50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Eight

97: The House of Wittgenstein - Alexander Waugh

I started reading this last year and got interrupted so I picked it up again - and I'm glad I did, as it turned out to be an immersive book about an extraordinary family.

Philosopher Ludwig remains the best-known, but there were 8 Wittgenstein siblings, children of a fabulously wealthy Viennese steel magnate who owned a palatial residence in the city as well as several country retreats. I also knew about another brother, Paul, who was a gifted pianist but lost his right arm in WW1, only to teach himself to play left-handed and achieved some fame by commissioning a series of new concertos from well-known composers.

But Waugh also teases out the lesser-known stories of the other siblings - three brothers committed suicide; one of the three sisters married a rich American and produced a son who interfered fairly disastrously when the family was embroiled in the clutches of the Nazis in WW2.

Virtually the only thing that united these deeply eccentric (and constantly-squabbling) individuals was music, and Waugh focuses perhaps most on Paul and his steely determination to return to playing after the loss of his arm. But even then, his obstinacy led him to fall out with just about every composer he dealt with (Ravel, Prokofiev, Britten and others) because they had the temerity - in his view - to want their pieces played as they wrote them...he felt, because he'd paid for them, they were his to treat as he liked, including stopping anyone else playing them if he didn't want to.

A good, absorbing read, cleverly structured with lots of short chapters so the focus skips effectively between different members of this enormous clan.

42. The Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination, by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang. This isn't ground breaking in terms of facts, but seeing it all written down as one (very compelling) narrative is shocking and rage-inducing. Excellent and important reporting from the authors.

43.What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat, by Aubrey Gordon. I first heard Aubrey Gordon on the podcast she hosts with Michael Hobbes, Maintenance Phase. Having listened to most episodes, I thought I'd be familiar with most of the information in this book, but I learned a lot. It was also fascinating to hear more about Aubrey's personal experiences, and her vision for a future where fat people are treated immeasurably better than today. This was incisive, educational and ultimately hopeful.

I've read less than I hoped to in the last few days, but have managed to finish the last few pages of Snowfall, one of K M Peyton's less well known books, a YA historical romance, set in Victorian England and Switzerland.

I first came across this book shopping for a present for my much younger sister - it must have been very soon after it was first published in 1994, when |I was still living in my home city but not in the same house as my mum and sister. I hoped to borrow it off S when she finished reading it but it was a hit with S and all her friends then borrowed it, so.... I bought my own copy a few years ago and have finally read it.

It couldn't really live up to expectation but I did enjoy it. However, it did fit a pattern in K M Peyton's books which my cousin recently commented on in a FB conversation - her young female characters, historical or contemporary, have a rather disturbing habit of sacrificing everything for love. See the Flambards series, and many of her other books. Realising this might make my project (one of many rereading/reading ideas) of rereading KMP's books feel like something of a guilty pleasure.

110. The Running Hare by John Lewis Stempel
     I picked this up by chance at our library, and it was a definite winner. Despairing over the loss of birds, flowers and other wildlife from our countryside as a result of industrial farming Lewis Stempel rents a 5 acre field for a year, and sows wheat and manages the land with the aim of restoring fertility and attracting wildlife. The results are dramatic even in the one season and on such a small scale. It's a fantastic illustration of what can be achieved within a farming system that takes food production and care for the environment as parallel goals (in contrast of course to the rewilding movement that relies on intensive agriculture elsewhere to actually produce the food we need to eat).
     
     The writing is also absolutely beautiful. I actually gave DP another of JLS's books for Christmas a while back, but never read it myself, so I'll definitely be hunting it out.

111. The Album of Dr Moreau by Daryl Gregory
     Boy band the WyldBoyZ are the hottest group in the States - and definitely the only genetically engineered human-animal hybrids to top the charts. Then their producer is found murdered in his bed, and Detective Luce Delgado (whose tween daughter is a massive fan of the band) is called in to solve the crime.
     Short but fun novella, a nice locked room mystery with great characters and a nice story. Again I'll definitely be reading more by the same author.

Sorry to hear that a few of you are going through difficult times. to everyone who needs them including (as someone above rightly said) a few of our regulars who are missing and missed.

I had high hopes of reaching 100 this year but have slowed down massively recently through a combination of work and spending too much time on the MN Christmas threads hunting for gift bargains. Here are my two latest, both of which took me way longer to read than they should have done:

82. Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain, Sathnam Sangera

I'd been so looking forward to this, and it was very good, just not as good as I hoped. The opening chapters, where Sangera takes a long honest look at Britain's imperial past, are excellent. He tells many stories which, to my shame, I didn't know, not just about attrocities but about mistakes, dishonesty, arrogance and casual racism. These are stories that we should all know.

