50 Books Challenge 2022 Part Seven

Another one underwhelmed by Hamnet though the rest of my book club loved it.

The Dark is Rising is a long standing childhood favourite of mine, but a re-read last year reminded me it does go on a bit in places. I love the sinister atmosphere and the descriptions of the countryside and The Grey King (book four I think) is wonderful.

I like Maggie O'Farrell generally, but Hamnet drove me up the wall stylistically. Not everything needs to be described in triplicate, Maggie! It's simple, easy, straightforward. Really, honestly, truly. And no one is mentally reviewing the apples in detail while they're losing their virginity in the apple shed!

She hasn't quite lost me completely - The Marriage Portrait is on my Christmas wish list - I'll give her one last chance!

Suffering a bit of a reading block here. A couple of things started on borrowbox (Black Sunday, The Unheard) , but nothing is really grabbing me. Have stalled with One for the Blackbird one for the Crow on kindle as well.* * Filling my time watching The Traitors and playing candy crush.

Interesting to see all The Dark is Rising reviews. I've ordered a copy that is arriving today to read with DD over Xmas. It was bought with them in mind rather than me. We don't have similar taste. She loves fantasy and with a couple of notable exceptions I don't. Just hoping she enjoys it.

Really loved After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farell. Think I tried one of her others (can't remember which one), but didn't get on with it.

Eine Don't give up on Maggie O'Farrell just yet - can I suggest The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox?

I wasn’t keen on Hamnet either, Eine.

285 Beyond The Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up A Wizard by Tom Felton

Tom played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, and if you’re a fan this is a great read, full of gossip about filming and the other actors. If you’re not a fan you’re unlikely to be interested in this anyway as he’s not done much else!

286 The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

I read this for the first time a couple of years ago and didn’t really like it, but wanted to give it another go as it’s so popular. I did enjoy it a bit more second time round but still didn’t love it. I suspect I missed the boat by not reading it as a child.

72. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

If not for Remus I think I'd be worrying what to say, I'm aware it is very popular and I expected to follow popular opinion

It's the Womens Prize winner - they said
It's about Shakespeare -they said

I hated the prose style/tone to the point were I thought it was simply badly written

I thought it was deathly dull and also quite insubstantial, a waste of a good premise. The sections set at the beginning of the Shakespeare marriage were marginally better than "the present day" parts, but that's not saying much.

It was my first Maggie O'Farrell, and it well might be my last as much as I like the sound of The Marriage Portrait

Weird experience, feel a bit cheated by it because of the experience of it being so far from my expectation.

Feel free to disagree, I can take it.

Just popping in to mark place. I’m bad in bed (as we say here ) with my all time comfort read, Bill Bryson’s Down Under. Gets me out of Christmas parties etc I suppose.

My DS read TDIR when he was about 12 ( now 18) and enjoyed the books.

101 Murder Before Evensong by Richard Cole
I picked this vicar-does-detecting up in the library expecting something in the Thursday Murder Club vein. It didn't really hit the spot for me - it's set theoretically in the 1980s but the period didn't really ring true & the characters were pretty cardboard.

102 Welsh Food Stories by Carwyn Graves
This one, on the other hand, was much better than I'd expected. The cover makes it look very much like something written for the tourist market, but instead it's an interesting mix of social history, food writing and stories of farmers, cheesemakers and others working in Wales today.

103 The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
Rather odd mystery novel in which Horowitz becomes a character in his own book, the Watson to ex-Met detective Hawthorne's Holmes. The conceit is that he is going to write a true crime book based on the case that Hawthorne is currently working on, and that we are reading a first person account of the process. Very readable, if a bit gory for my taste.

I enjoyed The Dark is Rising when I read it last year and can tell you all it felt a lot more modern than The Box of Delights that I'm reading this year. But DD2 (who usually loves a classic children's novel) said she felt both too old and too young for TDIR when she tried it aged 12.

