50 Books Challenge 2022 Part Seven

I'm just finishing up Born a Crime by Trevor Noah which I am finding very readable and interesting, should be done tomorrow.

Stats as follows: -

19 women
12 men

3 non fiction (though 10 Cities doesn't count because, it was so friggin woeful and crap): Au Revoir, Tristesse was my favourite here.

Top Fiction:
A Theatre for Dreamers, Polly Samson: surprised myself here as I didn't initially think much of it but I keep coming back to it.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, Mariana Enriquez: I tell people I didn't like this, but I think about it so often and find myself talking about it a lot so this was really a stand out for me.

7 translated

Have spent the best part of the whole afternoon catching up.

I like the Timothy Dalton/Zelah Clarke Jane Eyre in spite of the staging. I do also like Jane Eyre and have read it 3/4 times, all as an adult. I find Rochester amusing in his flirtation with Jane and 100% agree about the sexy ending. I didn't love Wide Sargasso Sea, but appreciated what it did. St John was indeed, to paraphrase Remus, a dick - except when played by Rupert Penry-Jones.

I've only read Tess and Return of the Native and really loved them both.

I won't reach 50 but the ride has been fun.

1. Vanity Fair, W M Thackeray
2. This Much is True, Miriam Margoyles
3. A Theatre for Dreamers, Polly Samson
4. The Adventures of China Iron, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
5. Shadowghast, Thomas Taylor
6. Lady Macbeth of Mtensk and Other Stories, Nikolai Leskov
7. Madonna in a Fur Coat, Sabahattin Ali
8. Who Is Maud Dixon?, Alexandra Andrews
9. Riders, Jilly Cooper
10. My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell
11. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
12. O Caledonia, Elspeth Barker
13. The Island Home, Libby Page
14. Bollywood: a History, Mihir Bose
15. The Unexpected Tale of Bastien Bon Livre, Claire Povey
16. Memed, My Hawk, Yaşar Kemal
17. A Family Affair, Mary Campisi
18. Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
19. My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite
20. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan
21. Keeping the House, Tice Cin
22. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, Mariana Enriquez
23. Three Bags Full, Leonie Swann
24. Ten Cities that Led the World, Paul Strathern (such turgid shit Italics aren't enough)
25. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
26. The Road to Lichfield, Penelope Lively
27. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig
28. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
29. Au Revoir, Tristesse, Viv Groskop
30. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
31. Madame Burova, Ruth Hogan

Interesting to read all the Jane Eyre debate. Would love to contribute, but I have never got past the Lowood section. In fact, with the exception of The Moonstone (that i read for GCSE), I don't think I have ever finished a novel published before 1900. Maybe this thread will inspire me to complete one in 2023.

Tess was the book that most shaped me as a reader. I read it at 14 and it was my first proper classic. I do love Mayor, too.

On the topic of Gavin And Stacey @PepeLePew love it. It gets better with subsequent viewings and yes the supporting characters trump the main. Highlights:

Pam and Take That on the radio
The line dancing
Bryn on the lads night out and also the James Blunt singalong

The special two years or so back was a bit of disappointment though

Hardy

Technically, Tess was my first Hardy, and while I still think it's beautifully written Far From The Madding Crowd is my favourite. I actually saw it first as a teenager on ITV an actress called Paloma Baeza played Bathsheba and I remember being quite taken with it. Also read Return Of The Native, Jude, and Mayor Of Casterbridge but none of the "minor" ones. Someone laughed at me when I reviewed Native and said I'd made it sound like a Sally Rooney, but it is just a bunch of people who all want who they don't have. Jude is miserable and everyone in it is an arsehole. Mayor is a bit heavily "moral of the story" though a great concept.

Agreed, Remus that Ruth Wilson was a good Jane Eyre, Toby Stephens wasn't a bad Rochester either.

I'm Jane Eyre neutral but I really hated Wide Sargasso Sea.

Am also team Gavin and Stacey. Pam and Mick are my favourites by a mile.

@Sadik , Far From the Madding Crowd is my favourite Hardy, although I haven't read Mayor of Casterbridge to compare.

While I won't make my 50, I'm still reading and may complete a couple more, as I have reborrowed several halfway or almost finished books that had to go back to the library first time round. Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson was my #33 and I absolutely loved it. Everything was so vividly drawn and I feel a bit bereft now I've finished it. I know some people found it ended a bit abruptly, and I see why, but I thought the plotting was so good that when things drew to an end I just gave a happy sigh of satisfaction.

Here is a link for the 2023 Dickensalong

for those interested.

2023 is The Old Curiosity Shop.

All welcome!

20) Manchester Fourteen Miles by Margaret Penn

My final book of the year and already well reviewed by @Terpsichore but briefly it is about Hilda Winstanley a young girl living a village life set in Lancashire Moss Ferry. I really enjoyed this for the cosy read it has been. It reminded me a little of Anne of Green Gables as Hilda is a feisty character just like Anne. The author is actually Hilda Winstanley herself. I have been debating if I should get the next books in the trilogy as I know from Terpsichore’s reviews that her life goes quite sadly in the last book of the trilogy but curiosity has got the better of me and I am going to order the next two. On reflection though I hope her life went okay as she got the opportunity to get her work published. I loved how she really tried and worked at her education. Thanks again for your review @Terpsichore as really enjoyed this Gem.

