50 Book Challenge 2022 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2022, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it’s not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles (and maybe authors as well) of the books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

The first thread of the year is here and the second one here.

What are you reading?

[DesdamonasHandkerchief]

Oooh really shiny new thread, thanks southeast, here is my short list so far:

1. Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard
2. How Not To Be A Boy by Robert Webb
3. Rosie: Scenes From A Vanished Life by Rose Tremain
4. Bedsit Disco Queen by Tracey Thorn
And now:
5. The Only Plane In The Sky, as other posters have said very moving. It's taken me a long time to finish as I could only read it in short bursts due to the emotional content.

Currently listening to Stephen King's Billy Summer on audible, reading Mr Norrell & Jonathan Strange in book form (I may be some time it's an absolute brick!) and taking part in the Hard Times and War & Peace read alongs.

[ChessieFL]

Thanks for the new thread southeast. Will try and do my list later.

[highlandcoo]

Thank you southeast, I won't list my (13) books read so far, but at the moment I'm reading The Fortune of the Rougons, the first in Zola's 20-novel series.

I'm not quite grabbed 60 pages in, but I think that might be my fault. I've been sewing and doing other stuff and I really need to sit down and read a good chunk of it at one go.

Having enjoyed both Germinal and The Ladies' Paradise I'm hoping to enjoy working my way through the series.

[TimeforaGandT]

Thanks for the new thread southeast

Bringing across my list:

1. The Long and Short of It - Jodi Taylor

1. The Manningtree Witches - A K Blakemore
   
2. The Passenger - Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
   
3. Midsummer Mysteries - Agatha Christie
   
4. Real Tigers - Mick Herron
   

6. The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie

1. Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne
   
2. A Springtime Affair - Katie Fforde
   
3. Love is Blind - William Boyd
   

10. Come to Grief - Dick Francis
11. Behind the scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
12. The Madness of Grief - Richard Coles

I have just finished:

13. Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

Read for the Agatha Christie challenge and because I was going to see the film. A re-read for me but probably not read it in 20+ years. I had forgotten how much scene-setting and introducing of characters there is before a murder occurs. It’s most unlike Christie to be well over a third of the way through a book before there’s a dead body. I remembered the premise so no real surprises. Is this one of the most famous books because of the setting and all the films?

Onto something slightly more literary next….

[TheTurn0fTheScrew]

Cheers South for the new thread, much appreciated.

I'm reading slowly, as ever. My list to date:

1. No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

1. Merivel by Rose Tremain
   
2. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
   
3. How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie
   
4. The Only Plane in the Sky: The Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff
   

6.Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
7.When Will There be Good News by Kate Atkinson



Currently on The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson. This month H and I both decided to read books that have shamefully been waiting to be read for a decade. It's ok so far - not bad enough to ditch, but not so good I keep reaching for it. These ones always take me AGES to finish.

highlandcoo A-level French sucked all of the enjoyment out of Zola for me. Rather relieved I didn't take English, so I've not had that experience with many authors.

[Taswama]

Thanks for the new thread @southeastdweller .

Bringing my list across to placemark. Will be back to review the most recent read later.

1. Among the mad, Jacqueline Winspear
2. Regeneration, Pat Barker *
3. Quand sort la recluse, Fred Vargas
4. Coming to England, Floella Benjamin
5. Selective memory, Katherine Whitehorn
6. The secret adversary, Agatha Christie
7. A place of execution, Val McDermid
8. My sister, the serial killer. Oyinkan Braithwaite
9. The bean trees. Barbara Kingsolver
10. Die Kanzlerin. Porträt einer Epoche. Ursula Weidenfeld

[FortunaMajor]

Thank you for the new thread Southeast.

Sorry list haters, but putting it on helps me find me find stuff later. If MN had a better search feature...



