50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Eight

It's so lovely to read Christmassy books at Christmas time. I am enjoying watching Hawkwye rn for the same reason!

115. They do it with Mirrors by Agatha Christie. A quick reread of a Marple.
116. The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge. I think I would have enjoyed this more as a child, when I suspect I would have loved Nan's parlour; and the unevenness of the plot would have bypassed me. But I quite enjoyed it anyway!

Sorry, not Sap - I meant RazorstormUnicorn! 👆

Great timing, Sap, as I just came on to post my latest...

102: The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper

I'm happy to have joined in with the thread on this one. It's a quick read but an immersive one - one thing, though: I was expecting it to be similar to Over Sea, Under Stone in terms of narrative style, but it's much more full-on fantasy/time-slip. Having peeked into the next volume, Greenwitch, I see that Will Stanton, the central figure of this book, meets up with the Drew family from the first one, so it'll be interesting to see how the story continues.

I'd like to join in a War and Peace read through! Sounds like a good way to tackle the book.

People talking about The Dark Is Rising sparked a thought that I think this was one of my mum's favourite books. Had a quick look and found a battered copy on my shelf which backs up my memory. I had to be very selective when choosing from her books as I didn't have any shelf space at that point in time.

I've got all 5 books in one, so will try and read Over Sea, Under Stone and The Dark Is Rising in December I think.

Once there were Wolves- Charlotte McConaghy
This was an unusual story. It involves a biologist Inti Flynn, originally from New Zealand, who has moved to a very remote area of the Scottish Highlands along with her severely traumatised twin sister Aggie. Inti is part of a team trying to introduce a pack of Canandian Wolves into the Scottish wilds. Inti has a condition called "mirror touch synaesthesia" which means she can feel a similar sensation in her body as does another person who is experiencing it. Inti can experience what the animals and her wolves are feeling. One night she discovers the body of a local farmer who has been killed. Suspicion falls on the wolves and Inti decides to protect them. The narrative follows the fallout from this decision, flashbacks as we learn what happened to traumatize Aggie and we also discover if Inti's love interest had any part in the killing of the farmer.

This was okay. I don't know if it is my own headspace but I found it a bit dull.

Leviathan by Rosie Andrews. Nice cover and title which lured me in. I can see this being marketed as the next "Essex Serpent* as it has a plot that involves a search for a mythic/ancient beast (although it is set during the English Civil war rather than Victorian times). The book has glowing reviews on Goodreads but it left me cold. I always knew I was reading a book, the world building of 1643 didn't convince or draw me in nor did the characters.It felt contrived.

Thomas Treadwater is a wounded soldier in the English Civil war. He is released from the fight to return home to Norfolk after receiving a worrying letter from his 16 year old sister. When he arrives home , he finds all the sheep dead in the fields, his servants locked up for aiding witchcraft, his father comatose and his sister alone. Their most recent servant hire, a sexy young woman who is thought to be a witch has apparently seduced their father become pregnant and is on the run. Treadwater is rational and doesn't believe in witchcraft but some sort of evil that needs unravelling is on the loose..

43. Musical Areas in Aboriginal North America by Helen H. Roberts

This was a precious find in an old private library, published in 1936 by Yale University Press.

It explains and geographically groups the subtly different music of North America's native tribes as well as their instruments, concluding that they are not all pentatonic, descending, and minor as was "previously" thought, and that we don't understand their languages well enough to draw definitive conclusions.

A fascinating look into the fledgling field of Native American anthropology, nearly a century ago.

118. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (Audible)

I have found Matt Haig books a bit trite in the past and wouldn't have read this at all had it not been on Audible for free read by Carey Mulligan.

I had to eat my words at the start, Carey Mulligan reads it so well, and I got really into it.

Nora Seed (which is a highly twee name and part of the overall problem with Haig) wants to die. Life hasn't worked out like she wanted and everyone blames her. Then her cat dies, and Nora considers taking her own life.