The later chapters, where Sangera sets out to explore how the attitudes of empire still affect the way we talk and think about things in Britain, I thought were less successful. He does a good job at picking out certain strands of the national character, and relating them back to historic material from the empire, but it's not really succesful in proving that there's a link - it can read a bit like "Some people who were involved in the British empire believed that X and some people now believe that X" rather than clearly showing how the two are linked. And he's absolutely right that we need to confront and understand our imperial past, the terrible things that we did and the ongoing consequences of them (he's so convincing when he sets out the case for returning the contents of many of our museums), but I would have been interested to read more about how other imperial powers have confronted their pasts, and whether they have done so with greater or lesser success than Britain. There is, for sure, a comparison to be made with Germany and how they have acknowledged Nazi attrocities, but I'd like to understand how France or Belgium's attitudes to their colonial history compare to our own, and whether we can learn anything (even if it is "Don't do what they're doing").

Sangera is an engaging writer and I see there's a TV series based on the book running at the moment, which I will definitely watch.

83. Ghosts, Dolly Alderton

Hm. So I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Dolly Alderton. DH gets the Sunday Times, in which she has the advice column, and I read most of it thinking "wow, that's really wise advice" and then occasionally want to throw the magazine across the room because she says something idiotic and entitled. The problem may be me, and the chip on my shoulder, but it seems that no amount of good writing and emotional intelligence can quite help her escape the experience of being a pretty, rich, white boarding school girl with a privilged life.

This book tells the story of Nina who is DEFINITELY NOT DOLLY because she is short and brunette, and works as a food writer (despite not seeming to have any interest in cooking or eating out). If you've Dolly's previous book through, or her columns, you'll recognise Nina's emotional landscape - she's 30-something and single, her friends are all settling down and requiring her presence at weddings and baby showers, the (platonic) love of her life is her best friend. Dolly Nina meets a man through an online dating app, who is lovely, but then, without warning, disappears and stops returning her calls. He is one of the ghosts of the title, the other being Nina's beloved dad, who is suffering from dementia and slowly deteriorating.

To be fair to Dolly, I mostly enjoyed this bittersweet little morsel, and only occasionally wanted to throw it across the room, whereas the magazine articles are more of a 50/50 split. So a win, overall, I guess.

DNF. Islands of Mercy, Rose Tremain

I usually really like Rose Tremain, and I think I will go back to this, but I got a few chapters in and it felt like NOTHING was happening or indeed ever going to happen and I lost heart.

I think we must have "done" Dark Towers at least twice as I remember loads about it. Also The Boy From Space which was genuinely quite scary at the time.

Beware of two bees buzzing together,
Beware the bird with the brown feather.

I love Betjeman Meg, I have that book somewhere. I have some cassette tapes somewhere of him reciting his poems set to music which I used to listen to over and over when I was a teenager (in between The Jam and The Teardrop Explodes). They are brilliant.

35. Betjeman's England - John Betjeman

Transcript of the poet's many TV programmes from the 1950s to the 70s, mostly pottering around provincial towns and villages, admiring the churches and complaining about the traffic. If you like Betjeman (and I do, with a lingering affection having studied his poetry for A Level English) then this is a most enjoyable and relaxing tour.

34. Watching Neighbours Twice A Day by Josh Widdecombe. I’m a similar age to Josh and although I spent more time reading than watching tv in 90s I still definitely watched a lot! This was a fun walk down tv memory lane from Ghost Watch to Get Your Own Back.

Thanks for the Ripley advice @SapatSea, think I may give the others a miss.

Really interesting review of the Hanya Yanagihara. I found A Little Life such a page turner, I couldn't put it down while I was reading it but afterwards when I had time to reflect, bits of the plot made me feel a bit uncomfortable. I am quite intrigued to see what she does next but your review is not encouraging!

I'm a bit on the fence about Jodi Taylor. I read a few of them about 5 years ago but they do get very samey. I recently read The Time Police which I enjoyed so was motivated to go back to the first one. I do think Max is a bit of a Mary Sue in it, and the real life time scale is all over the place in a confusing way. But I can equally see how they're a comforting antidote as just wash over you, and I do like the history.

54. To Paradise - Hanya Yanagihara

This comes out on 11 January and I picked it up as an ARC as I liked the portrait on the cover. I didn't notice it was by the author of A Little Life which is a real marmite book and I 'm pretty sure this huge (over 700 pages) tome will be one too. I don't like marmite and I'm afraid I didn't much like this book either. A Little Life's narrative zipped along and I found I was quite far through it before I realised how much I was growing to dislike it and wishing it would end but To Paradise is a much more difficult and challenging read in terms of structure and writing style (though not content).

The narrative is set around three time periods in an alternative United States of America, all based around a house in Washington Square and with characters who share the same name.The structure reminded me of Cloud Atlas and the three seperate stories could have been published as three seperate books in a trilogy but huge books seem to be the trend at present.
I found it slow, often confusing and the characters didn't hold my interest. It might just be my headspace at the moment but I found I couldn't connect with it. It's billed as "a work of emotional genius."

