50 Book Challenge 2022 Part Three

@JaninaDuszejko it's my first Julian Barnes and if I had any space left on my TBR list I'd be adding more of his books to it!

@GrannieMainland I know what you mean. Can't figure it out though.

@Tarahumara perhaps I'm being unfair then!

@RomanMum I remember enjoying Arthur and George but felt like the ending was hinting at some kind of twist that I couldn't quite understand... does that sound familiar at all?

I’m currently two-thirds of the way through The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin.

I think I’m dragging it out because I don’t want my protagonists to die, I suspect I’ll cry and look daft on the bus. It’s tender and moving, with a subtle humour running through it… oh, bugger, best get the ending over with

RomanMum I do like a bit of Julian Barnes and Arthur and George is fascinating.

GrannieMainland I know a Clive in his 30s!

1922: Scenes from a Turbulent Year, by Nick Rennison

A month-by-month account of the big news stories from a century ago. Some of it seems familiar, while some comes from a very different world. There are grim warnings of horrors to come in anti-semitic attacks in Germany and lynchings in the US. There is civil war in Ireland and unrest in India. The way it's told gets away from a more conventional historical narrative where you're told a, b and c caused d - you see things as they unfold, with people not able to foresee the consequences.

It's more a book to dip into than one to read straight through - I've been reading it in instalments during my work lunch-break, which worked quite well.

20. Arthur & George - Julian Barnes

Well, this was a pleasant surprise.

A fictionalised biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle told concurrently with a mixed race rural Staffordshire lawyer, George Edalji, whose lives come together when Edalji was falsely imprisoned on a charge of animal cruelty after a protracted hate campaign against (mostly) his family in the village. Conan Doyle championed his cause after his early release from prison in an attempt to reverse the verdict, restore Edalji's reputation, and claim compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

Even though this was shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2005 and turned into an ITV miniseries, I had not read it and didn't know what to expect. I found it thoroughly engrossing, a real page turner with detailed, believable characters, both the main protagonists and the supporting cast. It walked through the investigation step by step and showed a sense of disbelief in the incompetence of rural policing at that time. Well researched, well written, definitely a keeper.

Thanks to @ChessieFL and @Fortuna for the insight into how you read so much. I think I have to accept that I may never finish my tbr.

13. In Cold Blood Truman Capote. Capote’s 4 year investigation into a Kansas farm massacre is fact written as fiction. This was the best book I’ve read in a long time - very well written and gripping . I’ve not read much true crime but I thought the style and story was excellent. I was petrified at one point expecting killers to burst into my house. I loved the description of a midwestern farming community and the back story of the suspects.

I’ve got Putin’s People in waiting, boiledegg - I feel similarly, slightly dreading it but I know it’ll be an important book to read.

CornishBlues I finished Sorrow and Bliss a few weeks ago and struggle to remember anything about it. I agree with your points and think it could and should have been a much better book.

Another Women's Prize book for me.
Flamingo - Rachel Elliott
Moving between the 80s and 2018.
A young mother and her son move in next door to another family with two girls who instantly take them under their wing and they have an intense relationship. After a falling out, they move on, but things will never be the same for either family. As adults, the children of the two families struggle to fit in and have unusual lives. The boy ends up homeless and returns to the other family for help.

It was all going so well until a sheep ornament started talking!

I have mixed feelings on this one. The opening felt a bit overworked and pretentious, trying to be something it wasn't. It did settle and then swung the other way and felt a bit chick-lit~ish. The story is compelling, the characters likeable. I can easily see it being made into a TV series. I enjoyed it more than many others on the list, but I'm not convinced it's prize worthy.

I think the Women's Prize has lost it's way a little and doesn't know what it wants to be. It was set up in response to the Booker not listing any women one year, but now they insist they are not a literary prize, but a storytelling one. I refuse to believe this list is the best output from women this year. I look forward to getting it over and done with and then hopefully finding all of the decent books elsewhere.

25. Breathless- Amy McCulloch

Thriller set on Manaslu. As I've mentioned before, the author has experience of high-altitude expeditions, including Acongagua and Manaslu, so the mountaineering aspects have the ring of truth. To quote one of the characters, where better for a killer to hide than somewhere already known as the Death Zone? I thought this was quite pacy and well-written, though it gets increasingly bonkers/operatic towards the end. All good fun and recommended for fans of mountaineering books (I think there are several on here).

