Madame Askew and The Grand Arbiter

The Temporal Textual Talks Reading List for 2024

Originally posted to our Patreon

Thanks to the very hard work of our own Buttery Goodness, Mr Bill Bodden, we have our book list for 2024. Bill and I started putting together this year’s list back in September of last year.  We poured through a variety of lists and resources as well as the recommendations you had shared through the year to put together 10 books to enjoy together. Some of these books will be familiar to our long time book club members, but we try not to repeat more than 2 books in a year.  As always, we are both committed to creating a diverse selection of books so we can all experience new authors and new types of stories as well as our tried and true favourite flavours of storytelling.

This year, you may notice more books that are adjacent rather than strictly steampunk. With the downturn in interest from the major publishers and the increasing popularity in things like Romantasy, Historical Fantasy, and Cosy Lit RPGs, there are fewer new to us Steampunk books to choose from. (We do continue to hunt for and support the ones we find, and we love recommendations for future reads.) Fortunately, here in the Temporal Entourage, we’ve never been too concerned about maintaining some sort of “strict steampunk” interpretation.  After all, we are here for the tea, time travel, and tomfoolery!

Whilst I am sharing the list for the coming year, I want to point out that the dates are always subject to change! We have not confirmed all of our author guests yet so I shall not be sharing those details either. However, these are the books we intend to read this year, and the list will not alter on that front. Most of these books are available on Bookshop.org through my affiliate link. I receive a small commission each time you purchase a book through my link to Bookshop.org. You can also pick an independent bookshop to support via their website.

Want to be part of the conversation in between book club meetings? Join us in our Temporal Textual Talks group on Facebook. Our book club meets every 3rd Sunday of the month at 4:30 PM Pacific (Seattle) time. This is a virtual gathering that we host on zoom and live stream to Facebook.

Jan — Babel by R. F. Kuang

Feb — Buffalo Soldier by Maurice Broaddus

March — No Book Club

April — Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear

May — The Sea Is Ours edited by Jaymee Goh  & Joyce Chng

June — Death by Silver by Melissa Scott &  Amy Griswold

July — The Nine Pound Hammer by John Claude Bemis

Aug — Doctor Jack and Others by Karen Carlisile

Sept — Clockwork Cairo: Steampunk Tales of Egypt Edited by Matthew Bright

Oct — Dreadnought by Cherie Priest

Nov — Socrcery and Cecelia by Patrica C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer

Dec– No Book Club