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Original poster

26-ish books in 2020

579 replies

drspouse · 01/01/2020 20:58

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!

OP posts:
Original poster
drspouse · 08/02/2020 22:33

I've read the fIrst half (technically "book") of North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell. It's one of my classic books and I am really liking it - especially the politics and place of women at the time - but it's quite long and slow so I've put it down to read something else.

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IJumpedAboardAPirateShip · 08/02/2020 22:36

@LadyMacnet oh I LOVED Small Island, read it a few years ago and have since read all her other books, she’s wonderful

  1. All Adults Here - Emma Straub, loved this book, just a gentle, intimate read focusing on a family in upstate New York with all the complications that parenting children and adults bring. And easy but enjoyable read
CountFosco · 08/02/2020 23:14

Read Small Island last year and really enjoyed it.

Drspouse have you watched the TV series from a few years ago? Less politics, more smouldering passion Grin.

Almost finished book 6, Jacob's Room is full of books. In it there was a bit about 'If on a winter's night a traveller' and the seemingly unconnected connected story and how Cloud Atlas was similar. I read 'IOAWNAT' years ago and then when everyone was raving about 'Cloud Atlas' a few years ago I read that and hated it because it wasn't as good as 'IOAWNAT'. I suppose 'Girl, Woman, Other' is similar as well but the connections are much stronger between the stories.

Original poster
drspouse · 09/02/2020 07:51

I have, and I'm planning to watch it again!

OP posts:
goldenorbspider · 09/02/2020 07:54

What's IOAWNAT

CountFosco · 09/02/2020 15:24

What's IOAWNAT

^If on a Winter's Night a Traveller' by Italo Calvino. Every chapter is a new story but slowly an overarching story appears. It's all a bit meta but fab. Read it about 20 years ago and it blew me away.

goldenorbspider · 09/02/2020 15:44

That's such an interesting idea! Will have to add it to my reading list

CountFosco · 09/02/2020 19:11

6 Jacob's Room is Full of Books
I loved Howards End is on the Landing so wanted to read this but didn't enjoy it quite as much. It is a year of reading split into months. Each month is a mix of literary gossip, musings on reading and writing, vignettes about nature, all beautifully written but I suspect it's a book to drip in and out of rather than to read through.

Next up Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine which I've been deliberately ignoring because of all the hype but I've given in.

HoundOfTheBasketballs · 10/02/2020 18:00

3. A Walk In The Woods - Bill Bryson
This is a re-read. Scary to think it was written over 20 years ago. Definitely stands up now though. I love Bryson's droll wit. I've got his human body book on my TBR list for later in the year.

princessspotify · 10/02/2020 19:33

No. 5 She Lies In Wait by Gytha Lodge
Really enjoyed this. I read it in three days. Reminded me of the Dublin Murders if anybody watched that TV show **

MargotMoon · 10/02/2020 20:50

@LadyMcNet I love your list! I started Small Island last year but had to take it back to the library after a hundred pages as someone else had it reserved. Must buy a second hand copy so I can finish it. Also meaning to read Killing Floor. All The Light... is absolutely wonderful. I listened to the audiobook but want to read it as well.

@CountFusco If on a Winter's Night... is going on my list! Sounds great.

@HoundOfTheBasketballs I'm definitely going to re-read a Bryson this year. I heart him.

IJumpedAboardAPirateShip · 11/02/2020 01:14

@MargotMoon and @HoundOfTheBasketballs I also have a BB book or two I’ve been meaning to read for ages!

IJumpedAboardAPirateShip · 11/02/2020 06:01

Finished Girl, Woman, Other and loved it, I didn’t want it to end - not least because it made me beautifully homesick for london and the theatre, but I wanted to live in the characters lives forever. I’m normally drawn to drastically awfully dark stories so was surprise to have enjoyed this so much and honestly, having read The Testaments last year (and being a die hard Margaret Atwood fan since discovering THT at aged 13) I really think Girl, Woman, Other should have won on its own

IJumpedAboardAPirateShip · 11/02/2020 06:05

Sorry, that’s number 7 - bolder my favourites so far

  1. When You Were Everything (YA coming of age and lovely)
  2. Emerald Boy Gold Girl (short stories)
  3. My Meteorite (memoir)
  4. Five Go Caravanning (am counting longer books I read to the kids!)
  5. The Return (first foray into reading horror)
  6. All Adults Here (easy and enjoyable and grown up read)
  7. Girl, Woman, Other (loved this Booker Prize Winner)
Original poster
drspouse · 11/02/2020 14:00

My Goodreads is also showing that I finished Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver which was a library book so I won't count it as one of my "books I own" but that would be no 4, and no 5 is "The Janus Stone" by Elly Griffiths.
It's nice to discover a new mystery series but I am not sure I will leap into them all immediately as often they disappoint if you read too many at once! It's quite "womany" too which is good - the main character is not stereotypically feminine and yet there are still themes of sexism, motherhood etc. which is refreshing when we are bombarded with identity politics and indeed (from the classics I'm reading) "the feminine ideal". So that is no 3 in "books I own".

