I didn't beat the challenge but I got reasonably close! I has books ready for most of them, but spent March reading Ulysses, and then there were a few months where I read too few books to be able to catch "up" later on.
A Clockwork Orange was a "treat" because I have been learning a bit of Russian, and I felt it would be interesting to read the book again knowing the meaning of some of the words, instead of picking them up due to context as I did the first time I read it.
THE BASIC 40 (read 36)
1. A book with more than 400 pages : City of Dark Hearts - James Conan
2. A book with 250 pages or fewer : The Kiss - Santa Montefiore
3. A book by an author whose first name and surname is alphabetically sequential, i.e, Anne Bronte, Barbara Cartland, Charles Dickens… : Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
4. A book by an author who has an equal number of letters in their name and surname : Himself - Jess Kidd
5. A book written by a Freddie, Brian, John or Roger (none)
6. A book whose author shares the same name as a UK Prime Minister : Ardnish was Home - Angus MacDonald
7. A book set in the 1970s : Arcadia - Lauren Groff
8. A book that ends on an even number : Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. A book that ends on an odd number : Feersun Endjinn - Iain M Banks
10. A book containing a favourite character(s)/sleuth : Havana Bay - Martin Cruz Smith
11. A book with illustrations : Vox - Paul Stuart and Chris Riddell
12. A book title containing something found in a railway station, i.e., ticket, track, inspector, carriage, etc. : If on a Winter's Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino
13. A book set in a country you don’t want to visit : The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri
14. A fictional book about a real person : Conqueror - Conn Iggulden
15. A book with time in the title: hour, month, day, minute, etc. : Midnight Runner - Jack Higgins
16. A book with a pronoun in the title: Me, I, We, You : Lies We Tell Ourselves - Robin Talley
17. A book written by two authors : Taking Up Space - Chelsea Kwayke and Ore Ogunbiyi
18. A book published by Vintage : Wise Children - Angela Carter
19. A book featured on BBC2's Between the Covers : Emma - Jane Austen
20. An aged book with a creased cover and/or yellowed pages : The Green Brain - Frank Herbert
21. A book whose title appears in italics : Second Sight - Amanda Quick
22. A book where the author’s first name is shorter than their last : The Small Assassin - Ray Bradbury
23. A book where the author’s last name is shorter than their first : The Left-Handed Booksellers of London - Garth Nix
24. A book by a famous author you’ve never read : Anne of Green Gables - L M Montgomery
25. An author’s last novel (none)
26. A book that is part of a series : The Cutting Season - M W Craven
27. A book you got for free: (library, gift, dip, friend, etc.) : Stories from Heart Songs - Annie Proulx
28. An epistolary novel (told in the form of diary or letters) : The Recovery Letters - ed. James Withay and Olivia Sagan
29. A book set in Africa : We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo
30. A book written by a European author : Disgrace - Jussi Adler-Olsen
31. A book where the title contains something belonging to someone : The Boy with the Topknot - Sathnam Sanghera
32. Title of the book contains an & : Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde - (from the story by) Robert Louis Stevenson
33. A book with a single word title that contains at least 10 letters : Swallowdale - Arthur Ransome
34. A hardback book : Shed Men - Gareth Jones
35. A book you’re saving for a treat : A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
36. A book whose title contains a peerage: Lord, Duke, Queen, etc. : Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel - Ruth Hogan
37. A book written by a Smith, Jones or Brown : Bold as Love - Gwyneth Jones
38. A book written under a pseudonym (none)
39. A book with a wartime theme, or set during a war (none)
40. A book with a form of weather in the title : Snow Blind - Ragnar Jonasson
THE EXTRA 10 (read 10)
1. A book containing the word: First, second, third, etc. : Second Foundation - Isaac Asimov
2. Title of the book contains an adjective : Young Wive's Tales - Adele Parks
3. A book written by someone famous for something other than being an author : The Swimmer - Graham Norton
4. A book that became a film : Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
5. A book that became a TV series : Carry on, Jeeves - P G Wodehouse
6. A book by an author who is deceased : The Salmon of Doubt - Douglas Adams
7. A book published in 2023 : Remarkably Bright Creatures - Shelby van Pelt
8. A book whose title doesn’t contain the letter E - Switch Bitch - Roald Dahl
9. A title that contains a word where two letters run consecutively : The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A Heinlein
10. Author’s surname ends in SON : Obsession - Amanda Robson
EXTRA 25 FOR THE LUNATICS (read 16)
1. Author’s name is one initial and surname : Five Children and It - E Nesbit
2. A book with a yellow cover : Good Food for Bad Days - Jack Munroe
3. A book with a title ending in ING : The Missing - C L Taylor
4. A book with an alliterative title or author: Ulysses - James Joyce
5. A book you’ve been putting off reading: War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
6. A two-word title containing the same amount of letters in both words (none)
7. A book set in France (none)
8. A book with a flower on the cover (none)
9. A book with the word OF in the title : The Beekeeper of Aleppo - Christy Lefteri
10. A crime novel (fictional or true) : The Halo Effect - M J Rose
11. A book with a man’s name in the title : Mr Majeka and the School Inspector - Humphrey Carpenter
12. A book with a woman’s name in the title (none)
13. A book that skips from the past to the present : Friend Request - Laura Marshall
14. A word in the title that is a plural : Stories to Make You Smile - ed. Fanny Blake
15. A book with a title where the first word starts with a vowel : As You Like It - Shakespeare
16. Book containing a heavenly body in the title (none)
17. A book that was translated into English : The Truth and Other Lies - Sascha Arango
18. A book set in any place you love (none)
19. An autobiography, biography or memoir : I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
20. A book with a bible character in the title (none)
21. A book written by an Elizabeth or Philip (none)
22. A book with an odd number of words in the title : Corbenic - Catherine Fisher
23. Title contains unit of distance : The Chain - Adrian McKinty (a chain is 66 feet / 22 yards)
24. A book by an author whose surname is that of an animal : Miss Aldridge Regrets - Louise Hare
25. A non-fiction book (none)