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 doubt it was me, PrivateSpidey, but I hope that my enthusiastic review of Hall of Mirrors in the late thread helped! Either way, I'm really glad that you enjoyed England's Finest - I've never met anyone in real life who has read Christopher Fowler, so I'm itching to find another fan to enthuse with. I'm jealously guarding The Lonely Hour and England's Finest in my TBR pile because once I've read them, I will have run out of Bryant and May books

I think it was you mackarella because yours was the name that sprang to mind, but I didn't say so as I wasn't sure and then I couldn't find your post!

Anyway thank you so much because your enthusiastic review of Bryant and May has opened up a whole new detective series for me, which is very exciting

It's interesting that you say you don't know anyone IRL who's read them - I hadn't heard of them either, much to my own disapproval of myself - I thought I was au fait with all the best detective stories but clearly not!

I think it was you mackarella because yours was the name that sprang to mind, but I wasn't sure and then I couldn't find your post!

Anyway thank you so much because your enthusiastic review of Bryant and May has opened up a whole new detective series for me, which is very exciting

It's interesting that you say you don't know anyone IRL who's read them - I hadn't heard of them either, much to my own disapproval of myself - I thought I was au fait with all the best detective stories but clearly not!

Oh OK. You lot have convinced me to add The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to my tbr list .

bettybattenburg I'm also a big fan of Wild.

Hmmm I'm thinking I might pass hitchhikers on to my daughter with so many people enjoying it when they were young. I'm really not enjoying it much myself. I'm a bit disappointed as I had heard good things about it and the Amazon reviews are so good but never mind.

Eine - I've read Drood and faced the wrath of Cote for not waxing sufficiently lyrical about it. I thought it began well but was too long, and the ending was silly.

I've just got the first Bryant and May book on Borrowbox, so hoping I'll enjoy it as much as you two, Spidey and Mackarella :)

I'm doing nicely at the moment - very happily immersed in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon on paper and Extreme Economies by Richard Davies on audio.

You know, dear 50 bookers, that I am on a no book buying policy...well my favourite author has a new book out today. I have resisted temptation so far but my resolve it slipping....I need help!

@bettybattenburg is it Maureen Johnson?! I'm desperate to read her new book that's out today - but it's £6.99 just for the Kindle version, hardback is even more £££

Yes it did lose some of what made it great at the beginning towards the end, I'd agree Remus

22. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

If anything I'd describe this as massively frustrating.

The premise is a really good one :

An alternate universe were FDR was unseated as President by aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, a known Nazi sympathiser. As America turns fascist, what are the consequences for its Jewish communities?

So much of the early book has promise, the building sense of dread and it all being viewed through the eyes of a child who shares the authors name.

But it squanders so much of its potential waffling about inconsequential things, occasionally two pages worth of names of people who attended this or that event.

The author also opts for an easy fantasy ending over what would within that setting, have realistically been a much darker one.
The sense of peril is also deferred by having "bad things" happen to minor characters and not the central family.

In a way, it feels like the author "chickened out" of the better book, possibly for commercial reasons.

Some of it did feel very prescient of the Trump era, too, I thought.

3/5

Squiz, Glad to hear that you enjoyed Running Hare. I’ll be interested to see if you recommend Pond Life.

ruby it's Menna Von praag, the sister Grimm.

Just in case I am not the only person on the planet not to have read LIttle fires everywhere, it's 99p on the kindle daily deals today.

In the spirit of not buying books I have not bought it of course dd bought it instead and added it to the family library. I may have given her a pound

I bought it too, betty, although less sleight of hand was employed. I'm comfortable with the limitations of my willpower. Admittedly, now that dd has turned 12 she can borrow adult library books, and I just might have used up half her quota as well as my own, ahem ahem. I knew parenthood would pay off eventually.

10). Under the Tump, Oliver Balch
The author moves his young family to a small town near Hay-on-Wye. From its pretty cover, I thought it was going to be nature-writing, but he's interested in the human community side of things. What does it mean to belong, and how can incomers and the home-grown sets come together? Victorian curate and diarist Francis Kilvert lived in the same town over a century previously. Unfortunately this led Balch to consider himself a modern-day Kilvert, recording ordinary life. It may be interesting a century from now, when distance lends it colour, but it's a bit banal now - one chapter provides minute details of the proceedings of a town council session and then of the local chamber of commerce. It's like being stuck at a rural bus-stop and overhearing local people having a gossip - undoubtedly absorbing if you know the people involved, but it soon gets tedious when you don't.

10. Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie Lovely collection of nature writing essays, mostly based on the far flung fringes of Scotland and Scandinavia. She sees killer whales off St Kilda and Shetland, and visits a whale museum in Bergen. She reminisces about volunteering on an archaeological dig. She even visits a pathology lab to find out about the nature within us, What this mostly made me feel was connected, and that Scotland is tiny and vast at the same time. A fair few of my interests (or former interests that I can't really pursue any more, but I can still read about) overlap with hers. So many of the places and people she meets and acknowledges were familiar to me. My DH was involved in one of the projects she writes about!

bought it too, betty, although less sleight of hand was employed. I'm comfortable with the limitations of my willpower.

Oh me too, I was just joshing. DD saw me thinking about buying it and reminded me I had said I wasn't buying books so I jokingly offered her a pound to buy it for me

Ham I have Sightlines too, it's a lovely book. I have yet to visit KIlda - I got as far as Staffa - but have been to a lot of unhabited Scottish islands so the book was really familiar to me as well. A few years ago my youngest was learning about Scotland at school and the teacher asked them to ask their parents which Scottish islands they had been to and write a list to take back to school, poor child ended up with over 50 islands to write down

22. The Witches Are Coming - Lindy West
    I realised this book was probably not for me when the author lambasted Ricky Gervais for a joke he told. Upon reading the joke, I laughed out loud. She explores misogyny and propaganda in aspects of US culture in the wake of the #metoo era and the vilification of women and feminism. A great idea but a bit too woke in the execution for me.

23. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
    10 people are invited to a private island for the weekend. During the first gathering they are each accused of a wicked crime and then one by one are found dead, with those remaining left circling one another with suspicion. I fancied a little something to try and break my reading funk. Christie rarely disappoints and this was no exception. Cheeky little read full of suspense.

Yes, I was assuming you were being fairly tongue-in-cheek there, betty

I've read Bryant & May. They're nice, fun, a bit different. The woirld i similar to that created by Aaronovitch in his Rivers of London series, ie, magic is real, supernatural stuff happens. I think we have 3 or 4 of them, but tbh, I've stopped buying them and only partly because I'm on a 'no new books' year.I see that I've been doing well on that

Sorry biblio I have an awful habit of taking things too seriously.

My fault, should have added

are always good. I'm too literal for my own good - heaven help my childhood teacher when he told me to pull my socks up

I've almost finished The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I'm probably the last person to read this, it has been on my TBR for years. I am liking it so far, hoping to finish it this evening.

DS brought home The Worst Witch from school and I'm enjoying re-reading it, feeling very nostalgic! I loved these books when I was in primary school. But would it be cheating to count it towards my list?