50 Book Challenge 2022 Part Three

30: Foster - Claire Keegan

As recommended on this thread. A girl - never named - is taken by her father to stay with relatives in rural Ireland while her mother approaches birth. The couple, the Kinsellas, are strangers to her, but quietly envelop her in love and she blossoms in their care, falling into their busy routines and the calm of the timeless landscape away from her own family of too many siblings and - it’s hinted - parents at odds with each other. The day comes when she must return and we know that she doesn’t want to be home, that she wants to stay with the Kinsellas whose own son died and who have come to love her.

A beautiful and poetic book, deservedly prize-winning….and very short! I brought it home from the library and belatedly realised I could probably have sat there, read it and returned it in about an hour.

30. Entry Island - Peter May This is a standalone book, revolving around a murder investigation in the remote Magdalen Islands in Quebec. I had already read and enjoyed a couple of May’s Lewis Trilogy books, and this is similar - a troubled detective whose personal story is tied up in the investigation. I loved the evocation of the Outer Hebrides (which I know well) and the Magdalen Islands (which were completely new to me, but which were really brought to life by the writing), and it was a good story which kept me reading far too late into the night. A thumbs-up for this one!

25. Blood And Iron: The Rise And Fall Of The German Empire 1871-1918 - Katja Hoyer

Picked up in a Kindle sale, this is a primer to the birth of Germany in the 19th century and the events leading up to the First World War, which ended the German Empire. I learned some interesting facts and there are some chilling resonances between expansionist Germany and the current Russian regime (for example the Kaiser's plan at the outbreak of WW1 was to conquer and subdue France in four days. Like Putin's three-day occupation of Kyiv, this went badly wrong as the Belgians and French put up an unexpected resistance).

Sadly I found the prose and structure a bit 'sixth form history essay' rather than the gripping narrative that the subject demands. I suspect there is a better book to be found about this critical point in European history.

Out of the Silence: After the Crash
Kindle deal about the rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes. The survivors had to become cannibals or starve to death. This was okay- it’s obviously a terrible and gripping scenario, but I didn’t really like the writing style or the introspection.

11. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
Private investigator Jackson Brodie is on a jaunt round Yorkshire, trying to find out more about the background of adoptee Hope McMaster. Separately, another ex police officer Tracey Waterhouse has, in an apparent moment of madness, taken off with the daughter of a prostituted woman after paying her off. Tracey attempts to stay under the radar, but ends up drawn into Jackson's investigations, which centre around the death of another prostituted woman some thirty-odd years earlier.

A re-read in preparation for Big Sky, which I picked up in a charity shop a couple of weeks back. There's lots going on here, and at least one subplot and group of characters that felt entirely superfluous. But Atkinson's writing steers it though.

I was one of the ones who got Hidden Hands for Christmas, and I'm just about to start it. I'm also getting the hardback of Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts for my birthday. I know this because I've just ordered it and instructed DH to intercept the package and put it away .

24. High Rising - Angela Thirkell

I don't think I was in the mood for this, between work stress and the general state of the world. It's very inconsequential and the humour is so subtle half of it went over my head. There is also a bit of casual antisemitism, which I'm sure was not meant badly at all, but given that this was published in 1933 you really want to go back in time and say, you know what, words matter. I've enjoyed Angela Thirkell before and generally enjoy exploring the early to mid 20th century, but this was not for me.

[quote Palegreenstars]**@DameHelena* I definitely found the pace of dissolution* a bit slow to start with - but things do pick up. Although tbh I got a lot of the monks confused for a while.[/quote]
I'm very glad of the dramatis personae at the start

@DameHelena I definitely found the pace of dissolution a bit slow to start with - but things do pick up. Although tbh I got a lot of the monks confused for a while.

Ah yes, thanks, biblio ! Yes, the achoresses are horrific to our modern thinking - I don’t think I ever quite realised that Dame Julian of Norwich was an anchoress

It’s very odd how synchronicity strikes, isn’t it? Having just read about the Paston letters in Hidden Hands, I’ve picked up a totally unrelated book (the diary of a country woman living in Norfolk in the 1950s) and lo and behold, she starts talking about the Paston letters…..

