50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 and the second one here.

What are you reading?

Don't be so ridiculous, you are clearly at insufficient bookshelf capacity.....

This was always my argument when my husband complained about books in piles on the floor - funnily enough he never seemed convinced. To be fair to him, he did then go on to produce more shelves until we actually ran out of house.

I am staying well away from both Kindle and Book People sales. I went to visit No.3 Son and his girlfriend last week and, against my better judgement but because we don't have a bookshop in our town, went into Waterstones...
Well, you can't go into a bookshop and not buy anything, can you?

Anyway, to bring things up to date:

17. The Ghost of Thomas Kempe by Penelope Lively I read this with my grandson. James (who is ten) and his family move to a new village and into a 17th Century cottage. His bedroom is the renovated attic and in the course of the renovation something has been disturbed. The family begin to be plagued by strange goings-on; ornaments being smashed inexplicably, the television is subject to interference and then James starts receiving notes written in old-fashioned handwriting suggesting that he has been chosen as an apprentice to a 'sorcerer'. Unfortunately, James' parents don't believe in ghosts and so he is getting the blame for all the disruption. It all comes to a head when the poltergeist decides that an elderly neighbour is a 'wytche' and tries to burn her house down.
    This was a re-read for me - I read it to my children years ago and had fond memories of it. It does feel a bit dated now - it was written in the seventies. What struck me particularly was the freedom the children have to roam about on their own - it just wouldn't happen these days. Grandson really enjoyed it, he normally only reads books about football so this made a nice change.

18. Four Quartets by TS Eliot Another book of poetry about 50% of which probably went way over my head. I enjoyed what I understood but it's another one I will have to revisit.

19. The Strings Are False by Louis MacNeice This is an unfinished autobiography begun when he was in his thirties and then set aside - so it only goes up to about 1940 - it was edited and published after his death in 1963. A friend who is another MacNeice enthusiast, loved this and gave it a rave review and five stars on Goodreads. I think I was maybe expecting too much because of his reaction but I was a bit underwhelmed.
    MacNeice is very honest about his own flaws which is admirable and there are poignant moments such as when he talks about the death of his mother when he was seven.
    He doesn't really say much about his poetry and I think that's what I felt was missing - I would have liked to hear more about that side of his life.

I have just started The Ambassadors by Henry James. I'm hoping it'll be fourth time lucky. I'm going to try, as James advised one of his friends, to read just a few pages at a time, slowly.
I'm not sure if that will make it any easier but we'll see.

17. Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

I struggled with this one. I felt as though I'd read it all before, done better. It's a split timeline story, with present day, dying Frances thinking back to a summer she spent surveying a derelict house and garden with a beautiful couple, Peter and Cara, following the death of her mother. The book is slow moving (despite being less than 300 pages long), which I think is intended to evoke the languor of a long hot summer, but to be honest I just found it a bit boring. The slow reveals didn't ramp up the tension for me, and the final twist was predictable. Just didn't enjoy it very much. I've got another by the same author on my TBR pile and am in two minds about whether to read it.

Welshwabbit - I read Bitter Orange last year and was equally underwhelmed. A similarly themed but better (in my view) book is The House at Riverton by Kate Morton - flashbacks, decaying country house, untold mystery/tragedy.

18. A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale I'm getting diminishing returns from the Patrick Gale books I've read so far. I thought I'd found my new favourite author when I read A Perfectly Good Man last year, then enjoyed, but not to the same extent, Notes From an Exhibition. Now this. Harry is a dull personality-free Edwardian gent who is threatened with being outed for homosexuality, so leaves his family to farm in Canada. The bits about being allocated a piece of land and beginning to establish it, and the details about the pioneer life were moderately interesting, and Patrick Gale does write well, but in the main this was dull. I wonder why he made his protagonist, and I use the word loosely, so maddeningly lacking in agency or spark? I can only think of one novel I've read where this is successfully deliberately used as a device, and it's the one that lots of people on here hate.

19. Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved by Darren Naish and Paul M. Barrett

Very accessible, well-illustrated guide from NHM to latest research findings on dinosaurs, extinct and living (i.e. birds). If you’re at all interested, I highly recommend this.

20. Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson

Still on my Kate Atkinson kick, this book of loosely-connected short stories is a mash-up of her usual themes of unhappy families/characters who feel life is passing them by with classical mythology, particularly as in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Some great flashes of humour/insight, but overall a bit underwhelming.

