50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Eight

That was meant to be my defence of chicklit. Not chicken.

122. Aisling and the City, by Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen
I mentioned this book previously in my defence of chicken. It's the fourth book in the series, taking our heroine to New York for work opportunities. It's a bit silly but fun, with a wry take on Irish cliquishness.

123. What is Beautiful in the Sky, Michael Harding Another popular Irish author, a journalist who writes books that are part memoir and part meditation on lockdown, religion, love, mentors, poets, storytellers, travel and the joys of mowing the lawn. My father lent me this - not entirely to my taste. If I'm honest, I found it a bit sentimental.

@MegBusset Only three books? I' have more than that on the go and I'm very likely to carry more than three forward. Also, I move around my current reading, so when I start a new book it will begin at the bottom of the pile but then library books move up every few days until they're at the top or I finish them. So the Marian Keyes book I'm reading - my own copy - could take some time!

I'd actually quite like to finish two or three more books, though I'm quite pleased with what may well remain the final total for 2021 - 156 "books" including standalone short stories/novellas/essays - a page count range of 6 to 706, but with most between 200-450 pages. Several books of 550 to 650 pages almost certainly had a higher word count and demanded slower and more focused reading than the 706 page novel by Jane Smiley, which had small pages and a large, clear font - I think I've read another book by her which was in reality a bit longer than Golden Age (A Thousand Acres).

Only one book gift here but it's a whopper! 900 pages.... And just as I am about to embark on War and Peace

Thank you Daphne for the 12 Days of Kindle link

Haha, I’m just trying in vain to finish Vanity Fair for this year @MegBusset. 62% through so expecting it to maybe be a 2022 book.

Am I the only one reading three books at once to bump them over the line into January's thread 😆

I also snuck in another one....pretty sure this is the last of the year now.

107: The Poisoner - Stephen Bates

A moderately interesting examination of the notorious case of Dr William Palmer, 'The Rugeley Poisoner', who was condemned to death in 1856 for killing his erstwhile friend John Cook. Cook was a young man who'd just won a large sum at the races, and it seems most likely that Palmer - a racing aficionado who owned a string of horses and was hugely and disastrously in debt - administered some kind of poison in a panicked and ham-fisted attempt to solve his own problems. He may also have poisoned his own wife a few years earlier, and certainly took out a massive insurance policy on his alcoholic brother, lying about his condition and encouraging him to drink himself to death (the insurers refused to pay out).

Some interesting issues are raised around the way trials were conducted in the 19thc, and the difficulty of establishing scientific evidence at the time - strychnine poisoning was suspected, and Palmer was known to have bought the drug just before Cook's death, but no trace of it was found in the body. There was enough doubt to mean that nowadays he might have been found not guilty, but he was instead convicted, hanged, and became a kind of folk-bogeyman.

51. Over Sea Under Stone by Susan Cooper

Snuck in another book
I think this was a favourite of my mum's and I now see why she loved Cornwall.

I enjoyed the book and love the old fashioned way of speech. I might start peppering my speech with "I say" and "smashing" for a bit.

@FortunaMajor your Christmas present promises sound amazing! What a fabulous idea

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need To Know About Global Politics is also among the 12 Days Of Kindle deals. It cuts through the heart of the fundamental problems that cause tension in each region. Great read.

And thanks for the 12 days of Christmas Kindle deals link. I had already found some of them but I spotted a few more books that I'd been after and others that were tempting.

I'm reading a Marian Keyes book at the moment, Grown Ups, and I enjoyed The Break last year. I've read most of her books as they came out but there are a couple that I somehow never got round to reading and haven't gone back, possibly to do with the odd year when I read less, like those when my children were born. I'm looking forward to the new Rachel book too. I also enjoy a number of other authors whose work I would call chicklit or henlit - a lot of the original chicklit writers are now in their 40s and 50s and write about women who are only slightly younger than them/me. What does bug me is when the work of writers like Matt Haig and David Nicholls gets treated more seriously because it's by men. There's nothing necessarily wrong with the books themselves, though I don't think they're nearly as good as the best writers and books in a similar contemporary popular fiction vein. I also like historical fiction, including crime, family sagas and books set before, during and after WWII, and books which combine one or more of those elements.