Finished The Heather Blazing, Colm Toibín
A less quiet/mundane novel than some of his, IMO (Norah Webster is particularly mundane, with long passages about the accounting and records system at work and how she overhauls it!).
It's set between the protagonist's childhood and his later adult life, and the latter moves between his work in Dublin as a judge and his summers with his wife in their coastal cottage.
Quite a lot actually happens, in both his work and his domestic life; we see him working on some quite contentious cases as a judge, which displease his wife and grown-up children and cause domestic strife.
There is also personal loss and sadness.

The coastal Ireland setting is evoked vividly (I felt freezing cold just reading about him going into that sea, even in summer!).
There's a storyline in his childhood about the Irish republican/loyalist issue, which I'll confess I didn't really grasp; my existing knowledge of this history is woeful. Someone with a bit more of a clue would no doubt find it resonated with them.
I loved this though. Having read his more mature works before, it was interesting to read such an early one.

Now reading The Sewing Circles of Herat by Christina Lamb, her memoir of some of her many visits to Afghanistan as a foreign correspondent. Again, my existing knowledge of this history and part of the world is extremely thin, and I think it does assume a little knowledge, so some of it goes over my head. But she writes so clearly and powerfully, and I love her relationships with the many friends and allies she seems to have in the country, and the way she evokes her experiences.

Also reading Dissolution by C J Sansom, as I see Palegreen is. I love the Tudor period and am discovering a taste for at least some crime fiction through having read the Quirke books. This is starting a little slowly, if I'm honest, but it's a good read and I'm expecting pace and intrigue soon.

I enthused about Hidden Hands, Terp, although it was off the back of someone else who received it for Christmas. Delightful book, though I felt a bit claustrophobic after reading about the anchoresses.

33. The Moth and the Mountain, Ed Caesar
Was thoroughly engaged by this account of a Yorkshireman flying solo to Everest (having only just learned how to fly) and undertaking to climb it, unencumbered by crampons, oxygen or any mountaineering knowhow. It doesn't end well, unsurprisingly. In some lights he looks like a Buchan hero, while in others, a quite different picture emerges.

34. A Pocket full of Rye, Agatha Christie
A Miss Marple, to break up the run of Poirots. I'm rather fond of Miss Marple, but on the whole I've had enough of Agatha Christie for the moment.

I've fallen off here a bit, busy with house hunting and looking after a poorly baby.

@FortunaMajor I'm disappointed to see the Women's Prize long list isn't great. There wasn't loads on there I wanted to read apart from the books I've read already.

3 fairly underwhelming recent reads for me:

18. Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades. Actually I'm being unfair to call this underwhelming as it's beautifully written, just not what I was in the mood for! A Greek chorus style collective narrative about girls of different ethnicities growing up together in Queens, New York. No real plot or characters, more a series of vignettes as they move into young adulthood and beyond, exploring what it's like to be a girl/woman and a second generation immigrant to America.

19. True Crime Story by Joseph Knox. High concept crime novel - the idea is that it's a true crime book told mainly through verbatim interviews with the victim's friends and family, with the added twist that the author died before finishing it so the writer 'Joseph Knox' finished the book and added his own embellishments. Very interesting idea but I didn't feel it quite came off. I also guessed the murderer very early on which is rare for me. It has a particularly gory and sexually disturbing scene half way through as well which I thought was too much.

20. Learning to Swim by Clare Chambers. I think this has been reviewed by others on here. Coming of age story set in the 80s about a teenager ego gets drawn into a big, bohemian family and forms a relationship with the older brother. This should be exactly my sort of thing but it felt a bit 'by numbers' if that makes sense. Not very memorable.

No idea what to read next! I need to find something more engaging to get me out of this slump.

15. The Corpse Played Dead by Georgina Clarke This turned out to be the second in a series and I haven't read the first but you don't need to have. Lizzie Hardwicke, a prostitute living in 18th century Covent Garden, who occasionally helps out the local magistrate with solving crimes, is sent to the Drury Lane Theatre as a spy as there have been mysterious goings-on behind the scenes. Shortly after her arrival she finds the brutally murdered corpse of a man with a connection to the theatre. Is his death linked to the damaged scenery and costumes she was originally sent to investigate? Or is something more sinister going on?

