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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
FortunaMajor · 09/12/2023 16:14

MamaNewtNewt · 09/12/2023 15:17

@FortunaMajor It might have been me. I read Rizzio recently and just loved it. I can't believe how much she managed to achieve in such a short book.

Thank you. I thought it was brilliantly done. I gave it to my neighbour and she loved it too.

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.

RazorstormUnicorn · 09/12/2023 15:39

60. A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles

I finished this yesterday and returned to the library today on its due date. Phew!

This took some getting into. I think my error was reading in 5 min chunks to begin with and not really following/remembering what was going on. Once I settled down for an hour or so, I was in.

Lots of us have read it so I won't go too deeply into the plot. Basically The Count lives in the hotel and manages to still lead a pretty full life. Remus described it as twee and she's not wrong, but I enjoyed the twee and I wanted good things to happen to the characters.

Anyone who got stuck a little way I recommend persevering.

Now in the middle of a book of short stories and a Claire Keegan.

And I seem to have 37 unread books on my kindle which is just ridiculous. I don't have much planned for he rest of December. Probably a lot of sitting down inbetween winter walks so maybe I can make some headway. I just don't seem to be able to stop buying for long enough to clear the backlog!

MamaNewtNewt · 09/12/2023 15:17

@FortunaMajor It might have been me. I read Rizzio recently and just loved it. I can't believe how much she managed to achieve in such a short book.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 09/12/2023 13:57

Nice haul @Sadik

ChessieFL · 09/12/2023 13:55

Mistletoe Malice by Kathleen Farrell

I had high hopes for this due to the blurb saying it was for fans of Barbara Pym, Nancy Mitford etc but unfortunately they weren’t met. It wasn’t terrible, just not as good as I hoped. A group of family members gathers for Christmas, all overseen by widowed Rachel who watches all the arguments and fallouts. Fine, but not very Christmassy and not very funny.

Oh Miriam! Stories From an Extraordinary Life by Miriam Margolyes

I’m not particularly a fan of hers but this was on the daily deal a couple of weeks ago and I recall people on here enjoying her first book, so thought I would give it a go. I enjoyed it, she writes well and it’s funny and interesting. She doesn’t hold back on the la finger or fart stories though so not one for the easily offended!

DNF a couple of others. Uncrowned by Ashley Mantle, about people who would have been monarch if they hadn’t died early/been female/been overthrown etc. Actually not a bad book at all but just wrong timing for me as I want to get into my Christmas reading. Might come back to this another time. The other was Watching the English by Kate Fox - started well but then started to feel a bit repetitive and I still had loads left to go and just decided I couldn’t be bothered.

Sadik · 09/12/2023 13:43

I've slowed right down on reading, part way through several things but nothing is really grabbing me. I treated myself to English Food on paper, but finding it quite disappointing tbh, though it has encouraged me to dig out my old copy of Dorothy Hartley's Food in England for a browse.
Hopefully my haul from the library today should improve matters & give me some good Christmas reading (I realise I'm several years behind everyone else on many of these!).

50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Ten
FortunaMajor · 09/12/2023 13:24

Thanks for the new thread Southeast.

Recently finished Rizzio, thanks to whoever recommended it. It definitely left me wanting more though, as it's an area of history I'm lacking in knowledge of.

splothersdog · 09/12/2023 13:10

Christmas Days - Jeanette Winterson.
Have had this for a couple of years. Collection of seasonal short stories and recipes.
Some stories great, some not. Overall enjoyable

BoldFearlessGirl · 09/12/2023 12:58

So far this week The Curator (did buy it for 99p after all), Lowbridge and Here Comes The Fun have failed to grab me. So, that’s annoying.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 09/12/2023 12:12

@Stokey

Use that time for other hobbies or a good tv binge

GrannieMainland · 09/12/2023 10:41

Thanks for the new thread! I'll post my list at the end of the year too.

@Stokey I think it's me who has the strong preference for Olive Kitteridge over Lucy Barton - I'll read everything Elizabeth Strout writes, but Olive is just such a standout character and I find both the tragedy and humour in those books a lot more subtle.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 09/12/2023 10:35

Haven’t caught up with posts for the past few days, but thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

noodlezoodle · 09/12/2023 10:21

Thanks for the new thread Southeast. I'm saving my list for the roundup, although I doubt I'll make 50 this year - currently hovering around the 40 mark.

