Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Three

999 replies

southeastdweller · 21/02/2020 17:14

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?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
Jux · 07/03/2020 12:23

BestisWest, go for the 24 hour Bookstore then. I finished AS last night, so it's a very short read and, while the over-riding idea behind it is typically Sloanesque, it's really a short story (hard to compare lengths when one's on Kindle and one's on paper). It has less depth than either the 24 hour bookstore or Sourdough.

SatsukiKusakabe · 07/03/2020 12:42

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I didn’t enjoy Wings but I did like Portrait of a Lady very much and that had a rather good female character (iirc; I thought so at the time anyway)

SatsukiKusakabe · 07/03/2020 12:48

Henrietta Stackpole!

SatsukiKusakabe · 07/03/2020 12:50

I have begun The Mirror and the Light and already sucked in, see you in 800 pages time.

Piggywaspushed · 07/03/2020 13:22

I can't decide what to do... it is looking at me balefully from my tbr pile but I think if I try to read it as I do with any other book, I may not concentrate so might need to do it in sittings...

And, if it has to wait its turn on my tbr pile, I will wonder why I bought the hardback!

SatsukiKusakabe · 07/03/2020 13:29

I know what you mean piggy I decided to crack on as I couldn’t bear for it to sink into the tbr after so much waiting and buying a rare hardback I’m taking it by the horns, but my wrists already need a rest after 50 pages...

SatsukiKusakabe · 07/03/2020 13:31

Also my dh bought it for me on the day, so I feel I need to reward such gestures or they will stop Grin

Jux · 07/03/2020 13:57

Oh dear, I don't actually like Hilary Mantel.

I'll get my coat.

bettybattenburg · 07/03/2020 13:59

Hold the door please Jux, I'm right behind you.

FortunaMajor · 07/03/2020 14:01

Satsuki Do you have a cook book or music stand to help save your wrists? I'm not a fan of reading hardbacks.

The Stella Prize (for Australian female writers) has just announced the 2020 shortlist.
Stella Prize
I've never read much out of Australia and I'm not sure why. I'm only familiar with one on the list.

  1. The Outsiders - S E Hinton
    Coming of Age YA. A young teen deals with love and loss as part of a gang in 60s Oklahoma. This completely passed me by as a teen, but I really enjoyed it.

  2. Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi
    In a cafe in Tokyo patrons can return to the past briefly as long as they return before the coffee gets cold. Follows 4 customers with different reasons for wanting to go back, one to fix her relationship and another to speak to her husband who no longer recognises her due to Alzheimer's.

Quite a short book written in a very thought provoking way. I loved the premise of this, but it was excruciatingly slow moving, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

  1. The Mars Room - Rachel Kushner A young women who is a victim of her circumstances is sent to prison for two consecutive life sentences for murdering her stalker. Looks at prison life for women in the US.

I don't know what to make of this, it's not quite what I was expecting. It's well written and vividly paints the world poor women live in in the US and look at the problems within the prison system. It's thought provoking, but I feel a bit 'meh' about it.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 07/03/2020 14:40

Jux - she leaves me cold.

Palegreenstars · 07/03/2020 15:25

Still waiting for my library copy but thoroughly enjoying the audio of Wolf Hall first. I remember finding the writing quite challenging in the book at first but the narrator is doing an excellent job (his Wolsey is inspired) and the different voices are helpful.

SatsukiKusakabe · 07/03/2020 15:30

It’s ok naysayers I’m not declaring Mantel Week, you won’t all have to dress up as Tudors, use creative punctuation and talk in the present tense. She, Satsuki, will simply post a review, when she, Satsuki, has read it and has the feeling back in her arms.

A stand might be an idea fortuna, at the moment I’m resting on an pillow and have used it as an excuse to go back to bed.

Terpsichore · 07/03/2020 15:37

My copy of The Mirror and the Light is on its way, apparently. Meanwhile, the ebook is available in my library and by 'available', I mean the next reservable slot is December 24th Grin

I just wish they'd reinstate the function that allowed you to ask for books you'd like to be added to the ebook stock, which they took away when they went over to BorrowBox Angry

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 07/03/2020 15:45

I'm all for going entirely present tense, dressing like a Tudor, and pillocking about with pronouns and punctuation, if I don't actually have to read the novel to do so.