I'll be interested to read what others make of it and I think it will provoke as much love and hate as A Little Life

53. Hare House - Sally Hinchcliffe
This is billedas a "modern gothic horror" with great reviews. I just didn't get it. It was so, so slow and contrived (as if it had been written by numbers).
The narrator is a teacher who has fled her job after an incidence of mass hysteria amongst the girls and comes to live in a remote part of Scotland in one of the cottages that is part of an estate with a big "house" housing the last two young survivors of the owners. The narrator takes a bus back from the local village and the driver runs over a Hare just at the bus stop which eyes our protagonist and starts to create a sense of unease. All the residents of the big house and cottage are slightly off kilter (and annoying). Tensions rise as the winter and snow creep in.

I found this book a slog. It just takes so, so long to get going. I didn't care about any of the characters and I just didn't believe in them or the situation created.

I enjoy Jodi Taylor too - for Remus, the "panting/juices flowing" is pretty much just the first book iirc.

106. 56 Days, by Catherine Ryan Howard
Crime fiction set in Dublin during lockdown - I'm sure more lockdown crime lit will follow, but this made good use of the situation. A man and woman have only just met when they decide to move in together for lockdown. 56 days later, a body is found. What happened to Love's Young Dream?

It involves some over-used devices - multiple viewpoints, split timeline and present tense narration - but I thought they were used well. Lots of snappy dialogue and it's not too wildly implausible (looking at you, Sophie Hannah). A decent genre outing.

Stokey I read all the Ripley books in an omnibus edition several years ago when I had a Highsmith binge. IIRC it was diminshing returns. The books become increasingly ridiculous. I agree that in the first book you do root for him.

@noodlezoodle

Yes *@MamaNewtNewt*! I can't remember a single thing about the Dark Towers TV series except the opening credits and theme tune

I'm the same. All I can remember is that I loved it and that theme tune

I think you can see from my 2021 list that I love Jodi Taylor. When I broke my ankle earlier in the year I needed a comfort listen so worked through the series on audible (the early ones are free if you are a member) and really enjoyed them (I'd already read them). They aren't high literature but they are fun and I love the time travel and history aspects.

I really like Jodi Taylor’s books, but I agree that I can see why people would hate them! They are very popular on Mumsnet though.

The Chronicles of St Mary’s are very marmite. I am actually surprised that I like them as they’re not my usual reading fare at all. I think I read the first one at a time when I needed something light, distracting and a little bit silly and now they are my antidote to difficult weeks!

I really hated the first Jodi T. Frankly, if I want total trash, I'll stick to Enid Blyton. All the adventure, without the panting/juices flowing.

From all of you posting I have come to the conclusion that I will either LOVE or LOATHE the Jodi Taylors and I am scared to start on them in case it is love because there are SO MANY

80. Plan for the Worst - Jodie Taylor

The eleventh book in The Chronicles of St Mary’s series about time travelling historians. Max encounters Vikings, the Princes in the Tower and Minoans and endures near drowning, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the subsequent tsunami. So, the usual disaster ridden projects. Some familiar names from the past re-appear, we see very little of Leon and learn more about Markham. Highly enjoyable if you like this sort of thing; absolutely ridiculous if you don’t…..

Thank you for the new thread South.

Sorry to hear you have had a tough year @FranKatzenjammer, I hope you can come back and find pleasure here when you are ready to. Good luck with the move @magimedi! Or, I suppose, bonne chance?

109. Nancy and Plum by Betsy McDonald. This was recommended by one of you ages ago and just popped up on my library loans! Apparently it was Jacqueline Wilson favourite book as a child. It has a certain charm, in the Anne of Green Gables/ Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm ilk, although considerably more modern (1950s). I liked the titular sisters, but found the ending somewhat unsatisfactory- the "baddie" gets no comeuppance, and only a couple of the characters get rescued from their not-quite-orphanage. However, I might have overlooked that as a child, and it definitely has charm.

Yes @MamaNewtNewt! I can't remember a single thing about the Dark Towers TV series except the opening credits and theme tune

Sorry to hear that @InTheCludgie I hope you are doing ok.

*100. The Wastelands by Stephen King
*
The third book in the Dark Tower series. Does anyone else remember the Dark Towers TV series from the 80s? We watched it at school and I loved it, but anytime I see or mention the Dark Tower books I get the TV theme tune in my head (come with me, oh come with me to Dark Towers...).

Anyway back to the book. After The Drawing of the Three, which definitely felt like a bridge book, the pace has picked up, but given the fact that there are 5 more books to go I'm guessing that this is more the end of the beginning type of thing. I'm enjoying the references to other King books, and there's probably some I've missed. Might take a break and read something else before diving into book 4.

97. The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith. I'd never read any Patricia Highsmith and was tempted to read this after reading The Plot where it features. I think I had seen the Jude Law film though. I quite enjoyed it, it's quite clever how you root for Ripley despite him not doing anything much to inspire your affection. Intetested to know what the others in the series are like, but not desperate to read them.

My list:

1. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
2. Up the Junction - Nell Dunn
3. The Trick is to Keep Breathing - Janice Galloway
4. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
5. The Man Who Wasn't There - Pat Barker
6. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
7. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
8. Trespass - Rose Tremain
9. Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov