50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Eight

@Arran2024 Best wishes for your DH’s continuing recovery, sounds like a scary time for you both

Thanks @elkiedee , good luck getting on top of your library pile!

Maybe my reviews were overly grumpy, as even the reads I ranked at 3 stars were entertaining enough. May We Feed the King and Palm House were short enough to finish within a day or so. And I hadn't intended to read Yesteryear at all, because of dubious reviews, but then I saw it on the library shelf and couldn't resist. It was a page-turner and I wolfed it down impatiently, wanting to get to the plot twist (has the heroine actually travelled back in time or not?!). In fact, the ending had several plot twists. No wonder the book has already been grabbed for a Hollywood thriller, because the ending feels like a Hollywood film already. The heroine is mostly very unlikeable, but that's OK, because I'm fond of a bit of fundie snark (as they call it on Reddit). 😳 In short, I didn't think it was a great work of literature, but it was very engaging.

I'm cross at the moment because my teaching timetable keeps encountering glitches, and my very heavily used home printer has just stopped working 😢This are trivial problems but I do hate the start of the academic year, it feels so bumpy!

I meant to say that the author of @Yesteryear was apparently from a conservative religious background but rebelled against it and seems to be imagining what if she'd gone the other way, and at least pretended to be a tradwife. I can see why it's had such mixed reviews but I think I'm quite happy to go along with the story. 6 November should give me time to get on with this but I have a few books ahead in the pile including Elizabeth Strout's book and Alice Jolly's The Matchbox Girl - published last year but now out in paperback and very topical this autumn as many people with a range of faith or not and opinions are reading about WWII, anti fascism and anti racism etc.

I read that Burke grew up in a politically conservative household but not a religious one. Which to me sort of explains why Yesteryear’s depiction of patriarchy is sharper than its depiction of Christianity. The references to Jesus, prayer etc seemed very superficial and tacked-on to me. But I probably noticed that more because my US family is completely embedded in fundamentalist Christianity. Burke herself is more interested in other aspects of the tradwife movement I would say.

Church Crawling: The Secret Lives And Hidden Stories Of England’s Churches by Rachel Morley

I’ve been reading this for a while in between fiction, as it’s quite dense in information, despite being written well.
Morley is the head of Friends Of Friendless Churches, an organisation set up in the 1950s and which I discovered about ten years ago on a chance visit to St Mark’s, Brithdir, N Wales (beautiful Arts and Crafts style interior, well worth a visit if you’re in the area). While this book isn’t limited to FOFC buildings, she pulls in all her knowledge and experience to highlight the enduring place of churches in England’s history; what they meant to people hundreds of years ago and what they mean to us now.
If you like churches you’ll like this! Limited to England only and concentrated from Midlands down to the South, but many of her points apply to lots of churches. Also, no photographs, so I had some post it notes and a pen next to the book so I could look up things that interested me.

@MaterMoribund that sounds interesting. Morley is the sister-in-law of Dominic Sandbrook and has been on a couple of episodes of The Rest is History - she was clearly very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about churches, to the point where Dominic and Tom Holland found it hard to stop her going wildly over the time allocation 😄

For @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie , in approximately the same vein as Poldark (although I haven’t read Poldark so they may turn out to be very different styles!) have you read the Herries books by Hugh Walpole? They’re a family saga starting in the 1700s and running to the 20th century, set in the Lake District with a great sense of place. I found them very atmospheric, especially the earlier ones. Quite fancy a re-read actually!

At risk of everybody sending me to Coventry for being an awkward old sod, I’m not really a fan of a family saga. I think that means Poldark is out too.

I originally typed ‘I’ll wager my Kindle that Remus will hate Poldark’ in my previous post but then everyone said you might like them (and you might) and then I thought I am not very good at predicting this sort of thing and my only evidence is that we tend to enjoy different things.

Though you don’t have to read them all, one is enough.

Wishing your DH - and yourself - a steady recovery Arran.

Interesting to hear your thoughts cassandre on Yesteryear (and as always!).

Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson Much reviewed, this post-war Festival of Britain-set novel is not in the same league as her earlier Brodie and historical novels, but does have traces of the old magic.

I'd quite like to visit Coventry some time, as I've read a few books set in and around the city and have more TBR there's a new series of Two-Tone mysteries too! But I'm just sorry not to be able to think of anything that appeals to you.

Two Tone mysteries? Oh, I was such a fan as a teenager, going to see all the gigs, dressed in black and white.

Anything on this thread Remus?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5420926-railway-fiction?reply=147600808

The cathedral is stunning and there’s a nice little museum/art gallery, but I can’t think of any other reasons to visit, I’m afraid. Though must admit it’s probably 25 years since I last visited, other than a theatre trip in which I only saw the theatre (which is great).

😂

Thank you.

Scottish poet Douglas Dunn, borrowed by Yorkshire (Hull) for a few years in the 1980s, has died aged 83. I first read his work after my O level English teacher brought one of his poems into our class, from Elegies.

