50 Books Challenge 2022 Part Seven

Thanks for the recommendation of The Islander, @sadik I spent part of my honeymoon at Chris Blackwell's hotels in Jamaica and we swam in the pool at his house - he was away and someone very kindly directed us to through to his garden. He arrived next day by helicopter and the gate was very much shut after that.

A quick recommendation for anyone looking for a book gift for a music lover - I'm only part way through & listening on Audible but The Islander by Chris Blackwell (founder of Island Records) is an absolute delight & I'm sure will be one of my books of the year.

106 Say What You Mean A Mindful Approach to Non-Violent Communication by Oren Sofer
Gentle and useful combination of mindfulness & NVC. I've got this on audio, & listened while I was working, so really need to work back through when I have time to stop & do the various exercises in the book. Definitely helpful for anyone who like me finds the principles of NVC useful, but struggles to stop & apply them in the moment.

107 Again Rachel by Marian Keyes
I only read the original book earlier this year when people were talking about the sequel on this thread, so I'm not a longstanding fan. I really liked meeting Rachel again in this update, perhaps more than the original - maybe because she's now middle aged, but also I particularly enjoyed the work sections.

A couple of doorstops for my list (and just getting to the magic 50 in time for the end of the year):

50 The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters by Charlotte Mosley. I like biographies and have read the odd diary, but as far as I can remember this is the first collection of letters I've ever read. The wonderful thing is how strongly the individual characters and "voices" of each of the sisters comes through. I really enjoyed this - recommended for Mitford fans.

51 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I've been meaning to read this for years so I took the opportunity of joining the readalong on here. I can see why it's a classic, and it's really interesting how many of the observations made in a book written in the 1860s are still completely relevant today. I guess it shows that people don't really change! I'm very glad to have read it, but not gonna lie (as my kids would say) I did find it a slog at times.

Some brilliant ideas thanks @SolInvictus

I don’t think I’m as widely read (or nearly as discerning) as many of the readers here but I too have struggled to be impressed by much this year. I do find fiction far easier to read than non fiction but I agree it seems harder to find things I love these days.

It’s not even like I’m reading the most recent stuff, I’m usually a good few years out of date!

Oh that's good news @MegBusset as I believe Bomber is coming my way for Christmas. Good idea about Backlisted and will take a look at Harry August too.

66. The Long Call by Ann Cleves. My first book by Ann Cleves though lots of people have recommended her to me. I don't read loads of detective fiction but really enjoyed this. I had genuinely no idea what the solution might be until about 85% of the way through which seems like the mark of a good crime novel!

About to embark on Winter Solstice, a day late.

Just totted up and 22/64 of my books were fiction this year. Out of those, only one (Bomber by Len Deighton) is in my top ten reads for the year - I also find good genre fiction more likely to hit the spot than today's "literary" fiction.

Have to admit I don’t read a lot of modern literary fiction. I’m happy with present-day genre crime novels, but other than that I generally prefer going back in time for my fiction. And I’m like eitak - I alternate fiction and non-fiction.

Yeah, I struggle to connect with fiction these days - particularly modern fiction which i find predictable / formulaic / not credible or just not that well written. I've had better luck in recent years with older fiction that had slipped under my radar, mostly thanks to Backlisted.

@PermanentTemporary

I don't know if struggling to find good fiction is just a natural, unfortunate consequence of being well read/reading broadly. So less impressed.
Since being on the thread I have definitely read more non fiction, and having read less broadly in that area am finding more hits?

I can't advise using this years list as I've had so few fiction hits but I'm going to go back to yesteryear and throw The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August into the ring as a diverting page turner

@AliasGrape

Cry Mother Spain by Lydie Salvaire is very good, but my all the favourite Spanish Civil War novel is Requiem for a Spanish Peasant by Ramon J Sender. It's just hauntingly beautiful.

What about Seashaken Houses? (lighthouses)

Your Aunt sounds fascinating!

@PermanentTemporary I tend to alternative Non fiction and fiction to stay interested. This year I've done a fair bit of rereading and found that's helped prevent a slump.

38. A Christmas Cornucopia - Mark Forsyth
Reviewed a lot here, learnt some new things but was also annoyed by his interpretation of the Nativity as found I Matthew as he seemed to imply a lot of things which the original passage either does not say or says the opposite. Nice easy read.

Next read Midsummer Murders -Agatha Christie

Honestly stupidly proud of myself for how many books I've read this year, won't make 50 but the closest I've been in years!

Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper
Well, it turns out I'd read this one before too! It was okay - a bit long-winded and disjointed.

Just mentally walked out of Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls. DNF. A shame. I started off finding it annoying, then began to get interested. But the main character is a teenager with a parent with severe mental illness and I just don't want to be in that mental space.

Starting to get worried that I really can't tolerate fiction any more. At least I can still read nonfiction. What would 50 Bookers prescribe for a sudden onset allergy to fiction?

