50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Nine

@Matilda2013 the bold isn't working because you can't have other punctuation in it as far as I know.

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Haven't read any of those, Eine and never heard of Extreme.

Forgot to preview before posting and the bold isn't on again!

Quickly updating my list so that's it's in the first few pages. Bolds will change every time if they even work this time .

1.The Dilemma - B A Paris 
2.<strong>Dangerous Crossing - Rachel Rhys</strong>
3.The Testaments - Margaret Atwood
4.A Wedding in December - Anita Shreve 
5.The Other You - J S Monroe 
6.<strong>To The Lions - Holly Watt</strong>
7.Here to Stay - Mark Edwards 
8.The Bigamist - Mary Turner Thomson
9.The Other Wife - Claire McGowan 
10.Finding Cupid - Bridget E Baker
11.All the Rage - Cara Hunter 
12.The Donor - Clare Mackintosh 
13.Who Did You Tell - Lesley Kara
14.I Wanted You to Know - Laura Pearson 
15.The Recovery of Rose Gold - Stephanie Wrobel
16.I Did It For Us - Alison Bruce
17.Half a World Away - Mike Gayle 
18.The Suspect - Fiona Barton
19.War Doctor - David Nott 
20.<strong>Tell Me Your Secret - Dorothy Koomson</strong>
21.<strong>My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russel</strong>
22.In Safe Hands - J P Carter 
23.Anything You Do Say - Gillian McAllister 
24.<strong>The Flatshare - Beth O'Leary</strong>
25.Keeper - Jessica Moor
26.Blood Orange - Harriet Tyce 
27.Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
28.How to Marry Your Husband - Jacqueline Rohen
29.The Chain - Adrian McKinty
30.Just My Luck - Adele Parks 
31.Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith
32.<strong>Daisy Jones and The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid</strong>
33.Little Disasters - Sarah Vaughan
34.The Craftsman - Sharon Bolton 
35.His & Hers - Alice Feeney
36.Missing Pieces - Laura Pearson 
37.Little White Lies - Philippa East
38.The Ice Cream Girls - Dorothy Koomson 
39.Pretending - Holly Bourne 
40.Seven Days - Alex Lake 
41.Those People - Louise Candlish
42.We Know You Know - Erin Kelly
43.All My Lies Are True - Dorothy Koomson 
44.The Dead Line - Holly Watt 
45.Just Between Us - Rebecca Drake
46.If You Could Go Anywhere - Paige Toon
47.The Volunteer - Jack Fairweather
48.Invisible Girl - Lisa Jewell
49.Last Lesson - James Goodhand
50.American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins
51.The Angel - Katerina Diamond 
52.The Promise - Katerina Diamond
53.Truth or Die - Katerina Diamond
54.<strong>Woman in the Water - Katerina Diamond</strong>
55.Missing, Presumed - Susie Steiner
56.The Switch - Beth O'Leary
57.Blurred Lines - Hannah Begbie
58.My Everything - Katie Marsh
59.The July Girls - Phoebe Locke
60.The Seven Sisters - Lucinda Riley
61.In Case You Missed It - Lindsey Kelk
62.The Heatwave - Katerina Diamond
63.<strong>The Seven Husband's of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid</strong>

Currently reading 64.The Other Passenger - Louise Candlish.

Of the books mentioned above that I can remember I had read Gatsby, HP 1, 50 shades unfortunately and the Da Vinci Code. Not sure what else was mentioned.

I haven’t read The Hobbit, To Kill A Mockingbird, or 1984 (I do have copies of the latter two on my TBR list though). I have read Gatsby and Jane Eyre. I have read The Da Vinci code but not 50 Shades or the Sharon Osborne one.

Yes I'd say Jane Eyre should be on that list
I've read most of Enid Blyton but that's showing my age, a lot of hers have dated badly

I've read your five @BookWitch! And Jane Eyre and Gatsby. Also HP1. Never read any Famous Five or Secret Seven as a child because my mother was very anti Blyton, but I did manage to sneak The Magic Faraway Tree. @EineReiseDurchDieZeit I have read The Da Vinci Code but not the others you mention!

@TimeforaGandT, I have also read and much preferred We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

I plead the 5th re 50 Shades - it was trauma enough learning that my mother had read all 3 of them when I was browsing on her kindle when we went on holiday together a few years ago.

