayGirl / Kay / Bloomington, Illinois, USA
rhian_of_oz / Rhian / Perth, Australia
rocketjk / Jerry / Mendocino County, California, USA
RRCBS / Elaine / Ontario, Canada
SassyLassy / / South Shore of Nova Scotia, Canada
shadrach_anki / Anki / southern New Hampshire, USA
Simone2 / Barbara / Netherlands
slimeboy / /
stretch / Kevin / Indiana, USA
thorold / Mark / The Hague, Netherlands
tonikat / Kat / northern UK
torontoc/ Cyrel / Toronto, Canada
trifolia / Monica / Flanders, Belgium
ursula / Ursula / Istanbul, Turkey to Germany soon
wandering_star / Margaret / Japan (British)
WelshBookworm / Laurel / Minnesota, USA
wuh19 / Tony / Wisconsin, USA
Yells / Danielle / SW Ontario, Canada

My name is Lisa, and I have been a member of Club Read since 2011. I enjoy reading literature in translation and World War II history and memoirs. Last year I turn over a new leaf and joined some reading challenges and enjoyed them so much, I will do so again this year. In particular I will be joining the African novel challenge and the Reading Globally quarterly theme reads. The first topic, The Baltic Sea region, will be curated by yours truly. I also participate in the Holocaust Literature group and the Global Challenge.

In real life, I am a semi-retired information specialist living with my daughter in small town Maine. My daughter and I moved back to my hometown after 15 years in the Seattle area, and I am enjoying being reunited with family and the New England seasons. In addition to reading, I enjoy gardening and homeschooling my two nieces.

My name is Annie and I had been in Club Read since 2010 (I think I skipped 2011 as I was still settling after my move from Bulgaria to Phoenix but I had been around ever since).

Since then, I'd moved to Arizona and got a bit older (although probably not much wiser). I work as a software architect in a product-based software company and before Covid that meant quite a lot of travel. It is unclear how that will develop in 2023 so we shall see. But even if I am back on the road, my trusty kindle will be always with me.

I read in 3 languages (English, Bulgarian and Russian) and I tend to say that I would read anything in a language I can recognize. I have a soft spot for short stories and graphic novels and I read pretty much in any genre: you almost never know what you will find in my thread. I am a lot more likely to read a genre book (science fiction, fantasy, crime, mystery, thriller and anything in between) than a mainstream contemporary one. I also read plays and poetry and you can find me exploring non-fictional themes often.

I am hosting the Victorian Tavern (and the quarterly reads associated with it), the Graphic stories threads and the "What are you reading?" threads where I really hope everyone plans to stop by. I will also have my own thread as usual (although that thread gets neglected occasionally) and if you want to know more about my reading and challenges, come visit me there.

Hi - I'm Alison. I live in a large village in County Down in Northern Ireland just a few miles from the suburbs of Belfast. I've lived in this area for a long time, but also spent 14 years living in various parts of England. For work I lead the PMO for a software company that specialises in pathology software, and for pleasure (aside from reading) I enjoy going to the gym, walking and interior design.

I joined LT and CR in January 2015, and am pleased to be back for an 8th year. Each year the amount of non-fiction I'm reading has grown - I'm getting close to 50/50 between NF and F. Whilst I enjoy fiction, I get very inspired and distracted by interesting non-fiction titles, everything from health to popular science to history to social science. Fictional preferences lean towards literary fiction and a bit of historical fiction, everything from the classics to modern day.

This year in February I'll be hosting a group read of A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf - whether you're a first time reader of it or are interested in a reread you are most welcome.

My name is Cindy been a member since 2016 but in CR since 2019. I live in the deserts of Az, am a retired teacher after 40 years; thrilled by my new found free time to read! Ive always been an eclectic reader, but since coming here Ive discovered hundreds of new to me authors and books, and my shelves indeed are running over. I have mostly Anglophone books but since coming here my reading has expanded to works in translation (unfortunately the only other languag I speak is ASL", so thrilled that I have been able to read so many books from around the globe.

I love reading non fiction including travel narratives, biographys, history, science and general stuff here and there

Groups include Movies to Books, Book Collectors, Fantasy, Historic Fiction, Sci fi, Green Dragon, Book Balloon, Reading Globally, Reading Through Time, Non Fiction, monthly authors and others

Looking forward to another year of reading!!

Hi, I'm Cyrel, a retired visual art teacher ( high school and University art education) from Toronto. I love to read but have found that I have slowed down during the pandemic. I became an avid film festival goer after retirement but... the pandemic has changed my viewing habits. I have seen many good films online during festivals both documentary and fiction. I belong to a pottery co-op that has survived during these pandemic times. We schedule our times in the pottery studio, wear masks and allow only two or three members in the space.
I look forward to reading more interesting books and maybe venturing out to a real movie theatre this year.
I read fiction, memoirs, historical fiction and history in non-fiction.

My name is Laurel. I'm not actually Welsh (unless having Welsh ancestors that came to America in 1638 counts). But I took a medieval Welsh class in graduate school and fell in love with the language and the country, and have whole-heartedly embraced that part of my heritage. I led a Welsh folkdance group here in Minnesota for 25 years, and I have been teaching Welsh since 1994. Books set in Wales are always on my radar.

I am a (want-to-be-retired) adult services librarian for the local public library, and I manage 4 book clubs through the library. I participate in two of them. One reads a monthly book selection, for the other group I assign monthly themes and we read whatever we want to that fits that theme. I have found that those themes are a wonderful way to target some of the books in my gigantic TBR ocean and actually read them. I LOVE to make lists, and choose an annual "theme" every year. Or several. And, of course, the old themes live on and on... Some of my past "themes" have been Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, The ____ Wife titles, Russia, Stars, Music, Birds... I read way too many depressing books last year, so my 2023 theme is "Keeping It Light."

I aim to read about 50 books a year, but I'm usually short of that. 2022 was a very bad year for reading. If you followed my thread in 2022 you know some of the reasons for that. Mainly, my landlord decided to sell the farm where I'd been renting the basement (separate from the upstairs - with its own kitchen) for 16 years. It had its issues, but I loved my porch and my yard and had created the garden of my dreams - not just a garden - I had planted trees, a huge vegetable garden with asparagus, rhubarb, etc., planted tulips and daffodils all over, flowering shrubs, etc. I had held out for the hope that the new buyer would want to keep me on as a tenant. But by February, it had been 6 months, no buyer, and the landlord was pressuring me to declutter. Gee, he thought I had too many books.... So I had to box up a bunch of stuff and store it in the root cellar temporarily. I wasn't crazy about that idea because it would get wet in there come spring, although I had everything up on plastic book shelves. Sure enough, we had a bad storm in May, and one of the walls actually collapsed! Book cases were tossed like kindling, and everything buried in a foot of mud. Things went downhill from there. I had planned to retire last year (at age 67) but now I knew I had to find another place to live. The landlord razed the root cellar (basically just filled it in), decimated my garden in the process, and traded the back walk out entrance for a trap door thing. Then the water tank from the well developed a hole and I had a furnace room full of water. Stuff I had salvaged from the root cellar (amazingly) and the furnace room was piled in the living room and bedroom. Meanwhile, the landlord continued to show the apartment... Oh yes - then he raised my rent by $300 a month and had been asking me to pay for electricity which I had never had to pay before. I had been a lifelong renter, and the farm was still a bargain compared to what a decent sized anything would cost. So I figured out what I needed to do to buy my own house - I couldn't bear the thought of starting over with another garden, and NOT having it be my OWN - and that meant I couldn't retire yet. Going to have to max out the social security and pension by waiting until I am 70.

The good news is, I found a house! And I bought it! I've been here two months now and love it. It's a pretty small house, but about the same amount of space I had at the farm. It has a big yard. I will be unpacking for months and months yet, but I am getting some of my reading mojo back. The books I was hoping to get read this year - I had 5 or 6 chunksters on the go - those books are all still in boxes somewhere. But it's okay. The new house happening around the Celtic New Year had me longing to start over, start new, start planning my 2023 reading lists. So I am ready to go! I'll get back to those chunksters and other leftovers - maybe in the spring.

So reading - I especially like historical fiction. I'm drawn to anything "British" - Wales, Cornwall, Devon, Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Mann, Brittany... And anyplace my ancestors have lived. I am a huge genealogy buff. I like a good mystery, and thrillers, literary fiction, classics, fantasy/Sci Fi. I'll read cozy mysteries, and some domestic fiction. And non-fiction - history, science, religion, nature/environment, philosophy, psychology. Besides genealogy, and gardening, I am also a musician and sing with a women's choir in the Twin Cities (now an hour away...). Oh yes, I also inherited a barn cat that had kittens a week before I bought my house. They came with me to the new house. So now I have 6 cats. I guess that makes me a crazy cat lady, too. I joined Club Read in 2021, but I've been a member of LibraryThing since 2010. I've used it to start cataloging some of my Welsh books, and some boxes of books from my father, grandfather, and great grandfather. (I haven't kept up with that...) I keep track of my cookbooks on EatYourBooks. My want to read lists, currently reading books, and books I've read and reviewed are all on Goodreads. I have no desire to duplicate all that here. Feel free to send me friend request there. I also enjoy the book groups on LibraryThing and Goodreads. And talking about books. And meeting other people who like to talk about books.

