50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Ten

Thanks for the new thread southeast.

The Trial by Rob Rinder A friend raved about this - a whodunnit and court drama with a junior barrister as lead character. I wasn’t quite as taken with it as she was as it was sometimes a bit clunky, but I did enjoy it and was drawn along and entertained.

88: The Appeal - Janice Hallett

I'm probably the last person in the world to get round to this, but after hearing Janice Hallett on the radio talking about her latest book, I remembered I’d bought this a while ago. The up-dated epistolary device of unravelling a murder mystery through the medium of texts and emails was quite clever and often amusing, and it made for a pacy-enough read - it felt very Osman-ish in places. I guessed various plot points fairly early on, but not the central mystery. Not sure I need to read another, though, now I know how the general idea works.

Thanks @splothersdog. I really liked Transcendent Kingdom.

I promise I will update my reading soon!! But popping on again to say that Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi is on daily deals. I highly recommend

64. A heart that works by Rob Delaney

I follow a couple of grief pages on Instagram (it can be very helpful to have put into words things you feel) and Robs story kept popping up. He lost his little two year old boy to cancer and he spoke beautifully about his son, grief and how to support those grieving. So when I saw he had a book out I thought I'd give it a read.

I cried on and off all the way through. It's so emotional and what his family went through is heart breaking. Luckily it's a short book so I dug in and read it in two days (I could have read it in one sitting if I'd timed it better). It's a really well written book and I laughed out loud several times, sometimes at the same points I had tears in my eyes.

It was a challenging read, so I have reflected a little on why I wanted to read it. I think I wanted to show support a bit. And having lost both parents before I turned 40, I read a bit about loss as a way of making sense of it. I resonated with much that he wrote, including some of more selfish and less palatable feelings, such as the irritation and anger at an acquaintance telling a story about a 91 being healed of brain cancer. That's not what you want to hear when your two year old is having chemo, it's not the same situation as all and I completely understood.

Recommended if you also like crying at books about loss and grieving.

Thanks, Noodle. It was fine - would just be better for somebody a) not ill and b) not quite as obsessed by the Himalayas as I am!

Here's hoping the botanists one comes down soon.

That was me Remus. Sounds like it was a bit of a mixed bag though

That was also the book that suddenly dropped to 2.99 and made us think Amazon might be reading this thread. Sadly my Grand Canyon botanists book is still expensive so I'm guessing not!

High: A Journey Across the Himalayas
Thanks to whoever recommended this; I’m so sorry that I can’t remember who it was.

I’ve not been well, which is at least in part to blame for this book seeing to last forever. It was fine, but I think I’d have liked it better if I hadn’t already read quite extensively about the area and its history. I also didn’t really warm to the writer, who I found a bit sneery at times.

However, it’s got lots of interesting and informative stuff and is a decent enough piece of travel writing. I’m glad I only paid £2.99 on kindle, rather than asking for it in hardback for Christmas though.

Oooooh, spooky noodle!

42. Notes to Self, by Emilie Pine. Stunning but extremely personal essays. Hard to read, presumably very hard to write. I'm glad to have read it.

Funnily enough I knew someone on the thread had read this recently which prompted me to open my copy. So funny to see Nice that I agree with everything you say, and that it was #42 for me as well!

87: The Life and Lies of Charles Dickens - Helena Kelly

Gosh. I don’t know where to even start with this, quite honestly. First off, I’m a bit of a Dickens obsessive and I know a lot about his life, so I was curious to know what 'lies' this book was going to reveal. It’s heavily hyped as 'dynamic', 'radical' and 'revelatory', so a fair amount was promised.

Secondly, I’m in no doubt that Dickens was far from being a saint - he behaved appallingly to his wife, conducting an affair with the young Ellen Ternan while gaslighting the entire world on an epic scale. He treated many of his friends shabbily. He certainly didn’t make his children’s lives (his sons, anyway) very easy.

But blimey, if you believe Helena Kelly he was basically the Devil incarnate, lying, concealing, cheating and plagiarising his way through life from start to finish. Every chapter levels more and more accusations which start off as bafflingly minor (he concealed the fact that he had a younger sister who died!! errr…except that it's a fact given right at the very beginning of Forster's biography of him) and just go on from there. His sister married a man with Jewish ancestry and yet he was anti-Semitic!! And racist!! He made up things about working in the blacking-factory!! He took drugs!! His Christmas stories were rubbish!! The list of charges is so relentless I almost expected to find that he'd stolen the Crown Jewels, shot the sheriff and killed Kenny.

There are actually some interesting points of discussion - the suggestion that he routinely 'borrowed' ideas from other authors is definitely worthy of research - but the tide of accusations means that it’s very difficult to separate out the wheat from the chaff. Especially when every assertion is heavily hedged about with 'possibly,' 'maybe', 'it's likely', 'perhaps', and 'we can only speculate'.

I was already flagging long before it was confidently stated that the son born to one of Ellen Ternan's cousins was in fact the smuggled-in secret child of Ellen and Dickens, asserted on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that I can see. But the coup de grace is that Dickens was happy to let people know about his affair with Ternan because he wanted it to cover up his REAL secret……which was that he had syphilis and had passed it on to his wife and his children. Ye Gods!

