Charon07’s 2024 category challenge

I’m Charon07, a (literal) cat lover, former copy editor, and a current accountant from central Illinois. This is my first category challenge, so I guess I’ll see how it goes! I don’t want to overwhelm myself, so I’m not going to set any specific quantity goals for my categories, though I hope to read at least two six books from each category over the year. [Having met my target of two books from each category in April, I’m setting a goal of six, which should be doable at this rate.]

I’ll also try the SFFKit and PrizeCAT, though I’m not likely to hit every month. And I’ll toss in the BingoDOG, too, because I’m sure I can make some of my category books do double (or triple) duty.

My categories are:

🐓 The Tournament of Books (current or prior years’ short list)
☣ New Science Fiction (in the past 5 years or so)
🚀 Classic Science Fiction
🔭 Nonfiction
🏠 Books I Already Own (but haven’t read yet)
🌍 Books in Translation

KITs, CATs, and a Dog:
🐈 PrizeCAT
🐱 SFFKit
🐶 BingoDog

Books I’ve read so far:

🏠 🌍 🐈 🐶 Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🐓 🏠 The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty ★ ★ ★
🚀 🐶 Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany ★ ★ ★ ★
🐶 Cat Brushing by Jane Campbell ★ ★ ★ 1/2
☣ 🏠 Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki ★ ★ ★
🌍 🐶 Public Reading Followed by Discussion by Danielle Mémoire ★ ★ ★
🏠 🐶 Our Wives under the Sea by Julia Armfield ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
🐱 Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🐓 🐈 🐶 The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
🏠 🐶 The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🐶 The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman ★ ★ 1/2
🐶 The Spear Cuts through Water by Simon Jimenez ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
🐶 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier ★ ★ ★ 1/2
☣ 🐱 Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes ★ ★ ★
🐶 Lanny by Max Porter ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🏠 🐶 Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth ★ ★ 1/2
🐓 🏠 🐈 🐶 Piranesi by Susanna Clarke ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🔭 🌍 🐶 Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life under Tyranny by Witold Szabłowski ★ ★ ★ 1/2
☣ The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw ★ ★ ★ 1/2
☣ 🐱 The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart ★ ★ ★
🚀 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🏠 🐈 The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan ★ ★ ★ ★
🔭 Plight of the Living Dead: What Real-Life Zombies Reveal about Our World--and Ourselves by Matt Simon ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🚀 🌍 🐶 War with the Newts by Karel Čapek ★ ★ ★ ★
🚀 🐱 Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg ★ ★ ★
☣ 🐶 Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker ★ ★ ★ ★
🔭 The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale ★ ★ ★ ★
🏠 🐶 Girl, 11 by Amy Suiter Clarke ★ ★ 1/2
🐶 Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🐈 🐱 🐶 The City & the City by China Miéville ★ ★ ★ ★
🏠 How to Be Both by Ali Smith ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🐓 🏠 Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🚀 🌍 🐶 We by Yevgeny Zamyatin ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🚀 🐱 Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke ★ ★ ★ 1/2
🐶 The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell ★ ★ ★

🐓 The Tournament of Books (current or prior years’ short list)

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty ★ ★ ★
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

☣ New Science Fiction (in the past 5 years or so)

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki ★ ★ ★
Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes ★ ★ ★
The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw ★ ★ ★ 1/2
The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart ★ ★ ★
Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker ★ ★ ★ ★

🚀 Classic Science Fiction

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany ★ ★ ★ ★
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm ★ ★ ★ 1/2
War with the Newts by Karel Čapek ★ ★ ★ ★
Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg ★ ★ ★
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🔭 Nonfiction

Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life under Tyranny by Witold Szabłowski ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Plight of the Living Dead: What Real-Life Zombies Reveal about Our World--and Ourselves by Matt Simon ★ ★ ★ 1/2
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
   by Kate Summerscale ★ ★ ★ ★

🏠 Books I Already Own (but haven’t read yet)

Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello ★ ★ ★ 1/2
The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty ★ ★ ★
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki ★ ★ ★
Our Wives under the Sea by Julia Armfield ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth ★ ★ 1/2
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan ★ ★ ★ ★
Girl, 11 by Amy Suiter Clarke ★ ★ 1/2
How to Be Both by Ali Smith ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🌍 Books in Translation

Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Public Reading Followed by Discussion by Danielle Mémoire ★ ★ ★
Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life under Tyranny by Witold Szabłowski ★ ★ ★ 1/2
War with the Newts by Karel Čapek ★ ★ ★ ★
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin ★ ★ ★ 1/2