So far the Wild River kindle book is still stuck at 13.99 so our Amazon manouvres are yet to take effect Grin

Stokey · 09/12/2023 09:28

And latest review

  1. Lucy By The Sea - Elizabeth Strout. I chose this as an antidote to Penance. A nice gentle novel. I don't think this is one of her best. I think someone else said, I prefer Olive Ketteridge to Lucy Barton. I find Lucy a bit wimpy and passive. This is set in the pandemic and is about Lucy and William leaving New York and going to live in Maine to escape the disease. I am also a bit over pandemic books. I didn't mind lockdown but it's quite boring to read about. Maybe it's too soon.
Stokey · 09/12/2023 09:20

Thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller

Here's my list since the last one
92. The Sea Of Tranquility - Emily St John Mandel
93. She's a Killer - Kirsten Mcdougall
94. Romantic Comedy - Curtis Sittenfeld
95. Woman, Eating - Claire Kohda
96. Study For Obedience - Sarah Bernstein
97. In Her Nature - Rachel Hewitt
98. Dead Ground - M W Craven
99. Boy Parts - Eliza Clark
100. The Life To Come - Michelle De Kretser
101. If I Survive You - Jonathan Escoffery
102. The Rachel Incident - Caroline O'Donoghue
103. Trust - Hernan Diaz
104. Kindred - Octavia E Butler
105. The Other Side of Mrs Wood - Lucy Barker
106. Venemous Lumpsucker - Ned Beauman
107. The Half Moon - Mary Beth Keane
108. The Botanist - M W Craven
109. The Secret Of High Eldersham - Miles Burton
110. Lanny - Max Porter
111. Penance - Eliza Clark

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit what do you do if you don't read? I can't imagine stopping!

splothersdog · 09/12/2023 09:15

1 Antarctica - Claire Keegan
2 The Winter Guest - W C Ryan
3 My name is monster - Katie Hale
4 Exercises in control - Annabel Banks
5 Triflers need not apply - Camilla Bruce
6 Adele - Leila Slimani
7 The Seawomen - Chloe Timms
8 I know what you have done - Dorothy Koomson
9 Stone blind - Natalie Haynes
10 The house of fortune - Jessie Burton**
11 Twelve moons - Caro Giles
12 Written in bone - Sue Black
13 Our missing hearts - Celeste Ng
14 Betty
15 The whispering muse - Laura Purcell
16 If I let you go - Charlotte Levin
17 One day I shall astonish the world - Nina Stivers
18 Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
19 Tall tales and wee stories - Billy Connolly
20 Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
21 The woman on the island
22 Snowflake- Louise Nealon - Ann Cleeves
23 The madness of grief - Rev Richard Coles
24 We are all witches - Mairi Kidd
25 For thy great pain have mercy on my little pain - Victoria Mackenzie
26 Weyward - Emilia Hart
27 The Cloisters
28 The ink black heart
29 I’m sorry you feel that way- Rebecca Wait
30 Wandering souls - Cecile Pin
31 Glory - NoViolet Bulawayo
32 Black butterflies
33 Other women- Emma Flint
34 The dog of the north
35 I’m a fan
36 Love Marriage - Monica Ali
37 Unsheltered
38 These envoys of beauty
39 Fire rush
40 The dance tree
41 Pod
42 Children of Paradise
43 HappyHead
44 Homesick
45 The bandit queens
46 Cursed bread
47 The second sight of Zachary Cloudesley
48 I am not your Eve
49 Violets
50 The chosen^^
51 A burning
52 Shy
53 Our hideous progeny
54 Fray
55 The heart and the crown
56 Hello beautiful
57 At the table
58 Prize women
59 Drive your plough over the bones of the dead
60 Looking glass sound
61 The distance between us
62 Now we shall be entirely free
63 Violetta
64 Stronger
65 You can run
66 Free love
67 Little deaths
68 The revels
69 Illuminated
70 Actress
71 Death of a bookseller
72 Yours cheerfully
73 Mrs Porter calling
74 Grown ups
75 Crossing the lines
76 River sing me home
77 The witches of vardo
78 Ghost lover
79 Landlines
80 Waterland
81 A place of greater safety
82 In memoriam
83 Kala
84 Mudlarking
85 The path to peace
86 Yellow face
87 Journeys end
88 Pineapple street
89 Capote’s women
90 The naming of moths
91 Blood and sugar
92 My lovers lover
93 Walk the Blue fields