The Dark is Rising I'm a bit too old to have read this when it originally came out, so it was a first time for me. I think I would have loved this when I was young and with snow outside the window it was the perfect time to read it. I did enjoy it but agree with the caveats outlined by Remus; it felt very much a book from the 1970s.

81 Theodora and the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer

Joey is a horror, the triplets do their thing, Mary-Lou is insufferable and there was some drama with scarlet fever.

82 Red Sauce Brown Sauce by Felicity Cloake

I like Cloake's Guardian columns and I like breakfast food so this worked well for me. She cycles round the UK in search of great breakfast options and it's part travelogue, part recipe book. The recipes look really good - I'm planning a gentle exploration of a couple this weekend, including making my own mustard and Staffordshire oatcakes.

The Dark is Rising
I can’t remember when I last read this- lots of it felt very familiar but other sections felt like I’d rarely seen them before, so it was a bit of an odd reread.

I enjoyed this but with a bit of a caveat. Bits of it felt old fashioned in a rather awkward and long winded sort of way. And Will just doesn’t feel believable as an 11 year old. And there was far too much rabbiting on about flutes and Greensleeves for my liking. And the female characters are entirely one dimensional. And the dad is a bit of a pillock.

But some of it I found genuinely moving (Hawkins in particular) and I really liked the snow!

71. House Of Glass by Hadley Freeman

Freeman's family memoir about her grandmother and siblings, who were born Jewish in Poland and lived in France during WW2.

As many voices on the thread have noted, this is beautifully written and quietly haunting. A definite must, a definite bold.

War and Peace by Tolstoy

It feels great to have finished this, having started on New Year’s Day! I’m glad I read it. I really liked some bits and found other bits really dull. I don’t think I’ll ever reread it but glad it’s ticked off the list.

36. Elementary: The Periodic table explained by James M Russell.

This was a prime read. As someone who is not a chemist this was an OK introduction to the elements but as someone who doesn't know a lot about chemistry I do wish some of the terms had been explained better (there's no glossary so had to do a lot of googling). Worth a read if you want to know what different elements are used for or how they were discovered.

Currently reading Hobbit J.R.R Tolkien. Never read this or any Tolkein before and am currently really enjoying it.

36 Bear Head - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Genetically modified man living on Mars becomes host to the mind of a deceased bear.

Drivel. Space drivel at that, really not my thing. I read Dogs of War by the same author earlier this year so I should have known really. * *

38. Lady Worsley's Whim by Hallie Rubenhold This was a re-read for me and I believe this book has been republished as The Scandalous Lady W. In the 18th century Seymour Dorothy Fleming married Sir Richard Worsley. The marriage was an unmitigated disaster and eventually Seymour ran off with their neighbour and close friend Maurice George Bisset. Unfortunately this was a period when a woman couldn't sue for divorce or own any property or money in her own name. Worsley used the legal power he had to punish Seymour as much as possible and her life ended up being mostly tragic. Rubenhold is a good historian and an excellent writer and this book is another fab read

Say Nothing is my book of the year, but I would agree it's not festive. I'm basically housebound due to the weather, but my current read is very good.

Same here - I don't have the headspace for Say Nothing just now but will definitely read it.

@MaudOfTheMarches onw of by books of the year too - I have Say Nothing on my tbr, although that’s a little long right now.

@Palegreenstars Thanks for that, I saw it earlier and bought it. Empire of Pain is probably my book of the year. Looking out for a deal on his latest but have plenty to be going on with.

Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe of Empire of Pain fame is 99p today - it’s a collection of his essays from The New Yorker

I finished The Household Spirit by Tod Wodicka - thanks for the recommendation @DameHelena

I don’t know if it was lovely 😆but it was an absorbing read and certainly not arch, nor cynical which is what I felt I’d had enough of. I loved the free sample, paid for the full book and then immediately went off it a bit, but it pulled me back in.

It’s a story of isolation, loneliness and friendship. I found It frustrating at times but ultimately was really rooting for the main characters.

It's certainly feeling properly wintry here - loads of snow!