🐈 PrizeCAT

January: Long-Running Prizes
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello ★ ★ ★ 1/2 Nobel Prize in Literature 1934

February: A Prize from Your Own Country
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ PEN/Faulkner Award 2023

March: A Prize That’s New to You
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 The Kitschies Red Tentacle 2020

April: Women’s Writing
The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan ★ ★ ★ ★ Davitt Award 2019

May: Doubling Up
The City & the City by China Miéville ★ ★ ★ ★ Arthur C. Clarke Award‬ (‪2010‬), ‪British Science Fiction Association Award (2009), Hugo (2010), ‪Locus Award‬ (‪2010‬)‪, Kitschies‬ ‪Red Tentacle (2009‬), World Fantasy Award‬ (‪2010‬), among others

🐱 SFFKit

February: Critters and creatures
Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls ★ ★ ★ 1/2

March: Space Opera
Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes ★ ★ ★

April: Time Travel
The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart ★ ★ ★
Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg ★ ★ ★

May: Archeology
The City & the City by China Miéville ★ ★ ★ ★
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke ★ ★ ★ 1/2

BingoDOG



1. The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell ★ ★ ★
2. Girl, 11 by Amy Suiter Clarke ★ ★ 1/2
3. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman ★ ★ 1/2
4. Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone ★ ★ ★ 1/2
6. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin ★ ★ ★ 1/2
7. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
8. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier ★ ★ ★ 1/2
10. The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
11. Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth ★ ★ 1/2
13. Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello ★ ★ ★ 1/2 (January PrizeCAT)
14. Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker ★ ★ ★ ★
15. Lanny by Max Porter ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
16. The City & the City by China Miéville ★ ★ ★ ★
17. Public Reading Followed by Discussion by Danielle Mémoire ★ ★ ★
18. Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany ★ ★ ★ ★
19. Cat Brushing by Jane Campbell ★ ★ ★ 1/2
20. Our Wives under the Sea by Julia Armfield ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
21. The Spear Cuts through Water by Simon Jimenez ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
23. Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life under Tyranny by Witold Szabłowski ★ ★ ★ 1/2
24. War with the Newts by Karel Čapek ★ ★ ★ ★

Welcome to the group, I hope you have fun here!

Welcome to the Category Challenge, enjoy your 2024 reading!

Welcome aboard and have fun!

Welcome to the group! Have fun reading in the new year!

Welcome, and happy reading in 2024.

Welcome to the group and good luck with your reading in 2024.

Welcome and hope you have a good reading year.

Welcome! Not overwhelming yourself sounds like a good plan. I'm looking forward to seeing what you read.

You have some great categories! Good luck with your 2024 reading.

Welcome! Enjoy the year and your reading.

Welcome, and I hope you enjoy your reading!

Welcome and have fun with your reading!

As another Tournament of Books fan and resident of central Illinois (Bloomington), I'll be watching your reading this coming year. I'm currently reading Dayswork, from the current shortlist, and I'm enjoying it so far.

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone! I’m excited to get started—I’ve been plotting out books from my TBR that will fit some of the KITs and CATs.

>23 RidgewayGirl: I’m just down the road in C-U. I got my accounting degree at ISU. Have you read Moby Dick, or anything else by Melville? I’d be interested to hear if you think Dayswork would hold any interest for someone who hasn’t, or if it might spark some interest in reading Melville.

🏠 🌍 🐈 Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Clever, amusing, probably very innovative at the time, but give me Tom Stoppard or Harold Pinter any day. If you like Theater of the Absurd, you’ll probably like this play.

Wishing you a great first year in CC.

I've wondered the same thing re Dayswork although Kay's review has tipped me towards picking up the book.

🐓 🏠 The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty ★ ★ ★
Just plain weird, and not in a good way. Weird in an implausible, incomprehensible way. Maybe I’m just too old for this book. I listened to the audiobook.

🚀 Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany ★ ★ ★ ★
Delany broke a lot of ground in the science fiction world regarding sex and gender and other issues of diversity. I read this because linguistic science fiction is always interesting to me, but what I really ended up loving was the Transport culture he painted, with its exotic body modifications, discorporate entities, and polyamorous triples.

Cat Brushing by Jane Campbell ★ ★ ★ 1/2
A collection of grim but honest stories about old women, from the perspective of old women, written by an old woman.

>24 Charon07: Howdy, neighbor! I have read Moby Dick (and loved it), but the book is far more about Melville's life than specifically about the book.

>27 Charon07: I was also unable to fathom the charm of The Rabbit Hutch although I liked the parts that Blandine wasn't in.

