50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Two

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second 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.

The first thread of the year is here.

What are you reading?

I am enjoying the juxtaposition of Permanent reviewing 'a short toilet book' and the next poster being InTheCludgie .

I bought The Whisper Man in the Kindle sale. Someone on here reviewed it favourably recently. For sci-fi fans I recommend A Calculated Life by Anne Charnock, but not her other one that's in the sale.

1. Black and British by David Olusoga I haven't seen the accompanying TV series, but having read this, I would like to. This is a long, absorbing and thoroughly researched account of black people in Britain, from Roman times to the present day. Focussing heavily on the slave trade, and then the World Wars, this was geographically wide ranging in order to give a full account of Britain's role. What I was most struck by was the open and blatant racism of 20th century (particularly post WWII) British governments. I did get a bit bogged down in the detail and factual style from time to time, but for the most part this was a real eye opener.

MamaNewt I've now started eyeing them up on Ebay again. I have a large number of the titles already in paperback and know if I start getting them I would want the full set. Must resist.

Thanks magimedi, I'd forgotten about Two Under the Indian Sun - I've got it somewhere so it's just a question of finding it! There's also the biography by Anne Chisholm (also knocking around somewhere).

On the back flap of my copy of The Greengage Summer there's a rather tantalising quote from Rumer Godden saying that there's a lot of truth in the book. Curious to know just what she means.....

@bettybattenburg I tried to resist the PD James deal but it got me - it's possible that I have something of a crush on Adam Dalgliesh.

I'm still managing to resist the temptations of Adam Dalgleish but the night is long and my bed is cold. Morning had better come soon.

welshwabbit I remember something slightly similar in Freakonomics (which I otherwise wouldn't particularly recommend btw).

The example was about nursery late fees. To begin with, the nursery just asked parents to try not to be late to pick up their kids. Then they introduced a penalty if you were late, and immediately the number of people picking up late increased massively, because they no longer felt guilty about being late (the payment assuaged the guilt). This wasn't the aim at all (introducing the fee had been intended to reduce lateness!), so the nursery removed it and went back to no fee. But the number of late pick ups failed to return to the pre-fee levels. The parents now expected to be able to turn up late, whereas before the whole debacle they had tried very hard not to. Human behaviour is so interesting!

Uh-oh nuff, I have The Glass Woman on my tbr pile and that sounds like the kind of writing that really annoys me too!

So much -creative writing by numbers' in lots of recently written books! Too many people go off and do a course and then write 400 pages of figurative language.

Ooh, this thread has just reminded me I have an unread Shardlake on my kindle.
I am on a strict no buy regime on the moment (unexpected January expenses (cars, boilers etc) plus lots of unread/ unfinished stuff). Not even looking at the Kindle sale.

I already have all the Dalgleishes. Might be time for a re read

Bill Bryson's excellent 'Mother Tongue' is 99p today. Highly recommended. I've got it in book form and have read several times but have bought for bus dipping.

But Remus I'm not supposed to be buying any books

I've read it several times but at 99p it'd be daft not to have a copy for my kindle, after all my DD and DS might like it (we share a library as well as have our own)

@Tarahumara I would love it if my daughters nursery had late fees. So much easier than the key workers looks of disappointment!

Sorry, Betty. At cost per word, it would be silly not to buy though! 😀

Fortuna sounds like I should read Burial Rites
Piggy Yes! Creative writing by numbers it is. Figurative language is wonderful when used sparingly like a teaspoon of English mustard. Too much and it’s like a dollop of super hot chilli sauce. I think similes and metaphors should be allowed for things that are key to the story or difficult to describe. For things as crucial and unusual as a bunch of penguins just arrived at a climate change conference.

@bettybattenburg are you saying you are able to share your kindle books with other kindle/amazon users?

Nuff Burial Rites is really good. If I remember rightly it was pretty much universally liked on here.

20. The Hidden World of the Fox - Adele Brand Ecologist explores the life and times of the fox in Britain. Obviously jumping onto the non-fic nature writing train but failing to live up to the quality of the writing in most. Quite dry despite the author obviously being very passionate about the subject. It's short, otherwise I don't think I'd have bothered to finish it. I'd only recommend it if you really, really like foxes.

Palegreenstars exactly! The decision to introduce fees was made by someone who massively overestimated how much we are motivated by non-monetary factors.

That late fees anecdote is so fascinating ! And very useful for my sociology revision!!

Mother Tongue dully purchased. I thought, 'no that's not for me, be strong' but then read the first page, which made me laugh, and crumpled. I have no willpower.

Just posting to share the general Mother Tongue and Burial Rites love.

*duly not dully!

1. L’élégance du hérisson – Muriel Barbery Am pretty sure this will be in my top 5 reads of 2020. I can't believe I've waited to so long to read it. It was published in 2006 when I was knee-deep in nappies and the rest. 13 years later I can honestly claim I LOVED this book. Philosophy yes, but above all empathy and humanity. If you haven't read it you must!!

Just checking in with my 5th book- A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly . I enjoyed it, but found the fact that it was marketed as adult fiction in the UK strange, given it's very clearly young adult. Nothing wrong with that at all but it felt very like something I would have read in 4th year English, with all the themes very clearly signposted for critical essay writers! Anyway, it's a coming of age tale about a sparky young woman with a love of books (is there any other kind in fiction?) Who is having to choose between life as a farmers wife in upstate New York or running off to New York to be a writer. It's set at the turn of the century and meticulously researched, with some nice turns of phrase, but overall a bit unsubtle. I'm now reading Now We Are Entirely Free by Andrew Miller which has been languishing on my bookshelf for quite some time. It's becoming very clear to me that I pick books in the same way I pick wine- very much on the strength of how pretty I think the cover/ label is!

Sorry, Betty. At cost per word, it would be silly not to buy though! 😀

I like your thinking

@MogTheSleepyCat are you saying you are able to share your kindle books with other kindle/amazon users?

Yes, you can set up a family library. Go to: Your Account › Households › Manage Your Household and you can add children or adults. They all have to live in the same house but I don't think that they check - my DD is away at university but she's on mine.

@Tarahumara yes Heffernan refers to that example too. I was interested in the blood donation example because I am a regular donor (in fact donated today) and I wondered whether being paid would decrease my willingness. Interestingly I think it probably would - because we all like feeling good about ourselves; giving blood feels quite valuable and if a monetary value was placed upon it I think that would detract somewhat from the "feeling special" glow it bestows! In fact, I think the most sensible thing the NHS has done to encourage blood donation in recent years is to send you a text saying where your donation has been used (they just give you the hospital). Knowing my donation has gone to an identifiable real place really makes a difference to me, at least.