I hated it too but loved Jane eyre

Ha! And Lizzie Dripping played Helen Burns!!

Cusack

Goodness, I've just looked up the cast list from the 1973 BBC adaptation and what stars! Stephanie Beacham as Blanche Ingram and Geoffrey Whitehead as St John Rivers! And Sorcha was one of the Cusak girls. Thanks for reminding me Terpsichore.

I thought Ruth Wilson was perfectly cast in the TV series.

I loved the 1970s adaptation and thought Michael Jayston was (in the words of the time) very dishy. I hadn't read the book and found the goings-on in the attic absolutely chilling (and was quite scared going up to bed straight afterwards).

I’ve been utterly baffled in the past by some of the Jane/Rochester castings in film and TV adaptations of Jane Eyre.

'Poor, obscure, plain and little' is how Jane (= Charlotte) describes herself. So who do we get?

Joan Fontaine (with Orson Welles 🥴)
Susannah York (with George C Scott 🤔)
Charlotte Gainsbourg (with William Hurt 🙄)
Mia Wasikowska (with Michael Fassbender 🤦‍♀️)

I think Samatha Morton and Ciaran Hinds were nearer the ideal in my mind, and I’m ancient enough to have had the definitive Jane/Rochester fixed for me forever by Sorcha Cusack and Michael Jayston in the 70s TV adaptation.

I like both the Mayor of Casterbridge and Far From the Madding Crowd.
One of my earliest Christmas memories is seeing the film of the latter at my gran's on Boxing Day. Early 70s probably.

Sadik, I'd also vote for Mayor of Casterbridge as the best Hardy. It really is all his best themes - fate and character, bucolic splendour, rising and falling fortunes. I read it for A-level and it didn't ruin it for me - I think I got more out of being forced to do a close read.

Gavin and Stacey are definitely the weakest characters in Gavin & Stacey. I love Alison Steadman as Pam, she’s just brilliant.

Stacey is a bit crap, and Gavin is really annoying. The others are sheer delight, all of them. I adore Doris and aspire to be her when I get older. Some of my favourite lines are from the minor characters although Nessa will always have my heart.
I did go looking for a book of the scripts a while back but didn't have much joy. I remember getting Yes Minister and Faulty Towers scripts for Christmas years ago and loving them both.

Loving the last couple of days' chat.
Have only read a children's version of Jane Eyre iirc. My dad bought me a series when I was about 10. Lorna Doone, Little Women, Jane Eyre. Etc. I saw it at the cinema and hated it. But that was perhaps due to an irrational hatred of watching films in company with my shoes on (I've been to the cinema 7 times in my life) and the actress. It was (Google tells me) the Charlotte Gainsbourg version.

I'm going to try and read more classics next year (famous last words) so might have a bash at the book.

Love the medieval controversy. Carla Rossi is such a Jane Doe name. Bet she'll be called something else entirely really.

I never saw Gavin and Stacey first time round, and eventually got the box set a couple of years ago. Tbh, I didn't totally "get" it, (also probably due to watching them late at night and falling asleep) and the fact that, for me, like Harry Potter himself is the weakest link in Harry Potter, Gavin and Stacey are the weakest links in G&S. I also hated Alison Steadman in P&P. HOWEVER, thanks to the rewatch when properly awake, it's bloody brilliant. Alison Steadman and Ruth Jones in particular are just perfect. (I still think Stacey is a bit crap but I suppose she's supposed to be) I also realised I hadn't seen the more recent Christmas special so that was a treat.

Daughters of Yalta by Catherine Grace Katz This was a really interesting account of the Yalta Conference in 1945, the political background and proposals for the imminent end of war with regards to collective security and self-determination (particularly for Poland). I had no idea that Sarah Churchill, Anna Roosevelt and Kathleen Harriman (daughter of the US Ambassador to the USSR) had accompanied and supported their fathers at the Conference, and their involvement provides a backdrop for a more intimate account of the conditions (eg serious illness, bedbugs and very limited sanitation) as well as the personal background of these interlinked political families. It is a well written and compelling account but I was occasionally irritated by Katz's attempts at embellishing the narrative with, frankly, silly and unnecessary conjecture ("When she (Sarah Churchill) arrived she immediately went up to see her father , who was dressing for dinner. While meticulously brushing the two or three hairs that remained on his otherwise bald head, he conspiratorially turned to Sarah....." Overall it's a great read and although primarily an overview of the Conference, it is an interesting insight into the lives of three extremely capable and intelligent women, and the choices they had to make. The final chapter, After Yalta, shows this particularly starkly with regards to Anna Roosevelt who always seemed to prioritise the men in her life, but it also highlights the devastating effects that the War had on those who lived through it.

I’m another who fell in love with Jane Eyre at 11 when I was given it for Christmas. I read it again a couple of years ago and enjoyed it but, good grief, had forgotten the stonking coincidence. I loved the Lowood bits as a child.

We love Gavin and Stacey here. I was working in Cardiff when it was originally shown and everyone else on my team was from Barry. Some of it was so true to life.

@Sadik I really liked The Mayor of Casterbridge the only other Thomas Hardy book I've read was Far From the Madding Crowd which I wasn't that keen on.

I haven't done well in terms of diversity - nothing in another language or in translation, and only three by authors I know to be non-white.

*twee not tweet