This was a really good follow-on from Covent Garden Ladies. It was well written and Lizzie is a compelling heroine. I worked out whodunnit as soon as the relevant information was revealed, but this information was kept back until very late in the book. I'm considering reading the first in the series and will probably keep an eye out for the next one

Been a while since I posted, just caught up on all the thread.

6. D.O.G.S. M.A. Bennett YA book follow on from S.T.A.G.S, already I can’t remember a lot of details from it. It was slow and dull compared to the first and I will probably not bother with the rest of the series.

7. The girl with the curly hair. Asperger’s and me. Alis Rowe
My DD has recently been diagnosed with ASD typical of that often seen in girls, this book was recommend to me by a local charity to help me understand the way my daughter may see the world. It was interesting, easy to read and pick out areas that may apply to my daughter and a good intro for me.
8. Labyrinth. A.C.H. Smith. This is a book based on the 80s film The Labyrinth and is very much true to the film. I really enjoyed this as an easy read and throw back to my childhood.

I have more to add on here and will do so when I have some more time.

Love the sound of that @Terpsichore. Especially as Wailing Margery ™️ is involved.
@noodlezoodle I may reread it this summer, hopefully in a sweltering London!

@SOLINVICTUS my second hand copy of Goodbye Johnny Thunders has arrived! I'm a bit underwater with library books at the moment though so it will be a few weeks before I can jump into heatwave mode.

29: Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers - Mary Wellesley

I can’t remember who recommended this, but thank you to whoever it was - this was a really absorbing look at historic manuscripts, with a focus on trying to uncover the stories of the people who commissioned, illustrated, wrote and used them. It’s a great companion book to Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, which I read and loved last year.

I particularly liked the tale of the discovery of the Book of Margery Kempe (dear old wailing Margery, friend of this thread ), which came about in the 1930s when someone was rummaging through a cupboard to find ping-pong balls and got exasperated at the 'clutter' of old handwritten books in the way….one of which turned out to be this priceless 15thC lost manuscript. I only wish I had clutter like that.

I've got Death and the Penguin on my TBR following that article Viking so interested to see your review.

10. Take Your Breath Away by Linwood Barclay. I picked this up after reading @ChessieFl’s review. An easy thriller about a woman’s disappearance - very pacey.
11. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. My third book in a row taken a recommendation from you lot. This one thanks to @PepelePew. ‘20 short lessons on what to do in the face of creeping authoritarianism’. I liked this a lot. It felt quite simple - and made me think a lot about the way I absorb news. I recently got the magazine / newspaper app ‘readly’ and have been trying to read more longer form journalism so that section was of interest. It is written for an American audience so I found a few bits less relevant.
12. Dissolution by C J Sansom. The first in the Shardlake series. I had steered clear of another Cromwell book for so long after Mantel’s series but I needn’t have worried. This was so different. Cromwell’s detective goes to a fictitious monastery near Rye to solve a brutal murder. Loved this. So much intrigue.

@Solinvictus Thank you, I have The Rotters' Club somewhere and will give it a go at some point.

I've just started Breathless by Amy McCulloch, which is 99p in the monthly deals. It's told from the point of view of a blogger famous for failing to summit Kilimanjaro and Snowdon. She is picked to accompany a famous mountaineer on the final leg of his "Clean Fourteen" mission, which is an attempt to summit fourteen 8000m peaks without oxygen. I've only read a few chapters but so far it's trotting along quite nicely. The author is a mountaineer herself, which lends it some authenticity. There is a murder somewhere along the way. I may have spotted the twist already, but I don't really care so long as the journey is entertaining.

Realised I've lost track of this thread.

Not sure whether I've updated so will do again.

Tears of a giraffe Alexander Mccall Smith. Its the 2nd book of No1 ladies detective agency. Another easy read and one that I still enjoy despite the flaws that have to be acknowledged with the series. In this book, Mma Ramotswe is asked to find out what happened to an American who disappeared. As usual there is now real danger or big evil but love the way she deals with situations (makes a change from other thrillers).

