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50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Ten

517 replies

Southeastdweller · 08/12/2023 12:56

Welcome to the tenth and final thread of the 50 Books Challenge for this year.

The challenge was to read fifty books (or more!) in 2023, though reading fifty wasn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, it’s not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here, the third one here here, the fourth one here, the fifth one here, the sixth one here, the seventh one here, eighth one here and the ninth one here

How have you got on this year?

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13
CluelessMama · 10/12/2023 12:26

Thanks @Southeastdweller
G@Cazziebo Great short books - Address Unknown by Katherine Kressmann Taylor and Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds - very different to each other, both very quick reads that I finished and then immediately reread because they were so good!
Agree with recommendations for Claire Keegan and A Christmas Carol too :)

Sadik · 10/12/2023 12:17
  1. Mr Penumbra's 24 hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan Meh - I finished this but not sure it was worth it. I should have learnt from Sourdough but I had it on my phone from my dad's kindle library (though he DNFed it) & was out & about.

Separately, looking for recommendations for a book for DP at Christmas. He likes historical epics (so for example the Bernard Cornwall Saxon books), so maybe something like that. If I could find something historically accurate & set in east Africa or S. america that would really hit the spot I reckon, any era OK. Definitely no magical realism & no fantasy. And definitely no slow moving beautiful-but literary books (he's in the bloody boring butler camp for sure).

Sadik · 10/12/2023 09:35

Those looking for short reads, I've enjoyed several of the Seren press reworkings - New Stories from the Mabinogion. The Prince's Pen by Horatio Clare & Fountainville by Tishani Doshi were my favourites (no need to know the original stories at all to enjoy them, & I got them through Borrowbox)
I also like Pedant in the Kitchen by Julian Barnes (non fiction)

RazorstormUnicorn · 10/12/2023 08:02

61. Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

Delighted this turned up for 99p at this time of year as it's set at Christmas.

The little window into Furlongs life paints a clear picture in a short time and I was left wanting more.

I love how Keegan writes, and I want to read the rest of hers, but I just can't bring myself to pay £5 for a book that's read in an hour.

OllyBJolly · 09/12/2023 22:49

TimeforaGandT · 09/12/2023 22:47

@Cazziebo - I’ve read the following short books this year both of which I would recommend:

Rizzio - Denise Mina
Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

Thank you! I've read Small Things - loved it. I'll add Denise Mina's Rizzio.

TimeforaGandT · 09/12/2023 22:47

@Cazziebo - I’ve read the following short books this year both of which I would recommend:

Rizzio - Denise Mina
Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

OllyBJolly · 09/12/2023 22:46

ChessieFL · 09/12/2023 20:07

@Cazziebo not at all Christmassy but how about The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald, On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, or Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan?

I've read all of these! Thank you for taking the time to suggest them. Enjoyed and would recommend every one of them.

OllyBJolly · 09/12/2023 22:43

MegBusset · 09/12/2023 18:43

@Cazziebo how about A Christmas Carol and A Child’s Christmas In Wales?

Thank you! I've read the first, will add the second to my list

MegBusset · 09/12/2023 21:26

I say inimitable but clearly the exact opposite is true 🤣

MegBusset · 09/12/2023 21:25

Ah @Terpsichore thank you re: Diamond Street! Yes, Herzog narrates the audiobook in his own inimitable style. I could listen to him talk about pretty much anything, more or less indefinitely! There’s a film documentary about him coming out in January which I’m so looking forward to.

ChessieFL · 09/12/2023 20:07

@Cazziebo not at all Christmassy but how about The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald, On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, or Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan?

Terpsichore · 09/12/2023 19:58

@MegBusset glad you're enjoying Diamond Street! Is Werner Herzog narrating his own book? His voice is very amusing and just asking to be imitated. I don’t know whether you’re a listener to the Adam Buxton podcast but he and Louis Theroux do extremely hilarious impersonations of Herzog in full flight 😂

bibliomania · 09/12/2023 19:14

Impressed that Fuzzy 's book incantation worked.

Janina, I admire the breadth of your reading, especially all the books in translation.

MegBusset · 09/12/2023 18:43

@Cazziebo how about A Christmas Carol and A Child’s Christmas In Wales?

AliasGrape · 09/12/2023 18:25

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 09/12/2023 15:53

I’ve just been reading Nigel Slater’s Christmas Chronicles but his finickity, self absorbed failure to understand his own privilege is annoying me even more than usual. Instead of making me want to burn a posh candle and eat a mince pie from a bone china plate, it’s making me want to storm his house and whack him around the face with a flat cap and a box of Woodbines.

