50 Books Challenge 2024 Part Nine

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit hope you make the most of your buying haul! 😊

My new year's reading resolution is to clear my unread books on my Kindle and on bookshelves which add up to about fifty. It's doable so long as I don't buy or borrow books! I have a few library loans to come in so I'll leave those stand.

Also Happy New Year 50 bookers!

There was a group of women or men who knows
Who are strangers but grew as friends don’t ya know
Books have bonded them with their great debate
So onwards and upwards and more bookish discussion as we step on in to 2025

Today is last buying day

Trying to read what I already own @Midnightstar76 and stop buying anything

@MegBusset 🌺

I have posted on the 50book roundup wrong thread but has anyone any new year book resolutions other than reaching that 50? Mine is to fall asleep to an audiobook as think that will help me achieve my target. Also to read some more historical fiction.

Loving the limericks!

I am sorry @MegBusset , there’s no good time to say goodbye to a beloved pet but just before Christmas seems particularly hard.
@BarbaraBuncle I hope your DS gets the help he needs in the coming year [hug]

I am in a cottage in the middle of a forest. There is a weather warning and the forest is ‘closed’. We did take a walk earlier to catch the sunrise and tbh the wind speed wasn’t at all concerning. It’s tipping it down now, the trees are starting to bend properly and we’ve planned a day in playing board games. Reading will also feature this afternoon, I’ve Girl A and Jenny Eclair’s autobiography on the go. Then a NYE spag bol, and might even stay up until midnight this year.

Ooo I just saw the next one is out September 2025!

Can we do limericks as an end of year thing every year please 😁

Two detectives called Strike and Robin
with masses of tedium and padding
but we read on anyway
despite all our pain
just to see if he’ll ever get his knob in

I’m currently rereading The Ink Black Heart as I wanted to re familiarise myself with it before watching the TV version. I don’t think I’ll finish it today but you can have my limerick review anyway:

A one-legged detective called Strike
Had a partner he rather did like
While she played a game
Under an alternative name
Their feelings were reaching a spike.

DD has also had a go:

We see them One Day every year
Often talking or drinking a beer
There are ups and downs
There are smiles and frowns
And at the end you might shed a tear

I'm sorry to hear about your pet, @MegBusset 💐

I definitely won't give up @TimeforaGandT - I'm over half way now! I feel like I've got to grips with the main characters, but struggling a lot with the sequence of events. It's perhaps my own lack of background knowledge but I just don't understand the different factions, what they believe and why, and I think most frustratingly for me how a couple of boring lawyers were suddenly leading a revolution!

Well done all on the poetry and I hope everyone has a happy new year!

Sending love @MegBusset - the loss of a pet is so difficult.

@MegBusset

Squeaking over the line with my 52nd book finished on NYE - Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi I loved this book. It is essentially a collection of short stories following the descendents of two half sisters born in Ghana - one of whom marries an English slaver and stays in a high position in Africa and the other who is captured and sold as a slave to be shipped to America. Beautiful and touching but also very accessible. I will definitely be reading Yaa Gyasi's second book next year.

This was a book club read and our meeting isn't until the end of January so I hope I will remember what happens!

There once was a man called Charles Ryder,
To Brideshead he was an outsider.
First he tried the second son,
Then the daughter was won,
Until Catholic Guilt came along and inspired her
(To dump him).

Sorry to hear about your pet @MegBusset

@Tarragon123 Assuming that title is a Philip Larkin reference? Excellent poem!

@MegBusset I'm so sorry to hear that.

💐to Meg and BarbaraBuncle.

thanks for the thread southeast.

loving the limericks!

Meg sorry about that

Won’t finish another book this year, but ducking in to say welcome to @LuckyMauveReader and send best wishes to @BarbaraBuncle - I’m glad books have been a comfort to you.

It’s been a difficult few days chez Meg as we have had a beloved pet pts. Of great comfort has been the audiobook of Judi Dench’s Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent which is all kinds of brilliant and lovely.

119 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid (Audible). Oh I loved this. Couldn’t wait to finish it. So well written and such a great plot.

I’m hoping to finish Down Cemetery Road by Mick Heron tonight. I have loads of housework and prep for New Years Day to do tomorrow, so don’t imagine that I’ll get much else completed.

Happy New Year when it comes, you lovely bonkers lot

I am so glad I found this thread. Thank you all for welcoming me!

The limericks are quite the hit. They are hilarious and are keeping me entertained. I think I've learnt more in these last couple of days than I did in all my high school English classes. 😂

Today I have managed to buy/order a few books for the start of the 50 books challenge.

My new stack TBR stands at 7. There are a few which have been recommended here, a few on my wishlist, and a number of others.

They should keep me quiet for a little while.

Don’t give up on A Place of Safety - it’s more confusing than Wolf Hall but I thought it was worth it.

Adding:
87. The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyweather - Jodi Taylor

Smallhouse, a lady from a family of old,
And Pennyweather, her butler so bold,
Time-travelled through space,
Chasing bounties apace
And so their adventures unfold

Smallhouse and Pennyweather have made appearances in both the St Mary’s and Time Police books but this book is entirely focused on them and their back stories which I really enjoyed.

Hoping to hit 88 before year end and will then be popping over to the round-up thread.