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?

15. Dominicana by Angie Cruz. This tells the story of Ana a 15 year old Dominican immigrant whose family wed her to a man over twice her age who takes her to New York in the hope that they will follow soon after. This reminded me a little of Room with the sweet,Innocent, claustrophobia of Ana’s situation stuck in a top floor apartment all day not really understanding the dynamics of the city. There are strengths to this approach as you watch Ana grow in experience and knowledge. However i felt that some times it left things a little flat. I also found some of the sex scenes pretty disturbing.

     I started the novel with no understanding of the DR’s 1960s history and left it similarly.  However, the portrait of Ana’s relationships and experiences was beautifully told and I loved the descriptions of the culture and cooking.
    

It might be quiet in these parts for a bit while various people grapple with Mantel. I feel I might read the new book at some point in the future, but not feeling the urge right now. I read the earlier books and found them worth the read without adoring them. I remember finding Cromwell's bereavement poignant, but can't remember much else.

Have just finished perusing an odd little volume that I enjoyed, although caveat lector - it won't appeal to everybody. A Rum Affair, by Karl Sabbagh is about chicanery connected to purported botanical discoveries in the eponymous Hebridean island in the 1940s. A certain professor's findings may have been "planted" (boom, boom). I'm interested in how research goes wrong, and researchers "find" evidence for conclusions they've already reached. There was something about dark deeds by botanists crouching in a corner of a windswept Scottish island that reminded me pleasantly of John Buchan.

I really enjoyed perfume too - and I still have the book and have reread it at least once.... Agree, you can smell the market, the flowers etc a bit like you can taste the food in Bastard Out of Carolina.

17 The Body on the Train Frances Brody Latest in a series of cosy mysteries set in 1920s Yorkshire with a lady detective who has various sidekicks and useful contacts with senior policeman. This one features a body in a goods train transporting rhubarb from London and a lord and lady of the manor in financial difficulties. As is typical of this genre there is a labyrinthine plot and unbelievable coincidences but it passed a long train journey away nicely. I heard the author speak recently and she was very interesting about the inspiration for her plots and the research she does.
Y Marjorie Celona Parallel stories of what led a very young mother to abandon her newborn baby girl on the steps of a YMCA and the baby's damaging early life with unsuitable foster parents and her troubled childhood and adolescence. I'm sure these kinds of novels , full of misery and all the risky behaviours that keep parents awake in the early hours ,appeal to some people but they upset me and I find it difficult to shake those feelings . The ending had some signs of hope but seemed rushed I persevered because this was a Book Club book and it was quite well written.

The testiments by Margaret attwood

Thought it started well and drew me in but then it became almost YA, and in places just not very good. The parts set in Gilead I felt worked better and im happy alot of fans got their sequel.

For me my fave Attwood remains the blind assassin

29 The familiars by Stacey Halls.

I have never previously liked books like this but this one really gripped me. Enough that I got her next book today and it has gone straight to the top of my to be read pile.

I've had to miss a week or two, but will catch up later - just wanted to add 16) Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk Overall an excellent read (trans from Polish), although the horoscope sections left me slightly bored, nevertheless would recommend for its interesting setting and narrative voice.

That’s 99p today on Kindle Tanaqui. I’m not book buying at the moment though.

I bought the Tokarczuk today. Though I do have a lot of other things to read first. Am feeling slightly sore throaty and wondering if I should pre-emptively self isolate given that seems to be the pending advice. It would at least give me a chance to make some headway on reading, even if the rest of my life would be considerably complicated by quarantine.

I've just finished Station Eleven. I've seen on here that it's a bit of a love/hate book. Well I loved it. I found it unputdownable and fascinating. I'm really glad I read it.

1. Pet Semetary by Stephen King (2/5)
2. The Outsider by Albert Camus (5/5)
3. Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter by Carol Ann Lee (3/5)
4. Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor. (4/5)
5. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. (5/5)
6. 4321 by Paul Auster. (4/5)
7. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. (3/5)
8. The Devil's Teardrop by Jeffrey Deaver. (1/5)
9. A Symphony of Echoes by Jodi Taylor. (3/5)

10. What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge. (4/5) 11. A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor. (4/5) 12. A Trail Through Time by Jodi Taylor. (4/5) 13. Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay. (1/5) 14. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. (3/5) 15. The Talisman by Stephen King & Peter Straub. (2/5) 16. Ayoade on Top by Richard Ayoade. (3/5) 17. Black Ice by Michael Connelly. (2/5) 18. In the Woods by Tana French. (3/5)

19. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. I know a few people have read this recently but I can't remember what people thought of it. I quite liked the story but it all felt a bit flat, probably because I just didn't care about any of the characters and I can't quite work out why. This type of book is right up my street and while I did like it the lack of any feeling toward the characters meant I didn't love it. (3/5).

12. Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan

Epic tale of WW2 derring-do, best summed up as an exciting story written in an excruciatingly boring way.

It was a shame the clunky writing ("Anna gasped, her eyes wide-eyed and glassy", for example ) detracted so much from the story, because it should have been pretty tense, gripping and moving stuff - and in the hands of a deft writer no doubt it would have been. But it wasn't.

I enjoyed the foreword and epilogue, which detailed the author's research and interviews with Pino Lella, whose heroics as a teenageer in occupied Italy deserved a much better telling. These were a much more readable style than the main text, and maybe the whole thing would have been better as non-fiction than a novel.