How about The day of the triffids?

Sorry Eine not read any of those three...but have also read Gatsby and Eyre

Going off my experience of sheer volume of the same title working in a charity shop with used books.

I would go with :

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
50 Shades Of Grey by EL James

and

Extreme by Sharon Osbourne

On any given week we'd have at least 5 of each of the fuckers

Read Gatsby and Eyre (polishes Halo)

Haven't read 1984.

I have an American mother so my childhood reading is a bit different because of this. I don't think a single American hasn't read Charlotte's Web or Little House on the Prairie

Reading habits are also influenced by what was on telly : so for me Railway Children, Ballet Shoes, Peppermint Pig, aforementioned Little House...

Oh dear - I have not read Of Mice and Men or LOTR - have read The Hobbit but didn’t do much for me so could not face LOTR.

Roald D a good call.

I'd venture that 50% or fewer on here have read Gatsby and that fewer than that have read Jane Eyre all the way through.

I am not going anywhere near Tolkein or Little Women . I've not read To Kill A Mockingbird either.

I would probably guess at Jane Eyre, Animal Farm, The Handmaid's Tale Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Great Gatsby as most likely to have been universally read.

The books that I assume everyone (who claims to be moderately well read) has read would be:
Pride and Prejudice
The Hobbit (at least, even if not LotR)
Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
1984

Interesting question

Swallows and Amazons - I've only read as an adult. I suspect it was more of a 'middle class thing' than books I'd have encountered as a child.

Harry Potter - pretty sure that Cote won't have read it!

Of Mice and Men is excellent, Betts. Give it a go!

Harry Potter? The first one?

I think I have read all that you mention remus but was more of a Secret Seven girl so may not have done the FF.

What about Swallows and Amazons or Malory Towers?

I think it's unlikely too. I don't remember having read Of Mice and Men, I read Little Women reluctantly for university and hated it.
I reckon you are on to something with Hans Christian Anderson or Enid Blyton.

Something that we've all read?

Of Mice and Men?
Little Women?
The first Famous Five book?
Hans Christian Anderson?

I doubt there's anything at all.

@Welshwabbit I read The Haunting of Hill House earlier in the year and thought it was atmospheric in the haunting but ultimately not my genre as I hated not knowing whether it was in her mind, she was the instigator or there was something supernatural occurring. I much preferred We have always lived in the Castle.

62. Marking Time - Elizabeth Jane Howard

The second book in the Cazalet chronicles following the family in the early years of WW2. This was a great read and the focus on the teenagers and the life of the household is a good insight into the social history of the period and the impact of the war. The story covers first love, infidelity, terminal illness, death and we see how the characters are driven by both duty and love as (mostly) they try to do the right thing and the difficulties of growing up in these years.

@bettsbattenburg I suspect it will be hard to find a book that we have all read as we all have very different tastes. Probably the best chance would be something like Pride and Prejudice but I’m sure there will be some who haven’t read that. I know there are some other books that are always popular on here but there’s always someone who hasn’t read them (e.g. This Thing Of Darkness - I am one of those who hasn’t read this!).

209. The Little Princesses: The Story Of The Queen’s Childhood By Her Nanny Crawfie by Marian Crawford

As it says on the tin (except she was actually their governess not their nanny). It was first published in 1950 and caused a massive scandal at the time with Crawfie being ostracised by the royal family for the rest of her life. Compared to some of the stuff that gets published about the royals now, this is very anodyne and almost sycophantic as there’s almost nothing negative in there, so it’s hard to see why the royals got so upset about it. However, I suppose this was the first example of a book breaching their privacy so maybe they wanted to put anyone else off doing it. It’s not really that well written but does contain some nice anecdotes. My favourite was one of the Queen’s wedding presents - two women got so excited when they heard the engagement news on the wireless that they had burnt their toast so they packaged up and sent the toast as a present!

Thanks Southeast.

My two most recent books are both recommendations from this thread so many thanks for these too, as I am sure I would not have come across them otherwise.

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd Interesting and compelling first-hand accounts from overseas visitors with a wide range of views and experiences. As one of the reviewers cited at the beginning rather depressingly (and not unreasonably) concludes: "...people see and hear only what they already want to see and hear".