On to 2023!

Hello! Already posted a long intro in my new thread, so I’ll just say I’m Keith, a retired librarian from Los Angeles, and this is my first year at Library Thing.

>7 WelshBookworm: Lucky you to be retired! And welcome!

Hi all, I'm Jennifer, and this will be my 13th year in Club Read. I live in the D.C. suburbs in Northern Virginia and am a musician (french horn) in the Marine Band. I have two boys who are 13 and 10 this year. Between work and their active sports and music schedules, we keep pretty busy!

I enjoy reading contemporary literature and most of the new novels I read are by women. I also love classics - reading new-to-me novels and rereading them. I almost always have a nonfiction book going as well - usually something history or biography based. I usually have some clear goals and a "big book" for a project, but this year nothing is calling for me. Maybe I'll settle on one at some point, or maybe I won't!

I read every Club Read thread, but I'm really bad about commenting because I often read threads on my phone while I'm out and about and I hate typing on my phone. But do know that I'm keeping up with ALL of you!

Hi, I'm (also) Jennifer, living in Alameda, California (SF Bay Area). I'll have a thread (not set up yet); hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it better in 2023 than I managed in 2022. I'm a self-employed computer tech - love it, I get paid for solving logic puzzles.

I read mostly genre fiction, and non-fiction. SF&F, mysteries, romances, animal stories; not horror, or what's written as "literature", both because I don't enjoy being depressed by my reading. Science, history, history of science; cooking, nature, travel, whatever catches my eye.

I'm (still) trying to focus on reading the literally thousands of books I own and have never read, with the aim of getting rid of some/many of them - but there are so many good books coming out! Also, I have almost entirely switched to ebooks in recent years; it's so much easier to find them, and to read them whenever I have a minute (on my phone, which I'll certainly have with me). So my Books Off My Bookshelf (BOMB) efforts have slowed tremendously. But I still have all these boxes of books cluttering my life; either I'm going to have to force myself to discard unread books (Noooo!) or I need to at least start them. I am getting better at DNFing books, rather than forcing myself all the way through. But I'm also still buying physical books, at yard sales and book sales...it's hard to pass them up, too likely they're unique (or at least, that I won't come across them again).

Hi, I'm Elizabeth from Prince Edward Island. (my middle name is Anne, with the 'e')

I joined Club Read last year and I really like it here. I set up a thread and was great at updating, and making lists and friends, until about April. Then I stopped keeping track, but kept lurking around here. But to be fair, that's the longest I've kept a personal thread going on LT since I've been here in 2007. I'll try again this year, lol.

I listen to mostly audiobooks, and am just managing about one paper/ebook per month these days. I like mysteries, mostly police procedural types but will go a little cozier. I also read historical fiction, not as much non-fiction as I'd like, Canadian literature, and get distracted by new shiny lists like the Tournament of Books and the Women's Prize for Fiction.

I am a high school math and physics teacher in the last few years of my career. I enjoy being active - hiking the trails in the Maritimes with my sister, and friends, some yoga and pilates. I'm married and my three children are not really children anymore. 25 year old son has moved out this year but he's not far away, 23 and 19 year old girls live home and are attending our local university. All three have been very active in sports and we are enjoying a probably last year of competitive sports with two of them - basketball and ringette.

Favourite books of last year include:
Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez
My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand
When We Lost Our Heads by Heather O'Neill
the 3 Ann Patchett's I read, 2 NF
The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield

>12 raidergirl3: I'm glad you like it here in Club Read, Elizabeth. My middle name is Ann too, but sadly no "e":

"Oh, it makes SUCH a difference. It LOOKS so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced can't you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so much more distinguished."

>12 raidergirl3: >13 labfs39:

My legal name is Yoana (single n) - it is the Bulgarian form of the name Joanna and its derivatives in different languages and it is the female form of the name John (as in John the Baptist) - he is called Yoan in Bulgarian. If Mom had had her way, I’d have been Ana. But my name had to start with Y and Yoana was popular around the time I was born and incorporated both the name she wanted and the letter she needed so I got my legal name. I technically celebrate my name day on St John the Baptist day and not on Saint Anna though.

When I was figuring out how to write the name I go by (I am Yoana only when Mom is really upset with me and on official documents; I’ve been Annie anywhere else since the dawn of time), my English phonetics teacher (an American) advised me to double the N and throw an e at the end to make sure people know how to pronounce it (Bulgarian is phonetic so there it is just spelled Ani (Ани) but if I try to spell it that way in English, people will pronounce it every which way. And as it is a nickname, I was not tied to and restricted by the official transliteration rules (as I am for my legal name)).

>13 labfs39: My mother’s name was Anne and sometimes Anna Marie. I’m not sure which one is right.

I’m Diane - although on one of my birth certificates it said Diana - but the nuns who did that were wrong.

I’ve been on LT since 2015 and think this will be my 3rd year in CR. I’m a retired librarian. I ran the computer system and network for a main library and 7 branches. I’ve been retired going on 11 years. I live at the southern most tip of NJ between the Atlantic ocean and the Delaware bay.

I can’t sleep at night usually so I’m up all night reading. I read mostly fiction now. I like literary fiction, scifi, mysteries. I especially like Irish, Canadian and Japanese fiction. Oh and books about cults - fiction and nonfiction. Also post-apocalyptic fiction. I’ve read a lot of nonfiction about serial killers and sociopaths in the past but unless there’s a new revelation in that field, I think I’ve read enough of that. I’ve also read many books about indigenous people in the Amazon.

I’m a poet although I haven’t written any lately. I started a poetry topic here in cr where we can talk about poetry. I’ve read poetry since I could read but I am not an expert. I never studied poetry or literature in college so it was all on my own with some workshops now and then.

I live with my husband and our German shepherd Shaka. I’m originally from Philadelphia and I lived in nyc for 2 years. During the pandemic, I stopped watching tv. I have streamed 2 shows recently - Three Pines and the new season of Criminal Minds.

>14 AnnieMod: Why did your name have to begin with Y?

>16 dianeham: Regional traditions - not observed as strictly (if at all) these days but they still were in the 80s. My father was an only child and I am his oldest - so I had to be named after his father. In some families that means repeating the name exactly (just changing to the female form if a girl). My Mom would probably have started a war if they had tried to push for the exact name (it is an old fashioned name which had fallen out of use even in my parents’ generation, let alone mine. Plus both my grandfather and my father did not like the female form of name so it was never an option anyway). On the other hand my grandmother spent more than a decade being offended at my sister’s name - it was her letter but not her name so she kept complaining (and kept bringing it up sporadically even after that). :)

And unlike the Western world, there is no middle name to pacify the family or put a preferred name in - our middle names are patronymics (Dad’s name with a parent suffix and female ending).

>17 AnnieMod:

Are you transliterating Ioana as Yoana?

>16 dianeham: Many Jewish immigrants early in the last century had names from their countries, and named their children after a relative who died. My grandmother named Tzil in Yiddish, Celia in English died just before I was born. I was to be named after her, so My name had to start with a C so i was named Cindy. My Hebrew name is Tzil

>18 LolaWalser: I am transliterating Йоана as Yoana as per the official transliteration rules of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry. Ioana will be a transliteration of Иоана. :)

Ioana was the French-inspired transliteration used until the early 1990s but the problem with it was that it could not separate и from й - and some names could use either in some positions and й is a pretty common letter in names. So that got changed to allow better recognition of the difference in names. Unless you request the older spelling (usually due to a history of passports and visas before the change), the name is spelled Yoana now.

I’m Diane, sometimes Di, a retired English teacher now living once again in my home state of Alabama (Birmingham). I joined LT a few years ago, I think in 2019, but have been part of this group for only a few months. I haven’t set up my own thread, but have really enjoyed book talk on the general thread. I plan to be more consistent this year at following other members’ individual threads and maybe I’ll start one of my own.

I’ve always been a reader; being retired brings with it the delicious freedom to select my own reading. And being a part of LT has really broadened the scope of my reading. I enjoy literary fiction, current and classic; science fiction; thrillers; and non-fiction that deals with history, nature and ecology, science (often only partially comprehended); memoirs and essays.

Other than hoping to continue my too long delayed experience of Russian fiction, a body of material I had totally ignored until 2022, my reading plans are fuzzy; much will be determined by the other groups I’ve joined, Monthly Author reads and Reading thru Time. One reading goal I do have is to reread. A few of my reads from 2022 really call out for rereading, Crime and Punishment, The March by E. L. Doctorow, Emma Donoghue’s latest, Haven, Birds Without Wings by Louis De Bernieres, for example; I’d really like to give them and a few others a second reading.