The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
My Phantoms - Gwendoline Riley
Servant of Death - Sarah Hawkswood
Oh William - Elizabeth Strout
On Hampstead Heath - Marika Cobbold
Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Medea and Other Plays - Euripides
Heresy (Giordano Bruno #1) - SJ Parris
Once There Were Wolves - Charlotte McConghy
Perfume The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Süskind
Ulysses - James Joyce
In the Country of Women - Susan Straight
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Beauty Is A Wound - Eka Kurniawan
The Fell - Sarah Moss
Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh
Freshwater - Akwaeke Emezi
Spring Snow - Yukio Mishima
Ex Libris - Michiko Kakutani
Sapiens - Yuval Noah Hari
The Last Thing He Told Me - Laura Dave
Salt On Your Tongue - Charlotte Runcie
The Light Years (Cazalet #1) - Elizabeth Jane Howard
I Belong Here - Anita Sethi
Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng
The Childhood of Jesus - JM Coetzee
Beasts of a Little Land - Juhea Kim
Marking Time (Cazalet #2) - Elizabeth Jane Howard
The Power of Women - Denis Mukwege
Six Poets from Hardy to Larkin - Alan Bennett
Penguin's Poems by Heart - Laura Barber
O Pioneers! - Willa Carther
Shroud for the Archbishop (Fidelma #2) - Peter Tremayne
Nine Pints: A Journey Through Blood - Rose George
Black and British - David Olusoga
Rage Becomes Her - Soraya Chemaly
Songbirds - Christy Lefteri
Confusion (Cazalet #3) - Elizabeth Jane Howard
Casting Off (Cazalet #4) - Elizabeth Jane Howard
All Change (Cazalet #5) - Elizabeth Jane Howard
The Ghost Fields (Galloway #7) - Elly Griffiths
Lethal White (Strike #4) - Robert Galbraith

I'm on 25% non fiction this year which is new for me, but I feel like I need some good fiction in my life. Looking forward to the Women's Prize long list which is a few weeks off for some direction.

I haven't really read anything worth talking about recently, so I won't bore you going over much read books.

Songbirds, the new book by Christy Lefteri of Beekeeper of Aleppo fame is worth a mention. She looks at the fate of foreign workers in Cyprus working as domestic help in fairly slave like circumstances. One woman goes missing and her boyfriend and employer start to look for her and uncover some uncomfortable truths along the way. It's pretty good and deals with some important issues.

Inretested to see all of the Testament of Youth love on the last thread. If you haven't read it yet, I would urge you to read All Quiet on the Western Front which deals with a young German soldier's perspective. Devastating, but the writing is something else. There is also a book written in response to it - Not So Quiet which is a fictionalised account of a ambulance driver. Not as well written, but gives a good insight into the conditions on the front for the women who volunteered.

[GrannieMainland]

Thanks for the new thread!

My list so far:

1. Rizzio by Denise Mina
2. Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes
3. Magpie by Elizabeth Day
4. Why Breastfeeding Grief and Trauma Matter by Amy Brown
5. Luster by Raven Leilani
6. The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse
7. The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
8. Matrix by Lauren Groff
9. The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex
10. Watch Her Fall by Erin Kelly
11. The Turnout by Megan Abbott

About to embark on Still Life which I know has been liked by lots of people here...

[Sadik]

Thanks for the new thread SouthEast :)

Following on from the Testament of Youth discussions on the other thread, I'd really recommend both Testament of Experience (continuing VB's autobiography from the 1920s through WW2) and Testament of Friendship (about her friendship with Winifred Holtby). Although they - unsurprisingly - don't have the same power as TofY, I found it fascinating to see how her experiences shaped her life & choices.

14. I am a Bacha Posh by Ukmina Manoori with Stephanie Lebrun, trans. by Peter Chianchiano

As a child in 1970s Afghanistan Ukmina Manoori was chosen to be a 'bacha posh' - a daughter dressed as a boy, and fulfilling that role in a family that lacked sons to work outside the house, run errands, and do all the jobs that girls/women are not allowed to do.

At puberty, she was expected to return to life within the home as a woman preparing for marriage and children. Refusing to give up her freedom she continued to pass as a boy, and including working with the mujahedeen in the fight against the Russian army.

This is written in a very straightforward style reflecting Ukmina's background as a village dweller with little formal education, and the translation is a bit clunky in parts, but it's absolutely fascinating.
This was another of the Audible plus offerings, and again something I'd not have picked up otherwise.

[Stokey]

Thanks for the new thread @southeastdweller.

My list so far:
1.The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford

1. The Memory Police - Yoko Ogawa
   
2. Animal - Lisa Taddeo
   
3. Happy Families - Julie Ma
   
4. The Mystery of the Blue Train - Agatha Christie
   
5. Archangel - Robert Harris
   
6. Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
   
7. Seating Arrangements - Maggie Shipstead
   
8. A Gentleman In Moscow - Amor Towles
   

10. Malibu Rising - Taylor Jenkins Reid
11. China Room - Sanjeev Sahota

I'm quite pleased with what I've read. The only real stinker was Happy Families which was a book club read. Favourite was China Room but there have been things I have enjoyed about all the others too. Solid 4s all round.