I’ve given it a swerve this year, I just didn’t feel up to it for exactly that reason!

I’ve been reading something called Merry Midwinter though by Gillian Monks and I rather fear it’s worse.

Cazziebo · 09/12/2023 18:24

Sorry - I seem to ask this every year.

I have read some fantastic books this year. I'll do a list closer to the end of the year. However, some of them have been very long with the result I'm 6 books short of my 50 and only three weeks left. Any recommendations for shorter books that are a great read?

MegBusset · 09/12/2023 17:54

Ah @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I’m doing the Christmas Chronicles read-along for the first time this year and really enjoying it… am just embracing the ridiculous middle-class aspirational-ness of it!

Also on the go… Diamond Street (with thanks to whoever recommended it on the last thread) and the very splendid audiobook of Werner Herzog’s Every Man For Himself And God Against All. I’ll definitely finish both of these by the 31st. Plus Simon Sebag Montefiore’s epic The World which I’ll probably still be reading in December 2024 😁

MaudOfTheMarches · 09/12/2023 17:44

😆oh no please do!

FuzzyCaoraDhubh · 09/12/2023 17:39

@MaudOfTheMarches 😅
God forbid I might have been driven to write more 'pomes'!

MaudOfTheMarches · 09/12/2023 17:36

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh Yay! I was getting ridiculously invested in you getting hold of a copy.

FuzzyCaoraDhubh · 09/12/2023 17:34

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 09/12/2023 16:57

I've got it on Kindle @FuzzyCaoraDhubh Confused

I think it's just me!
But lo and behold it's on Borrowbox! Yay!!

InTheCludgie · 09/12/2023 17:17

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller . I'm saving my list for the year end round up. Hoped to be well into some Xmas books but I've fallen behind with it due to RL stuff (house move looking to be delayed until after NY, a lot of uni work going on).

I've started A Christmas Party by Georgette Heyer which seems good but not gripping and I'm listening to Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and The Light on audio which might be a mistake. There's a lot of conversations going on which I'm struggling to keep up with. I'd be better with the actual book but it's size puts me off.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 09/12/2023 16:57

I've got it on Kindle @FuzzyCaoraDhubh Confused

FuzzyCaoraDhubh · 09/12/2023 16:35

Dammit! Feeling annoyed that I can't get my little mitts on Rizio. I still can't see it in the Kindle store.

Here is a verse of lamentation to give vent to my feelings ;)

'Oh Rizzio, oh Rizzio,
How good you are, I'll never know.
Our time together has been denied
On Kindle by Amazon Prime.
Tis a foul dark tragedy,
That will be forever lost to me!'

Is it in paperback? Must go look...

JaninaDuszejko · 09/12/2023 16:33

1 Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein
2 The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein
3 The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
4 Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden
5 The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre. Translated by Stephanie Smee
6 Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
7 Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree. Translated by Daisy Rockwell
8 Kristin Lavrandatter II: The Wife by Sigrid Undset. Translated by Tiina Nunnally
9 Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova
10 Heaven by Mieko Kawakami. Translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd.
11 South Riding by Winifred Holtby
12 Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
13 The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
14 Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
15 Jamilia by Chingiz Aïtmatov. Translated by James Riordan
16 Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel. Translated by Elizabeth Rokkan
17 Scattered All Over the Earth by Yoko Tawada. Translated by Margaret Mitsutani.
18 Island by Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen. Translated by Caroline Waight
19-21 Childhood, Youth, Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen. Translated by Tiina Nunnally and Michael Favala Goldman
22 Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
23 Watch Us Dance by Leïla Slimani. Translated by Sam Taylor
24 Persuasion by Jane Austen
25 A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi. Translated by Chris Andrews
26 The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
27 Places by Setouchi Jakuchō. Translated by Liza Dalby

28 The Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada. Translated by Margaret Mitsutani.

Just finished this. I enjoyed the start of this then 30 pages before the end it started going strange and introducing new characters and jumping forward in time and then it just ended. So didappointing, I preferred Scattered All Over the Earth which I read earlier this year and covered similar territory (ecological disaster affects Japan in near future world) but had moreinteresting and distinct characters.

Going to read Doomsday Book by Connie Willis next. Since it's 600 pages and I'm hosting Christmas and New Year it will probably be my last read of the year. Maybe I'll need to squeeze in something short to get to 30.