50 Books Challenge 2024 Part Nine

Thanks @SheilaFentiman

Glad you liked it @AgualusasLover ! He spends more time than necessary grouching about parking, but I hope it sparks some ideas for adventures!

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is good. But probably needs a chunk or two of time rather than a few pages here and there, as it’s about finding a mole so it’s easy to lose track of who is double crossing who!

Well done on your 70 @LadybirdDaphne !

I think I joined in 2019 - it was while I was potty training DD. I used to be InMyOwnParticularIdiom.

70 A Body Made of Glass - Caroline Crampton
Memoir of health anxiety, mixed with a cultural history of hypochondria. I don’t get on that well with literary memoir, so could have done with a more straightforward medical history - but that’s not the book's fault.

Anyway, I made it to 70!

Hey all.

Ive had a terrible year for reading but had lots going on and found it difficult to focus on books. Just finished my 16th today.
Think I fell off the threads early on this year.

also failed miserably at my New Year’s resolution of read more books than I buy but that’s a resolution I don’t mind failing!

anyway hoping to get my head back in the game for next year. Just started ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ as something hopefully easy going to keep up my interest.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all

I think I've actually only read (and loved) The Spy who Came in from the Cold - I wonder if any of his others are worth a go?

That brings me to 38 so I might opt for a couple of short reads to hit 40. I’d set my target at 30, and have tried not to get too hung up on numbers.

A couple more from me.

Black and British David Olusoga
I’ve been reading this since May! Largely, because unless I read non-fiction daily I get swept up in my fiction reading. I am sure this doesn’t need a huge introduction, it is the story of Black and British - people, places, ideas - told from a global perspective. It’s very good, and crucially very accessible. I got bogged down by at least 50% being focussed on the slave trade, whereas I wanted to read about Black Britons. That said, now I’ve finished it makes sense that he took this approach since you cannot accurately explain black presence in Britain without this.

Treasured Island Frank Bennett
Thanks to @bibliomania for recommending this on my thread about literary trips and wandering in the UK. Read this today and thoroughly enjoyed this. I was particularly interested in his commentary on the way locations are presented and how they add to our outstanding. I find museology fascinating, so that was an unexpected bonus.

I tried to post to the old thread and panicked when I realised it was full Glad to find you all here, and lovely to see some new names ready to join the 2025 threads.

I've been on these threads since 2017 and they are my favourite place on the entire internet. I was stuck in a crime/mystery rut before I joined and this has gotten me back to reading more broadly. It has also cost me several hundred pounds and an ever-growing TBR. But that has always been the way, back from when I worked in a bookshop and used to spend half my wages on the stock...

I thought I wouldn't finish any more this year but finished number 46 on a long flight, which was Nora Ephron's Heartburn - a reread and still absolutely brilliant. I need to find and rewatch the film too I think.

Now wondering whether to cheat my way to 50 with a few short books, or whether to just carry on with my Christopher Brookmyre and accept that I'll fall short again!

Remus it was something like a John Le Carre which I'm sure you would have already read.

I bought it also.

It’s in the 12 Days of Kindle deals at the moment - a bargain at 99p. I bought it.

What did you recommend? I wonder if I read it!

@Stowickthevast Some things change, some stay the same. 😂

Oh I just checked and was on the what we're reading general threads since 2012 but on 50 books for the first time in 2015. One of my first posts was recommending something to Remus who was bored of everything!

116. The Proof of My Innocence - Jonathan Coe. I like Jonathan Coe and this was good fun. He is basically satirizing different popular styles of writing while also taking a pop at extreme conservatism. The start is about 20-something Phyl, who has just finished university and is living at home with her parents. One of her mother's University friends Christopher Swann comes to stay with his adopted daughter Rashida. Chris is on his way to a True Conservative conference in a country house. He has a political blog where he bemoans the present state of the conservative party - the book is set against Liz Truss's premiership - and It piques Phyl's interest. The rest of the book is based around Phyl's efforts to be an author, and trying out different styles following Chris's journey. First a cosy crime, then a dark academia memoir to his uni days and finally an auto-fiction narrated by Phyl and Rashida. This was enjoyable. I listened to the audio which was good.

His Lost City of Z was quite readable too, and I see he has one about Henry Worsley as well.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie @ChessieFL
The Wager was one of my top five books of 2024 (although I do concur a little with your view on the ending).

DH got given that for Christmas Remus (not by me), so glad to hear it’s good.

The Wager by David Grann
This has taken me months to get into. The beginning is very slow, but when it gets going, it's really interesting and gripping, although the ending was a bit of an anti-climax. Recommended to those of you who enjoy peril at sea.

Also agree the latest Stuart Turton isn’t worth bothering with - I DNF it earlier this year.

I’ve just checked and I’ve been on these threads since 2016!

354 Lights! Camera! Mayhem! by Jodi Taylor

The regular Christmas short story. This one wasn’t actually Christmassy but I didn’t mind that. A film is being made with the St Mary’s team as historical advisors, but things go awry when the main actress goes missing in Troy. Good fun as always.

355 The Inn At The Edge Of The World by Alice Thomas Ellis

A group of strangers all decide to spend Christmas at a remote Hebridean island inn. Will save more detailed thoughts for the main thread but I didn’t enjoy this.

356 Dickens At Christmas

This is a very hefty book consisting of all 5 of his Christmas books, an extract from The Pickwick Papers, and a collection of short stories and other writings from the various magazines and periodicals he wrote for. The highlight is, of course, A Christmas Carol, but the other stories are good too and I’m glad I have finally got round to reading them all.

Agree on "meh" for the Stuart Turton.

Thanks for the review of Starlight, cassandre - it's on my shelf and I'm keen to get to it