50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Eight

I've been lurking and reading the posts about The Dark is Rising. Would this series be suitable for a 15 year old boy?

Ah, sorry to hear that, noodle. Hope you don't feel too ill with it and may you find the right books to keep you company.

46. The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave. Workmanlike mystery - this had an enjoyable plot but the characters were very flat. It took forever to get going, and I wasn't a fan of the way the narrator kept repeating the bloody obvious. I think it was intended to make her sound wise but I found it deeply annoying.

Wasn't sure I would make my 50 but now I think I will because I've just tested positive for FUCKING Covid and will have nowt else to do for the next 9 days but read

56. Court Number One: the Old Bailey Trials that Defined Modern Britain by Thomas Grant. An interesting book bringing together 12 trials taking place in court number one of the Old Bailey over the last century. Grant tries to avoid covering only the most notorious crimes, and instead chooses interesting cases (eg the last woman to be put to death in England, a widely recognised miscarriage of justice, a case in which the defendants were found not guilty in the face of overwhelming evidence against them). This includes some interesting discussions, especially about the pros and cons of trial by jury and the impact of a barrister or judge's personality on the outcome of a case.

57. East of Eden by John Steinbeck. A classic set in California in the second half of the 19th century and up to the last year of WWI, this follows the lives of the Trask family - Cyrus, his sons Adam and Charles, and Adam's wife Cathy and sons Aron and Cal. Exploring the theme of whether humans are born good and evil or whether they have the free will to become so, this is an epic novel and a wonderful read. I had never read it before (or in fact any of Steinbeck's novels, although I have seen a performance of Of Mice and Men) and I enjoyed it very much.

94. Snow by John banville

I don't read crime fiction at all so I've no idea how this compares to other books of this genre, I don't think this was a particularly well plotted crime as there were a few plot holes and the reveal at the end sort of limped in.

However I did overall enjoy this, I liked the writing and the setting, perfect for December with all the snow.

95. Truevine by Beth Macy

Non- fiction about two black albino brothers in Virginia around the turn of the century who were 'kidnapped' and made to perform in the freak shows of the circus. The book details the brothers life and their mother's fight to get them back and legal battle to make sure they were paid.

This was an article which was expanded into a book and the author pads it out with the history of Virginia at that time with regards to black people lives, the history of the freak show and circus and the background of all the main people on the book. The padding is however relevant so didn't feel like it had been wedged it and the brothers story was the main focus. Interesting for anyone with an interest in this history.

96. Machines like me by Ian McEwan

This is a AI book, a man purchases one of the newly released AI by the name of Adam and as the book progresses it becomes known that the other AI are self- destroying themselves.

This is one that will likely stay with me, for most of the book I had no idea where it was going and the ending and explanation of why the AIs were destroying themselves was a very satisfying conclusion.

This is also set in an alternative 80s where we lost the Falklands war and Tony Benn becomes PM and this was woven throughout really well

[quote PermanentTemporary]@EineReiseDurchDieZeit surely the Books board should have a thread where people link to their dissertations?? Id like to read yours.[/quote]
Mine was on a computer from way back when and I cant find the USB.

125. The Runaway Girls by Jacqueline Wilson. I don't usually read her historical stories, as they are just too much children's books for me now (though I think I would have enjoyed them as a child), but I did enjoy this; it's kind of total wish fulfillment fantasy of poor neglected rich girl who teams up with confident streetwise pauper and has adventures in Victorian London. At 8 or 9 I think I would have loved it! It reminded me a little of the ridiculous girls comic books I read in the 70s, with romantic gypsies and totally implausible plot lines - I loved those too!

68. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

I have long been a fan of Sittenfeld's writing (since I read Prep, although not everything she's done quite hits the mark) and I absolutely loved this "what if" version of Hillary Clinton's life. The first third is a fictionalised version of reality, as Hillary meets and falls in love with Bill Clinton - but the final two thirds veer away from reality. Sittenfeld always does a great job of inhabiting the women she writes about, and this is no exception. I haven't been able to get into many books over the last couple of months, but I raced through this and breathed a massive, satisfied sigh at the end. Comfort reading of the best kind.

I read Perfume about 20 years ago too, and it has stuck in my memory although I don't think I exactly liked it. I thought it was good., though.

I completely missed that the wonderful Katie Lumsden was doing a dickensalong on A Christmas Carol.