Business as Usual by Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford A recent graduate leaves her rather dull fiance in Edinburgh to spend a year earning her own living in London. This was written (and illustrated with wonderful line drawings) in 1933 and is great fun while also touching more soberly on social conditions of the time. Jane Oliver has an amusing turn of phrase which I found very entertaining.

Hello everyone! Thanks for the new thread @southeastdweller. I have had a slow few reading weeks, because work has been extremely busy and also because I'm still bashing away at my "lockdown project" to read all of Vasari's Lives. I'm now up to p. 585 of the second book, which is not to be confused with the original second part - I finished that ages ago, but the third and final part is humungous and goes on for about 1500 pages. The Lives have become much longer and more involved as we get up to people Vasari actually knew, and are a minimum of 30 pages long, which has put paid to my plan to tweet one a night. One every three nights is about my average at the moment and I am eyeing Michelangelo (over 100 pages!) with a certain amount of dread. However, I'm more than 3/4 of the way through and am determined to get to the end.

Anyway, on to my list:

1. Autumn Term – Antonia Forest
2. Mutual Admiration Society – Mo Moulton
3. Swan Song – Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
4. This Must be the Place – Maggie O’Farrell
5. The Bookshop – Penelope Fitzgerald
6. A Place Called Winter – Patrick Gale
7. The Reunion – Guillaume Musso
8. Black Water Lilies – Michel Bussi
9. Wilful Blindness – Margaret Heffernan
10. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos – Dominic Smith
11. The Farm – Joanne Ramos
12. The High Window – Raymond Chandler
13. The Lady in the Lake – Raymond Chandler
14. The Little Sister – Raymond Chandler
15. She Lies in Wait – Gytha Lodge
16. The Last Anniversary – Liane Moriarty
17. Bitter Orange – Claire Fuller
18. The Lost Man – Jane Harper
19. What Red Was – Rosie Price
20. Keeping an Eye Open – Julian Barnes
21. Heartburn – Nora Ephron
22. Crooked Heart – Lissa Evans
23. Old Baggage – Lissa Evans
24. A View of the Harbour – Elizabeth Taylor
25. The Crow Trap – Ann Cleeves
26. Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects: Part 1 – Giorgio Vasari
27. Telling Tales – Ann Cleeves
28. The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
29. Burial Rites – Hannah Kent
30. How the Dead Speak – Val McDermid
31. Idaho – Emily Ruskovich
32. After the Party – Cressida Connolly
33. Miss Happiness and Miss Flower – Rumer Godden
34. Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects: Part 2 – Giorgio Vasari
35. French Exit - Patrick DeWitt
36. Hidden Depths – Ann Cleeves
37. Expectation – Anna Hope
38. Silent Voices – Ann Cleeves
39. Girl, Woman, Other - Bernardine Evaristo
40. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor
41. Warlight - Michael Ondaatje
42. Closed Circles – Viveca Sten
43. Things Can Only Get Worse – John O’Farrell
44. Guiltless – Viveca Sten
45. Cassandra at the Wedding – Dorothy Baker
46. The Glass Room – Ann Cleeves
47. The Loney – Andrew Michael Hurley
48. The Colour of Murder – Julian Symons
49. My Name is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout
50. Tonight You’re Dead – Viveca Sten
51. Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
52. The Lonely Girl – Edna O’Brien
53. Girls In Their Married Bliss - Edna O’Brien
54. The Crossing Places – Elly Griffiths
55. Tell It To the Bees – Fiona Shaw
56. Harbour Street – Ann Cleeves

And my most recent read:

57. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

This was an odd one. I didn't enjoy reading it much, as I read before bed usually, and I had a constant feeling something horrible was going to happen which would give me nightmares. I know that's kind of the point of ghost/horror stories, and explains why I don't generally read them! For some reason murder mysteries don't have the same effect. Anyway, this has been described as the definitive haunted house novel; certainly the characterisation of Hill House itself as a sort of malevolent, brooding beast was very effective and the painting of its psychological effects on the protagonists was well done. There was a clever uncertainty about whether one of the central characters, Eleanor, was being haunted; whether it was all in her head, or whether in fact she was doing the haunting. It's generally very well-written but for all that I couldn't warm to it. I found some of the repeated tropes annoying, and I suspect I wasn't pre-disposed to like it given the subject matter. Stepping back I can see why it's so lauded, but it wasn't for me.