26-ish books in 2020

Well I thought I was doing pretty well on the 50 book thing but then I realised it was already March . How time flies.

So far I have read:
'1947' by Elisabeth Åsbrink
'Travelers in the Third Reich' by Julia Boyd
and 'Bringing Up Bébé' by Pamela Druckerman (very thought provoking, actually)

5. Normal people by Sally Rooney - I enjoyed it more than conversations with friends.
6. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. This is an absolutely lovely book...I properly sobbed but it has such a warmth to it - it very much reminded me of A Man Called Ove, which is one of my favourites of recent times.
My next book will be my book club read - unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. It looks quite hefty.

Welcome to the thread @Charley50

I'm already picking up some good recommendations from this thread to add to the ever increasing tbr pile!

6. Exceeding My Brief - Barbara Hosking
Another memoir. This one of an ordinary woman who lived an extraordinary life. From Cornish working class school girl to senior civil servant, this was readable, warm and fascinating. Would recommend it.

Welcome Charley50.

1. Who Am I, Again? - Lenny Henry. Absolutely loved this, looking forward to further memoirs as this only goes up to the Tiswas years.

1. Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn - Brett Anderson out of Suede. Cheer the fuck up, man.

1. To Throw Away Unopened - Viv Albertine. I loved this and found it hard to finish at the same time. Reflections on your parents' death and the rawness of your upbringing are never going to be an easy read. Lots of her feelings about relationships with/antipathy towards men and the joy and pain of solitude I can identify with though!

1. Blood Orange - Harriet Tyce. Really enjoyable, whizzed through this pretty quickly for me. Enjoyed the barrister setting and was hooked until the end.

5. Howards End by E. M. Forster - enjoyed this but not as much as A Room with a View or Where Angels Fear to Tread.
6. Now You See Her by Heidi Perks - a nice easy read, nothing unique about it though.
Now reading 7. Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent - so far so good.

Can I join? I'll add books I'm reading later. I think I've read about 6 this year already: on the train and in bed.

Finished Book 6 The Five - the untold story of the women killed by Jack the Ripper, I found this a good read and an insight into London of the past.

Book 7 was Baby Doll by Hollie Overton, this was a good read about someone who escapes her abductor after 8 years in captivity. A bit like Room, but it kept me intrigued and I read it quite quickly.

I've never read any Lisa Jewell. I'd always given her books a wide swerve as I thought they were romance-type jobs. But I'm quite intrigued now and will have a look next time I'm in the library.

5. Finding Ultra - Rich Roll
This is two thirds memoir and one third self-help book. The author took up a plant-based diet and started competing in ultra endurance events like Ironman triathlons after having a bit of an epiphany as he turned 40.
I am also approaching the big 4-0 and have an interest in sports, health and well-being so a lot of this resonated with me.
However I can see how it's quite niche and wouldn't appeal to everybody.

I am rubbish at reading fiction
I have read 4 x non fiction this year and I have a hard going fiction book in the loo and I am not getting very far with it

I dropped off this thread. As usually happens when I"m reading non-fiction, I started jumping around and not finishing much. Last time I updated I'd finished my third book and was reading Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life, which I still haven't finished! I then read a book about World War Two with my son, which lead me to dipping in to my huge History of Britain Book - but I only read a handful of pages. That did lead me to my true book 4 though, a re-read of Anne Frank - Diary of a Young Girl which surely needs no explanation. It's the first time I've read it in more than 15 years though.

Keeping with the war theme, although not the holocuast, book 5 was What Happened to the Corbetts by Nevil Shute followed by book 6 On the Beach also by Nevil Shute. These are both re-reads too. I was always fascinated by the prophetic nature of What Happened to the Corbetts when I first read it as a teenager. I only discovered much later that Shute had some degree of inside knowledge about the sort of effects air raids could have and how they would be carried out, so it wasn't exactly the coincidental foretelling that I first imagined. I still like On the Beach as an example of the post-apocalyptic genre, but it struck me far more on this reading about both books how devoid of emotion they are. The characters really are rather flat and I honestly cannot imagine anyone acting quite as they do in the circumstances.

