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?

Thanks for the warning, bibliomania - I'll try and pace myself better with the Herring books! I'll also report back from the Elly Griffiths event tomorrow (despite my grumbling here, I am genuinely looking forward to it) .

9) My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

A darkly funny book about nurse Korede whose younger sister Ayoola has killed three of her boyfriends and Korede helps her dispose of the bodies. Korede is in love with one of the doctor in the hospital where she works, but he falls in love with Ayoola, and it would seem that Korede is going to have to decide whether to try and save him by warning him about Ayoola black widow habit or continue to help her out of deep holes.

It was a quick read, quite enjoyable, and certainly some interesting characters. It could probably been longer.

@mackerella I have added The Herring Seller's Apprentice to my tbr - it sounds fab.

Just thought I'd do a mid-thread update (page 26 already!)

9. The Warden by Anthony Trollope This is an old favourite but one I haven't read for several years. I know lots of people find The Warden a bit tedious and prefer the later Barsetshire novels but I can tolerate Trollope's long-windedness far better than some other Victorian novelists and I always enjoy The Warden. And I find a certain amount of malicious pleasure in him taking potshots at Carlyle and Dickens.

10. Un Certain Sourire by Françoise Sagan Dominique embarks on an affair with her boyfriend's married uncle. I read this years ago when I was late teens, I think. What struck me most this time around was the complete cynicism of Luc, the uncle. He isn't in love with the girl, he knows that both she and his wife will get hurt but goes ahead anyway. Interesting to re-read it but not that enjoyable on account of the unlikeable characters.

11. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath One of my resolutions for this year was to catch up on those novels I skived off reading as a student and this is one of them. It was an interesting read but I think I would possibly have got more from it when I was younger.

12. Crow: from the Life and Songs of Crow by Ted Hughes I read this because I was planning to read Grief is the Thing with Feathers. I thought it was a re-read but actually I don't think I read the thing all the way through before. Violent, confusing at times but also funny. I'm glad I read it but I'm not sure I understood everything Hughes was trying to say with it.

13. Grief Is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter I really liked this a lot although, again, I'm sure a fair bit went over my head. I found some of it very moving and some of it funny.

I've come to the conclusion that I am rubbish at reviewing books. I can rarely articulate what I think of a book without sounding either pretentious or banal.

Anyway, that's my list up to date. Next is The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar.

I've come to the conclusion that I am rubbish at reviewing books. I can rarely articulate what I think of a book without sounding either pretentious or banal.

I can rarely get beyond I like it or I don't like it, I'm not very articulate for such an avid reader. I've not done any reading today, just been playing silly ipad games as I've had a dreadful day.

PegHughes bettybatternberg For me the pleasure of this thread is the variety of different"voices" ,all of them interesting in their own way.Also the suggestions which have enriched my TBR pile! I've got books on my list I would never have thought of otherwise. Hope this is a one off dreadful day betty

Peg - I used to have to teach some of the Crow poems at A level. I HATED them with a searing, tooth-grinding, impotent rage.

I'm loving the discussion about the Katy books I was worried I wasn't going to enjoy but it was such a lovely stroll down memory lane that I'm definitely going to re-read the others. Good old random number generator!

PegHughes I enjoy all the reviews on here; in fact, some are rather more insightful than those of professional reviewers. I also like the variety of reading people do, from childhood favourites to literary fiction (in French even).

Hope you have a better day tomorrow bettybattenberg

12. TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

This ambitious, wide-ranging novel intertwines three real events - the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic by plane; Frederick Douglass’ visit to Ireland at the start of the Famine; George Mitchell’s involvement with the Northern Ireland peace process - with the story of several generations of a fictional family, descended from a maid, Lily Duggan, working in the house of Douglass’ Dublin host, who emigrates to America.

It is mostly beautifully written; maybe a bit over lyrical at times. Some sections are brilliant, particularly Douglass as an African American negotiating a genteel world of white do-gooders and encountering colonial oppression. Some work less well: George Mitchell comes across as a two-dimensional saint. And the ending can’t bear the weight of everything that’s come before.

Overall, it’s a worthwhile and fascinating read, but I’m not entirely sure it’s the great Irish-American novel I suspect he was aiming for.