SatsukiKusakabe · 07/03/2020 15:56

Knock yourself out, remus Grin (I actually might, if I fall asleep holding the thing)

Sadik · 07/03/2020 16:05

I'm reluctant to recommend things to you Remus, since we have very different tastes. But, if you haven't read much Compton Mackenzie, you might like The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett - which is available to download in Kindle format for free (My paper copy doesn't have the Prologue, and I'd suggest skipping it, & going straight to Chapter 1, it's pretty much unreadable & nothing like the rest of the book.)

AnUnlikelyWorldofInvisibleShad · 07/03/2020 16:45

I don't like Hilary Mantel either. I tried to read Wolf Hall and hated it.

Nuffaluff · 07/03/2020 16:52

Argh! I’m waiting for The Mirror and the Light. I reserved it ages ago at the library. I might have to avoid this thread because of reading envy.
I have finished Bring up the Bodies which was a re-read. It tells the second part of the story of Thomas Cromwell, Henry viii’s right hand man and ends with the execution of Anne Boleyn. But I’m sure everyone reading this already knows that! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this again, but I don’t think it’s as good as Wolf Hall. For me, the first novel is much more satisfying. I enjoyed the comparative complexity of it, the flashbacks, etc. Wolf Hall also had some passages that I read twice out of pure admiration for the writing, for example the part about when Cromwell witnessed a public burning as a child, the bit wear he thinks about remembering where everyone is sitting at the table and the dreamlike scene where he goes downstairs with Anne Boleyn to meet Henry when Thomas More gets the sack. BUTB is brilliant, but WH is a bonafide masterpiece, imo.
As a short antidote to long books I also read The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark. I just love this author and want to read all of her books. Taking place both at the end of the Second World War and a few years after, it’s about some young women in their twenties who live in a kind of posh hostel place in London. They share clothes and trade clothing coupons, they have men friends, worry about their diets and practise elocution. Their lives have not yet properly begun. At the end something really dramatic happens but I won’t spoil it for you. The title of the book is clever, with more than one meaning.
Spark is witty, cutting and brilliant. This book is similar in tone to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Nuffaluff · 07/03/2020 16:56

For those hating Mantel, I think that’s a good thing. It’s better to be loved by some and hated by others than to be an author who everyone thinks is just okay.
For example I love Ali Smith like some people do, but others can’t stand her. It’s an indication that her writing is trying to really do something rather than just trying to please everyone.

ChessieFL · 07/03/2020 17:03

I also couldn’t get on with Wolf Hall but I might give it another go sometime.

  1. One Minute Later by Susan Lewis

Not something I usually would have picked up, this was given to me. This is about a woman who has to move back with her mum when she has a heart attack and is waiting for a transplant. She discovers who her real father is and falls in love. It was ok.

  1. Watching You by Michael Robotham

A woman whose husband went missing a year ago is convinced she is being watched, then people she comes into contact with starts dying. This is one of the series featuring psychologist Joe O’Loughlin, and I like them because of the psychology side, bit different to the usual detective.

  1. Vox by Christina Dalcher

Science fiction/dystopia where women are only allowed to speak 100 words a day, and have no money or power. Interesting premise but didn’t really go anywhere with it.

Now reading a Harlan Coben which I usually race through but am struggling to get into, and still have Mansfield Park on the go on audible (plus Copperfield for the readalong).

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 07/03/2020 17:20

Thanks, Sadik. My Kindle rejected that but I'll look it up.

bettybattenburg · 07/03/2020 17:53

Talking of hating books, what's the worst book/author you'd tried?

I can't stand books by Dorothy Koomson.

SatsukiKusakabe · 07/03/2020 18:30

I think I’ve said this before on here but when I was growing up I used to raid my mum’s and older siblings’ shelves and so read a lot of Danielle Steele and Dean Koontz and there was little difference between them except one had gory stuff every now and then instead of breathy love scenes. But I while I wouldn’t go back there I look back on them with affection. I had a rather torrid time with The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. In my nightmares I can sometimes still hear the lutes playing. A lot of books I ditch before I can get a real hatred going. One had the line “boredom rose in her throat like a yawn” a couple of pages in and that was gone, because that is actually just a yawn. I have tried very hard to get on with Zadie Smith’s novels but I’m afraid I can’t.

bettybattenburg · 07/03/2020 19:21

I used to raid the bookshelves, I remember reading Sidney Sheldon, Harold Robbins and Arthur Hailey books - none of which I have read since.