I haven't yet decided whether to pick up A Town Like Alice as my next book or to leave the Shutes there for a while!

I always enjoyed Lisa Jewell in her old style but I really like her newer, more suspense-ridden guise.

I recommend Lisa Jewell too. I'll definitely be reading some more of her books.

Seems like ages since I updated!

7 - Miranda Road by Heather Reyes. Rather a nice coming of age, mother and daughter relationship story. Glad I read it.

8 - The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe. Disturbing at times, but utterly illuminating when I realised how little I really knew of what had gone on inside the concentration camps. Highly recommended.

I love Lisa Jewell. She used to be a boy meets girl kind of writer but nowadays she does sort of psychological mysteries. Really good writer though and the last few years she’s done a book a year. Then She was Gone is brilliant but sad and I Found You is my favourite by her. Definitely great books.

There's a lot of love for Lisa Jewell on here! Have never read any of hers. What sort of thing does she write?

A few more to add:
6 Mad Girl by Bryony Gordon. Really good, documents her struggle with mental health. A very easy read.
7: The family upstairs by Lisa Jewell. I enjoyed it although it was predictable. Would recommend though.
8: Life, death and Vanilla slices by Jenny Eclair. This was brilliant, it was funny but with a lot of dark humor and I did feel for the women written about in this book. Am planning to read some more written by this author
9: Then she was gone: Lisa Jewell. This was a page turner read it in two days.

1. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. Loved loved loved this book. Absolutely fell in love with Kya, she was beautifully written. It is a beautiful book full of prosaic descriptions of nature and I could visualise everything so easily because it was so clear. Definitely recommend this one.

I'm loving all the inspiration here! Keep adding to my tbr list on GoodReads!

Just finished another Lisa Jewell Watching You - was a good page turner but nothing I'd be desperate to read again.

I've started Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng this evening and I'm enjoying it already.

1. Kudos by Rachel Cusk

This is the final part of a trilogy about Faye, a writer. Actually the books are not really about Faye at all, but more about the people she meets and the conversations they have with her. In this book she is at a literary festival and everyone she bumps into completely opens up to her in a way that seemed implausible to me. They reveal intimate details about their lives while we learn very little about Faye at all.

Stylistically, it's an interesting book. I think I preferred the first two books in the trilogy but I did find some of the writing in this one quite compelling and thought-provoking, if a little intense.

Haven't been on in a while. As always, reading slows right down in term time. Numbers 5-8 were listens, as I have a long commute:

1. The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill
2. The Pure in Heart by Susan Hill
3. The Risk of Darkness by Susan Hill
4. Found by Erin Kinsey
5. The Trespasser by Tana French

Totally overdosed on Susan Hill, and taking a break from her for a while - started to get a bit tedious. Same with Tana French, tbh. I do really like her, but this was very same-y.

Found was a hard book - very dark. It's about a yong boy who gets kidnapped, and is found six months later. It's mainly a police procedural, but it also spends a lot of time with Evan, the boy, and his family, and the question of recovery. That part is very sensitively written. I was a bit worried that it would be too dark, but it doesn't go into the crime much and is more about what happens afterwards. I would recommend it, with the proviso that the back story is paedophilia.

I'm currently listening to Michelle Paver's Wakenhyrst, and LOVING it. It's a Gothic mystery set in the early 1900s. I love gothic fiction anyway, and this is glorious (even if it is a bit close to what I'm doing in work at the moment!).

6. Blood Orange - I absolutely loved this. Couldn't put it down and really got behind the main character. Would definitely recommend. 7. The Silent Patient - another one I really enjoyed. Didn't see the twist at the end coming! 8. Dear Mrs Bird - I'd had this on my kindle for a while and finally got round to reading it. I enjoyed it but it didn't keep me turning the page any chance I got. Just started reading 9. Lying in Wait. Only one chapter in but I'm enjoying it so far.

Number 10 - the interpreter of maladies, a collection of short stories that won the Pulitzer, some were very engaging but on the whole I didn’t enjoy it as much as the other short story collections I’ve read this year

I have a huge tbr pile and am ahead of myself for book club and no work books on the horizon so now starting Rooftops if Tehran which I picked up at a second hand bookshop a few months ago