Link here for anyone who has read recently/has time to read :

56. We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker
Really enjoyed this novel. Duchess Day Radley is a 13 year old self proclaimed outlaw, living with her single mum and younger brother in difficult circumstances in a small town on the coast of California. They are watched over by Walk, the local cop who is dealing with the ongoing consequences of a crime that his friend was found guilty of decades earlier. There were a couple of times that I felt like the author had set us up with a few too many characters and threads to follow, but I was fully invested in what happened to the main characters and loved the ending.
Have been on a run of very short titles since then...
57. The Deal of A Lifetime by Fredrik Backman
Novella about a man who is visited by a kind of admin assistant for Death. I think this was intended to tug at the heart strings but it kind of missed the target for me.
58. Black and British: A Short Essential History by David Olusoga
This was a young readers edition, looking at the lives of black people in Britain from the time of Romans through the industrial revolution to the Windrush generation. There was a huge amount that I didn't know or had never thought of - I was certainly one of those whose school history included much about cotton manufacturing without ever mentioning where the cotton came from, who harvested it or how it got here. A starter for further reading.
59. Rizzio by Denise Mina
Also a short read, less than 120 pages, this is a kind of fictionalised account of the true story of the murder of David Rizzio in the chambers of Mary Queen of Scots in Holyrood Palace in the 1500s. I didn't love the writing in this but I think a lot of research has gone into getting the historical details right and the story is pretty extraordinary.
I'm in the latter stages of one novel, one non-fiction title and one audiobook, may well tidy up all three this week and settle into more of a one-thing-at-a-time pattern over the holidays.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit surely the Books board should have a thread where people link to their dissertations?? Id like to read yours.

35. The Confession by Jessie Burton
Rose is 35 and unsatisfied by both her job, and her long term relationship. She has always felt the loss of her mother Elise, who disappeared when her father was a baby. Her father reveals that immediately prior to his relationship with her mother, Elise was in a relationship with Constance Holden, a critically acclaimed author. In her attempts to get in contact with Constance to find out more about her mother, Rose seizes an opportunity work for her, creating a new identity for herself to avoid suspicion. The novel moves back and forth between the present day and the early 1980s, when Constance and Elise were together.

I found the present day sections more successful, as Rose struggle to find out who she is was compelling. The 1980s sections were less interesting, I think because Elise was the least interesting person in Constance's glamorous circle, and felt like an onlooker even though this part of the story was told from her perspective.

62. Nice Work - David Lodge An academic and an MD of a manufacturing firm are thrown together in 1980s Birmingham and learn about life on the other side.

Vic and Robyn are traditional cliche characters. He is the bright working-class boy who did well for himself by working hard and earning himself the position of MD at a mid-size engineering company, a depressed wife and a clutch of spoiled teenage children by the age of 46. Robyn, brought up in the studious atmosphere of an established academic home, has made a name for herself as a leading academic in the field of English literature and holds strong beliefs regarding feminism and adult education.

The unlikely pair are thrown together as a result of an industry scheme to introduce academic life to the industrial. Neither wants to do it and struggles to understand the other's perspective. The writing is nicely descriptive and frequently comical. I first read this as a student in Birmingham with a boyfriend from the industrial atmosphere of the Black Country so it had a kind of resonance then. I enjoyed re-reading it now as a kind of historical piece.

But maybe the thinking is that her American readership will struggle with the characters living out of walking distance from Zone 1.

Similarly, DD1 was looking at the illustrations from an American version of The Deathly Hallows and the picture for when Hermione apparates Harry and Ron away from the wedding to Tottenham Court Road makes London look like it's Victorian, it's all misty and romantic.

I read Charlotte Hardman's Life of Charlotte Bronte earlier this year and really liked it.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favourite Bronte novel, and I have a copy of Take Courage somewhere TBR, as well as a couple of bios of Charlotte Bronte and, I think, one about all 3 sisters.

1. Tenant is All Time Top 10
2. I wrote my dissertation on "Wuthering Heights and Tenant

I still have it somewhere, but cant remember the full title because I'm knackered

Buying this forthwith.

As a personal grudge that I carry I got an extremely high 2:1 for my dissertation and when I asked why I didn't get a first, it was because I forgot the page numbers.

The thing is I didn't, I simply couldn't get Microsoft Word to number them properly (several different files) and I had an appointment to get it laminated and bound

Bad times

Buying this forthwith

64. . Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis
A lovely book, lent to me by a fellow Bronte fan. A personal but knowledgeable exploration of Anne Bronte's life and work by a writer who discovered her after her sisters, and feels she has been undeservedly out of the spotlight and misunderstood, partly because she approached life and writing in her own way - the only Bronte sister who appeared to like teaching or at least to be good at it. Certainly makes me want to reread The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and I'm intrigued that even now there are few editions that have restored the heavy cuts by Charlotte Bronte.