December reading started with what Eine has brilliantly termed "TBR turfings"...reading books that have been on my TBR for a while in an effort to take a bit less TBR baggage into the new year.
52. Blow Back and 54. Cast Iron both by Peter May
On my TBR for over a year after FIL mistakenly lent me then (he was meant to lend me a different title by the same author but I just smiled and accepted when he got it wrong...then felt obliged to read these). Books 5 and 6 (I think) in The Enzo Files series (I haven't read the others). These were fairly quick reads, annoying in places but good enough to hold my attention and make me wonder were they were going. Not Peter May's best or worst.
53. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
This has lingered on my Audible TBR for years after I bought it but then feared it would be too clever for me. Parts of it were...I didn't follow all of the religious references/dream sections/Arthurean legends. However, I hadn't realised that it would hold such humour in it's observations and in the dialogue. I enjoyed it enough to seek out Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal which I am loving.
55. After Dark by Jayne Cowie
Read this in less than 24 hours while I was full of the cold at the weekend and it was perfect as a propulsive read to gulp down. In a fictional UK sixteen years from now, violent crime against women has been almost entirely eliminated as a result of a series of laws, most significantly the Curfew which requires all men to stay at home from 7pm to 7am every day and is enforced by the requirement of all men to wear tags. We alternate between the points of view of several women, one of whom is a police officer investigating after a woman's body is found in a park. CCTV reveals the body was moved there during the night. Her murderer must be a woman because a tag is a solid alibi for any man...isn't it? The plot was fine but I was mostly interested in the world that the author creates (the intended and unintended consequences of the laws that were brought in to protect women) and the different ways that the women we follow think about the laws and their world.
56. The Secret History of Christmas by Bill Bryson
Much mentioned on here. I liked it.

56.Jews Don't Count - David Baddiel
Interesting polemic that explores the perception (in some quarters) that Jewish people are privileged and therefore can't be discriminated against. Also paradoxically, they are seen as both low (the "vermin" trope) and high (in control of the world's banks), often within the same imagery. Some things are truly shocking, for example, the Lib Dem peer who tweeted to the effect that anti-semitism has been around so long, Jewish people must be doing something to provoke it. Sounds like something from the 1930s, but no, this was about two years ago. It's not the best written book, in my opinion - more of an extended rant, though that's fair enough.

57.A Christmas Cornucopia - Mark Forsyth
Amusing and interesting in parts, but the continuous wise-cracking tone got a bit wearing. In my head the narrator went from Hugh Bonneville to David Brent and I probably wouldn't have held out if it had been longer.

Thank you for more recommendations @PermanentTemporary @bibliomania and hopefully not missed anyone but thanks all.
I will have to order one or two tomorrow - not quite decided which yet but really appreciate all the ideas, my mind was a blank.

I just finished the Bill Bryson Christmas one on audible - they call it an ‘audible presentation’ but it has chapters and is by someone who writes books so I’m totally counting it as my number 52 book for this year. Was good, one or two new snippets of info in there and he’s always engaging.

Picked it in an effort to feel more festive but not sure it worked.

I've got a bit of a roundup here, I'll be quick

75. Action Park by Andy Mulvihill with Jake Rossen

Thanks to @MaudOfTheMarches and @PepeLePew for this recommendation

This is the story of a theme park owned and run by the Mulvihill family in New Jersey which was eventually shut down. The dilapidated, poorly built and managed rides, were a massive safety hazard, but there was little to no regulation. People were seriously injured, people died. Andy Mulvihill, one of 6 children who all worked at the park from its earliest days, blatantly does look at all of it and particularly his father through rose tinted glasses. He clearly idolised his father, but all the same his father profiteered and did little to nothing to improve park safety, often making it worse, and rarely was anyone compensated even the seriously injured, due to Gene Mulvihill engaging in some dodgy insurance shenanigans and outright deceit.

Visiting or working at Action Park seems like an experience unseen before and impossible to replicate. Anarchy and chaos drip off the page. I figured it would have been amazing as a teenager, but outright terrifying for a proper grown up or parent.A good yarn.
I will be buying this as a gift for someone and will be recommending it on.

76. O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker

Whilst I did not love this the way other people have (I found it a bit hard work) when the end comes its hard not to have admiration for the concept. Janet reminded me of the current depiction of Wednesday Addams on Netflix

77. A Christmas Cornucopia by Mark Forsyth

Another one who picked this up. I've read some of his others, I liked the facts some misconceptions of which I remember being taught at school! The corny nudge nudge Dad Joke type stuff I could have lost to be honest.

78. The Dig by John Preston

A three hander narration of the Sutton Hoo Archaeological dig just prior to WW2. It was a little dry, but there's a film on Netflix I fancied watching and it was 99p. I sort of wish I'd read it prior to seeing the Sutton Hoo Artefacts at The British Stole This Museum, as they are among the few things not lifted from other countries, but it wasn't to be.

I’ve reserved Whalebone Theatre!

Couch Fiction This graphic novel by psychotherapist Philippa Perry (illustrated by her daughter) takes an invented but plausible case study and follows the course of the fictional client’s therapy sessions. Notes accompanying the illustrations shed light on the therapist’s thought process so you get a feel for what her experience of the interaction is, as well as her client’s. Fascinating and moving, and beautiful to look at.

Oh how funny!

I meant to mention the cover. It's a beauty. And I like the way the hardback falls open.

Oh @Piggywaspushed you beat me by a matter of hours, I also finished my book 65 The Whalebone Theatre today!

I loved this. It starts with a trio of young siblings, largely ignored by their parents, running around a country house and putting on plays with the help of a cast of bohemian characters who drop in and out. We follow them into adulthood and WW2 as they all take different paths through the war.

There's plenty that doesn't quite work: plot lines that get forgotten about, characters early on who disappear from the book entirely once the war starts, servants' diary entries with spelling mistakes. But it's so much My Kind Of Thing that I don't care. A bit Cazalets, a bit Kate Atkinson, a bit E Nesbit. Definitely one of my favourite books of the year.

There's a TV series of the Patrick O'Briens looming, so I have the first one, not read any.

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas. Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

A pretty little book of a classic Christmas story. Short but sweet.

The Grey King
I thought that I hadn’t read this, but I had. Didn’t think much of it. Lots of drivel about sleeping kings and the dark. The worst of the series so far imo.