Hello! I'm Ursula, an artist married to a mathematician. It seems my first year in Club Read was 2013, but I have skipped a few years here and there (at least a couple of years I skipped LT entirely). I read a lot of threads, but I'm not great at commenting. For my own thread, I tend to just post a few thoughts or feelings about a book, rather than anything that could be called a review, but I welcome questions/discussions/other opinions.

I'm an American (and so is my husband), but we currently live in Istanbul and have for the past 2.5 years. In a few months we'll be moving to Germany, the latest in a line of moves going back 10 years.

For reading, I tend toward the serious/dark I guess. It's not anything I think about consciously but here I am anyway. I try to read about 1/4 nonfiction, but it doesn't always happen.

Hi! I’m Mark, from The Hague in the Netherlands. I’m a retired international civil servant, originally from the north of England (where I’m currently spending the holiday period with my elderly parents).
I’ve been on LT since the early days, but only joined CR a few years ago: I’ve enjoyed keeping a thread here since then. I’m also active on Reading Globally, where I’m currently the group admin (following on from several prominent CR members).
Having grown up with one foot in British culture and the other in German, and spent my working life in an international, multilingual environment, I like to read in multiple languages (mostly English, French, German, Dutch and Spanish). I range fairly widely in what kind of books I read, with a focus on literary fiction, but all kinds of other stuff cropping up as the fancy takes me.
Many people would say I read too much and too fast (in part that’s a problem caused by the kind of work I used to do). But a major project for 2023 is to attempt to transform a long-distance relationship that started during covid lockdown into something more domestic, so don’t be surprised if there are unusually long gaps in my posts from time to time.

>21 dianelouise100: what did you think of Birds without Wings? I remember you were going to read it but hadnt seen a review. (and just saw that you read Man on a Donkey and so glad you loved it as much as I did. After reading Wolf Hall, it was very interesting to see the other side, and what was happening in the rebellion that Mantel covers rather quickly. Have read it twice, might have to again

>24 cindydavid4: I found Birds totally absorbing. I quickly became invested in the characters and read it faster than I should have. Maybe after a second reading I can actually write a review. I tend to neglect writing reviews, details don’t last in my memory as well as they used to!

I can see that I need to read Wolf Hall, and you’ve reminded me that Man on a Donkey is another title for the reread category. I still consider it the best historical fiction I’ve ever read.

>20 AnnieMod:

I see, й corresponds to j. Darn Anglos, they are why we can't have nice things, like the Slavic j. :)

>23 thorold:

Congrats on the "project", Mark! How long a distance are we talking? As a two-time long-distance relationer (one of 12 years), I've come to appreciate the opposite.

And now the intro... On LT I've been LolaWalser for 15 years and counting, so "Lola" is entrenched by now. My background is in biochem, my work mostly in applied biophysics and cell biology. I became a passionate reader at an early age, liking comics, adventure and travel, science and sf most of all. As I pursued a scientific education my interest in sf waned and practically ended; but lately I've been revisiting it.

I read more non-fiction than fiction. I've been obsessed with the dismal 20th century for a long time now and chances are I'm always reading something from or about it. I'm atheist, Communist and not-straight (depending on criteria, lesbian or bi/pan/omni-sexual).

I love cinema, especially silent, fantastic (in Borgesian or sf sense), gangster and film noir, classic horror and sf, Asian sword cinema. For the last two years I've been going through the available catalogue of East German films on Kanopy and occasionally posting on them too.

I think I’m a Club Read fixture by now. I joined the 1st year, shortly after Lois (avaland) opened it up to the general LT public in 2009. I enjoy the laid back atmosphere of quietly very passionate readers. I’m not sure there is anything else like this. And I’m happy to see some new names here. Welcome.

My reading has evolved from a non-reader child, to a nonfiction reading post-college life, into a literary fiction reading midlife. And i’ve found a loose structure that sort of works. So, for a handful of years i’ve made plans, tried to make them fun, and actually followed them to a degree. Hopefully i’ll do the same this year. My main 2023 themes are Chaucer and Richard Wright. Both are mainly new to me, although I’m pretty sure Wright got assigned in high school…and somehow Chaucer didn’t (?). I’m active on Litsy, another sight, and through that I will be reading Edith Wharton and some random “nature” books.

In RL i’m Dan. I grew up in South Florida in the 80’s, college in New Orleans and Lawrence, KS, live in Houston, work in the not-very-job-secure oil industry (i interpret salt on seismic data), and I have two kids, the older of which has her college applications sent out.

>8 KeithChaffee: & >21 dianelouise100: welcome. Glad you’re planning to have threads

>7 WelshBookworm: so happy for you that you have a new and better place to live.

>26 LolaWalser: Yes - the Bulgarian/Russian Й/й is the Serbian/Macedonian Cyrillic J/j Unless it is after a consonant (in Bulgarian only) - then it is spelled with ь (not to be mistaken with ъ). :) But as the new influences came from English, J would have been read the wrong way and Y is closer so the official transliteration went there. :) I am so used to it being that way that Ioana makes me think of Greece and Joana sends me into Italy (and I definitely read that with a sound at the start of joy).

>29 AnnieMod:

My given name contains a j too which I have to transliterate with a y or it gets butchered. But the worst case was of a Julija I knew... people actually thought "Dzhulidzha" might be a likely pronunciation!

Germans, Italians, even the French don't tend to make this mistake. It's like they hear the so-called "soft" j as the more likely sound (correctly!)

>27 dchaikin: "quietly very passionate readers" - ooh, I like that.

>30 LolaWalser: Ouch. The second j would have told me how to pronounce that one (or I would have gone for Dzh at the start by sheer habit).

Germans have other issues with our names - because of their pronunciation of V, most Slavic names ending in ev/ov or eva/ova (which is probably 90% of family names in Bulgaria for example) need a w instead of v in there or they get mangled. As much as transliteration is a representation of the word between writing systems, it is also language-specific for letters which can be read differently across languages. One of the reason I never try to read a name if I can ask how to pronounce it first (or if I have to, I do my best, apologize and ask how they pronounce it in one breath). :)

And we had not even started the year and the thread got some “character”. :)

>26 LolaWalser: How long a distance are we talking? about 6300km. Not far short of a Journey to the centre of the earth, I just realised. Not ideal.

>30 LolaWalser: One of the small amusements of life in an international organisation was watching the astonishing variety of ways we all found to get each other’s names wrong. In the end you almost cease to pay attention to it, though.

>25 dianelouise100: I read lots of HF, and the best ones on the list are totally amazing. For a long time had court of the lion on top, till I read man on a donkey Just incredible. When you read Wolf Hall youll see their side of the story in "the pilgramidge of grace"

so glad you liked BWW. Took me three times for it to click with me, so gladI did. One of my fav scenes was the seduction with garlic and turtle with candles on their backs. But it was so sad, I broke into tears a few times esp at the end. Was curious about the history of the forced emigration of greeks living in turkey to greek (and visa versa) Read a book about it twice a stranger Still shatters me.

btw no need for a review. I am very bad about writing them, Im not good at it, and often end up pinching another review that explains my opinion exactly (always crediting the reviewer)

>32 AnnieMod:

Yea, if it's not one thing, it's another.

>33 thorold:

Ouf, that's a trek all right! Here's hoping you find a better solution soon.

Hi, I'm Kay and late to the party as usual. I joined CR in late 2009 and have enjoyed how you all have stretched and challenged me ever since. This past year saw a lot of change, in which I moved a household from Greenville, SC to Bloomington, IL at the beginning of the year and then packed up my father's house and moved him up here, too. The reason was good -- a chance for my husband to take a job that excited him, and we were able to move into Adlai Stevenson's childhood home, a gorgeous old house built in 1900. But this did affect my reading and so this year my reading theme is taken from an offhand comment from Jerry (rocketjk) and will be entirely composed of what I feel like in the moment.

Looking forward to a fresh reading year and to keeping up with everyone's reading here.

Hello, I'm Dilara and I live in western France. This is my sixth year in Club Read. I like literary fiction, poetry, SF and fantasy (although I read a lot less of it than I used to). I like to read authors from around the world - in translation, unless they write in French or English. On the non-fiction side, I'm most interested in linguistics, sociology, history and politics. I also love a cookbook. I've been participating in the Food and Lit challenge - read a book from a selected country, cook a dish from that country - over on Litsy.

Hi, I'm Kat (or Katie). I'm in northern UK. I joined CR when it went public, prior to that I had two 50 book challenge threads. I still think 50 books is an utterly reasonable total to aim for, but have never got close to it yet. I don't understand, and yet I do, even when things are relatively quiet.