☣ 🏠 Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki ★ ★ ★
An odd blend of science fiction and fantasy with happily-ever-after endings for everyone (well, everyone we care about anyway). Though it deals with some heavy topics—a trans girl running away from an abusive father, an intergalactic plague of existential despair, a woman about to lose her soul—it’s unrelentingly upbeat. The transformational power of music makes everything right in the end. In fact, if there had been just little bit more sadness, a touch more of the underlying tragedies, it would have been a more affecting book. As it was, it seemed a little too light to be a great book for me. I listened to the audiobook, so it’s always possible the narrator colored my perception of the tone.

🌍 🐶 Public Reading Followed by Discussion by Danielle Mémoire ★ ★ ★
An entertaining and witty but impenetrable bit of oulipo, which I read too closely on the heels of Six Characters in Search of an Author.

_{I listened to the audiobook, which has a different cover, but this one is more suitable, I think.}

🏠 🐶 Our Wives under the Sea by Julia Armfield ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
A beautiful, sad, strange love story. But while it seems to often be classed as SF or horror, I think it’s definitely one to which this caveat (from an article by author Jo Walton) applies:

“In science fiction, the world is a character. . . . And really, we SF readers expect an actual explanation at some point. . . .

“Whereas in genre LitFic, those world questions are just scenery, and the whole structure of what [the author] is doing [is] for creating emotional resonance in the reader. . . . Having resolved the emotional plot, she thinks the reader will be happy — and she’s right, the reader of women’s fiction and of LitFic will be happy, but the SF reader will be asking ‘Wait, what was this all about? What was the point? . . . Did I just read a whole book and you’re not even going to give me the answer? What was it all for?’”

🐱 Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls ★ ★ ★ 1/2
I don’t think I can say much about this book without giving too much away. It’s more of a social/domestic satire, or fable, than science fiction. I can say that I adored the scene where Dorothy, a bored and lonely housewife in an empty marriage, first encounters Aquarius the Monsterman, a.k.a. Larry. It’s just pure genius.

🐓 🐈 🐶 The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
I’m going to need to sit with my thoughts about this book for a while before I can come up with a coherent review. But I can say that it’s unsettling, moving, and thought-provoking.

🏠 🐶 The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
A moving story of community and love in all its forms. It’s told episodically from the point of view of Father Damien Modeste of the Ojibwe community of Little No Horse and involves many of the same characters from others of the Love Medicine books, which I now want to go back and (re-)read from the beginning.

>36 Charon07: Oh, I really hope to make time for that series this year! I read Love Medicine in 2009 and wish to reread it and then go on from there. The only other one I have read is Tracks.

>37 MissBrangwen: This is only the third I’ve read, but the other two were long ago. Maybe next year I’ll have a Louise Erdrich category!

🐶 The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman ★ ★ 1/2
Disappointing. A polemic against organized religion with not much new or interesting to add to the subject. I listened to the audiobook, which is read by Pullman.

>34 Charon07: I love Mrs. Caliban. It's such a weird story.

>35 Charon07: Yeah, that was a 5 star read for me, too. Yiyun Li is so good.

🐶 The Spear Cuts through Water by Simon Jimenez ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Beautiful and moving. I’ll probably read anything by Simon Jimenez from here on out.

🐶 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Interesting, but I’m bemused by the ambiguity of the “hero/ines” and “villains.”

☣ 🐱 Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes ★ ★ ★
An uneven but entertaining enough space romp. Psychic space kitties were underutilized, but I nudged my rating up a bit because I liked the characters.

🐶 Lanny by Max Porter ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
A strange and beautiful prose-poem fable.

🏠 🐶 Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth ★ ★ 1/2
Disappointing. It failed to deliver on creepiness or gothic horror, despite its initial promise. And it was much longer than it needed to be.

🐓 🏠 🐈 🐶 Piranesi by Susanna Clarke ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
A small, beautiful, melancholic fantasy.

🔭 🌍 🐶 Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life under Tyranny by Witold Szabłowski
★ ★ ★ 1/2
The title says it all. I was severely handicapped by my ignorance of the geopolitics of the countries discussed, but the stories of both the bears and the people were interesting.

☣ The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Violent, gory, sadistic. Grungy, obfuscating, irritating as hell. Finally, at the end, I loved it.

☣ 🐱 The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart ★ ★ ★
Didn’t overcome the problematic issues I have with time travel stories.

🚀 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm ★ ★ ★ 1/2
A postapocalyptic paean to individuality and human ingenuity.

🏠 🐈 The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan ★ ★ ★ ★
I listened to the audiobook, beautifully read by Aoife McMahon. It was an engaging, if sombre, mystery.I’m planning on reading more in this series (Cormac Reilly).