Another US writer who sets a crime series in the UK but does it a lot better generally then Elizabeth George is Deborah Crombie. She does have her police detective duo living in improbably appealing parts of London. One while still living as a single mum moves from Leyton to Islington, and later they move in together in Notting Hill. But maybe the thinking is that her American readership will struggle with the characters living out of walking distance from Zone 1.

I think it was, SOL. Thank you, if so. I'd never have stumbled across it without your recommendation
.

@PepeLePew I remember having a conversation on the previous thread on Vida - I was quite obsessed with that book and with reading other things about the period. I was thrilled to find someone who shared this particular obsession, and I think it might well have been you @Soliinvictus. Glad, Pepe, that you enjoyed it.

I was introduced to Elizabeth George at some point in the 1990s, and then I read one that I found really annoying and learned that she's an American and things that hadn't bothered me earlier started to jump out at me. I have bought more of her books though, and bought a couple on Kindle offer that I discarded in paperback before, as I'd quite like to go back to the series now, It's been a while!

@Sadik I read 84K during the lockdown earlier this year and found it hard going as so relentlessly depressing, also long. I think I moved on to some Mary Wesley books next for some light relief!

@SOLINVICTUS your review made me laugh, I used to quite like Elizabeth George but will steer clear now. Ludlow is actually a nice town in beautiful countryside though, it was a bit of a foodie destination for a while.

I just finished The Searchers by Tana French. This is about an American cop who retires to Ireland and is doing up a rundown cottage in the rural countryside. He makes friends with a kid from a local family of troublemakers, who wants his help finding their missing older brother. I found this pretty slow moving, and almost felt like it could have been written by an Americsn s seemed to tick most stereotypes of the Irish countryside. Not really my cup of tea.

Also fallen behind like many of you, and will be unlikely to reach 50 especially thanks to bloody buggering ridiculous 250 page too long crapola Elizabeth George and The Punishment She Deserves FINALLY finished and coming in at 45.

Heavens above. I used to love Inspector Lynley books (and thought, oh lovely, this will do nicely) but this one has done it for me. The premise of the story was fine, but it could have been at least 200 pages shorter. Masses of inconsequent and irrelevant detail and the only thing the detailed and rambling minute description of Ludlow has made me vow is never to visit the place. Too many characters, each of whom had too much background stuff going on with no connection to the plot, and each one of them sporting an absurd name and several unlikeable relatives. Couldn't wait to finish it. Lynley remains recognisably himself, but Barbara appears to have turned into an oafish parody. Gah.

Am now reading Insertion by AJ Quinnell.

It may have been me recommending Vida. It's one of my favourite books of all time.

SapatatSea How many times did Lucy Clarke use the word "salt" or "salty"? I don't mind her books but her obsession with salt does my head in.

I must read more next year. I've disappointed myself this year and will have fewer stand-out books than ever before I think. Oof.

I read Perfume about 20 years ago, and remember liking it then.

113. The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones

The final book by Diana Wynne Jones, completed after her death by her sister Ursula.

It’s enjoyable, but it’s not going to be one of my favourites of her. I’m a bit older than the target age for this.

114. The Emergency Poet edited by Deborah Alma

Poetry anthology. The poems are split into themes like love, grief, getting older and so on. It’s quite a nice selection.

I have now given up on Afterland by Lauren Beukes. It’s set in a near future where almost everyone with a Y chromosome has been killed by a prostate cancer pandemic. A mum’s on the run with her son, one of the few surviving boys.

The setting’s all a bit too grim for me at the moment. I might try it again later when there’s less of a real life pandemic around.

One of the Girls - Lucy Clarke
I enjoyed this. It was a superior chick lit thriller with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. The story zipped along nicely. Having read a few very long, dull tomes lately this was a nice palate cleanser. I read The Sea Sisters by the same author about seven years ago so hoped this would be a similar very easy read and it was. The story follows six women on a hen do in a remote farmhouse above cliffs in Greece. They don't all know each other personally but are all connected through the bride and her fiance. It did take a few chapters for the characters to all gel in my mind as six is quite a few and I enjoyed how the mystery played out. I did guess most of the twists and turns in advance but that was fine. I could really easily imagine this as a BBC or ITV Monday night drama. It was nice to lose myself on a hot Greek Island for a few hours immersed in the mess of other womens lives.