50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Eight

Merry Christmas, book pals.

We've not opened presents yet, so I'm not sure if I'll be getting any books, but I haven't asked for any this year, as I've still got a big pile of non-fiction, all half read.

Hope everyone is having a lovely day. I'll keep my opinions about 'women's fiction' and 'chick lit' to myself, just for today. . But everybody is welcome to read and discuss what they want, so long as they don't mind people not holding back if it's not their cup of tea. The fighting is what I'm here for!

Ooh I love the Dishoom @BestIsWest - although most things are quite complicated I mainly stick to the snacks!

Merry Christmas all,
I got some lovely cookery books (Nigella, Dishoom) and The Last Days of John Lennon by James Patterson from DH which I am both intrigued and amused by. I am a bit of a Beatles fan but not sure about James Patterson.

I am also counting in my book haul two Hazel Holts which the very lovely Bibliomania sent on to me which will be perfect downtime reading over the Christmas break.

Merry Christmas everyone! Managed to get more books than normal this year (although one I did buy myself via Bert’s Books Secret Santa!) and a kindle and Waterstones voucher today! Definitely pleased.

Have a lovely day everyone.

Merry Christmas 50 Bookers, and thank you for making this my perennial favourite place on the internet.

biblio I am SHOCKED by No book haul here - the family consensus seems to be that I don't need any further encouragement - but I did get a requested guide to cycling routes. Don't they know that there's no such thing as too many books?!

I also bought myself Hard Times so will set up the readalong for that soon. I am so used to tomes, I didn't realise it was quite short!

I also got an Amazon voucher so will be perusing the bolded items on all your lists for inspiration!

Talking of women's fiction I got this as a present lovely cover!

Thankfully also got some others more in my taste.

Merry Christmas everyone

No book haul here - the family consensus seems to be that I don't need any further encouragement - but I did get a requested guide to cycling routes.

On the chicklit question, there's lots of bad stuff out there. At its best, it can include really good observational humour, as with Bridget Jones - there's such specificity to a young woman of that age at that time and in that place. You can be a very different person and still recognize her. I'm currently reading the latest book about Aisling, by McLysaght and Breen, which plays the same game with a young woman from small-town Ireland. She's practical, kind-hearted and utterly conventional and I could swear I know her in real life. It's the same skill as that used in portraying Alan Partridge or David Brent - the comedy of recognition.

Happy Christmas all!

Decent haul - I shared Amazon shopping list with DH, which helped...

DS1 all on his own without research got me the Jess Phillips book which was a stroke of genius.

DH got me the Ian Mortimer book on Regency Britain, Billie Jean King's autobiography, the newer Christy Lefteri book and Sebastian Payne's Broken Heartlands so a good mixture.

Happy Christmas all!

I have no book haul this year, which is probably just as well as I have plenty to keep me going. Hoping to join you for the full year next year.

Ooh the Gaskill looks great, ‘a pulsating history of sorcery’ apparently!

Happy reading @Palegreenstars and everyone. Here's my book haul from Santa!

Merry Christmas all!

Another year of reading slightly less for me but as always I’ve enjoyed hanging out with you all. My reading is a complete mixture from light to heavy and I love discussing all of it here.

Ooh and a few new books arrived on my bedside table from the big man over night.

Please do share bookish gifts - as ever I’ll be trying to avoid Amazon in the early part of the year by sneaking in a lot of purchases before the year is up.

Merry Christmas to all the 50 bookers, thank you for another awesome year of reading!

Happy Christmas all. My favourite thing about this thread is the wide range of books people read, from the highest to the lowest brow, from obscure technical works to lightweight sunlounger reads, from every genre and with every type of cover including pink ones with pictures of shoes 😊 Thank you all for the excellent reviews and for the occasionally robust (but always interesting) discussion. I too would hate anyone to feel they couldn't come here to talk about what they've been reading, whatever it is. Hearing people talk about books which you yourself would never dream of reading is an absolutely integral part of the thread magic for me - sometimes inspiring me to try something new, sometimes reinforcing my "Yeah, that sounds as bad as I thought it would be". Love the variety and the open mindedness, thank you all.