Currently reading book now of the series Morality for beautiful girls

DuPain and LittleDiaries - good to see I am not alone on Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?. I am usually very intolerant of non-Poirot / non-Marple books (or, just very intolerant full stop!) but it had me turning the pages.

26. The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain

When Caroline discovers her unborn child has a heart defect it seems like nothing can be done to save her, in 1970 at least. I didn’t mind this book. There’s the trademark pulling of the old heart strings and although the explanation of time travel was a bit simplistic, it didn’t really bother me as it’s not a science fiction book, so I wasn’t really expecting that anyway.

27. Eve by Una

This graphic novel is by the author of Becoming Unbecoming, which I thought was amazing. The book is set in the near future, and depicts a society falling apart under the twin assaults of totalitarianism and climate change. It was definitely recognisable as our world and so it read very much as a warning of where we are heading. I liked the illustrative style but found the story of Eve, her parents and friends tailed off and the ending was weirdly abrupt. I did enjoy it but it’s nowhere near as good as Becoming Unbecoming.

28. The Last Lost Girl by Maria Hoey

The story of Lilly, who disappears in 1976 and the impact on the family left behind. I didn’t like this one at all and found it pretty by the numbers.

29. My Sister Milly by Gemma Dowler

I think everyone knows the heartbreaking story of Milly Dowler, but here we get to know the girl behind the ‘Tragic Milly Dowler’ headlines. Gemma Dowler does a great job of giving us an insight into the lives of the Dowler family and a rounded portrait of her sister Milly. As you’d expect, the telling of Milly’s disappearance and her murder, as well as the impact on her family and friends, is harrowing. However I just hadn’t appreciated the scale of the trauma, exacerbated by the incompetence of the police, the phone hacking scandal and the justice system which seems geared to protect one person - the perpetrator. Seeing the Dowlers deal with blow after blow was a tough read but I feel Gemma has reclaimed the narrative and showed Milly the much loved teenage girl, rather than Milly the victim.

A few updates from me:

14. Something New Under the Sun, Alexandra Kleeman

Better than I thought it was going to be. Starts as a fish-out-of-water comedy about a writer from the East Coast travelling to Hollywood where his book is about to be made into a film. The starlet is unpredictable, the weather is relentlessly sunny and everyone talks in a painfully aware new-agey way. It soon dawns on the reader, though, that this isn't set in the present day but in a near-future where ecological disaster is starting to present itself, and the mood gradually moves from comedy to something darker and more thought-provoking. I haven't heard of Kleeman but the writing was impressively sharp.

15. Death and the Penguin, Andrey Kurkov

Recently recommended in the Guardian as one of their books to read to understand Ukraine, this is a 1996 bestseller set in post-soviet Kiev. Another writer, another black comedy with tragedy poised waiting at its edges. The protagonist, Viktor, is offered some well-paid but mysterious work writing obituaries for major figures. People start to come and go in his life bringing assignments, then later either warning him of danger or threatening him. He's never quite clear who is a friend and who is a danger, or (until near the end) quite what he has got caught up in. The city is depicted as a place of beauty and chaos, where nothing quite works, and where gangsters and militia are woven into the lives of ordinary people. Viktor tries to navigate his way through this living a quiet and ordinary life, until he can't any longer. Surprisingly funny and sweet as well as quite terrifying, this is well worth a read as a depiction of life in a world where things are teetering on the edge of madness.

16. Still Waters, Viveca Sten

First in the Sandhamn murder mysteries. Thanks to everyone who recommended these. They're like the Serrailer books except without all the arseholes. Gorgeous setting, lots of lovely scandi beach houses and descriptions of food, a well-plotted police procedural sitting alongside a more soap-opera-ish plot concerning the lead detective (emotionally scared, lonely, handsome) and his friend Nora (whose marriage is starting to founder). There were some plot holes that you could pick up if you were being fussy but generally an escapist read written with that competence that allows you to relax and just let the plot carry you along. I didn't make a note of the translator's name but it's the edition that's free on Amazon Prime and the English version read really well.