My reading does tend to be serious I guess, literature, non fiction, poetry, philosophy -- but all of that may bring light. I'm reviewing my reading on all those threads of mine these days, if I get to 50 or so books this next year that will be five hundred books since my threads started, which may be a few years to some, but here to me a lot longer. So, what that review tells me is a theme at the moment. In recent years I've been trying to figure out what I most want to read and that is a factor - I value spontaneity and following my feelings but part of me also wants to make progress on gaps and things I'd really like to have read yet have not/am not. And curiously maybe things I have not read which may in fact make me happy to read.

I don't like to claim my posts are reviews, I see them as appreciation and most importantly I like to write how the books have made me feel, the thing in them that I pick up on from them. I write myself (on a very small scale) but see this as personal tracking of my reading, not trying to make huge claims of itself.

Usually by this time in December I've thought of my title for this year's thread, but somehow I've got here without one, so we'll see what emerges in the next few days.

My name is Julie, and I've been in Club Read since partway through 2019. I'm in my early thirties, and I live in the Greater Boston/Metro South area of Massachusetts. Along with reading, I also enjoy hiking, and have recently gotten into birding.

I also write - mostly fiction, but sometimes also poetry, mostly in April for Spring NaNo/National Poetry Month. There was a time when I wanted to be a professional author, and I even did most of an undergrad program dedicated to that goal. These days I work in Freight Payment for a retail company and write for fun as a hobby - though I haven't completely given up the dream of having something published, some day. One of my special reading interests is writing craft books, and I have a small collection of them in my personal library.

I also collect Jewish books, as well as books on Autism and ADHD.

The main genres I read are murder mystery, fantasy (mostly urban/contemporary, but sometimes secondary world, as well), and, more recently, gothic, some specific types of horror and supernatural, and Weird Fiction. I also occasionally dip my toes into literary, contemporary, historical fiction, science fiction, and other genres.

I also read nonfiction, both narrative and non-narrative. In 2022, I started reading short story collections, which had never been a big part of my reading life before, and I definitely intend to continue that into 2023. I'm also planning to start reading essay collections in the coming year.

I always make my own thread, and read a lot of threads. I try to comment and participate, though that's more of a struggle sometimes. I also sometimes get distracted and forget to check librarything for a while, but I always come back eventually.

I look forward to discussing books with you all in the new year!

My name is Karen (karspeak), and this will be my 5th year in CR, and 11th on LT, I think. I am a public school speech pathologist in the Florida Panhandle. I'm married with two sons, ages 13 and 16, the youngest of whom plays soccer three seasons a year. I read a lot of genre fiction, particularly fantasy, sci-fi, and mystery, plus some general/literary fiction, and nonfiction, usually science-based. Dark/heavy/depressing realistic fiction is my least favorite. I follow a lot of threads on CR but rarely comment. CR provides me with most of my reading list suggestions, for which I am grateful!

My thread is linked here.

Happy New Year!

We are Lois (avaland; retired bookseller among other history) and Michael (dukedom_enough; former scientist...applied mechanics) and we live in southern New Hampshire.

I read a variety of fiction genres, he reads mostly science fiction. We both read nonfiction and poetry. I like psychology, social issues, women's studies, literature and some histories; he likes essays on science, politics, literature and authors.

We live in a modest house with lots of books, fabric & gardens in a wooded neighborhood where the occasionally bear comes through.

We are also "Nana and Pop-pop" for three adorable grandchildren.

Oh yeah, we have been in Club Read since I created the group in 2009....(we wanted a book group that did NOT focus on quantity)

Happy 2023!
I am Beth, a recently retired English instructor. I read eclectically, mostly fiction, with essays and memoir and poetry also in the mix. I have certainly expanded my reading horizons here.

I generally don't plan my reading, but right now I am enjoying a collection of essays by Margaret Atwood and since I have many of her early books on my shelves, I might do a year of Atwood in 2023. Otherwise, I have some shared reads with other LT members and belong to a real-life book club. I would like to read more from my shelves this year, but those shiny new library books are SO tempting.

I do follow all the threads although I don't always respond.

Happy New Year, everyone! For those who don't know me I'm Darryl, and I worked as a pediatric hospitalist caring for inpatients in a major children's hospital in Atlanta, Georgia until November 2021, when I had to abruptly resign and move back into my parents' house in suburban Philadelphia after the illness that claimed my father's life, in order to assume primary caregiving responsibilities for my 87 year old mother, who has moderate Alzheimer's disease. This will be my 15th year as a member of Club Read, and my favorite genres are literary and historical fiction, especially literature from the African diaspora, European literature and literature in translation, including major literary awards in the United States and abroad; books about science, medicine and public health; biographies and memoirs; and the history of countries and cultures.

These are some of my favorite novelists, past and present:
James Baldwin
Javier Cercas
Edwidge Danticat
Karl Ove Knausgaard
Hilary Mantel
Carson McCullers
Toni Morrison
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Amos Oz
Mario Vargas Llosa
Jesmyn Ward

I'm particularly fond of physician writers, most notably Paul Farmer, Atul Gawande, Kathryn Mannix, Siddharta Mukherjee, Danielle Ofri, Lewis Thomas, and Abraham Verghese.

Although I normally read a sizable amount of literature from the African diaspora, I will do so even more in 2023, as I'll participate in PaulCranswick's African Literature Challenge in the 75 Books group, along with monthly reads in the Literature by People of Color and the Great African Reads groups in Goodreads. Hopefully these group reads will encourage me to write more timely book reviews!

I'm also the administrator of the Booker Prize group in LibraryThing.

Hello, everyone! I'm Anki, and I live in southern New Hampshire. I joined LibraryThing back in 2006, and I've been a part of Club Read (some years lurking almost exclusively) since 2016. Last year I did pretty well at keeping my thread updated until April, then things got very sporadic. I'm hoping to do better this year.

I enjoy reading a wide variety of things, though I do tend to gravitate toward genre fiction (primarily fantasy, romance, science fiction, and mystery) and manga/graphic novels. In terms of format, about half my reading consists of physical books, and the other half is some split of ebooks and audiobooks.

While the vast majority of my reading falls into the "at whim" category, over the past several years I've been developing an appreciation for group/buddy reads and some reading challenges, as they help me read things I might otherwise put off until "later" (or that I might give up on for one reason or another). I belong to one in-person book group and several different online groups. For 2023 (and 2024!), I've joined a group that will be reading the short stories in Frank Wynne's Found in Translation at a rate of one story a week, and I'm really excited about it. The short story format is not one I naturally gravitate towards, but I usually enjoy short stories when I read them. This promises to introduce me to a lot of different stories.

When I'm not reading, I enjoy cooking; a whole host of fiber arts; board, card, and video games; and playing music. I am the pianist for the children's group at my church, and I am also the organist (self taught) for our weekly Sunday meetings. This year I'm wanting to get better at using the foot pedals, and also at hymn registration so I'm not just using the same preset stops.

lmbix (Leslie) Hello all! Thank you for allowing me to join the company of those who read and love all things Books! I live in western NY state near Buffalo (home of the recent big storm some may have heard about). I was a theatre/english major and retained my love of literature.
Worked in bookselling for about a decade in children's books.
Now, enjoy classic and modern literary fiction and some non-fiction, especially environmental, nature-related, medicine.
Currently reading Ali Smith: Autumn First time with this author
Also: Wilkerson: The Warmth of Other Suns

Hello, my name is Jörgen, and live in Halmstad on the Swedish Westcoast. I've recently joined LT after spending quite som years at Goodreads, but lately I have had a sence of feeling of that something is missing. Something I hope to find here on LT. For the moment I am spending much of my time here on LT adding books to my library.

I read a lot, or should I say, I have comeback to reading the last five years or so. Before that I have struggled with my reading some years, even though I consider myself a reading person. Now I feel I'm back on track again, and it feels mighty good.

I've been writing down what have read since 1982 and I still write down what have read. Nothing fancy. Just the title and the author, the pages and the year I read it.

What do I read then? I enjoy reading both fiction and non-fiction, poetry, drama, graphic novels, books about art, cultural studies, history and society, nature, photography, literature. I read mainly in Swedish, but also in English, Danish and Norwegian.

I've just finished the last book for 2022. It was - Byliv by Louise Glück.
I've have sorted out the books to start off my reading for 2023 and are eager to start off a new reading year. On the 1st of January I'm ready to go.

When not reading. I listen a great deal to music. Spend time outdoors in nature photographing.

>45 lmbix: >46 JorgenHolst: welcome!

Leslie - I love both books you’re currently reading.

Jörgen - I tried GoodReads with mixed success. I haven’t found a comfortable spot there. I’m not active at the moment.

Welcome, Leslie! I shared my thoughts on Ali Smith over on the What are you Reading thread earlier today.

Jörgen, you are just the person I have been hoping to meet! LOL. I am curating the Baltic Sea theme read in the Reading Globally group, and the list I put together for Sweden was a shot in the dark. Would you mind taking a look and giving me some recommendations of great Swedish authors (available in English translation) that I have missed? I would appreciate the pointers. And hopefully my enthusiastic welcome won't drive you away!