21. Arlo Finch and the Valley of Fire by John August

DD(11)’s favourite novel, first of a series. 12-year-old Arlo Finch moves with his mother and sister to a tiny Colorado mountain town, where mother grew up and his eccentric taxidermist uncle still lives (father is in China, on the run from FBI over his cryptography work). At his new school, he is invited to join the Rangers; like the scouts, but with added magic, fantastic beasts etc. As Arlo and his family settle in, strange things happen to him, e.g. he sees ghost dog; talks to girl in another world. Arlo and his best friends, Indra and Wu (yes, a white boy is the main character, but don’t worry, his sidekicks are brown, and one of them is even a girl), try to work out why he is being targeted while their patrol tries to win an important Rangers competition.

Lots of exciting set-pieces, e.g. attack by a killer horse; magical lore, e.g. a bestiary in the school library; juxtaposition of every-day and other-worldly concerns; climactic battle with a hag; continuing mysteries setting up the sequel. I can see why DD loves it. I thought it was gripping and well-done, especially the sudden shifts into another world, although a little formulaic at times, e.g. irritating teenage sister. Personally I prefer the more subtle, complex writing of Susan Cooper and Diana Wynne Jones, but I shall read the sequel.

Piper and Trustee by Neville Shite, sorry Shute, are very different books so if you don't get on with Piper you may well still like Trustee

I loved Trustee from The Toolroom, right up there as one of my all time favourite books

I think I'm going to have to reread it.

...in fact will read it tonight now as it's £2.30 for the kindle at the moment

Sold me I’ll go for it too - line myself up a Shite Night.

i hope it's suitably Shite. Anybody else up for it?

OOh I haven't read Trustee.

Ham - I was also underwhelmed by A Place Called Winter. Lots of dullness. I was disappointed because I do like a bleak setting!

I am up for a reread, thank god its a council tax free month

Downloaded and ready to go - I'm getting an early night with it as I have the corona virus a cough.

Thoughts on how many books a person should own...
www.becomingminimalist.com/read-more/

Just an interesting article I read, not a description of my own lifestyle. I have books on shelves, bedside table, bedrrom floor, bottom of wardrobe...I don't have too many books, just need a bigger house!

I estimate somewhere in the region of several thousand. We have 11 bookcases in our house which are mostly crammed or double stacked and several floorcases (no floorrobes here!) and book boxes in the wardrobes. Then we have four kindles.

I don’t have enough storage for books so a lot of mine are in boxes but I just counted 60 piled on top of the full bookcase in my bedroom. I use the library and Kindle for the majority of my reading though so not as swamped as I would like to could be.

I dread to think how many books I have! My to read pile seems to increase by 3 for every one I finish.

28 - The hunting party - really enjoyed this one although a lot of it was very predictable it still had enough twists to make it enjoyable

We culled massively a few years ago. We have a certain number of bookcases, and if a new book doesn't fit on one of them then another book has to go to make room. The only exception to this is the pile of books by my side of the bed, which are too big to fit on the bookcases, because they are too tall/wide (they are also especially beautiful, so I like having them by my side to dip into!).

I have 15 on my bedside table, and so many bookcases and shelving and piles here and there. There's one room in the house that has no books in it and that's the downstairs loo, which is a)tiny and b) suffering from having no surfaces to put stuff (like books) on. Oh and then all the boxes in storage....

I find it hard to cull books. I keep thinking "someone tried really really hard to write that"

I would say I have about 500. Which get stared at and moved around a lot. Beautiful book cases in our living room. Never feel like I’m making a dent as I tend to give away anything I’ve read that’s not brand new to make way for more.

I do really enjoy a book shelf stare.

Midnight by Dean Koontz
Bought in desperation to read in the bath. It was okay. Too much padding and some silly writing t times, but also some decent description, a pretty interesting concept and a few characters to care about.

Women's Prize longlist is out.

Some crackers on there.

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara

Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Dominicana by Angie Cruz

Actress by Anne Enright

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Nightingale Point by Luan Goldie

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

Girl by Edna O' Brien

Hamnet by Maggie O' Farrell

Weather by Jenny Offill

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Thanks @FortunaMajor I’m pleased to see Dominicana there. I’ve just started it as was on a list of Latinx books to read after the American Dirt controversy.

@SatsukiKusakabe that's such a lovely review of the Jim Henson book, it's not something I would think to read, but you have convinced me!

Thanks to whoever mentioned The Book People sale, I've placed an order too. 🤦🏼‍♀️

We converted or garage into an entrance hall and a carpenter friend built a lovely floor to ceiling walk through bookcase, it's already pretty full. I'm fairly ruthless though, most of my books go in the charity shop bag (plus I read library books) my husband on the other hand....