🔭 Plight of the Living Dead: What Real-Life Zombies Reveal about Our World--and Ourselves by Matt Simon ★ ★ ★ 1/2
The most outlandish and grotesque parasites that influence the behavior of their hosts, described humorously and sensationally.

🚀 🌍 🐶 War with the Newts by Karel Čapek ★ ★ ★ ★
A first-rate satire, on a par with Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut.

>53 Charon07: I really liked War with the Newts. It's witty, thought-provoking and still relevant. I also liked The Absolute at Large, which is a free e-book.

>54 pamelad: Thanks for that tip! I’ve added The Absolute at Large to my TBR: it sounds like more of the satire and social commentary I liked about War with the Newts.

🚀 🐱 Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg ★ ★ ★
Time travel ironically stuck in the 1960s, in which time travel is a gimmick that probably worked better in the short-story version of this expanded novel.

☣ 🐶 Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker ★ ★ ★ ★
Overall, a great collection of SF stories. I preferred the longer novelettes/novellas. Pinsker’s style is less science and more humanistic and literary, which suits me fine. My absolute favorites were “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind” and “And Then There Were (N-One).”

🔭 The Suspicions of Mr Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale ★ ★ ★ ★
A surprisingly (to me) compelling true-crime history that tells the tale of a gruesome murder, one of the first police detectives in England, and the effects on the development and popularity on detective fiction in the latter half of the 19th century.

🏠 🐶 Girl, 11 by Amy Suiter Clarke ★ ★ 1/2
This thriller about a former social worker turned true-crime podcaster strained my credulity.

>58 Charon07: I loved that one because I've read several Victorian novels that were influenced by that case. Have you seen the TV series based on this book and some of Whicher's other cases?

>60 cbl_tn: I haven’t seen the TV show, and I wasn’t familiar with the case or the detective until I read this book. A reviewer suggested that re-reading The Moonstone right after this was eye-opening. I think it was so interesting to me because the case and reports about it had such an influence on novels I was familiar with.

>58 Charon07: Hmm, this sounds interesting.

>62 RidgewayGirl: In fairness, reviews on LT are pretty mixed. But I didn’t find it boring and dry at all, as some reviewers did.

🐶 Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone ★ ★ ★ 1/2
There are several implausibilities in the plot, but it was so strange and gothic, so atmospheric, so dark and twisted, that I didn’t mind at all. If, like me, you ever played somewhat creepy make-believe games with your slightly older sister, you might understand the appeal.

🐈 🐱 🐶 The City & the City by China Miéville ★ ★ ★ ★
The cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma exist in the same time and place, but the citizens coexist without ever acknowledging that they’re aware of the other or else face dire consequences, which makes for some interesting policing challenges in this noir detective mystery. Like a good noir, greed and corruption are at the heart of the story.

🏠 How to Be Both by Ali Smith ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
It’s about being both alive and dead, past and present, male and female, joyful and sad. It’s told from the point of view of grieving teenager George, whose mother has just died, and the Italian renaissance painter Francescho del Cossa.

🐓 🏠 Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2
A beautiful meditation on grief, regret, vengeance, and, peripherally, the Civil War. I listened to the audiobook, and despite footnotes and 166 readers, the audio format enhanced the novel for me.

🚀 🌍 🐶 We by Yevgeny Zamyatin ★ ★ ★ 1/2
An important but not very enjoyable book that influenced later dystopias like 1984 and Brave New World.

Looks like you are blowing through these challenges! Good for you! I am not a big sci-fi reader, but Delaney's autobiography is one of my favorite books ever.

>67 Charon07: I read Lincoln in the Bardo, but so many people have said that the audio version is extraordinary. I have picked up a copy on audible.

>69 purpleiris: I’m reading a LOT more than I typically do! It looks like I read 56 books last year, and at my current rate I’ll have read 96 books in 2024. It helps when I can find one book that fulfills more than one category—trying to pick books that do that is half the fun! I’m planning on reading more Delaney in the near future. Prior to Babel-17, the only other thing of his that remember reading was the short story “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones,” but it really made an impression.

But first I have to whittle away at some nonfiction…

>70 RidgewayGirl: I recommend the audiobook! I thought the huge cast would be daunting, but now I think reading the text would be maybe more daunting. All those voices were very evocative of the atmosphere of the bardo.

🚀 🐱 Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Good old-fashioned hard science fiction about a brief opportunity to explore an interstellar spacecraft from a distant, unknown civilization, humanity’s first evidence that we’re not alone in the universe.

🐶 The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell ★ ★ ★
A murder mystery for fans of the Great British Bake Off. Nothing surprising or exceptional, but it was a fun romp.