I left more than one book club because friends kept making me readchoosing books like Memory Keeper's Daughter, 1000 Splendid Suns, and The Book Thief. The idea seemed to be that badly-written popular fiction is somehow worthy if it talks about difficult topics such as abused women or the Holocaust, especially if it suitably tugs on their heart strings.

In my current book club, we choose a theme for each month and everyone reads what they like within that theme. We did biographies, short stories, SF, unreliable narrator, travel, historical fiction, non-fiction, Russia, France, sports, and many more. Everyone gets to hear about others' reads, much like the 50-Book threads. It is perfect

I agree that there is a problem with the marketing of women's fiction. Somehow, somewhere, someone has decided that women want to buy pretty pastel-colored books with Female Relative Of Man With Occupation titles in cursive lettering. That same man must have been convinced that women can't possibly want to read about anything other than women doing womanly things with their friends, husbands, and children, which is why they call it "women's fiction". It is patronizing and infuriating.

If women indeed buy 80% of all fiction books and chick-lit/popular books with "feminine" covers don't make up 80% of all book sales, publishing houses need to wake up to the fact that "women" are not a homogeneous group with uniform tastes, and that even those of us who read their pink glittery books don't read ONLY those.

@VikingNorthUtsire I just gave up on the Ninth House. I wanted it to scratch a light and easy itch and it just wasn't. I got about 20% through and was thoroughly bogged down by all the descriptions of the Yale campus. There just wasn't much there to keep me interested.

I'm not going to weigh in to the woman's fiction argument having never read a Marian Keyes, but would say @JaninaDuszejko has had one of the most interesting book lists on these threads with lots of books I've never heard of.

Merry Christmas to all book lovers, I've really enjoyed being part of this thread this year

I wouldn't call writers like Marion Keyes chick lit, but it does exist. There is definitely a market for the modern fairytale. Twenty-something protagonist faces a bit of mild peril before getting the boy/ job and living happily ever after. Replace this with quirky buisness venture by the sea and a bit of a health scare for the middle-aged market. While they serve as page turning entertainment, they are generally completely vacuous and largely have no edifying purpose. Which is fine, if that is what you want to read, but they are completely pointless as a book club choice because there is nothing to discuss in them.

There is definitely a problem in publishing with the perception and marketing of female authors. Look at JKR, most successful author of our era, but told to use initials for one series and a male pseudonym for the other because female authors don't get taken seriously. I once heard snide and dismissive comments about JoJo Moyes on the Backlisted podcast. She might not write the sort of books the snobby male guest on there wanted to read, but she certainly deserves praise for her amazing adult literacy charity. Sadly too many decent authors get the silly covers and the chick lit label and are not taken seriously as a result. This is particularly crap because women buy more books - 64% of all books and 80% of novels.

I'm sure I read a lot of stuff others in here wouldn't appreciate, and equally there are genres I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. The joy of the thread is the variety. I started and dropped out one year and the quality of my reading dipped as a result. Keep reading and debating you lovely lot, because my life is certainly richer as a result.

Happy Christmas to you all, may your stockings be laden with books.

And the term women's fiction is ambiguous I suppose. My first interpretation of it would also be fiction written by women -- this is probably because I've been following the women's fiction prize for many years now and that encompasses fiction written by women, not necessarily fiction written specifically for women.

Another fan of Rachel's Holiday here. If it isn't complex and meaningful fiction, I don't know what is!

Happy Christmas everyone

Merry Christmas everyone! I loved Rachel's Holiday and clung onto it like a drowning woman to a raft when I realised that a very close friend was an alcoholic. It taught me a lot. I find great writing hard to define but a woman who can write truthfully about alcoholism AND make it funny is quite something.

Cote, I don't want to talk for Janina but you asked her what she meant by genre fiction, and she told you. My understanding is that it's more 'mainstream' popular books e.g. thrillers, crime etc. as she said.

Yes you are right, there are some spirited debates on the chat, and that's as it should be, but to me your posts tonight came across as dismissive of certain genres and a bit condescending about Janina's taste. Someone reading those comments might not think this is a place where they can contribute on certain type of books, which from what you say wasn't your intention. We all love to read, we all love to share our opinions and as you say it would be boring if we all liked the same stuff.

On that note, Merry Christmas one and all. I hope Santa brings us a plethora of books from all genres which will get us all talking

And on that conciliatory note full of feeelinnggsss, happy Christmas everyone