Between Life And Death, Nora encounters her school librarian who has volumes of books of other lives were Nora made other choices

Will the Grass Be Greener? Etc Etc

What started out as really engaging becomes so repetitive and preachy, and really, plotwise, quite predictable, I mean you do know where its going from the beginning.

Plus point : Easy Access Cosy Reading, don't regret reading it but nothing earth shattering and very The Lesson Of This Book Is.

102. American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins. Much reviewed on here and elsewhere, this is the story of Lydia and her son Luca fleeing from the cartel in Mexico who has murdered their family to the promised land of "el norte". There's a lot of controversy around Cummins' right to tell this story which I do get. The US is portrayed as a haven, and Lydia and her son don't seem particularly "Mexican" characters. Luca feels a bit old for his supposed age and Lydia seems a bit blind to the reality of her country. The strongest parts are drawing attention to the plight of the migrants, the lengths they have to go to riding the freight trains and crossing the desert. I think it has motivated me to read the books around the subject by Latin authors to understand the difference rather than the sanitised "white" version.

42. Insertion by A J Quinnell

This was brilliant , written by the author of Man on Fire and other similarly political action-filled books in the style of F Forsyth.

A top brain surgeon gets abducted by people who fake his suicide, but his wife isn't convinced. While she searches for him with the help of a police woman and a Senator, the surgeon uncovers a massive conspiracy.

I very much enjoyed this one and would recommend it to all of you.

61. The end of innocence: Britain in the time of AIDS by Simon Garfield
Totally random pick: i opened my library e-book app and filtered to 'available now'. And if it had all been as good as the first chapter, it would have been one of my books of the year.

First published in 1994, the year before combination therapy went (fairly) mainstream, and a new edition in 2021 with a foreword from Russell T Davies. Opens with an interview with the beguiling and shocking Rupert Haseldean, the man who put 'charming country cottage' into cottaging. More joyous stories like his and this would have been unstoppable. However it has a much broader remit than this, reprinting a lot of Garfied's articles of the time, which vary in interest. For me, though, it is incredible how it brings back the details of the time, particularly tabloid guest writers like John Junor and George Gale producing rank homophobia.

101: Spam Tomorrow - Verily Anderson

Another thread, about finding obscure books from childhood, threw up the name Verily Anderson, and reminded me that I had this memoir waiting to be read. There's more than a hint of the early Monica Dickens about VA's jokey style, and she had a similar background (not necessarily very moneyed, but rather posh).

The main focus is WW2, during which 20-something Verily marries Donald, disapproved of by her family (he was almost 20 years her senior). Their efforts to set up home together are derailed by the conflict and by Verity's first pregnancy, which goes horribly badly - she makes a big joke of this, but it sounds appalling - and after a second baby things settle down into comic set-pieces with amusing lodgers in the country farmhouse she rents with a friend, until finally the war ends and she and Donald are reunited and able to buy their dream house (in a perfect Regency Square in Kensington).

Gritty realism it ain't, but if you're after a quick, light read this is a lot of fun, and Verily has a very droll turn of phrase that did have me snorting several times.

49. Six Stories and an Essay by Andrea Levy Thanks to elkiedee whose review I think was how I knew of this. I really enjoyed Levy’s Small Island many years ago. The stories in this slim book cover similar themes - the hopes versus the realities of the experience of em/immigration, disadvantage, and British selective amnesia about its history. Stories are introduced with information about why they were written or the real life experiences that inspired them. The essay is about an episode that Levy witnessed and how it informed her outlook and writing. All this makes for a very readable and moving mix of memoir and fiction that is revealing about the ways that the writer has worked experience into her fiction.

48. Acts and Omissions by Catherine Fox

I didn't enjoy this as much as others on here. I found the narrator annoying and the cast of characters too huge to get a grip of. And you never got more than a page or two of each situation before we'd leaped to the next thing.

Also, for a book set it a church there is a huge amount of swearing including taking God's name in vain. I've been involved in lots of church settings and everyone is always way more uptight with their language.

(I couldn't care less about the swearing btw, just a bit jarring in a cathedral!)

Anyway at the end I couldn't put it down so it was fine, but I won't read the others of hers.