Putin's People by Catherine Belton I'm not generally given to swearing but my first reaction to this book is "bloody hell!". It is a jaw-dropping account of the corruption, criminality and violence that has allowed Putin and his KGB men to take control of the country's economy and transform the entire law-enforcement system to remove any political rivals. Furthermore, in the West financial interests have outweighed concerns about the Putin regime's abuses and, despite increasing awareness of Russian intelligence activity, allowed him to extend his influence. Indeed, she quotes one Russian tycoon as saying: "In London, money rules everthing. Anyone and anything can be bought. The Russians came to London to corrupt the UK political elite."

Putin's People was written in 2020, so before the recent war in Ukraine, but she gives plenty of background to the current situation, including the annexations in 2014. It is a hugely important book and shows how much was already known about the dangers Putin and his KGB cronies posed to the world. I would really recommend it to anyone interested in modern Russia and Putin's rise to power; it requires some commitment as it is necessarily long and complex, but it is compellingly written and Catherine Belton is very good at reminding you who people are when they reappear in the narrative. I am in awe of her superb writing and meticulous research. Depressing and terrifying in equal measure.

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason At first I thought this was going to be something really special. It’s about a woman with mental health problems whose marriage has ended, her family relationships and her own often terrible behaviour. There is wit and humour, and breadth as we see her life from childhood until around her 40th birthday. I am glad I read it overall because there are a couple of powerful moments about living in the abyss that really resonated with me. However I found the effect was diminished because the (barely functional, but nevertheless in an enviable media job) main character was given generic mental health difficulties where specificity was called for, and the effect became scattergun. I was more than ready for the book to end, but found the ending contrived and inappropriate. Also, perhaps picky but the book is set in London and Oxford but published in Australia and there are a few vocabulary issues that jar to a UK reader.

21. Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

This is quite old now, published in 2004 and in starting on the Jackson Brodie novels it feels like I've finally caught up with something everyone else knew about. An ideal read for a week when I'm really struggling to concentrate and quite unwell - a completely gripping story, written with passion. Interleaving mysteries building to a sad but satisfying ending.

8. Hidden figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
Read for bookclub. Really interesting story about black women working as mathematicians for NASA in the fifties and sixties. Unfortunately the writing was terrible. It's written as fiction about real events so it makes you doubt the authenticity of what happened. The women were interchangeable and had no discernible character traits. The film and the children's picture book were better.

9. Anything is possible by Elizabeth Strout
Excellent writing from Strout as usual. This is the sequel to My name is Lucy Barton which I enjoyed more. Each chapter is a perfect short story about small town America but they are all related. I feel I needed a spider diagram of the connections to refer to.

Stokey no, I've not read The Book of Jacob yet, like you the size is offputting and I think it'll be a more challenging read than Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.

Fortuna I would like to listen to more audiobooks but unfortunately I don’t do the sort of job where I’m able to listen to anything I would need to concentrate on and I don’t live alone so I’m restricted to the odd bit of listening when doing some housework or out on my own for a walk. If I could fit in more audiobooks my numbers would be higher - although I do prefer physical books as I find my mind can wander when listening so I tend to listen to rereads on audio as it doesn’t matter too much if I drift off slightly!!

That sounds stressful Janina.

On the international Booker, have you read The Book of Jacob? I'm tempted as I loved your namesake's book - also love the covers- but the size is slightly off-putting!

The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga

This is the sequel to Nervous Conditions. This book opens with our narrator Tambu describing her sister's leg being blown off by a landmine during the Zimbabwean wars of independence. Tambu soon returns to her exclusive girl's boarding school where there are strict quotas for the number of black students, there are 6 in total who all share a 4 person dormitory. The black students, despite all having been through a competitive scholarship competition never seem to get on the honours roll and can't compete in the sports competitions with other local schools because of their colour. They each struggle with how to deal with their situation as a minority in school. And the impact of the war is never far away, despite the beauty and apparent serenity of the school's location. Tambu continually has her hopes and achievements taken away from her and this continues into the post colonial period.

