26-ish books in 2020

[drspouse]

A thread for those too busy or otherwise not able to aim for 50 books in a year!
I'm aiming for 12 from my shelves and 12 from a reading challenge

thebrokenspinedotnet.wordpress.com/2019/12/14/reading-classic-books-challenge/

There are loads of reading challenges here too

www.girlxoxo.com/the-master-list-of-2020-reading-challenges/

We are very laid back here, join any time, I imagine this thread will be open till Dec as it doesn't move too fast!

13. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy. Really enjoyed it and have decided to read Anna Karenina in 2021 one chapter a day.

14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier. Decided to read ahead of the Netflix adaptation. I loved every single minute of this. If I didn’t have to get on with life I would have just not slept and read it non-stop. It had everything. Interesting prose, great dialogue, amazing imagery, interesting characters, twist and turns.

I am actually quite bereft and not sure if I can pick something else up.

I've got so behind with my updating. Hope I've remembered all the last ones I've read:

16. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
    Really enjoyed this saga of a brother and sister and the emotional pull of their childhood home. I enjoyed the early chapters featuring the awful stepmother most and the book was tied up rather too neatly in the end in my opinion but it was a great read all the same. This was my first Ann Patchett and I will definitely read more.

17. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
    Booker prize winning novel populated with characters who leap off the page. Slightly exhausting pace all the way through and personally I like a book with a bit more plot but I can see why it won so many plaudits.

18. Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward
    This is a series of linked stories with a philosophical bent. I'm not sure I really understood the thought experiments described but it did stretch my grey matter trying to work out what on earth (and beyond) was going on.

19. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
    Oh, I loved this story of two sisters, one of whom may or may not have murdered the rest of the family. It's a classic but I'd never read it. I heartily recommend it and I will be calling my next cat Mary Katherine Blackwood, or Merricat for short.

Right, I must read some of the recommendations on this thread as my tbr pile is getting very low.

I really like the sound of The Memory Police, @CountFosco and I'm now keen to read Rebecca, which I've never read and only vaguely know the story of, after the reviews by @MercedesDeMonteChristo and @Tinkhasflown.

So many books, so little time (and money).

@CharliesMouse would you try getting books through your online library service? I get quite a lot of my books through Borrowbox, some libraries use Overdrive - all completely free!

Enjoy Rebecca, it's a good read. I'm so busy in work I seem to have lost my reading mojo. I'll hopefully jump back into it soon.

I should make more use of my library Tink. Trouble is, I can always justify buying books to myself!

Ha ha, CharliesMouse in fairness I still purchase a fair few books myself .

I can feel myself boring anyone who will listen about Rebecca for some time to come.

25. Circe - Madeline Miller
A re-telling of Homer's Odyssey from the perspective of a witch-goddess. Having never read The Odyssey I would never have chosen this if it hadn't been a present from my best friend, whose taste is different from mine, but I always enjoy her recommendations. It made me realise how many little fragments of Greek mythology I am aware of.

26. Hope and Glory - Stuart Maconie
Subtitled 'A People's History of Modern Britain' - I absolutely loved this book. He tells the story of Britain in the 20th Century by focusing on one key date per decade and travels round Britain visiting connected locations to weave the history together.

You might already be familiar with Maconie from music journalism or his 6 Music radio show. If you enjoy the humorous/gentle travelogue with a historical angle a la Bill Bryson you won't go wrong here.

I particularly enjoyed the earlier decades, which covered women's suffrage and early trades union history, but also the stuff about conquering Everest and linking that to the Right to Roam movement, which allows us to this day to go out walking in the countryside. Imagine how bleak our lives would have been this year if we didn't have public access footpaths and National Parks?

@MercedesDeMonteChristo

I can feel myself boring anyone who will listen about Rebecca for some time to come.

I've reserved it at the library

@MargotMoon I hope that you enjoy it.

Finished To Kill A Mockingbird, no 11 in Classics and I think that's no 27 overall.
I really loved it, more than I remembered, and I'd like to read Go Set a Watchman though it does have awful reviews.

@drspouse I have had Watchman for a few years (in hardback no less) and am yet to read it. I read TKAM at school and have reread it many times since and I am not ready to let go and embrace whatever the new one says.

29 Aya A Life in Yop City by Marguerite Abouet (author), Clement Oubrerie (artist)

I'm halfway through TMATL at the moment so this was some light relief. The eponymous teenager Aya and her friends Adjoua and Bintou have adventures in love and life in 1970s Yopougon (a suburb of Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast). This is a time of affluence and stability in Ivory Coast and it shows a life in Africa we don't often see in western media. As well as being a comic look at teenage life there are serious points made about class and gender. An excellent YA graphic novel that I shall encourage my DC to read.