94 Notes on an execution
95 Without warning and only sometimes
96 The yellow wallpaper
97 The toll house
98 So late in the day
99 Kindred
100 Unwell women
101 Into the water
102 The figurine
103 Djinn Patrol on the purple line by Deepa Anappara
104 The Running Grave
105 The rewilding of Molly McFlynn
106 The shadowing
107 And so this is Christmas
108 Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
109 Madly deeply - Alan Rickman Diaries
110 The winter spirits
111 North woods
112 The rambling man
113 Normal rules don’t apply
114 Go as a river
115 Shakespeare- the man who pays the rent
116 Excellent women
117 Her fearful symmetry

List copied and pasted from my phone - so bolds likely not to work properly. Also I seem to have given up on adding authors but will make a better job of adding my bolds to the 'Bolds thread' before the end of the year.

AliasGrape · 09/12/2023 09:05

Thank you for the new thread.

A disappointing year for me this year in terms of amount read, and also that quite a high percentage was very light fluffy nonsense (mostly very enjoyable though!)

Hopefully will get to 40 at least.

Stand out was definitely Moon Tiger, I loved that. A few other bolds too - some that i bolded in previous lists but am rescinding their bold status now I realise they weren’t actually that memorable!

  1. Christmas is Murder- Val McDermid
  2. The Christmas Chronicles- Nigel Slater
  3. The Anthology of English Folk Tales - The History Press (Pub)
  4. The Book of Form and Emptiness - Ruth Ozeki
  5. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (Audible narrator Hugh Grant)
  6. Daisy Jones and the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
  7. Rizzio - Denise Mina
  8. Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams
  9. How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen - Joanna Faber and Julie King
  10. Ramble Book - Adam Buxton
  11. The Diary of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell
  12. The Etymologican - Mark Forsyth
  13. A Net For Small Fishes - Lucy Jago
  14. Starlight - Stella Gibbons
  15. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
  16. I’m a Fan - Sheena Patel
  17. Book Lovers - Emily Henry
  18. Mad About You - Mhairi McFarlane
  19. The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman
  20. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
  21. The Man Who Died Twice - Richard Osman
  22. The Bullet That Missed - Richard Osman
  23. Journey to the River Sea - Eva Ibbotson
  24. Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death - M.C. Beaton
  25. Kiss Myself Goodbye: The Many Lives of Aunt Munca - Ferdinand Mount
  26. Ask a Historian - Greg Jenner
  27. Bodies of Light - Sarah Moss
  28. Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively
  29. A Change of Climate - Hilary Mantel
  30. Very Good Jeeves - PG Wodehouse
  31. Hotel Du Lac - Anita Brookner
  32. Ultra Processed People - Chris van Tulleken
  33. The Dark Queens - Shelley Puhak
  34. You and Me on Vacation - Emily Henry
  35. Between Us - Mhairi McFarlane
  36. Beach Read - Emily Henry
  37. The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman
  38. Holding - Graham Norton
Palegreenstars · 09/12/2023 08:17

Thanks for the new thread!

32.The Oak Apple Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. Number 4 in the Morland Dynasty. The Puritans are coming! So much war in this one but I found it very engaging. I probably should have a break at some point but number 5 was very cheap.

Piggywaspushed · 09/12/2023 07:56

Thank you!

Disaster! My TBR pile has two books in it... (and one is a slim Christmas book).

I have some books on pre order for paperback release but not til February!

Last year DH was in doghouse for getting me zero books for Christmas. He may need clearer instruction.

Tarahumara · 09/12/2023 00:34

Place marking on the new thread - thanks southeast.

TimeforaGandT · 08/12/2023 21:51

Thank you southeast.