[MamaNewtNewt]

Thanks for the new thread @southeastdweller, here’s my list:

1. Needful Things by Stephen King
2. Ramble by Adam Buxton

3. Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
4. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

1. A Rip in Heaven by Jeanine Cummins
2. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
3. A Good Enough Mother by Bev Thomas

8. Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla

1. Things We Left Unsaid by Emma Kennedy

10. 1979 by Val McDermid
11. The Dark Tower: Song of Susannah by Stephen King

I’m still reading Hank and Jim about Henry Fonda and James Stewart in paperback, and listening to This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes. On the kindle I’m on the 7th Dark Tower book (I’m so very near the Tower!). Also reading War and Peace and Year of Wonder: Classical Music Every Day daily with some others on the thread, although I need to catch up on Year of Wonder.

[IsFuzzyBeagMise]

Thank you for the new thread, southeastdweller.

My recent reads are;

1. Rachel's Holiday: Marian Keyes
   
2. Au Rendez-Vous des Terre-Neuvas (Maigret #9): Georges Simenon
   
3. Snow: John Banville
   
4. Le Bal des Folles: Victoria Mas
   

10. The Dirty South: John Connolly

All 4 star reads. I'm also on the read-a-long threads for War and Peace and Hard Times.

[BestIsWest]

Thanks for new thread SouthEast

1. Watermelon - Marian Keyes
   

Doing a re read of the Walsh family books ahead of the new one. To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy this one this time around. Seemed very repetitive. Perhaps because I’d read it before.

[DuPainDuVinDuFromage]

Thank you for the new thread! Here's my list so far:

1. Snow - John Banville
   

2. First class murder - Robin Stevens

1. Jolly foul play - Robin Stevens
   

4. The Betrayals - Bridget Collins
5. Possession - A S Byatt
6. The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett (read to the DCs)

1. Seventy-eight Degrees Of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey To Self-Awareness - Rachel Pollack
   
2. Officers and Gentlemen - Evelyn Waugh
   
3. A history of the world in twelve maps - Jerry Brotton
   

10. A summons to Memphis - Peter Taylor
11. Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
12. Where are you now? - Mary Higgins Clark
13. The Brass Verdict - Michael Connelly
14. Girl with a pearl earring - Tracy Chevalier

[StColumbofNavron]

I quite enjoy seeing lists in one place at the beginning of threads, interesting to see the bolds and patterns (or not) in the reading.

1. Vanity Fair, W M Thackeray
   
2. This Much is True, Miriam Margoyles
   
3. A Theatre for Dreamers, Polly Samson
   

4. China Iron, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara trans. by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre

1. Shadowghast, Thomas Taylor
   

6. Lady Macbeth of Mtensk and Other Stories, Nikolai Leskov trans. by David McDuff
7. Madonna in a Fur Coat, Salahattin Ali trans. by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe

Madonna in a Fur Coat remains my outstanding read of the year so far. I'm almost done with Who is Maud Dixon?, thoughts to follow and am taking part in the W&P and Hard Times readalongs too.

[Terpsichore]

As ever, thanks for the new thread, south.

My list to date:

1. Forever Young - Hayley Mills
   
2. Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper - Donald Henderson
   

3: House of Glass - Hadley Freeman
4: A Cold Coming - Mary Kelly
5: Will She Do? - Eileen Atkins
6: The Man Who Died Twice - Richard Osman
7: The Dinosaur Hunters - Deborah Cadbury
8: The Victorian Chaise-longue - Marghanita Laski
9: The Life Project - Helen Pearson
10: The Snowman - Jo Nesbø
11: Letters from Hollywood - ed. Rocky Lang & Barbara Hall
12: Tory Heaven - Marghanita Laski
13: Family Secrets: Living with Shame from the Victorians to the Present Day - Deborah Cohen
14: The Dark Hours - Michael Connelly
15: A Year with Swollen Appendices - Brian Eno's Diary
16: Parson's Nine - Noel Streatfeild

I’m in a bit of a quandary now because by the law of 50:50 I’m due a non-fiction book next, but I’m waiting for a library reservation to come through early next week and reluctant to start something else before then. Do I break my self-imposed rules and get another quick fiction book knocked off over the weekend? Decisions!

[JaninaDuszejko]

1 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
2 Kirstin Lavransdatter I: The Wreath by Sigrid Undset. Translated by Tiina Nunnally
3 Esther's Notebooks 1. Tales from my ten-year-old life by Riad Sattouf. Translated by Sam Taylor
4 Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami. Translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd
5 Esther's Notebooks 2. Tales from my eleven-year-old life by Riad Sattouf. Translated by Sam Taylor

No surprise about my standout so far. Currently reading Oldladyvoice by Elisa Victoria which I'm finding disturbing due to how sexualised the 9yo narrator is.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Thanks South.

