All excited to re-start the New York Times project, I logged online yesterday to see what the front runner was for this week. There, at the top, was a book called Blood Magick by Nora Roberts, and I steeled myself. Then I found out that it’s the third book in Roberts’ Cousins O’Dwyer trilogy and I just decided I liked myself too much to go through that. Would it mean having to read the first two? Could I even dive right into the third — especially of a trilogy? And a Nora Roberts trilogy at that?

No, friends. Not today.

So instead, I’m going to spend the last remaining parts of 2014 reading something I actually want to read: The Man-Booker Prize shortlist contenders. A winner has already been chosen, if you want to go seek them out, but I’m going to stay away from the results until I’m done to see if I can guess what they picked.

Here are the books:

To Rise Again at  Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan.

We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler.

J by Howard Jacobson.

The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee.

How to Be Both by Ali Smith.

Because alphabetical order seems as random a system as anything else, I’ll start with To Rise Again at  Decent Hour. I’d love it if people wanted to join me in this, but it’s definitely not a requirement.

Are you doing any year-end reading lists?