TransAtlantic sounds really good

takes note

1. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo. Well now. I loved parts of this, endured others. I loved the writing style and the plot, loved the characters. It stepped into preaching sometimes but stepped out again in time. I think Dominique was my favourite section/character, Yazz was just a pain in the butt. I felt like she had to cut corners to get so many characters in but ultimately it was really successful.

bettybattenburg Yes, 'like/don't like' is pretty much my limit most of the time too.
I'm sorry to hear about your horrible day - I hope it's a temporary state.

Blackcountryexile Absolutely. It's really interesting to see what other people are reading and also their different responses to the same books.
I've added quite a few titles to my TBR which I definitely wouldn't have come across any other way or that I might have dismissed if someone hadn't recommended it.
And I've read a lot more the last few weeks as a result of this thread - it's really enthused me.

Remus That makes me feel a bit better. I kept thinking that I was missing something - if I only had the key to it all, then I would really like it. There were a few bits I got and one or two things made me laugh. Well, smile anyway.
As I said, the main reason I read it was that I supposed it would help me understand Grief better. But it didn't really.

Plornish Yes, I think that there are some very discerning people on here. It's refreshing when everyone on Booktube or somewhere is raving about 'the next big thing' and you come on here and someone is going: "Actually it's average."

I love children's books. I'm currently reading The Eagle of the Ninth to my grandson and thoroughly enjoying it. And every few months I binge read a few of my favourite childhood pony books. I might have been embarrassed to admit that once but not any more.

Yesterday I finished 11. Standing In Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin.

I love the Rebus novels but it's been a while since I read one. It was like climbing under an old familiar blanket, albeit a slightly scratchy one. This has all the hallmarks of the best of the series: dark crimes, awkward superiors, Rebus’s belligerence in the face of criticism. I like the fact that the author has managed to soften the ageing Rebus while maintaining the integrity of the character.

It was a good, solid read and now I'm having to discipline myself not to immediately plough through the handful in the series that I've yet to read!

Yes, certainly a one off thank goodness, thanks for the wishes for a better day tomorrow. I had to make a decision that won't be have to made again so that's some consolation.

Still going on Little Fires Everywhere

I love the lists and the reviews in all their formats. I appreciate the long and considered ones but also love the shorter ones. And definitely, my reading is much richer, varied and more extensive because of your lists and recommendations.

Not that either of these two came from here. They’ve been on my bedside table for a while and I’ve dipped in and out but as I couldn’t sleep last night I finished them both off.

19 Natural History of the Hedgerow by John Wright

I was given this as a gift a couple of years ago and have been dipping into it at bedtime for the last few weeks. It’s a completely personal partisan account of the social and natural history of hedgerows (the title is misleading as there is lots of focus on the ways in which people have used hedgerows to shape the countryside) and he is delightfully grumpy and opinionated about hedgerows and fungi. Fascinating and fun, and lovely photos.

20 Letters from an Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Picked this up in a charity shop. There was little about astrophysics and a lot about Mr deGrasse Tyson, as he publishes correspondence with members of the public over the years. Occasionally interesting but quite self-absorbed. Will be giving it back to the charity shop.

9. Only Killers and Thieves - Paul Howarth

This appealed to me because I enjoy reading Westerns; this was about life on the Australian frontier in 1885, so definitely had a Western flavour. Reviewers drew comparisons to Cormac McCarthy which piqued my interest also.

Adolescent brothers Tommy and Billy seek revenge for a horrifying event which destroys their lives. They seek help from their Father's neighbour and nemesis, John Sullivan and the evil Noone, head of the Queensland Native Police - a decision which has far reaching consequences for all involved

This novel was good in parts. Very evocative descriptions of the Queensland landscape which I enjoyed. The plot wasn't bad; pacey but sometimes rather implausible and the twist was glaringly obvious, only an idiot (and the two main characters) wouldn't have spotted it a mile off. Sadly this novel fell down for me on characterisation. Protagonists were either straightforwardly good or plain bad, which made everyone seem rather two dimensional and kind of melodramatic. It's also very violent and bloody, a bit too much so for my taste.

Is it like a Cormac McCarthy novel? For me, this had none of McCarthy's moral ambiguity or subtlety, but overall not a bad read if you're interested in this period in history.

Plornish I really enjoyed Transatlantic, also Let the Great World Spin by the same author.

18 Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Typically for NS this is very long, very enjoyable and hurtles all over the place at a serious pace. I realised once I got into it that the reason I've not read it before is that it's (a) not really SF & I tend to think of him as a SF author (though tbf I thoroughly enjoyed Quicksilver which isn't really SF either) and (b) essentially a WW2 novel which I tend to avoid on principle (though the protagonists are pretty much all non-European, and the action takes place mainly in Asia, so at least not your typical war novel).

