50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Eight

No big book haul here but not bothered as I did get Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn which was a triple 20 right on target. Really looking forward to it.

I like genre fiction and love that it's on this thread along with lots of other stuff. I wouldn't read a genre-fiction-only thread.

Ooh, pressure - hope you like it!

biblomania your review may have been influential in my requesting it for Christmas . I really enjoyed reading To Say Nothing of the Dog earlier this year (which I read while messing about on boats in Oxford which no doubt helped!) so looking forward to it.

And ditto re the bookclub where you choose your read within a set genre. I'm immediately reluctant when I have to read a specific book as an obligation. Like Mel Gibson, I demand Freedom!

Good hauls, Chessie and Janina. Janina I loved The Doomsday Book - one of my highlights this year.

54 A Maigret Christmas and Other Stories by Georges Simenon. Translated by David Coward

Never read any Simenon before but enjoyed this trio of Christmas-set tales, only one of which featured Maigret but all were in his Paris and featured characters from the Maigret books.

I've attached a photo of my Christmas book haul, my family love a wish list so all books I want to read, I've started the Vaxxers book which I'm whizzing through. I'm a senior scientist in pharma so already familiar with a lot of it and I worked with people from the Jenner Institute when I was a postdoc decades ago. Enjoying reading about some of the background I didn't know. No idea how non-biochemists will cope with the talk of codon optimisation etc though, I was trying to explain it last week to my Mum and she was completely confused.

@Stokey, thanks for the compliment on my reading choices this year.

Attached is a picture of my book haul yesterday, very pleased! Should keep me busy next year. DD also wanted me to share a picture of her books. I struggled a bit this year as she’s just turned 12 but isn’t really interested in YA yet so most things I found felt either too young or too old for her, but she seems pleased with what she’s got!

Cote I like the sound of your book club where you read what you want within a particular category. I would like a book club like that. Although I love reading I’ve never joined a book club because I don’t like the idea of feeling forced to read something I’m not interested in, but your set up would be ideal!

Cote I don't care enough about On the Beach to fight, but if you come for A Town Like Alice I'll be waiting for you, with sleeves rolled up and somebody to hold my coat.

Christopher McDougall's fantastic book
Born to Run: The hidden tribe, the ultra-runners, and the greatest race the world has never seen is among the 12 Days of Kindle deals

We should have another go at Nevil Whatshisface soon

Same here, Remus. You're my all-time favorite literary opponent

Cote
We're fighting on the same team with those two, but I always enjoy actually fighting you too. 😂

Remus - "The fighting is what I'm here for!"

I do check back from time to time to see if anyone has read NLMG or Station 11. No luck in recent months but hope springs eternal

Sadik - I would be interested to hear what you think about Shards of Earth. I have it on my Kindle.

Oh, well done, LadybirdDaphne! I searched fruitlessly yesterday (and also woke up expecting to find them easily). Why do they hide them away? So annoying.

Found them I think! www.amazon.co.uk/s/browse/?node=8517542031&ref=dlx_deals_gd_dcl_img_7_5bdd6fed_mw_sl6_ea&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8

Looks like Amazon really didn’t want us to!

@LadybirdDaphne I woke up this morning with "12 Days of Kindle" bubbling up out of my subconscious mind but I can't see any new deals

Tanaqui

Two books only here. Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky (DP just asked for my wishlist to pick from!), which is a treat to have in proper paper form not e-book, and Metazoa by Peter Godfrey Smith.

I also treated myself before Christmas to:

120. Landrace Gardening by Joseph Lofthouse In the spectrum of books read and reviewed on here, this probably falls into the 'rather niche' category It's a short but passionate book about the virtue of farming/gardening with landraces rather than standard crop varieties. Landraces are defined in the book as 'a genetically diverse, promiscuously pollinating and locally adapted crop' - basically a population that is too diverse to be considered a variety. Wonderfully individual and eccentric, I'm definitely going to take on board a lot of Lofthouse's messages.

Does anyone know if there is a 12 Days of Kindle or similar sale this year? I can never find the link!

Tanaqui

Merry Christmas all! Too much of a control freak here for much in the way of Xmas books but I have the second Thursday murder club that I asked for and a couple of lovely book tokens.

@Tanaqui - a reader after my own heart! Agatha Christie, Dick Francis and Georgette Heyer are all regulars and favourites on my book list.

Happy Christmas to you all. I love this thread and reading your reviews which let me know what to try and what to swerve!

Happy Christmas, 50 bookers. I won't lie, it's been a rough day today, and I for one am very grateful for the genre fiction that is getting me though a very tough year. And it is a real, and very underrated, skill, to write good genre fiction- Agatha Christie, Dick Francis, Georgette Heyer- their works have probably brought more pleasure to more people than most. So today I read 126) Bodies in the Library, a collection of short stories from "the golden age of detective fiction", and 127) Little Darlings by Jacqueline Wilson. Are children's books a genre? This one is definitely a specific genre of children's fiction, although I don't know what it is called (wish fulfillment realism/fairy tale maybe) and it is pretty good too.

Merry Christmas 50 Bookers! I hope you are all able to carve out a little reading time today. I've just unwrapped a couple of books from H, and an Amazon voucher from lovely MIL.

I live amongst barbarians, noodle. Barbarians.

The Dishoom book is a thing of beauty, although I haven't actually made much out of it yet.