Welcome, Leslie and Jörgen!

Hi, I'm Rhian from Perth Australia. I've been on LT since 2007 but only joined Club Read in 2019. My "primary" genres are speculative/science fiction, urban fantasy, crime, and historical fiction, though my reading has certainly expanded over the last few years, especially since joining CR.

I went back to university full-time in 2022 (I'm halfway through a Masters in Predictive Analytics) which had an impact on both my reading and my participation here. I'm not going to set any reading goals for 2023 but rather aim to be more active in CR.

>47 dchaikin: Thanks dchaikin.
I will inactive there with the beginning of 2023.

>48 labfs39: Thanks Lisa

That's flattering. And no I'm not driven away with your enthusiasm. Maybe I can help you with some author recommendations. I started a reading project back in the mid 90s. A project that stated that I should read the full authorship of some writers I find a special interest in. The project deteroriated after som years. But around two years ago I revived it and also added some other authors to my original list. Perhaps some of these author could be of some interest. I must of course check wether they have been translated or not. The task my take a little time, but I will try to get back soon and place an answer in the Baltic Sea theme read.

Until then, Happy New Year from Sweden.

>49 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl.

Hi, I'm Monica, a 50-something historian working full time as an information manager (aka archivist). I live in Belgium (Flanders).
I've been a member of LT since 2010, but initially under a different name (JustJoey4 and monicagovers). This will be my third year in Club Read.

My reading preferences are international literature from all over the world, modern literature and classics. In stressful times, I reach for detectives and thrillers. Although I will not officially venture into challenges, etc., I do intend to focus on African literature, Nobel Prize winners, historical fiction and non-fiction.
Looking forward to a brand new reading year!

My name is Barry. I am a retired Human Resource Manager and spent all of my working career in Local Government. Of course I am a socialist, but many of my friends think I am further to the left than that.

My working life was spent in the UK, working in London and then in Derbyshire. The week after I retired I moved to France, that was back in 2005. I became naturalised french in 2019, my wife Lynn became naturalised a year earlier. We live in a small commune in the Gers - South West France and are both involved with the local community - it seems that my administrative local government background makes me of some use in a community. We have no children from this marriage or previous marriages (yes we have both been round the block a bit) and so we do value friends as a support network.

Apart from reading my interests are music - I play the saxophone, gardening, walking, wine and travelling (restricted now to train journeys). We are both very conscious of the damage to the climate and do what we can to reduce our carbon footprint - flying is a definite no no.

I have been a member of Club read since 2011. I write reviews of all the books I read, because trying to remember what I read last week is difficult enough. My interests are literary novels, science fiction and 16th century literature. I found it impossible to keep up with everybody's threads last year, I will try again this year.

My name is Barbara and I live with my husband, who will take early retirement this summer, in Zürich, Switzerland. I have two daughters and a grandson who will be one year old on January 4th.
I work as a primary school teacher and last summer started a new first grade, which I will be teaching for the next two and a half years. After that I will retire.
In terms of health, the past year has not meant so well. In the first quarter I fell ill with Covid despite all the vaccinations and boosters. I struggled for a long time to regain my full strength. In mid-November I had my first flare-up. I could barely walk and was pumped full of medication so I could still work. Now I've changed my diet and am currently doing without meat, fish, etc. That's not difficult for me because I love vegetables, but unfortunately there are also many vegetables that are on the red list and spoil my food a bit. The positive effect is that I have already lost a few kilos :-).
I've read 80 books in the past year, but have posted almost nothing and written no reviews. I hope to do this better in 2023, for sure this is my New Year's resolution.
I wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Hi, I'm Florence, I live in the Paris region in France and I'll be 60 this year 0_0

I haven't been very active at CR lately, but I still read the threads from time to time. In 2023 I will probably continue my reading trend of 2022, i.e. comfort reading almost exclusively (in my case, fantasy romance).

I thought it might be fun to sum up the first official day of Club Read 2023. So far (as of 8:30 EST), 60 people have signed up as members, and 43 have either formally introduced themselves or started a thread. After the US, we have the most members from Canada (4), France (3), and the Netherlands (3). The remaining members are from as disparate places as Turkey, New Zealand, and Sweden. I love the international nature of our group.

I also love the friendliness. We are chatty at the beginning of the year and are up to 606 messages!

Happy New Year, everyone!

transitional question -if I have individual threads starred for 2022, do I need to unstar them and then star the new ones, or will the new ones for 2023 just carry over and still be starred?

Hello, all! My name is Betty, and I've been a member of Club Read since 2009, although I find the thought that that much time has passed since then genuinely hard to credit.

I live in New Mexico, where I operate radio telescopes for a living, a job that sounds much more impressive than it actually is, but which does sometimes leave me extra reading time, when the darned things are actually behaving themselves.

My reading is what I like to describe as an "eclectic mishmash." Lots of non-fiction, lots of stuff that falls under the broad category of speculative fiction, but plenty of other things, too. Great works of literature, novels based on TV shows, whatever, it's all good by me.

I often tend to be bad at keeping up with threads here, and am sometimes more hesitant to comment on other people's threads than I should be, but I do check my own thread often, and I always welcome comments and conversation there, so do feel free to stop by and say hello if you are so inclined.

>59 cindydavid4: You can leave the old ones as starred but you need to star the new ones on their own - the stars carry over if the new thread is an official continuation of the old (with the special link) but the ones in the new Club group are not continuations and are essentially new threads.

ok thx

>58 labfs39: nice post. Glad we’re off and running.

My name is Edwin and I have been a member of Club Read since 2011.

I lived in China for 22 year, and moved back to the Netherlands last August. In China, I mainly worked as a teacher and textbook author. Currently, I am looking for a job in the Netherlands.

I read books in English, Dutch, German, French and Spanish, through most in the first three languages. I read a lot, and like hiking, visiting a museum, and writing letters. I am not so happy to spend a lot of time on line, emailing or chatting.

I am mainly interested in classics, novels and poetry, from 1800 - 1960 and I like reading biographies, letters and books about natural history.

Welcome edwin! You'll have lots of reading doubles here for sure. Sorry you are having to spend time on line, I know how that takes away from other things we want to do and oh yeah, obligations. Hope you don't make yourself a stranger around here!

Hi y'all, I'm Kevin living in Indiana working as an environmental geologist. I think I've been a CR member since 2010 with a hiatus in there for or a year or two.

My reading is mostly centered around Japanese authors and the darker side of things, although I don't tend to post much about the deep genre horror books I read at least not here in Club Read. I also read random non-fiction. Trying desperately to stick to just reading a couple of books at a time this year.

Hahahahaha! um excuse me, as I glance at my stack of oh, 6 or so.....just realized youve been here a while. Pop in when you can even if its just lurking

Happy New Year! I’m Rachel, originally from the north of England but living in Belgium for over 20 years now. I’ve been in Club Read since it went public, sometimes more active than others, and I keep on coming back for the camaraderie (and the book bullets, obviously). I don’t plan my reading, I just go where I fancy. In theory I read in 5 different languages though I reality I read mainly in English. In theory I would love to read more non-fiction, but in reality I read only fiction. In theory I read off my TBR shelves, but in reality… (I think we all know how this sentence ends…)

Hello friends! I mostly go by Liz in the real world and whatever variations are available in the book media world (Liz_M on Litsy, Liz M on goodreads).

I live in a tiny studio apartment in Brooklyn and get most of my reading done on the subway to my job at a performing arts organization in Manhattan. I love book lists and checking titles off of them. I've been working on the 1001-Books-to-Read-Before-You-Die list for a very long time and the end is in sight! If only I can prevent Litsy with it's shiny-new-book focus from distracting me with books listed for the Booker International prize and titles from the Tournament of Books. I also counterbalance the Western focus of the 1001-list with a couple of Litsy reading challenges: this year's #ReadingtheAmericas and #FoodandLit challenges.

I've finally gotten my thread more or less set up over here and now have to wade through all 58 of your topics, containing 800+ (!!!) messages.

Hello, I'm Joyce from Vancouver, BC, Canada. During the day I investigate fraud for an insurance company, which is pretty interesting. I live with my husband, and sometimes our 22 year old daughter. But she's off later this month for her semester abroad at the Canterbury Christchurch University. Our older daughter is currently home for a month for Christmas, but will be going back to her life in Luzern, Switzerland in a week.

Otherwise, my main interest is getting my new house decorated, and in a month or so I'll start working in my new garden. I also have a huge photo project starting this month. I was learning Italian, but that got put on the back burner when we bought our new house. I would like to get back to it, if possible.

All this means I probably won't have much time for reading in 2023, but I will try my best. I gravitate to books written by British authors (lately more current fiction than older books and classics, but I love those too), and I naturally read more books written by women than men. I also read quite a bit of CanLit. I'm trying to focus on books in translation, but I'm focusing on current or popular books from the country of origin, and not so much on highbrow literature in translation.

