50 Book Challenge 2020 Part One

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2020, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

Who's in for this year?

@bettybattenburg you can indeed but I am shocked and appalled

There always a book / author that everyone loves that others just doesn't like. Plus this would be a very boring thread if we all liked the same stuff

1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
2. The Girls by Lisa Jewell
3. I am, I am, I am by Maggie O'Farrell
4. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

1. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Just finished book 5, The Handmaid's Tale. I Ioved every page, I've not been able to put it down. It's very rare I keep books after reading them, but this will be staying. It was the first Atwood book I've read, but will be looking to read more. The Testaments has been added to my wishlist, although I've from reviews it doesn't seem as highly rated.

I'm still reading from my TBR pile, I think I'll read Sarah's Key, The Kite Runner or Life after Life next.

bettybattenburg I'm not a fan of Kate Atkinson's books either. I'm not sure why -they should be the kind of thing I enjoy, but after reading two and finding them very 'meh' I gave up. I think we're in the minority though!

I'm in! tried to do this last year, but only got to 30 something, but will have another bash
just finished book 1, Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
loved all the details about the elephants- it's partly set in an elephant sanctuary - and it had a real sixth sense moment about 50 pages before the end, which I totally didn't see coming
I enjoyed it, so a good start

to the previous poster, can I ask what you thought of I Am, I Am? I picked it up recently, but haven't read any Maggie O'Farrell for years, which put me of for some bizarre reason

The thing for me with Kate Atkinson is that though I can have issues with her books, her actual prose is just so alive and brilliant and idiosyncratic and she’s always having a go at doing something in her novels, playing with form or structure or an idea in some way, that I’ll always give anything she writes a go even if I don’t always feel she’s pulled it off.

1. Killing Dragons - Fergus Fleming

2. My Sister, The Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite
I’m sure a lot of you have read this already. I found it very readable, clear prose and much humour, despite the subject matter. It’s refreshing that Braithwaite had the confidence not to write a state-of-the-nation, overtly political novel, as I think is often expected of African authors. However, I was expecting more from the ending. I look forward to seeing what she writes next.

3. The Illustrated Police News: The Shocks, Scandals and Sensations of the Week 1864-1938 - Linda Stratmann
This is a book published by the British Library, and the author has clearly had a lot of fun in the archives, reading copies of this once popular paper and choosing her favourite illustrations, from an escaped elephant rampaging round north London to an attempted self-crucifixion. For anyone interested in what late Victorian life was like for ordinary people, this book gives an unusual insight. I wish the author had quoted from the letters and editorials as well, though.

@ClosedAuraOpenMind I enjoyed I am, I am, I am, and do think it's worth a read. I haven't read any of her books before, I picked it up in an attempt to read more non fiction.
Some chapters (each near death experience is a chapter), stood out more than others, a couple weren't as gripping/interesting but I expected that due to the subject.

her actual prose is just so alive and brilliant and idiosyncratic

I agree with this completely. Some of her books I absolutely love (A God In Ruins, Started Early, Took My Dog) and others I didn't get on with (Life After Life, Transcription) but I always enjoy her writing style, whether the storyline/idea works for me or not.

@ClosedAuraOpenMind There were a couple of chapters in I am, I am, I am, which were sad, I got a bit teary during the last chapter.

1) Tragedy at Piddleton Hotel - Emily Organ
Old lady in early 30s decides to move from London and buy a detective agency in the countryside. Selfconciously trying to be amusing cosy murder mystery. Don't bother.

2) Wakenhyrst - Michelle Paver
Already reviewed on here - dark and gothic and perfect read in this weather. I liked!

I read The Hunting Party last year and was a bit meh about it, I did like The Seven Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle although the end was slightly confusing.

Had a lovely 3 hours of reading this afternoon while DD was in the cinema and DS was in the local water park And made good inroads with The Hearts Invisible Furies which has equally had me giggling aloud and shocked. Also started David Cooperfield as the read along.

I took my children to see Jojo Rabbit at the weekend and wondered if anyone had read the book it’s based on Caging Skies?

Thanks @MamaNewtNewt for the recommendation of And the Band Played On - that came up in my recommendations and may well go back to it later in the year when I've recovered from the Plague book

1. Pet Semetary by Stephen King (2/5)
2. The Outsider by Albert Camus (5/5)

3. Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter by Carol Ann Lee which is about the victims and survivors of the Yorkshire Ripper. As expected this was a bit of a tough read but the focus on the women and their families and the impact on them was a welcome change from the focus bring on the crimes and the perpetrator, but it was just utterly heartbreaking - so many children left motherless and families ripped apart. The misogyny that was endemic at that time with the police, press and general public all making a distinction between 'innocent' victims and 'good time girls' who were seen to have brought it on themselves gave me the absolute rage. A shocking indictment of the police and society at large. (3/5)

I'm now reading something lighter - Just One Damn Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor I love time travel books so a, hopeful I'll enjoy this one.

