50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Eight

I was just coming to ask if anyone might want to join a very slow moving War and Peace read along in 2022, and find the discussion has already (almost!) started. I think I could manage a chapter a day to read it over a year, if it's true that the chapters are manageable.

Anyone else fancy it?

115. The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

Otto Silberman is trying to raise funds to leave Germany when the knock rounding up Jews comes to the door. Running into the night he embarks on a descending spiral of madness and despair as his grasp on an exit strategy becomes ever more futile.

I believe the USP of this is that it is rediscovered, having being written in the late 30s by a young Jew, who being German was interred in the UK and then Australia before dying on a boat journey.

It is believed to be one of the few contemporary accounts of Kristallnacht around.

I struggled with it because of what I believe may be a really poor translation. The dialogue is so wooden and clunky its really off putting. A shame.

Thank you BadSpellaSpellaSpella!
The first section was very different in style to the other books I have read by Jon McGregor. Perhaps he was on slightly more familiar territory once he had moved beyond the more action filled start to the family life afterwards. I agree about the later sections, the descriptions of how the couple's roles/routines/lives changed are the parts that have stayed with me since I read it.

CluelessMama

I found lean stand fall very mixed. I wasn't convinced by the antarctica section at the beginning and almost put the book down at this point - it almost felt like the authors heart wasn't really in it and he wasn't great at writing what I think was meant to be an exciting adventure part full of tension.

However it really picked up for me when the book changed to Anna's pov and I liked how she went from being a very independent woman who's husband is away for months at a time to being a full time carer. The descriptions of some of the drudgery of the routine she found herself in were quite affecting. I would have liked this section to have been longer really.

Another War and Peace fan here. I read it in the garden one summer when I was unemployed and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's definitely on my reread list. It's one for the kindle tho - you don't want to be lugging that thing around!

I also like Anna Karenina, but not as much as W&P. The problem is the main characters are all so unlikeable!

I think the key with both is to get a good translation - the Penguin Classics ones are excellent.

I've been wanting to read Starlight, a friend said she preferred it to Cold Comfort Farm.

99. Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi. This is incredibly ambitious following 2 strands of a family over 300 years. It starts off with 2 sisters who are separated at birth in modern day Ghana. One Effia the Beauty ends up marrying a white man who is commander of a fort that ships slaves across the sea, and the other is one of the slaves that gets sent to America. Each chapter follows a descendant of the two sisters either in America or Ghana. I thought this was fascinating and very well constructed. I guess my main criticism would be that I sometimes wanted more of the stories and the 20 pages or so that each character gets felt a bit short. I also felt more interested in the older stories, the more modern ones felt a little rushed. Still an amazing book and one I'd definitely recommend.

Snap, Stitches - currently reading and enjoying Saving Time. Total escapism.

110. Starlight, by Stella Gibbons
Picked it up in the library after mentions on here. This is an odd little number, as if Barbara Pym and George Gissing bonded over a boozy pub lunch and decided to write The Exorcist together. Three older people are alarmed when a slum landlord buys up the house where they live and installs his wife in the house. But the threat comes from an unexpected source. A warm-hearted book, featuring lots of little acts of kindness, which seems incongruous considering some of the stranger plot points.

112. Saving Time by Jodi Taylor

The most recent book in the Time Police series. It’s a spin off from The Chronicles of St Mary’s series.

Matthew, Jane and Luke are now fully fledged Time Police officers, and of course are about to face more deadly threats, both to themselves and to the timeline.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, as I did the previous books in the series.

Although the spreading use of “fire-trucking” instead of an expletive is starting to get a bit tiresome.

BadSpellaSpellaSpella
I'd love to know what you thought of Lean Fall Stand. I don't know anyone else who has read it!

I really enjoyed the BBC production of War and Peace too and then read the book off the back of it. Slightly too much war for my liking but a really engrossing story. I haven’t read Anna Karenina - perhaps that should go on next year’s list.

81. A Bit of a Stretch - Chris Atkins

Saw one or more recommendations on here for this - thank you and apologies for forgetting who recommended. Chris is a documentary maker who ends up in Wandsworth prison as his film making was financed by a dodgy tax scheme which the celebs used to invest in to avoid/reduce tax. Chris was implicated/guilty because he facilitated the process by doing whatever the accountants requested. He ends up in Wandsworth prison convicted of fraud. As a documentary maker he brings his observational and analytical skills and the book covers his time in Wandsworth. He freely admits that he had it easier than the average inmate as his class and education helped him gain trusted roles and an easier time in prison. He also did not go into prison (or come out of it) with a drug habit or mental health issues. I think we all probably know the prison system is not fit for purpose but some of his revelations were still shocking. An absorbing read.

War And Peace has waited for me a while - I think I will read along to the Thandiwe Newton edition after my next audio. You lot have inspired me.

Another War and Peace fan here. It's so expansive and multi-layered. I really didn't enjoy Anna Karenina which felt very claustrophobic and narrow by comparison. Maybe W&P is due a re-read. The BBC adaptation was excellent.

58. Music and Silence - Rose Tremain In 1629 Peter, an English lutenist, travels to Denmark to join the Royal Orchestra, performing for King Christian IV on demand. The King, seeing in Peter a resemblance to his childhood companion, commences to use the lutenist as a confidante and friend to whom he can discuss matters of state, his failing marriage and increasing poverty.

I loved this. Tremain's historical fiction is a delight (I can't condone her more modern settings). The POV of the chapters alternate between various major characters; my favourite sections come from Kirsten, the king's adulterous wife who is awful but knows she is and doesn't see why she shouldn't be.