ETA: I've been on ClubRead since the beginning. What year was that? 2009?

Greetings to all in 2023. I’m Lisa, a member of LT since 2012 and CR since 2018. I became the executive editor of Library Journal fairly recently, after eight years as the news editor writing about libraries—it’s a cool beat. I also help run a website, Bloom, which features (mostly) writers who published their first major work, or switched genres in a big way, after age 40 (always looking for new writers to feature, as well as folks who want to write for the site (we can’t pay, unfortunately… I’m hoping to work on that).

I’m a visual artist, cook/baker, gardener, pen-and-paper letter writer. I live in a big drafty house in the upper tip of NYC in the northwest Bronx. Married, one grown son who just got married and started his general surgery residency upstate in Syracuse, NY. I’m a dog person who's currently dogless, also a cat person with five good cats. I collect fountain pens, swear a lot, meditate daily, and generally like my life, although parts of it are really challenging these days.

I read eclectically: a lot of literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, biographies, sf, graphic novels/nonfiction, historical fiction, literary criticism/essays, poetry. Also periodicals, most of which I'm behind on: New Yorker, New York Review of Books, Paris Review, One Story. I don't do reading goals/plans but I am a member a great virtual book club, and every once in a while will do a group read here. Mostly, though, if I'm not reading for work, I let curiosity guide my reading choices. I don’t really keep track of what I read other than listing books here and writing brief reviews—anything else feels too much like work.

My 2023 thread is here.

Hi, my name is Mirjam and this is my second year in Club Read. I have been a member of LT since 2012, but only started being more active in the groups two years ago.

I am in my mid-thirties and live in the north of Germany, close to the North Sea, teaching German and English at college.

My reading includes classics, historical fiction, crime novels/mysteries, some contemporary fiction and fantasy. I do read "serious literature", but not as much as most members of Club Read. Some nonfiction, too.

There are a few plans for this year that I hope to realize: To read more classics and more by J.R.R. Tolkien, my favourite author whom I have neglected for several years. I would also like to read more fantasy and historical fiction, and to read more diverse works as well.
Like many LT members, I also plan to read mostly from my shelves, although it means that I will not read as diverse as I would like at this point of my reading journey.

I am looking forward to another year in Club Read because it broadens my horizons, I learn so much from all of you and am inspired to read more and in more fulfilling ways - and I love this community of readers!

Hello there and a happy new year to all of you!
This is my tenth year on CR, woohooo! Thanks for having me!

I'm a teacher of English and mathematics at a German high school near Cologne. I tend to read more fiction than non-fiction, but I generally enjoy both and the non-fiction part seems to be increasing lately. My reading is all over the board and I'm interested in a wide range of topics. You'll probably find me reading classics as well as popular fiction. In 2002, my posting on librarything and in Club Read dropped significantly about halfway through the year and I'm not sure it'll be better this year as work only seems to mount up rather than calm down again. But hey, I'm here to relax, to find new books that I'd like to read and to share my thoughts about the books I read.

Well I guess it's time to introduce myself; something I'm never good at.

I'm SassyLassy, currently living on the beautiful South Shore of Nova Scotia.

I've been on LT since 2011. After a year of lurking in Club Read, I joined it in 2012, and found all kinds of new to me authors and books, and lots of amazing readers.

Despite the somewhat girly title of my current thread, I usually read what some would consider darker books, many of them in translation, as well as nineteenth century authors from just about anywhere. I'm also trying to get back to reading more nonfiction, something that at one time was about 80% of my reading. This past year it was 22%.

One of the things I'll be doing in Club Read this year is ask the 'Questions for the Avid Reader'.
If you have a question to suggest, please send me a message. I'll also be asking quarterly for your thoughts on the past three months of reading.

Other groups in LT for me are Reading Globally, Needlearts, Nobel Laureates in Literature, Short Stories, periodically Virago Modern Classics, and the usually defunct Read Mo Yan. Although there are many other tempting ones, it's difficult enough to keep up with these! After all, I'm still posting about my 2022 reading.

Hi, I’m Colleen. I moved to the South Shore of Massachusetts from New Jersey at the end of June 2020. I’ve been a Club Read member since 2013.

I’ve been retired for about ten years, and enjoy spending time with my seven grandchildren. Two of the youngest live just ten minutes away, and I pick up my grandson from school every afternoon. Since I moved here, I’ve joined a bowling league. It is candlepin bowling, which is completely different from the ten pin bowling I was used to, but I’m enjoying the challenge. I’ve also started playing mahjong. I’ve always enjoyed playing cards, and this is similar only using tiles instead of cards.

My go to reading for comfort is mysteries. I’ve needed a lot of that in the last few years. I have many series that I enjoy, and like several of you, I have to read them in order. I do like historical fiction, some non-fiction and biographies. I am definitely not a fan of horror and most sci-fi.

I managed to track my reading on my thread last year, but fell short when it came to reading everyone’s threads. I may not always comment on threads, but I do plan on reading all the threads in this group. I’m looking forward to a fulfilling year of reading.

(duplicate removed)

Hi, I'm Ardene. Library Thing tells me I joined in 2005, but I know I wasn't active the first few years I was a member. I use LT to track things I read, and things I want to read, rather than as a list of things I own.

I live near Atlanta, Georgia (USA) and work in a public library. I am starting to think about retirement, which will probably mean moving north to be closer to family. (I am not looking forward to winter.)

I read genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy, mystery), literary fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, biographies . . . This year I hope to read at least 4 books for Paul's Africa Challenge and may be participating the natural litsy challenge (environment, climate change, ecology, and fiction in these areas.) Other than that, I'm wide open.

My 2023 thread is here.

Hey, I'm slimeboy. I recently joined LT after some passive lurking. Last year I made some major tracks in my reading volume, which I was pleased with. This year I have a few more specific goals/interests that I'm looking to explore. Major goals:
- Finishing the Bible (I've done a lot of stopping and starting with it, probably owing to my overburdening myself with supplemental reading and overly restrictive timelines -- gotta let it flow to get the groundwork before I delve heavily into the proper litcrit side of things, etc.. This is a major gap in my literary knowledge that I'm genuinely interested in and eager to address.)
- Exploring more poetry (I'm trying to do a wide survey of English-language poetry and am starting with more contemporary stuff. Last year I got thoroughly overtaken by Actual Air, which encouraged me to take a realer look at poetry. I've really enjoyed bouncing around between different styles and voices -- I'm excited to join this community and start trolling for recommendations.)
- Reading more rigorous books on music (My "junk reading" of choice is "rock books," which feels completely infantile to write, but it is what it is. I'm trying to raise the caliber of my trash reading. I started Japanoise at the end of last year, which feels like it's landing squarely in my developmental zone.)

>78 slimeboy: welcome to CR. A couple of us in this group started a non-religious literary read of the Bible years ago. (Some in the group read were religious but the discussions were not.) I stumbled through the whole thing and the apocrypha. Entertaining experience overall. Wish you well.

>79 dchaikin: Thanks for the welcome! Any hot takeaways?

>80 slimeboy: Robert Alter was my main and best guide. His translations are really nice (but he doesn’t translate poetry well. So avoid his psalms). His notes are wonderful and his writing about the Bible is excellent. The Art of Biblical Narrative is a a great book and changes your perspective.

For the text I used mainly an NRSV study Bible with nonreligious notes.

Others books i really enjoyed:
Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible by Karel van der Toorn - on how the separate pieces were added over time
Stories from Ancient Canaan
Zealot by Reza Aslan.
Bart Ehrman has good books on the New Testament texts
The Rise and Fall of the Bible by Timothy Beal
The Bible Unearthed is on archeology, but I found it helpful.

See more here: https://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=&tag=%40bible%20theme&view...

>78 slimeboy: Welcome to LibraryThing and Club Read, slimeboy. I think you'll find some like minds amongst our members. Happy Reading!

>81 dchaikin: Whoa, thank you! Great collection -- I'll definitely be looking through these. I did some delving into the Alter-edited Literary Guide to the Bible, but I'm yet to spend significant time with the man himself.

>83 slimeboy: That’s a monster guide. i did read that whole thing. Unfortunately I found it largely unhelpful or I often I just couldn’t get their points (with exceptions on both counts).

Welcome slimeboy. This year Diane is currating a poetry thread for us here.

Slightly late in the game, but I’ve finally set up my thread (here) and slowly making my way reading fellow readers’ threads, so it’s ample time to introduce myself.

I am raton-liseur, the reading raccoon, wandering cousin of the “rat de bibliothèque”, which is the French equivalent of a bookworm... Today, I am not physically wandering anymore, so books are my mean to keep on wandering.
I have been musing on LT since 2010. After a decline in reading due to real-life demands, I started reading steadily again in 2018, after I moved back to France and settled down in Brittany. With a whole new access to books and some available time to read, I wanted to make the most of it and find some people with whom I would share some book interests. The francophone group in LT having become dormant a long time ago, I looked for a new space for sharing reviews and ideas. Club Read has been so welcoming, even if I keep on posting my reviews in French, that I started hanging around in 2019 and managed to maintain a thread till then.