OP posts:
SubtleInnuendo · 11/02/2020 15:02
  1. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid I bought this because it was book of the month in Reese Witherspoon's book club thing she does. It's OK. I didn't love it. I liked Emira, didn't like the other characters at all. It felt a bit "literary fiction" to me which is often a bit of a turn-off as I think it makes it a bit inaccessible. It was a good story and it was trying to make a point about white privilege and it definitely succeeded. But still a bit meh really.
  1. The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware Enjoyed this one, I thought it would be one thing (nanny messes up because of mad amounts of technology) but then turned into something else (bit ghost story-ish), then finished by being something else again. Some good twists at the end. Might look for some others by this author.
CharliesMouse · 11/02/2020 21:24
  1. Started Early, Took my Dog by Kate Atkinson

I've been re-reading the Jackson Brodie books in anticipation of the paperback release of the new one, Big Sky (now purchased and on my TBR pile).

I was convinced I hadn't got this far in the series first time round but it was all so familiar to me that I must have read it previously - and then foolishly lent it to someone who never gave it back. ( Like an idiot I have just lent a colleague the first two books in the series. I know she has finished the first one so why hasn't she given it back?! I know I'll look for them in a few years to reread them and will end up having to buy them AGAIN)

Anyway, I loved Started Early...., Jackson is a bit older but no wiser. All the characters are believable and rounded and the plot bobs along nicely. The flashbacks to the 70s are well done and the whole story is woven through with humour. As usual with the Jackson Brodie novels the cast is large and I occasionally lost track of which unreconstructed policeman was which but I wouldn't let that put anyone off.

MargotMoon · 12/02/2020 16:46

@CharliesMouse I have the second one (One Good Turn?) on my to read pile, but have been sidetracked on to a non-fic tip by various autobiographies...

CharliesMouse · 12/02/2020 18:54

Ooh, I loved One Good Turn @MargotMoon. Hope you enjoy it when you get a chance to read it.

Chickoletta · 14/02/2020 12:58
  1. H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald.
Not really sure what I thought of this. It was certainly beautifully written and I enjoyed her nature writing and the bits about her research into the writer TH White. I did find the incessant navel gazing pretty irritating though, and the fact that she managed to turn even the most mundane details of every day life into elaborate extended metaphors about her own grief drove me to distraction. Wanted to tell her to get a grip in just about every chapter. Maybe I’m not cut out for memoirs about bereavement and depression....?

Has anyone else read this? It’s one of those books where I can appreciate that it’s a very good book, but I didn’t actually enjoy reading it.

Onwards!

Number 4 is Beneath the Earth - a volume of short stories by John Boyce.

Chickoletta · 14/02/2020 12:58

*Boyne

CountFosco · 14/02/2020 14:12

7 Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Bit of a curate's egg. Eleanor starts off as a very distinctive voice and there are some very fun bits in it. But the plot is fairly obvious, and I guessed the big reveal the first hint of it (when she's talking to the social worker). It's like Marian Keyes in that there's more to it than just a simple chick lit story and I can see why it has been popular and has had the movie rights bought (although I dread having to watch a Glasgow story transferred to America).

qazxc · 14/02/2020 17:35

So far I've read:

  1. A keeper by Graham Norton
  2. Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent Currently reading And then there were none by Agatha Chritie
HoundOfTheBasketballs · 15/02/2020 15:28

*4. Father of Lions - Louise Callaghan
*
This is an early contender for my book of the year. The true story of three lions, two bears and a selection of other, smaller animals and the people who helped them survive the war between Isis and the Iraqi Army in the city of Mosul where they lived in the zoo. Not just a story about animals, but people too. The resilience and resolve of the human spirit. Heartwarming and tear-jerking in equal measure. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Chickoletta · 15/02/2020 23:22
  1. Beneath the Earth by John Boyne.

I’m not sure that I would have bought this myself as I’m not a great reader of short stories, but it was a present from a friend who knows how much I enjoyed The Heart’s Invisible Furies and I loved it.

Most of the stories are in the first person and there’s an amazing emotional range from the hilarious to the very dark and disturbing.

I find John Boyne’s writing utterly gripping and wholeheartedly recommend this one.