I have been a member of a crime fiction discussion group which still has email list based discussions of several crime novels a month for other 20 years. I think I abandoned trying to join group reads towards the end of 2006 when I was pregnant with DS1, but I've been in various reading groups since, but that was just because it didn't suit me at that particular moment. The discussions were quite thoughtful and high quality, and at one time I was reading emails on lots of groups that claimed to have group reads but whose discussions left something to be desired.

My more recent bookgroups have read across several genres but generally literary books have worked better. The library based one is reliant on what the library service will buy a few copies of.or already has reading group sets.

22. On earth we're briefly gorgeous - Ocean Vuong Debut novel. A son writes a letter to his mother, who is unable to read. Raw.

Off in search of a light and fluffy read for the end of the year (still plodding on with Little Dorrit of course!)

Thanks everyone for your input on Nevil Shute's books. Trustee From The Toolroom sounds intriguing! Terpischore my local library doesn't stock any Stewart O'Nan at all so I think I'll be dropping hints to DH for ideas for my upcoming birthday, thanks for that

36. The Manningtree Witches by AK Blakemore
Essex, 1643. Many village menfolk have disappeared to fight in the civil war leaving the community in poverty. A group of women are scapegoated for the high levels of sickness and death that follow, and tried as witches.

Based largely on records from witch trials of the time, this was an old story retold very well from the perspective of one of the younger accused women. Menacing and dark, poetically written and moving.

I must add that this book sleeve had some of the most unappealing "recommendations" I've read, including something along the lines of "Fleabag meets Hilary Mantel". It very much isn't that, thank goodness.

I must’ve missed it. Horrible but I still love the story.

Christmas books received, only the Peanuts one was a surprise but I loved that! Also had £50 voucher for Kindle books too.

Currently need to finish A Christmas Carol as I was too tired to finish pre Christmas 😩

Have completed 36 books to date, so chuffed after managing a paltry 8 in 2020!

Agree about Piper and Trustee and also No Highway is one of my favourites. But Alice - the whole reason given that it's such a good thing that Jean does what she does with her money is that one of the station owners has married an Aboriginal girl. This is presented as an appalling tragedy, that this intelligent man has married so far beneath him! That's why bringing white girls to the area is so crucial. I find it fascinating to see the White Australia policy presented in fiction, its an amazing document of its time, but it's revolting as well. I still read it because as a story it has incredible force .

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie lots of racist language eg "bloody boongs" / "Abos" and the Aboriginal characters are depicted about on the same level as the farm animals.

121. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters Follows thirty-something New Yorkers Reese, her ex-partner Ames (previously Amy), and Ames' boss Katrina. I found this a quick and engaging read, but I really wanted to read the story of the three protagonists from the perspective of their older selves - it did feel very caught up in that urban-early-thirty-something vibe (the reason I've avoided Sally Rooney's books).

I can't remember racism in Alice - it's one of my very favourite books and I've read it many rimes.
Trustee from the Toolroom is just gorgeous.
I was a bit bored by Wren..
Loved Piper

Thank you for all the kind thoughts. I loved Shute's Trustee from the Toolroom, such a comforting read.

I can't stand Requiem for a Wren with the massive Freudian plot line that J must have someone to look after or she'll go a bit crazy. And yy to the raw racism in A Town Like Alice, and The Chequerboard, tbh all of them. I still read them though.

I loved Nevile Shute' Requiem for a Wren - really interesting portrayal of a female character.

I read A Town Like Alice a few years ago and thought the casual racism was grim, even making allowances for it being "of its time" it spoiled any enjoyment it may have had.