The plot is split between two timelines and four main protagonists, three in WW2, and one contemporary to the novel (1999, so very much not contemporary in terms of IT and cryptography, which are the centrepoint of the plot). These two timelines gradually converge over the course of the story.

I should imagine anyone who likes Snowcrash, enjoys techno-thrillers, and/or likes reading about maths, cyphers & the history of computing would enjoy this just as much as I did.

I'm now reading the fourth Katy book (Clover) for a bit of extreme contrast.

Transatlantic, also Let the Great World Spin

They both look great, it turns out Transatlantic is on my wish list already but I've added Let the great world spin

1. Clover by Susan Coolidge. Snap Sadik Oh I enjoyed this. More of a travelogue than a novel but I loved it anyway. It made me want to visit Colorado.

18: Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFK - Anthony Summers

I'm gradually working my way up to Stephen King's 11.22.63 (which I was given for Christmas) and thought I'd ease myself in gently with this. A very respectable and thorough look at the likely background to Kennedy's horrible demise, and the frankly jaw-dropping extent to which Lee Harvey Oswald was firmly on the radar, indeed probably in the clutches, of the CIA. The crucial factor ramping everything up to the grim conclusion, Summers argues, was the recent Bay of Pigs fiasco, which had left a lot of people (not least various unsavoury Mafia bosses, and the anti-Castro forces who'd been hung out to dry) angry enough with Kennedy to order his killing.

Whatever the truth behind what really happened - which we'll probably now never know - I finished this feeling pretty convinced that the intelligence services knew considerably more than they were letting on; that Oswald was very far from the lone nut who just happened to take a deadly potshot or two, and that publically pinning the blame on him covered up a lot of extremely murky secrets...with his oh-so-convenient death at the hands of Jack Ruby tying up the loose ends.
I'll be interested to see how King deals with all this.

Terpsichore, you’re in for a treat. 11.22.63 is a great read and one of my favourite King books. Not that you’d know it’s about the Kennedy assassination for a while - it takes some time to get there.

PegHughes I hope you enjoy the Herring Seller's Apprentice as much as I did . And you've just reminded me that I have a whole box of pony books under my bed that haven't been read for about 25 years! I'm tempted to investigate but I was worried that worried that either a) I will get completely sucked in and the rest of my list this year will consist only of Jill, Jinny, and various Pullein-Thompson books; b) I will develop a sudden desire to wear a stock or a hacking jacket and spend my weekends riding to hounds or competing in gymkhanas (pretty much my childhood fantasy, then); or c) the books won't stand up to my childhood memories and I'll be terribly disappointed. You've given confidence to investigate that box again (and my other childhood books)! Incidentally, I have a particular soft spot for Diana Pullein-Thompson because one of her characters has the same name as me, which never happens except in Flambards. These things matter a lot when you're 9 .

Just adding to the general love for this thread and all the MNers who review books so thoughtfully (and who have tripled my TBR with their brilliant recommendations).

A couple of years ago, I was shocked to discover that I'd pretty much stopped reading - something I'd never thought could happen to me, a lifetime bookworm. This was partly due to being so knackered all the time (thanks, DCs ) and partly due to being on the internet too much - mindlessly scrolling through social media or news sites all the time. I felt as if my concentration was shot and I couldn't face reading anything but the most trashy undemanding or comforting of books. I discovered this thread in 2018 and spent that year lurking, interested in the discussion but not actually reading any of the books that caught my attention on there! Last year, I continued lurking, but also started reading properly again - recording which books I'd read and making an effort to challenge myself a bit more. Just writing it all down have me a sense of achievement and reminded me that having children hadn't necessarily turned my brain to mush and that I could (and should) read things other than endless Jilly Cooper, Georgette Heyer and Agatha Christie and that I read English at university and used to cope with much bigger, tougher books all the time.

So this year, I've finally stopped lurking and joined the challenge! Thank you so much to all my fellow 50 bookers (and please can you stop constantly reviewing really interesting books - I think my TBR pile is now about 85 years long).

I'm loving the descriptions of Colorado too PermanentTemporary

Have you read the Pullein-Thompson sisters autobiography Fair Girls and Grey Horses, Mackerella ? I read it a few years back & it's very enjoyable. Sadly while I've got a lot of my childhood books, I ditched all the pony ones (I think because there were so many), and then really regretted it when dd was younger.