[CoteDAzur]

Thanks for the thread, Southeast. Good luck with your studies

Here is my list so far:

1. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress - Robert A Heinlein
   
2. Dark Places - Gillian Flynn
   
3. Handel in London - Jane Glover
   
4. Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
   
5. De l'art ou manière de chanter - Christoph Bernhard (translated from German by Frédéric Graber)
   
6. The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer - Neal Stephenson
   
7. The Little Bach Book - David Gordon
   
8. Ancient Rhetoric - from Aristotle to Philostratus translated and edited by Thomas Habinek

[weebarra]

1.Luster - Raven Leilani x
2.The ordeal of the haunted room - Jodi Taylor
3.Just ignore him - Alan Davies
4.Mrs March - Virginia leito
5.The Wolf Den -elodie harper
6.A rant of ravens - Chris goff x
7.A scandalous life - the biography of Jane Digby - Mary Lovell
8.The Young Team - Graeme Armstrong
9.Piranesi- Susanna Clarke
10.I who have never known men - Jacqueline Harpman
11.The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot - Marianne Cronin
12. Saving time - Jodi Taylor
13. The dead of winter - SJ Parris
14. And Away - Bob Mortimer
15. The lost daughter - Elena Ferrante
16. The diamond age - neal Stephenson
17. Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

[weebarra]

Have really enjoyed keeping a record of what I've read, and have loved using the thread to help me choose my next books. I'd got stuck in an urban fantasy / Georgette Heyer rut and am now a little bit more receptive to different things!

[Taswama]

It is a self imposed rule @Terpsichore , so I think you can break it!

[CluelessMama]

Thank you for the new thread southeastdweller.
My list so far...

1. Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
   
2. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
   
3. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
   
4. Heartland by Sarah Smarsh
   
5. The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
   

and finished this afternoon
6. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Delighted to have finished this! It has been on my shelf for enough years to mean that it is satisfying to have finally read it. While the language is not too challenging, it is a big novel and it kind of ran into my busiest work time of the year, so it has taken me weeks to get through this. And with any classic there is an element of finding out what the fuss was all about!
I'm glad I read The Worst Hard Time and The Four Winds before starting The Grapes of Wrath, as they gave me a sense of the historical background and geographical setting that undoubtedly helped me get more from my reading of both the chapters focusing on the Joad family story and the intercalary chapters (I've been Googling The Grapes of Wrath this evening and just learned the phrase "intercalary chapters"!) I suspect that it is a book that I won't forget in a hurry.
I thought I would be done with my Great Depression/Dust Bowl reading season by now, but I think my next read on paper will be Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb. It was the late 1930s debut novel of a female author who grew up in Oklahoma and worked in/researched Californian migrant camps and had the publication of her book overwhelmed by the success of The Grapes of Wrath which Steinbeck had been writing at the same time. Kristin Hannah heaped praise on Whose Names Are Unknown in her author's note in The Four Winds and I read online that some of Babb's own research notes were passed to Steinbeck during his own research for The Grapes of Wrath, so when I saw a copy of Babb's novel during a rare trip to a second hand bookshop on Monday it felt like bookish serendipity.
Listening to Hostage by Claire Mackintosh on audio as a alternative to life in 1930s America.

[AliasGrape]

Thanks as ever for the new thread Southeast

My list so far

1. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas - Agatha Christie
   
2. Golden Hill - Francis Spufford
   
3. The Heart’s Invisible Furies - John Boyne
   
4. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - Elif Shafak
   
5. Sorrow and Bliss - Meg Mason
   
6. And Away - Bob Mortimer
   
7. Excellent Women - Barbara Pym
   
8. Moonflower Murders - Anthony Horowitz
   
9. The Man In the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie
   

10. His Bloody Project - Graeme Macrae Burne
11. Diary of a Provincial Lady - E.M. Delafield
12. Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

Not sure whether my bolds will stay bolder as I have other reads of the year to compare them to, but they’re the standouts so far. Dithered over the John Boyne - I did really like it but I didn’t love it the way I was expecting. I did however recommend it to my aunt as I knew it would be absolutely her thing and she’s not stopped raving to me about it since so that’s good.

I’m reading The Sleeping Beauties and other stories of Mystery Illnesses by Suzanne O’Sullivan.

I’m (very occasionally) listening to Love After Love on Audible. Audiobooks don’t fit into my day much anymore as I don’t have a commute and can’t listen during toddlers waking hours. But when I get the chance I am working my way through this.

I’m taking part in the Hard Times read along as well as the classical music Year of Wonder one.

[AliasGrape]

Also I should probably have bolded the Bob Mortimer one as the standout so far as I read it in one incredibly enjoyable sitting, but felt maybe it wasn’t ‘worthy’ enough. Silly of me, it’s my list and no one else cares I’m sure!