Book 1 done - Fleishman is in Trouble. Thoroughly not worth it, how on earth it was so well reviewed is beyond me.

Book 2 - Ducks, Newburyport.

3. A Treacherous Curse - Deanna Raybourn

Re-read of this one as I spotted it at the library..... really enjoyed this series (although I do find the Americanisms a bit annoying, it's by an American author but set in Victorian England). Good fun, rattles along and keeps a fast pace throughout.

4. Christmas Calamity at the Vicarage - Emily Organ

I think like @DisgruntledGuineaPig I thought the books in this series were a bit 'try hard', however I enjoyed this one more, perhaps because it's a novella and the plot isn't (thinly!) stretched over more pages than necessary.

1. Slum Angel annemarie Braer good book though not as good as trilogy of hers I read first

Feel there should be a second book but dont think there is

1. Spasm : A Memoir With Lies by Lauren Slater

This was a book that has sat on my shelf for a few years since I bought it for a book group and couldn't attend that much.

A qualified psychologist by trade, Slater has written an account of her teenage years in which she was diagnosed with epilepsy. Whilst her diagnosis was real, she had ongoing mental health issues and freely admits that her memory was impaired and she often used her illness to manipulate others and lied about her health on a regular basis in order for attention.

Thus as a narrator of this time in her own life, she cannot be taken as a trustworthy source on it, and there is a chapter on whether the memoir should be perceived as a fact or a fiction.

It was really quite thought provoking, and not a struggle to get through.

@JoeGargery I haven’t read Life After Life so can’t comment on how it compares to Seven Deaths.

Life After Life is one that’s on my mountain of unread books though, so I should get round to it sooner or later. I don’t think I’ve read any Kate Atkinson books at all before.

@Palegreenstars and @StitchesInTime, thanks.

I loved Life After Life but it’s quite marmitey among my friends... and here, it seems!

Had Fleischman repeatedly recommended to me and eventually bought for me by a good friend so have that to read at some point...

I got my book out of the library... Some previous reader clearly wasn't a fan

I don't do that to Kate Atkinson books!

I'm two chapters after the discovery in The Hunting Party and am feeling tempted not to continue...is it worth persevering?

4: Jacob's Room is Full of Books - Susan Hill

Sequel to Howard's End is on the Landing, which I read a few years ago and enjoyed, with a few reservations. Same deal here, I think - Hill is a bit of a curmudgeon at times, gets a tad pompous about her writerly qualifications, and I can't share her religious convictions....but she's a great observer of the natural world, is keen on animals (especially bird life) and can be amusing when she's not being cranky.
The main thing is the book-talk: I forgive her a lot for loving Dickens, (mostly) enjoyed her name-dropping about writers she's known, and was left with a lot of possible additions to the tbr pile - alas.

Oh, and I'd love to know exactly where SH lives in Norfolk because I'd be haunting the local charity shops. She's always mentioning donating huge piles of enticing-sounding new books that get sent to her.

And that should of course be Howards End - no rogue autocorrect apostrophe...

@Hellohah

I’ve had library books out before where a previous reader has been marking in corrections to the spelling or grammar

betty, I wouldn't persevere with The Hunting Party if you're not enjoying it. I found a reasonable wintry read, but it's definitely not essential reading.

1. Murder by the Book, by Judith Flanders
Crime fiction set in publishers' office. Mildly enjoyable - cosy crime, without anything unpleasantly graphic. Also not essential reading.

Battling on with The Warm South, by Robert Holland. Would be a DNF if it was a library book, but I forked out quite a lot for the hardback so I feel bound to carry on. It's a cultural history of British attitudes to the Mediterranean. I was hoping for something along the lines of In Ruins, by Christopher Woodward (a wonderful book, thoroughly recommended) but this is much denser. It's frustrating, because the author keeps making glancing references to intriguing stories but then not telling them - "It was then she made the fateful decision to return, which was to prove so disastrous for her and her family" without telling me what the disaster was, damnit.

Also ploughing through How Not to Diet, by Michael Greger which is unsettling me a bit. I'm a recent convert to the virtues of low-carb (in theory if not necessarily in practice) and he's explaining that it's a bit more complicated than that.