Anyway. I need something different now and nothing I've already got is really calling me. A Rum Affair sounds good bibliomania....

So you're on my team for Station Eleven, Unlikely - allow me a triumphant cackle.

Hope you like it if you go for A Rum Affair, Private. The reviews on Goodreads are very mixed - clearly some readers found it tedious where I found it soothing.

I've started Dreadful Company, by Vivian Shaw, which is urban fantasy. Our heroine is a doctor to the undead. On a a trip to Paris, she has been kidnapped by vampires and held in the catacombs. Will she rescued before something terrible happens? It doesn't take itself too seriously and has fun with genre cliches. It's not great literature, but it has a certain escapist charm.

15. Other Minds: the octopus, the sea and the deep origins of consciousness - Peter Godfrey-Smith (Audible)

Octopuses are very clever, but their minds have evolved very differently from humans', given that our last common ancestor lived around 600 million years ago and wasn't too bright himself. The biological explorations in this book were fascinating, but the philosophical considerations of the nature of consciousness were of their nature harder to follow, especially in audiobook format.

16. When I Hit You - Meena Kandasamy

Very literary autobiographical novel focusing on a young woman's brief abusive marriage. The subtitle ('A portrait of the author as a young wife') gives away its literary pretensions, and it is very pretentious at times. I almost gave up at around 45%, but glad I continued as the intensity of her experience in the second half was brilliantly, terrifyingly conveyed. A demonstration of how a writer can survive by using words to distance herself from and reshape her experience. By the end I deeply admired Kandasamy's determination to tell her own story and not be suffocated in the narratives of others.

17. Around the World in Eighty Days - Michael Palin (Audible)

Nostalgic trip down memory lane as Michael Palin tries to recreate Phileas Fogg's famous round-the-world trip. Palin was more world-weary than I remembered, and some of his stereotyping of nationalities probably wouldn't get an airing now (a few too many 'inscrutables' in relation to the Chinese...) Still, a gently funny comfort listen.

I'm reading a Ladies Detective Agency book in a bid for something else kind and gentle, but I'm finding it really boring. I think he needs to stop writing them now.

Yes, I got through about five Ladies books before stopping because they were terribly repetitive.

Can I tempt you with a Binchy, Remus ?

Excellent gentle reads

Particular faves :

The Glass Lake
To Light A Penny Candle

SO repetitive.

I've never read a Binchy. Will look in the library, although I suspect they might irritate me, if they're particularly 'womanish'.

Just looked MB up. Sorry, but I'm pretty sure I'd hate her.

Its (Drive your Plow) definitely worth 99p. In fact, it's kind of gentle- might be worth a go Remus?

Thanks, Tanaqui. I missed it on the deal price, but will keep an eye out for it.

I'm not allowed to spend more than £1.99 on Kindle books at the moment!

@Remus my fave recent gentle read was This Green and Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik. A man decides to build a mosque in his English village. But like comfort listening to the Archers.

I'm reading a Ladies Detective Agency book in a bid for something else kind and gentle, but I'm finding it really boring. I think he needs to stop writing them now.

I was given one a few years ago, it was certainly a DNF and I've never read another one, the person who gave it to me wasted their money on five of them.

13. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty. Recommended on here by several others, I loved this. Who knew a book about working in a crematorium could be so interesting and funny?

14. Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday. This has two parts to it, plus a third shorter part at the end. The first part is about the relationship between a young woman living in New York and a famous writer who is much older than her. The second part is about a man detained at a London airport on his way to visit his brother in Iraq. Then the third part returns to the author, now being interviewed on Desert Island Discs, and we find a connection between the first two parts. I started off loving this - the writing and characterisation are really good - but I was left a bit nonplussed by the ending and its lack of resolution for any of the characters.

They aren't literary wonders no Remus but really interesting characters and stories unfortunately marketed with their covers and such in a twee way to mark them as Ladies Fiction

12. My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay.

Audible. Excellent narration by Lemn Sissay with other narrators taking the roles of reading out social worker reports and letters.

Lemn Sissay is born to a young Ethiopian student, taken into care and fostered as a baby and given up by his foster parents and placed back into care homes at the age of twelve: DS1 is 11.

This book made me think about the child/teenager world. Different to the adult one, full of unexpressed thoughts, obnoxious seemingly careless gestures or words but a burgeoning mind and soul needing steady emotional support, understanding and structure from parents/guardians. Difficult enough as a parent never mind as a low paid carer.

Lemn’s adult life could have been very different but his personal charm, emotional and intellectual intelligence helped him to where he is today. I despair for all those children where that was/is not the case.

The last care home Lemn Sissay was placed in should never have care and home put together to describe it. Run by damaged men who abused and beat boys who had nowhere else to turn and no one to run to.

A difficult listen but worth it.

13. Offering to the Storm (Bk 3 in The Baztan Trilogy) by Dolores Redondo.

The last in The Baztan Trilogy, wrapping up this Spanish series nicely. Atmospheric with a mix of thriller, bitter family saga and Basque mythology.

I vaguely remembered reading Perfume and remember a fire and a graveyard. DH has joined the masses, having bought the new Hillary Mantel. I bought The World I fell out of and The Unwomanly face of war, both 99p the other day and both recommendations from here. Add it to the pile!