I mainly read books from other countries, classics and contemporary. I read more and more graphic stories, some non fiction books here and there and a fair amount of children and teen books. I read a little of speculative fiction (but the one book I read last year made it in my “memorable reads” list, it is Axiomatic by Greg Egan), a little of plays, and even less crime novels, romance and poetry (but I might plan to read a bit of Walt Whitman with the Victorian tavern customers this quarter).

My goals for this year are not very original: to reduce the number of owned unread books; to take time to read each book, not bothering about my tally at the end of the month or year; to read global, gender diverse, old and new.

I also plan to participate in the African novel challenge (probably not every month though) and in various group reads.
And I have some personal multi-year challenges I’d like to make progress on (including reading the Rougon-Macquart series by Zola, reading all Luis Sepúlveda, and following two fairly obscure book prizes…).

So 2023 promise to be a busy reading year.
I hope it will also be an interesting and satisfying reading year, for all of us!

Pffuu... I managed to read all introductions. Some of them made me smile, I learnt more about some known figures around here, welcome to the new ones!
It's great to see this small communitee of fellow readers, I am so glad I found you guys, as I've learnt so much, discovered so much, and all this makes my reading experience richer and warmer.
Happy 2023 reading year to all of us!

>87 raton-liseur: that was sweet. Happy reading raton.

Hello, hello. I FINALLY got my 2023 thread started, although the main page is still a bit under construction. I'm Deborah, a retired English professor, living in Pennsylvania with my two cats. I read mostly literary fiction and historical fiction (not romance), but I've been reading more memoirs and biographies lately. I also delve occasionally into poetry, drama, history or classics. I also belong to the 75 Books Challenge, but I don't really keep up with the numbers. I thought I would be reading more when I retired, but actually the opposite is true. I just stay in that group (of which I was the founder) because I have made some good friends there. My time is too precious to push for a numerical goal or to force myself to read books for specific challenges that I wouldn't enjoy, and I've finally given up my obsession with having to finish any book I start.

I joined Club Read when it first began and have been a member of LT since 2007.

Happy New Year! I've been lurking on Club Read for two years and I think I'm ready to commit to a thread. I'm an academic librarian in Los Angeles, CA and I've been on LT since 2007, but mostly as way to keep my books organized across moves (both from east coast to west coast and from one room of the house to the next). My wife and I have two lovely kids and a 13-year-old pug named Beatrice. If I'm not reading, I'm working in my garden (which is primed and ready for planting!)

This year, I don't have a specific target or theme for my reading, but I plan to go in a general pattern:
1) Popular read (alternating fiction and non-fiction)
2) Something owned but unread
3) Poetry

We'll see how it goes!

Welcome, John! Always glad to see more librarians here, even if it is kind of coals to Newcastle.

Welcome John, glad to see lurkers jumping in to the fray!

>91 lisapeet: I had to look that one up! I definitely will add "coals to Newcastle" to my inventory.

>90 johnxlibris: Hi John, I'm a former academic librarian too (Indiana University and University of Washington). I used to love cataloging rare and unusual things, mostly Slavic. What sort of work do you do?

>94 labfs39: For the past few years, I've done outreach work (library events and external comms) and management, but I've also been a cataloger and a reference/instruction librarian. =)

Hello! I'm Danielle (yells). I live in SW Ontario with my husband Rob and our three cats Lucy, Marvin and Iris. I've been on LT since 2008 and have been posting/lurking on CR for the last 5 years or so. My goal this year is to read more of what I already own. Our shelves are overflowing with gems that I've been collecting (hoarding) since forever and I think it's time to discover some of them. So, I'll put that out into the bookverse and leave it up to you nice people to remind me of that from time to time. Happy new year to you all!

>96 Yells: We have an Iris cat too! She's a big fat weird orange tabby, very lovely but very odd.

>97 lisapeet: Very cool! Our Iris came named and we kept it because I’d never heard of another cat named Iris and liked the name. She is a fat black cat with anger issues. She loves my husband but hates everyone and everything else. Marvin is our oddball. He’s in love with Iris but she wants nothing to do with him.

what is it with orange tabbies? I have a beautiful long hair that is a scardy cat, wont let you pick her up, and hisses at the other two cats for no reason. She does sleep with me, purring contentedly, and will let you pet her on occasion..

Hi! I'm Karen (Karlou), I live in the UK with my husband and 1 and a half kids (the half is at Uni half of the time!) plus our dog. I just found LT yesterday so still finding my way around. I had set a challenge to read 24 books this year on GoodReads but as I'm already on my 5th book, think I'll revise that... Not sure I'm up to the 75 book challenge though, maybe if I did nothing else at all. Actually, that's not a bad idea ;)

I read a lot of classics last year, so this year I am aiming to read more modern. So far this year I have read Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield, The Binding by Bridget Collins, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce and Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. I am currently reading The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams. Is it sacrilege to say that I didnt really like Hamnet..? Everyone seems to love it.

I have a big pile TBR next to my bed (a few classics have snuck in, I can't help it!) which includes The Moments by Natalie Winter, The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng, Romola by George Eliot and Resurrection by Tolstoy. And I've just bought 4 more books from WOB...

>100 Karlou: Hello Karen! Welcome to Club Read. I didn’t love Hamnet either, though I’m usually a fan of O’Farrell’s work. From your bedside TBR pile I’ve read Life after Life and The Gift of Rain and thoroughly enjoyed them both. Are you setting up a thread of your own?

Welcome, Karen!

Welcome to Club Read, Karen. No pressure here to read a specific type or number of books—it's all good! I loved The Gift of Rain.

>100 Karlou: welcome to Lt and Club Read. I’m curious what you thought about those books.

The more the merrier! Welcome, Karen! Where in the UK are you?

>101 rachbxl: possibly - is that what is usually done?! I'm still finding out everything I can do on here!

>105 WelshBookworm: I'm in Essex but I'm originally from Cambridge :)

>104 dchaikin: I really enjoyed Once Upon a River, I thought the first part of The Binding was excellent but then it lost its way a little bit. I felt it was such an unusual premise and when it didn't go in the direction I thought it would I was disappointed so I think that's a reflection of my own expectations and not the quality of the writing! Pilgrimage was an easy enjoyable read, I thought the author caught how 2 people can drift apart to such an extent they are strangers and are unable to say anymore what they really feel extremely well.

Hamnet... What can I say?! I found it very slow, far too much unnecessary description and an annoying quirk, peculiarity, conceit of writing something using 3 synonyms... I also didn't think there was much story there, it could have been cut by two thirds and not lost anything important! It really put me off reading anything else by Maggie O'Farrell but I've read it's quite different to her other work so I'll probably try another of hers at some point.

In the classics I love Hardy, I went through a Russian phase a few years back and read all the usuals: War and Peace, Anna Karenina (LOVED), Doctor Zhivago (DID NOT LOVE!), The Master & Margherita to name a few and I also had a phase where I read a lot of Asian novels mainly because they kept turning up in a local charity shop so for 50p each I thought I'd give them a try, glad I did! And of course I've included Spain in my international reading with Carlos Ruiz Zafon and the cemetery of forgotten books series. In American literature, I'm quite the Steinbeck fan, I adored East Of Eden and I love LM Montgomery as well. I can read Anne or Emily over and over again!

This has turned into a bit of a novel... :D

>103 labfs39: that's good! My likes are quite eclectic and life annoyingly gets in the way if my reading at times!

>106 Karlou: Many of us do maintain our own threads, Karen. If you go to the Club Read group page, you will see a list of all the threads so far in Club Read this year. There are three types: group admin threads (Introductions, What are You Reading?, Messages), curated threads on a particular topic (Victorian Tavern, Poetry, Graphic Stories), and finally individual threads. You can see mine here. As you will see if you browse a few of these individual threads, we all set them up a little differently. Some of us like lists and begin with that, others with an introduction, still others jump right into discussing books. It's a place to log your reading, offer your thoughts (either informally or in a review of some sort), and let other people chime in with their thoughts of the book as well. January is a chatty month, so the threads are busier than usual currently. Try clicking on a few and see if it's something you would like to try. If you do, click the "Post a New Topic" button on the Club Read group page, give your thread a title (try to put your name or moniker in the title so people can find you), and write your post. That easy! I look forward to following your reading this year.

>110 labfs39: Thanks! I will take a look :)

>106 Karlou: you don't have to, I only started mine after 4 years of general posting and tbh sometimes find myself repeating things from my thread to others. Take a gander at threads like What are you reading, Reading through time themes, and a few of the individual threads to see if its something you'd like to do.