I'm so behind with my thoughts on books I've given up until my next read - my list so far though

1. Requiem for Immortals by Lee Winter
2. Passing by Nella Larsen
3. Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
4. The Haunting of Alma Fielding by Kate Summerscale
5. The Victorian Chaise Longue by Marghanita Laski
6. Beloved by Toni Morrison
7. The Sea The Sea by Iris Murdoch
8. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
9. Winter by Ali Amith
10. The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
11. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
12. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
13. Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
14. Knowledge of Angels by Jill Palton Walsh
15. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
16. Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel
17. The Inland Sea by Madeleine Watts
18. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
19. American Dirt by Jeannie Cummins
20. Court number one: The Old Bailey by Thomas Grant
21. Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
22. Patsy by Nicole Y Dennis-Benn
23. The Bone People by Keri Hulme
24. Say Say Say by Lila Savage
25. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
26. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
27. Happy by Fearne Cotton
28. Frankisstein by Jeanette Winterson
29. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
30. You have to make your own fun around here by Frances Macken
31. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
32. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
33. Spring by Ali Smith
34. A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler
35. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
36. The Time Traveller’s Guide to Regency Britain by Ian Mortimor
37. The Good Earth by Pearl S.Buck
38. Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
39. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
40. Weather by Jenny Offill
41. The Street by Ann Perry
42. How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis
43. Whats left of me is yours by Stephanie Scott
44. How to be both by Ali Smith
45. Guest House for Young Widows by Azaden Moavers 46,47,28Dependency, Youth and Childhood by Tove Ditleven
46. 1,2,3,4 by Paul Aster
47. Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller
48. Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
49. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
50. Men who hate women by Laura Bates
51. Latitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup
52. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman
53. You could do something amazing with your life You are Raoul Moat by Andrew Hankinson
54. Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
55. The Margot Affair by Sanae Lemoine
56. Crimes strangest cases by Peter Seddon
57. The count of Monte Cristo
58. The Long Take by Robin Robertson
59. The only plane in the sky: An oral history of 9/11 by Garrett M.Graff
60. Nomandland by Jessica Bruder
61. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
62. Summer by Ali Smith
63. Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin, translated by Hildegarde Series
64. Plainsong by Kent Haruf
65. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
66. History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
67. Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman
68. Small Pleasures by Claire Chambers
69. The Employees by Olga Ran with Martin Aitken
70. The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
71. The Sleeping Beauty by Elizabeth Taylor
72. The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es
73. Living the Dream by Isabelle Dupuy
74. Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
75. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
76. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa with Stephen Snyder
77. Pew by Catherine Lacey
78. Things we lost in the fire by Mariana Enriquez with MeganMcDowell
79. On Silbury Hill by Adam Thorpe
80. Ghost Stories
81. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
82. No Honour by Awais Khan
83. A little life by Hanya Yanagihara
84. Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
85. Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
86. Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson
87. Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor

55. The New Wilderness by Diane Cook. Set in the near future, Agnes and her mother Bea have left the city which is becoming uninhabitable due to deteriorating air quality, and become part of a group of volunteers surviving in a controlled wilderness. This is billed as "environmental fiction" but it's really more about the relationships within the group members than climate change as such (except for the reasons for them being there in the first place). It was okay to begin with, but dragged in the second half. I'm astonished that it was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2020!

Also, weirdly, I loved the War scenes - I went to our local open space and was sitting about imagining the Battle of Borodino.

I can't remember the actual blog I am afraid. I read W&P on the back of the series too, but in 2020 and I remember being pleasantly surprised that no chapter was more than about 12 mins long - the same applies to Anna Karenina, though I read it in hardcopy but most chapter were about 4 pages (of small print).

I had read Anna before, though I am not sure if I ever finished it as I kept finding bookmarks in it . I have also seen so many adaptations (I am a big fan) that I am not sure if my recollections of reading it were from what I have seen or what I had read.

Anyway, I got a lot out of reading it nice and slowly last year rather than racing through.

I loved that BBC adaptation @DesdamonasHandkerchief !! Really loved it. I’m always searching for it on the streaming services to no avail.

That sounds great @StColumbofNavron can you remember the blog? I like the reading snippets for that very reason, I can race through the lighter stuff alongside it.

I also want to read Anna Karenina in 2022!

I've got Anna Karenina on my 2022 hit list.

@PrincessMaryaBolkonskaya another fan here! I read a blog post where the writer re-reads every year one chapter a day (they said there are 361). I took inspiration from that and read Anna Karenina like this this year (271 chapters) and finished ahead of time in July. I really enjoyed reading it this way, small chapters and it gave me time to digest and enjoy. Plus of course, it meant I could read other things.

I tried and failed to join Little Dorrit as I was joining too late really so will look out for announcements for Hard Times.

@noodlezoodle Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Cote
I’ll be steering well clear, with or without potatoes.

There are quite a few things in the monthly deals that I already own and love - as Sap mentioned, Underland, but also some William Boyds, a couple of Tana Frenches, a Daphne Du Maurier and I'm sure there were more.

I am mulling over buying River Kings and Snowflake, but thanks to Remus's rave have also added The Great Mistake to my cart - sounds right up my alley.

Also considering Homeland Elegies which I'd totally missed, but peeking at the first couple of chapters it looks amazing.

Did you watch the BBC series with Paul Dano Princess? That's what made me want to read W&P and I loved it. I will also be rereading it in the future - although this time I'll know which chapters to skip

@DesdamonasHandkerchief we do share a love! I was obsessed with it as a teenager when I very much thought I was Natasha, but my love for Marya has grown as I’ve got old. I plan to start a re read soon, a chapter now and then.

I like the Little Dorrit thread @IsFuzzyBeagMise I find myself wondering what posters will reveal next! Chapter 19

Thanks @Piggywaspushed I’ll keep an eye out