[quote MercedesDeMonteChristo]@drspouse I have had Watchman for a few years (in hardback no less) and am yet to read it. I read TKAM at school and have reread it many times since and I am not ready to let go and embrace whatever the new one says.[/quote]
This is where I am as well, TKAM was my favourite book as a teenager and I still loved it when I reread it a few years ago. It's such a perfect novel.

2*8. The Ends of the Earth - Robert Goddard
*
Final part of the trilogy of spy thrillers set at the end of WW1. This one was set mainly in Japan. I have loved reading these books but I was rather disappointed with the ending. It was somewhat abrupt and left a lot of unanswered questions. Almost as if the author had got bored of writing the story and so just stopped. Annoying.

'Too Much and Never Enough' by Mary Trump.
A quick read. No big surprises. Horrible family - 'raised by wolves'.

26 The Weight of Small Things by Julie Lancaster

Hmmm. I kind of liked this. I liked Frankie, wanted to know her story. But it's bleak, so very bleak for everyone in it. And I lost track of who each character was, it all seemed so jumbled and unconnected. And the ending was deeply unsatisfying. So I say I liked it but...actually maybe I didn't.

2*9. The Greatest Knight - Elizabeth Chadwick
*
A good old medieval romp. Lots of jousting, chivalry and derring-do. Although the main character in this case was an actual person from real history. This covers the end of the reign of Henry II and that of Richard the Lionheart but the royal characters are very much of the supporting cast and the focus is on the knights and their activities. Really very enjoyable.

15. The Family Holiday, Elizabeth Noble What it says on the tin really. Various members of a family coping with adolescence, bereavement, love, parenthood. It was a solid 3 stars. Easy to read, quick, some tender moments.

I’m going to look out for The Greatest Knight. Sounds good.

You dropped off my list! I’m nearly at 50 if I include books I had to read for work so discounting them I’m at:

1. When You Were Everything
2. Emerald Boy Gold Girl
3. The Return
4. All Adults Here
5. Girl, Woman, Other
6. Hunger
7. Interpreter of Maladies
8. Bad Feminist
9. A Girl in Three Parts

10. If I had your face 11. A Fist or a Heart 12. The Underground Railroad 13. Rooftops of Tehran 14. The Hate U Give 15. Station 11 16. A Sky Painted Gold 17. Walking on Glass 18. The House on Mango Street 19. The Half-Blood Prince 20. Unsheltered 21. Know My Name 22. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? 23. So You Want To Talk About Race 24. Untamed 25. The Nightingale 26. Such a Long Journey 27. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 28. Less 29. A Good Kind of Trouble 30. Vanishing Half 31. The Men We Reaped 32. The Deathly Hallows 33. Her

This is crazy for me! Without work books I’ve struggled to reach 15 books a year, and in fairness the list includes audiobooks and the longer books I’ve read to DC. My big recommendations so far are Girl, Woman, Other (have become a bit obsessed with Bernadine Evaristo), Station Eleven, The Hate You Give, The Nightingale and The Men We Reaped.

Loving those discovering Rebecca for the first time, I adore Daphne Du Maurier ... my favourites are Frenchmen’s Creek and Jamaica Inn in case you like it so much you want to read more of hers!

I read Jamaica Inn for the first time last year and loved it, even though it's quite unpleasant in places. But I guess all DuMaurier is a bit dark.

30. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell
I loved this, I read it in about two days. If I could write fiction I would want to write fiction like this. The main theme of this is women being placed in lunatic asylums. It's really powerful and I can't recommend it highly enough.

31. If Only They Could Talk - James Herriot
Somehow I've made it to nearly 40 without having read these, or seen the old tv series. It's been remade and is on C5 on a Sunday tea time and I'm absolutely loving it. It turns out DP owns all the books. They are about the only books he does own, philistine. So now I'm working my way through them. They're so full of joy and just lovely.

I read Jamaica Inn the last time it was on TV and thought it was only ok, I might give it a reread to see what I missed or if I’m just in a different place where I appreciate it more. Once I’ve read the others though.

I’m reading Catcher in the Rye and The Five which is about Jack the Ripper’s victims. Both are very good, though The Five is historically interesting for her approach and whilst she is a great storyteller and I think her hypothesis about the women being rough sleepers as opposed to sex workers seems quite sound there’s also quite a bit of supposition to build up the context and speculating how they would have felt. Half way through both.

Yeah I love the darkness of Du Maurier

Just finished The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates which was nothing short of extraordinary, story of a slave born the son of his master who runs and gets involved in the Underground Railroad. Worth reading for the content but absolutely for the writing which is haunting and lyrical and wanders into magical realism at points. Just stunning

Hi all.
I've reached 26 books
25: The beekeeper of Aleppo. Story about a Syrian refugee family and their travel from Syria to England. A really moving book, fully recommend.
26: Mark Billingham, love like blood. Story about honour killings in the Muslim community. I did like like it, read it a few days.

27. Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith

Loved this. Favourite book this year, favourite Strike novel. Fantastic. Want to reread it again!