I only recommended this collection as poetry about bereavement last night!

Kaleidoscope

To climb these stairs again, bearing a tray,
Might be to find you pillowed with your books,
Your inventories listing gowns and frocks
As if preparing for a holiday.
Or, turning from the landing, I might find
My presence watched through your kaleidoscope,
A symmetry of husbands, each redesigned
In lovely forms of foresight, prayer and hope.
I climb these stairs a dozen times a day
And, by that open door, wait, looking in
At where you died. My hands become a tray
Offering me, my flesh, my soul, my skin.
Grief wrongs us so. I stand, and wait, and cry
For the absurd forgiveness, not knowing why.

@AgualusasL0ver- I’m really not surprised by @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie‘s Poldark verdict either!

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage- the Herries books are another series I read too young (although only the first two) but as you say they are immensely atmospheric re the Lake District.

I strongly suspect that the Herries series influenced the Poldark ones as there are overlapping themes and character names & similarities between characters. That said, Winston Graham has a much shorter timespan in each book (which I like as it avoids the endless feeling that some books give) and the business / industrialisation theme that drives the plot is much more developed. I also really liked how the working class is characterised in my last rereading of the Poldark books as they are as interesting & many are much more sympathetic that most of the aristocratic characters. It’s clear how hard working class life was then, but it’s not overwhelmingly bleak. The impact of Methodism is also an interesting theme. That’s something that I’ve increasingly noticed after reading BBB, where I found that the working class portrayal just didn’t ring true.

I studied Douglas Dunn as part of a module for my English degree @elkiedee. What a beautiful choice of poem you made there

Thank you - it is beautiful but it's also the one I found the text of without having to type it out, because I'm going out for a lot of the rest of today. 2 separate events with a short bus journey in between - I was a bit upset about an overlap as was the organiser of the 2nd event - a community theatre performance at a local community centre - because I used to love going to the theatre as a young woman with very little money but some affordable fringe and regional theatre options in Leeds, Manchester and even London (more arts subsidy in those days). This is very affordable because it's subsidised by the trade union movement. Hoping to catch up with people who I've not seen socially in person rather than online for a bit!

59 The Frangipani Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu

First in a series of crime novels set in 1936 Singapore. Our heroine is Chen Su Lin, a 16 year-old mission-educated girl, who suffered polio as a child and has been brought up primarily by her grandmother after the death of her parents. In order to escape an arranged marriage, Su Lin's teacher, Miss Nessa Palin, wife of the acting Governor, arranges for her to work for the colonial police inspector in a domestic capacity. But Su Lin soon becomes embroiled in a mystery after Charity, the nanny for the Governor's 17-year-old daughter Dee-Dee, who has learning disabilities, is found dead at the foot of the titular frangipani tree. Dee-Dee takes to Su Lin, who becomes Charity's replacement - but is she in danger? The mystery isn't the most taxing, but I enjoyed this principally because of Su Lin's wry and witty voice and the sense of time and place evoked by the writing.

I read The Familiars a few years ago. My view aligns with @MaterMoribund though not because I know anything about the history of the period. All that galloping about on a horse while about to give birth and less witchy than I expected.

@Arran2024 what a frightening time for you and your DH. Glad he has made such a good recovery and hopefully the tiredness will improve.

Poldark. I remember watching the original series with my mum. I watched the more recent one in lockdown I think. Lusting after Aiden Turner galloping along the cliffs. I haven't read the books because I prefer to read before watching.

Currently reading Enough Said by Alan Bennett which I found on Borrowbox following @Southeastdwellers review

That's beautiful

Thanks @Benvenuto , that’s interesting. Maybe I’ll read Poldark one day…my parents had (possibly still have) the books but they didn’t grab me when I picked the first one off the shelf as a teenager. It was also my parents’ copies of the Herries books that I read - they bought them on honeymoon in the lakes having visited Watendlath, and I read them around the time they took me and my brother to the same place for a holiday 20 years later 😊

And no problem @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie , we do seem to have very different tastes as far as I can tell!

Very behind on the thread - will be back later as I have a couple of reviews to post.

Just wanted to send 💐to you and your DH @Arran2024 (I'm glad to hear that he is doing well) and also 💐 to @elkiedee . I'm sorry I missed your post about your friend.

A snowy book that I enjoyed a lot (apart from the Hannah Kent which was brilliant) was The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. Who was it from the thread who was trying to read a large volume of books with wolves in the title? a few years back? Every time I see a wolf book in the deal there's a little alert in my brain that goes ping, even though I don't remember who the poster was and I assume they are no longer working on that particular challenge.

Two good snowy books from my list this year were Everland (big recommend for anyone who likes polar exploration fic) and The Glovemaker. Both bolds.

Thanks, all. I’ve bought a couple of Golden Age ones from the railway thread.

I’ve read Everland and The Tenderness of Wolves*. Love wolves but didn’t love the book iirc.