We have a group read of hamnet https://www.librarything.com/topic/347742#n8042686 here

>108 Karlou: It really put me off reading anything else by Maggie O'Farrell but I've read it's quite different to her other work so I'll probably try another of hers at some point.

Oh Im sorry to hear that! Shes one of my fav modern brit writers. Try after you'd gone, the distance between us, or her non fiction i am i am i am. Shes definitely worth trying again (I didn't mind the slowness in Hamnet, and thought the descriptions provided atmosphere of the age. The story was through the eyes of Agnes which I thought was particulaly powerful. But as always YMMV (your mileage may vary :)

Oh and I am another fan of Steinbeck!I had thought Id read all his books till I happened across the short reign of Pippin the IV Absolutely hilarious, much different from his other books

>113 cindydavid4: Thanks! I'll look at those M O'F titles. I was surprised I didn't like it, especially as I write and one of my betas said she thought I'd find a kindred spirit in M O'F's Hamnet and was amazed I hadn't read it. So I picked it up expecting the style to be like my own, but I didn't think it was at all!

I love Hardy and usually nothing happens in his novels until the penultimate page (OK, maybe slight exaggeration but ykwim) so I don't think it was the slowness and description so much that irked me but the repetitiveness of some of the language, the strings of synonyms. I found myself glossing over a few passages and it was a struggle to finish but I stoically soldiered on (it really did feel like that!)

I'm going to search up Pippin now! I was amazed when I read that contemporary reviewers of East of Eden universally panned it. I thought it was great - and I realised how much the film missed out!

>108 Karlou: this was a lovely post. I’ve never read Hardy, or W&P or Dr Zhivago…sigh. Some day. I’m a bit 19th-century deficient. Master and Margarita is a remarkably fun book, considering how dark and serious the understory is.

Also interesting about your perspective on Hamnet, as a writer. I haven’t read MOF yet. Maybe some day.

>114 Karlou: did not realize E of Eden was panned, I thought it was great, my first read of his was Grapes of Wrath, at an age when I did not yet really know about such things and the story really affected me, opened my eyes to the world. Been a fan since

>115 dchaikin: one of my favourite things is to read a novel then find a film adaptation. I read Washington Square a year or so ago and then watched the 1949 film "The Heiress" last week, gosh it was superb!

Have you seen "About Time"? The Bill Nighy character tells his son that he mainly uses his time traveling ability to read more books. Wouldn't it be great to do that?!

>116 cindydavid4: my first was Of Mice and Men. I believe I read that E of E was not well received in something like the 1001 books you must read book. I was gripped by E of E! It was a real walking round the house hoovering and also reading kind of book for me! I'd say Grapes came below Mice and E of E for me, but Mice is very special as it's the book I introduced my son to Steinbeck with. He's also a huge Hardy fan so it's lovely to chat with him about those stories.

Oh we read of mice and men in HS. This was after reading Grapes of Wrath on my own, and remember being surprised by how the same author could write a one of the best noves about the depression, and still write a small novel as a focus .

I am late in introducing myself, but here goes. I’m Kate/Kathleen. I was Kate all my life though I’ve taken to using my birth name of Kathleen, now that I’m retired, and gave up on explaining my actual name to doctors and bureaucrats. For some reason I feel I’ve actually evolved from the pushy, managerial type that Kate was, to the quieter, passive Kathleen. Of necessity as our Western society doesn’t like pushy old people.

I am a dual citizen - Australian/American. My last job was IT manager but before that I was a professor of computer science.

My reading choices are mostly fiction, but as to genre and style, eclectic.

I’m currently reading a lot of novels written by or about refugees. I’ve always been interested in travel and the idea of living in a culture other than one’s own. I was inspired when young by Paul Bowles and my aim at around 20, was to be an expat.

In that I’ve more than succeeded though of late I’ve considered myself more immigrant than expat.

I have come to love my adopted country - best expressed in the words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“It’s one of the things she’s come to love about America; the abundance of unreasonable hope.”

Welcome, Kathleen! I've seen you posting on the threads and was hoping you would stop by and introduce yourself.

My daughter's name is Kate, and people often ask if she's a Katherine or Kathleen. I wanted a strong name for her to fall back on. We call her Katie, but now that she's a young adult, she often introduces herself as Kate. It's interesting the connotations people can give a name.

>120 kjuliff: nice to read your introduction. Welcome. I’ve enjoyed your posts here.

>121 labfs39: I was told by my parents that I was named after one of Shakespeare’s Kate’s, but forget which one. Probably The Taming of the Shrew. Knowing my mother’s dry sense of humour.

>120 kjuliff: Welcome. Looking forward to getting to know you.

>120 kjuliff: Welcome Katherine! I have read a few of Bowles work, would like to read more

I was inspired when young by Paul Bowles and my aim at around 20, was to be an expat. In that I’ve more than succeeded though of late I’ve considered myself more immigrant than expat.

Love that you figured that out at 20! But curious what you mean by that last sentence. Can you expllain more?

“It’s one of the things she’s come to love about America; the abundance of unreasonable hope.”

yes indeed; and I love her work; hoping for a new book from her sometime

anyway jump right in to whatever you are interested in, and feel free to ask questions if you get lost or confused!

>125 cindydavid4: The sentence from the Adichie quote? Well I spent most of my life in Australia and that quote sums up what I too love about America. It is from a scene in one of her short stories in The Thing Around Your Neck, when a delivery man (American) rolls up to a wealthy house in a wealthy neighborhood and greets the owner who is Nigerian. He says “nice house” in a tone of admiration and as if he’s thinking he’ll buy a house like that one day.

Now I’m generalizing of course, but an Australian delivery guy would resent the lovely house and possibly scowl. Or think “rich bastards” and say nothing

American optimism without foundation. It’s like how Americans like happy endings in movies, however implausible, and sincerely believe in the possibility of equality. The “have a nice day” said whatever the situation. I remember soon after arriving I heard one woman say to another who she was living a tampon to, “Have a nice period”.

I don’t know if you are American. When I cam here I had many negative feelings about the USA but now I see there’s an innocence and a genuine well-meaning towards others.

>1 labfs39: Hi! I'm Liz, I live in South Carolina in the US. I joined Librarything in the fall, and have really enjoyed it. I may not have been able to find the book I was looking for in Name that Book, but I did find Club Read and have really enjoyed it!
I'm a college student in a BFA Visual Arts program and often come on here to procrastinate, talk about what I'm reading or listening to, and see what everyone is up to. I've finally made my new thread for the year, I'll be on there semi-regularly :)

>126 kjuliff: I am, and as Ive grown older and experiencing our long in coming present enviromrn, Ive gotten more cynical. Oh I know there are tons of people helping to make our country better. . But the more I see the more I am less sure of us reacing that abundant and reasonable hope. Hope Im wrong

>127 liz4444: often come on here to procrastinate, talk about what I'm reading or listening to, and see what everyone is up to.

ahhhh youll fit in here just fine! Welcome!

Hi, I’m Elaine, mom of two (amazing) little kids, who live with me, my husband and three cats in Ontario, Canada. I work in IT, somehow fell into the field after doing a Master’s in English literature.

Neither my husband nor any close friends read, so decided to join this group to connect with other readers.

My passion is 19th century literature, but I have pretty eclectic tastes. Right now I’m on a Philip Roth obsession, but before that, I was reading a lot of contemporary sci-fi. I also enjoy non fiction, mainly history.

>130 RRCBS: My passion is 19th century literature Have you checked out the group thread for Victorian era reads? That might be right up your alley.

>130 RRCBS: Welcome, Elaine! It sounds like you will fit right into Club Read where a desire to connect with other readers and eclectic reading tastes are two of the defining characteristics. What sort of history topics do you enjoy? I like reading about WWII, but lots of other areas too.

How old are your kiddos? I homeschool my two nieces ages 3 and 6.

>130 RRCBS: welcome Elaine. I hope you enjoy our group and find those reading connections, which is a big part of why we’re all here. There is a lot of 19th-century reading here, some scifi, occasionally some Philip Roth too, among much else.

>131 Julie_in_the_Library: oooh thanks, I’ll check it out!

>132 labfs39: They’re 4 and 6. Neat about your nieces, you must have a great bond with them! For history, it varies. Recently I’ve read a few histories of the Restoration, and WWII, but often I get inspired to learn more about periods that books I read are set in.

>133 dchaikin: thanks for the welcome! Looking forward to sharing and reading everyone’s posts!

>130 RRCBS:

Hello, nice to see you here! All this time I thought you were on the West Coast... :)

>137 LolaWalser: nice to see a familiar user I’d! I’ve always enjoyed your FSD posts! Why West Coast?

Hey another book collector, I gather by your groups! Welcome to your new addiction um I mean habit. Feel free to ask questions as you browse around. Friendly bunch her

>138 RRCBS:

Just crossed wires and increasingly faulty memory, I suppose--I noted you were Canadian but not that we're practically neighbours. :)