This was a harder read than the first where I was rooting for Tamba more. The move from her village to her uncle's mission school felt positive and she still had family around her whereas here she gets increasingly isolated by not being accepted by the white students and failing to develop close relationships with the other black students. It's heartbreaking watch Tambu get more and more damaged by her experiences.

Just marking my place as I’ve fallen off the thread and we’re due a new one soon. Been re-reading the Ruth Galloway books as comfort reads so nothing to add.

@nowanearlyNicemum I liked Open Water a lot. I believe he has another book out this year or maybe next.

21. Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan. Elisabeth is a wealthy journalist and new mother struggling to adapt to life in an upstate New York small town where she's moved to bring up her family. She hires Sam, a middle class student, as a babysitter and the two women become close friends and blur the boundaries of their professional relationship. At the same time, Sam becomes politicised and tries, clumsily, to help the poorly paid women who work in her college canteen.

I've read some of Sullivan's books before and they are light but readable. This was pretty average. The core relationship between Elisabeth and Sam was well written and insightful but the themes about different degrees of privilege were heavy handed and overall it was too long with far too many characters and sub-plots that never went anywhere.

I'm not usually that bothered by geographical inaccuracies but I was raising my eyebrows at a section set in London - people getting married at 'London's City Hall', Jack the Ripper tours in Leicester Square, and a 35 year old named 'Clive' who orders 'spotted dick' in a restaurant...!

10. Open Water - Caleb Azumah Nelson

London-based love story between a dancer and a photographer, dealing with race and identity. The narrator is British-Ghanaian, as is the author. I believe this won a price for debut novel. Some of the prose relating to young love is stunning. A short novel that I'm sure I'll still be thinking about for a while to come.

Thanks for the warning Stokey. I might not be find it so bad in isolation after a break, but with the others is was bombardment with one after the other.

I should have said above, that I only know the numbers due to Goodreads and I've toyed with not doing the challenge and therefore not getting a count. It is handy to have books chunked together if I need to go back and find one I can't remember the title of, as I remember roughly which year I read it.

Chessie by sheer coincidence we're on exactly the same number.

I'm trying not to get caught up in numbers this year. I don't really care how many it comes to, and ultimately it doesn't matter but I do have this ridiculous thing that if a nice round number is achievable, I do tend to aim for it. Same with a walking challenge I do. I'm very target driven.

I only get through so many by the power of audiobooks. I don't have a TV and live alone so can listen unhindered for a big chunk of the day. Most modern novels are in the 7-10 hour bracket, which makes one a day possible. Cost isn't a factor due to several library memberships. My other hobbies are knitting and rambling/hiking, both compatible with listening at the same time.

Before my audio craze I was managing the 50 annually and used to wonder how on earth others got through so many, but it was others on here who inspired me to try. I had quite a few years where I couldn't read much at all, so feel like I am making up for lost time. I tend to have a paper book, an ebook on my phone and an audiobook on the go at any given time, so of the opportunity pops up for reading then I take it.

@Palegreenstars I think Fortuna has read more than me although she’s not numbering her reads this year!

However, I do read a lot and this is for several reasons. I am a fast reader, and I do take every opportunity to read a page or two (for example I’ll read a couple of pages on my kindle when I’m brushing my teeth) and also listen to audiobooks when I’m cooking or out for a walk alone. I also don’t really have any other hobbies so when I’m not working or sleeping reading fills up most of my time. I’m lucky that DH is a SAHD who looks after most of the housework, and DD is a bit older now so doesn’t need so much looking after, so I perhaps have a bit more free time outside work than some of you. I probably also tend to favour books that are quicker to read (I read a lot of crappy psychological thrillers which don’t take long to get through). For me though reading is almost an addiction - I get very twitchy if I’m sitting and am not reading anything - which is why most of my spare time is spent reading!!

Thing is, reading as many books as I do is not necessarily something to be proud of - I know I’m guilty of reading things too quickly and not getting as much out of them as I should - for the psychological thrillers that doesn’t really matter but I have to really try hard to slow down when reading something like Dickens to ensure I’m picking up all the nuances and I know I miss lots that others would pick up reading slower. As with everything it’s quality not quantity!