Bringing across my list so I keep track:

  1. Old Filth - Jane Garam
  2. Sad Cypress - Agatha Christie
3. Three Hours - Rosamund Lupton
  1. Light Perpetual - Francis Spufford
5. Trespasses - Louise Kennedy
  1. Crossfire - Felix Francis
  2. Long Story Short - Jodi Taylor
  3. A Storm of Swords - George RR Martin
  4. Partners in Crime - Agatha Christie
10. Back Trouble - Clare Chambers 11. The Man in the Queue - Josephine Tey 12. Joe Country - Mick Herron 13. To Live - Yu Hua 14. Gamble - Felix Francis 15. The Lamplighters - Emma Stonex 16. The Moving Finger - Agatha Christie 17. Stone Blind - Natalie Haynes 18. Faro’s Daughter - Georgette Heyer 19. Excellent Women - Barbara Pym 20. About Time - Jodi Taylor 21. The Skylark’s Secret - Fiona Valpy 22. Agent Zigzag - Ben MacIntyre 23. The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton 24. Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie 25. Bloodline - Felix Francis 26. After the End - Clare Mackintosh 27. A Feast of Crows - George RR Martin 28. The It Girl - Ruth Ware 29. The Sentence - Louise Erdrich 30. Unfinished Portrait - Mary Westmacott 31. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 32. The Trees - Percival Everett 33. The Lullaby - Leila Slimani 34. The Black Moth - Georgette Heyer 35. Refusal - Felix Francis 36. Marie Antoinette - Antonia Fraser 37. They do it with Mirrors - Agatha Christie 38. Tokyo Express - Seicho Matsumoto 39. Whistleblower - Robert Peston 40. Troubled Blood - Robert Galbraith 41. Rizzio - Denise Mina 42. Sylvester - Georgette Heyer 43. Beyond the Wand - Tom Felton 44. Evil under the Sun - Agatha Christie 45. The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho - Paterson Joseph 46. Damage - Felix Francis 47. The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side - Agatha Christie 48. Labyrinth - Kate Mosse 49. The Third Man and The Fallen Idol - Graham Greene 50. Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver 51. Riders - Jilly Cooper 52. Halloween Party - Agatha Christie 53. Rivals - Jilly Cooper 54. The Cliff House - Chris Brookmyre 55. Peril at End House - Agatha Christie 56. Free Love - Tessa Hadley 57. Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie 58. The Echo Chamber - John Boyne 59. A Wedding in the Country - Katie Fforde 60. A Terrible Kindness - Jo Browning Wroe 61. Death comes as the End - Agatha Christie 62. The Crow Road - Iain Banks 63. Hags - Victoria Smith 64. Slough House - Mick Herron 65. Appointment with Death - Agatha Christie 66. Colditz - Ben MacIntyre 67. Crampton Hodnet - Barbara Pym 68. Educated - Tara Westover 69. Triple Crown - Felix Francis 70. A Man with One of Those Faces -Caimh McDonnell 71. Bloody Christmas and Dog Day Afternoon - Caimh McDonnell 72. Lord Edgware Dies - Agatha Christie 73. The Day that Never Comes - Ciamh McDonnell 74. The Skeleton Key - Erin Kelly 75. Masqueraders - Georgette Heyer 76. The Phone Box at the Edge of the World - Laura Imai Messina 77. Frontrunner - Felix Francis 78. Kala - Colin Walsh 79. Endless Night - Agatha Christie 80. Instructions for a Heatwave - Maggie O’Farrell 81. Go tell the Bees that I am gone - Diana Gabaldon

Aiming for 85 by the end of the year…..

elkiedee · 08/12/2023 21:20

Saying hi mainly so this comes up on "Threads I'm On" for now.

ChessieFL · 08/12/2023 21:07

Thanks for the new thread southeast. I will still read a few more so will save my list for the round up thread.

That’s really interesting about the Amazon thing Maud - but I clicked through via the link that noodlezoodle posted and I didn’t see the Mumsnet banner so it doesn’t seem to work for everyone.

MamaNewtNewt · 08/12/2023 20:24

Thanks @Southeastdweller here's my list since the last thread. I still have a bad cold so am going pretty heavy on the rom-coms at the moment as I am struggling to concentrate on anything else.

  1. Call Time by Steve Jones
  2. The Delphi Effect by Rysa Walker
  3. I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
  4. The Overlook by Michael Connelly
  5. Dreamcatcher by Stephen King
  6. White Silence by Jodi Taylor
  7. Dark Light by Jodi Taylor
  8. Our Song by Dani Atkins
  9. Long Shadows by Jodi Taylor
  10. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
  11. The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith 137. Rizzio by Denise Mina
  12. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde 139. Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff
  13. Something to Live For by Richard Roper
  14. The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly
  15. Five Winters by Kitty Johnson 143. The Boyfriend Candidate by Ashley Winstead
  16. The Do-Over by Sharon M Peterson
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