Ah, Meg, you have my sympathies. Unpleasant and unsettling. Hope you're
feeling ok

41. The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield

Is there nothing this man can't do? Canadian astronaut and former ISS commander Chris Hadfield wrote a bestselling autobiography An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth which I read, loved, and reviewed back in 2015. Now, he is back with his first fiction book.

This is a "What if?" story around US/USSR space race that somehow ends up with a Russian cosmonaut ending up in the American capsule headed for the moon. It is not high literature, but the story is interesting, the characters distinct and complex, and the details are both historically and scientifically correct.

A very respectable first book, recommended to everyone here.

Thanks for the thriller recommendations, I've just tested positive for Covid so might need a few easy reads to get through ten days of self isolation!

37. Alone On The Ice - David Roberts

A well written account of Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14, which ended in an epic struggle for survival when two of his three-man party died weeks of travel away from the safety of the expedition hut. I was unfamiliar with Mawson's story as it tends to be overshadowed by Scott and Shackleton but it's every bit as gripping and tragic as any tale from the golden age of polar exploration. The only downside was some poor quality reading of the Audible book.

47. William Again by Richmal Crompton. A nice easy comfort read to get me within spitting distance of the 50 book total.

I've officially given up on Malibu Rising, having enjoyed Daisy Jones and The Six by the same author, I just couldn't care enough about this group of people to find out if they burned to a crisp in a Californian mansion or not 🤷‍♀️ (Not a spoiler as you're told about the fire in the prologue.) I've wasted far too much time on this sub Jackie Collins novel and I will be holding it completely responsible if I don't hit the magic 50 this year!

The Crater School book was a recommendation from another author I read Noodle - I really rate author blogs for finding new stuff (along with this thread of course!)

Don't know why there is a 26 in the middle of this sentence. It should say

The book is divided into 4 sections, with each part having a funeral

The Hollow is one of my favourite Christie's @Tanaqui. I don't really know why, just feels like it's has all her trademarks without being too well-known.

Also a fan of Robert Harris who I've just got my Mum into. I don't think I've read Archangel but really liked Conclave and his Cicero books, as well as a couple of older ones.

100. The Promise - Damon Galgut. The Booker winner and a worthy one IMO. I've read 3 others on the shortlist and can see why this was chosen. It follows a white family in South Africa from the mid 80s to the present day, and although it focuses very tightly on the family members, there is a strong background of the change and upheaval in South Africa at that time. The book is divided into 4 sections, 26th each part having a funeral. The main characters are 3 children at the start, Amor 12, Astrid 16 and Anton who's around 20. The way its written is really interesting as it's all third person - no speech marks although there is direct speech- but it flits in between all the characters' POVs. I found it really evocative and gripping.

101. The Christmas Murder Game - Alexandra Benedict. I love detective stories, puzzles and cryptic crosswords and Christmas so this should have been my perfect book, combining them all. A family have been gathered to play a Christmas riddle game by a recently deceased Aunt in a country house. Whoever wins will win the house. Each day there is a sonnet they have to solve to find a key, but they are snowed in and someone starts murdering them. I thought it was quite obvious who the murderer was from early on, there's no much depth to the characters and the sonnets are difficult for the reader to solve. Nice idea but badly executed.

I'd say Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code is probably the definition of an easy page turning thriller- but the only Robert Harris I have read is Fatherland and I didn't love that. I like Lee Child, Micheal Connelly, Desmond Bagley; all pretty consistently page-turnish.
114) The Hollow by Agatha Christie. I rather liked this Poirot, in the country house tradition, although it doesn't have the most satisfactory ending.

117. The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble

As a young child Humphrey Clark has a much anticipated holiday spoiled by domineering siblings Ailsa and Tommy Kelman and this holiday reverberates across all their lives.

It was just so not believable. I didn't believe them as people. I didn't believe the plot. I found that it had a higher opinion of itself than it earned. The idea that the author thinks they are saying something profound, when in fact its all a bit banal.

Weird. First Margaret Drabble. Don't know if there will be another.