To think that I used up a perfectly good book-token on this. Ah well. Sorry for the rant, but I suppose it’s good that I've made it almost all the way to Christmas without a real stinker 😱😂

Im definitely going to fall short of 50 this year, so have given up and switched to seasonal/ festive stuff to see if that spurs me on a bit.
I started then abandoned something called Merry Midwinter by Gillian Monks as if I was in the market for recipes, slightly anachronistic preparation/ housekeeping tips and advice about how I should be properly appreciating the magic of the season I’d stick with Nigel, but I couldn’t stick him this year either for some reason.

Instead I flew through A Christmas Cornucopia by Mark Forsyth which I really enjoyed. It’s very short - a good recommendation for anyone wanting to quickly bulk up their numbers this year! I think I saw it recommended on last year’s thread actually. I really enjoyed his Etymologican which I also read earlier this year, but then didn’t finish another of his after that.

I’m also reading Murder in the Snow by Gladys Mitchell which claims to be a ‘Cotswold Christmas Mystery’ although Christmas is over within the first couple of chapters. I lifted it from MIL’s shelf though Amazon tells me it was ‘first published in 1950 as Groaning Spinney’ - it’s billed as being for fans of Christie, Sayers and Marsh etc but it isn’t as good as any of those, I’m struggling to care much about whodunnit or why, or any of the characters really but I will finish it all the same.

@satelliteheart

Give up the self inflicted punishment it's Christmas !

65. Die Trying by Lee Child Second in the Jack Reacher series and as far as I made it last time. This time Reacher is accidentally caught up in a hostage situation. The whole thing is just unbelievable. First of all, the hostage takers would definitely have simply killed Reacher immediately. Also he was able to overpower multiple armed men at once in the previous book and yet never finds an opportunity to do so in the 3 days of travelling in this book. Against my better judgement I have started book 3 but I genuinely have no idea why as they're not enjoyable books, they're too long and wordy and I don't enjoy graphic violence in my books. Especially at this time of year. I bought lots of cosy crime Christmas books on black Friday and they're all staring at me reproachfully whilst I read more unnecessary violence

Happy belated birthday @BoldFearlessGirl

Just popping on to say that Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel is on Kindle Daily deals

@MaudOfTheMarches such an unpleasant book!

@GrannieMainland I hated Vladimir, couldn't finish it.

Belated happy birthday @BoldFearlessGirl ! I’m listening to the Ade Edmondson on Audible atm.

Can I just say that rather unexpectedly, I am loving Trustee From The Toolroom

A belated thank you for all the book club recommendations, I'll have a look through!

I've read an unintentional dark/sexy academic pairing:

85. Mrs S by K Patrick. A young woman takes a job as matron at a girls boarding school and becomes obsessed with the headmaster's wife, eventually starting a secret affair. Some nice writing (warning for no speech marks though!) and it captured the intensity of both the school environment and the illicit romance. Very much vibes and atmosphere over plot though, and it didn't really go anywhere.

86. Vladimir by Julia May Jonas. A campus novel following a professor whose husband is suspended following allegations of inappropriate relationships with students. She in turn becomes obsessed with a younger teacher and his wife, which quickly escalates into some very far fetched drama. This was well reviewed but I just had a really strong aversion to it - the narrator was incredibly unlikeable and I could never tell if it was meant to be a satire or a commentary on academia, Me Too etc.

I'm now planning a re-read of The Children's Book by AS Byatt, something I know I'll adore!

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens.
Also the Audible version read by Hugh Grant (I am a fan) mentioned by @nowanearlyNicemum. Excellent.

I’ve also listened to the Audible David Copperfield and Oliver Twist productions by Sam Mendes and whilst not count them as books wanted to mention that they are both very good.

73. Once Upon a Tome - Oliver Darkshire
Reviewed a few times on here already, so I'll just add that this could be a great choice for teens and young adults who love books. Darkshire is 29, queer (self-described) and a fantasy fan. He also loves and appreciates old books and I'd recommend this to any bibliophile.

thanks @stokey I have gone for The Dust that Falls from Dreams

@nowanearlyNicemum my mum has similar taste I think and likes Rachel Joyce, Richard Osman and Robert Harris. She's also quite partial to Robert Goddard and Susan Howatch is her absolute favourite.

She really enjoyed the Louis De Bernieres World War saga, I think the first one is The Dust That Falls From Dreams.

114. Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither - Sara Baume. Beautifully written but very sad book about a year in the life of Ray, a lonely 57 year old man, who decides to get a dog, the mutilated One Eye, to keep him company and rat for him. The book follows a year in their lives, it's very seasonal going through the different wildlife and seasons but in a way of poverty rather than largesse. Ray has had a pretty awful life and has no contact with anyone really. The book turns into a bit of a road trip at one stage and ends at Christmas so it's kind of a Christmas book, but not exactly one to feel you with good cheer. The writing is exceptional though.

86: A Winter Away - Elizabeth Fair

I’ve read a few of these gentle, entertaining novels of the 1950s and enjoyed their old-fashioned charm - Elizabeth Fair wrote just 6 books and they hover around the cusp of being elevated romantic fiction, but with a slightly Stella Gibbons-ish vibe.

Here, 20-year-old Maud arrives at a small country village to lodge with her 60-something Cousin Alice and Alice’s companion Con (whose spartan lifestyle, sans heating and with slavish adoration of their fat, sly dog Wilbraham is the source of much humour). Maud is to be secretary to ‘Old M’, owner of the local Big House, Marius Fenistone, whose irascible ways have put him at odds with both his son, Oliver, and his much younger cousin, the handsome Charles. Maud quietly becomes a sort of Flora Poste figure in sorting out the lives of the dysfunctional locals. A lovely, soothing and undemanding pre-Christmas read.