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?

17. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch I have to say I read this after enjoying Recursion by the same author, and I was disappointed- its not badly written but the plot and characterisation are thin and it feels like there is a more gripping book in there somewhere. Also Diana Wynne Jones did the mulitiverse much better in Witch Week back in the 70s (imo!). Coincidentally there is a short episode with a killer disease though!

Finally finished Midnight at Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham.

An excellent, if not exactly cheerful, read. As you would expect it provides a fascinating insight into the machinations of the Communist Party, the USSRs facade as a world-leading scientific nation and the tension between Gorbachev's glasnost and a deep-rooted culture of lies and cover-ups.

More importantly, it puts a human face on the tragedy, from the engineers at the plant, to the men and women shunted like robots into the plant to clean up, to the undocumented thousands affected by the fallout.

I thoroughly recommend this book.

Clueless - I enjoyed March. Is it the same writer who did a novel about Eyam? I liked that too.

Of course that should be Midnight In Chernobyl, not 'at'. Whoops!

CluelessMama, March sounds good. I like the “other side of the story” type novels and am a huge Little Women fan. Could be just what I need as I rearrange my reading priorities.

28 The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
Sets out our two options as a civilisation - unrestrained global warming or keeping the rise in temperatures to below 1.5 degrees by 2050 which is the scientific consensus of what “manageable” looks like. This book is about the urgency of action but is optimistic about change. I would really recommend it - I particularly liked its emphasis on practical action over different time frames.

29 Unpacking Queer Politics by Sheila Jeffreys
I’m trying to read more widely across different types of feminism. This looks at the lesbian feminist movement of the 1970s which was distinct from gay politics and how it was subsumed by a gay, patriarchal agenda called queer politics. There is a lengthy and highly detailed account of this queer politics in terms of sexual and political activities. Whether her view reflects those of all lesbians is highly debatable, and there were views in here that I took great issue with. That said, it was fascinating and a different way of seeing something that I don’t give much thought to much of the time.

30 Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James
This was a re-read. It’s an account of James’s childhood and adolescence in Sydney just after the war. It’s still very funny and James is his own harshest critic though it’s far more sexist than I remember. I would love to be able to write like him. It’s hard to think of anyone who can put together an anecdote with so few words and have such an impact.

Thanks, Palegreenstars. I heard Lemn Sissay on the radio promoting his book and I think he would be great to see at a Book Festival - an articulate and passionate man.

PermanentTemporary that's an interesting perspective about writing autobiographical material. I always think that anyone writing an autobiography treads a tricky line between being too private (in which case why should the reader buy the book) and being too revealing about themselves and the other real people featuring in the book. My mum appears in someone else's autobiography - she's a very private person and found it difficult to deal with.

Yes Remus, think it's called Year of Wonder. I haven't read any of her others but certainly would on the back of March.
Pepe What other 'other side of the story' books have you enjoyed? I thought Auggie & Me was a fab accompaniment to Wonder and have read Longbourn and enjoyed it but didn't entirely like the direction that the plot took, if I remember rightly.
I've started Black River by Will Dean as my next read.

On the subject of stories from another point of view, I enjoyed Nelly Dean by Alison Case which was Wuthering Heights from Nelly's POV, although the end was a bit trite. I've got Wide Sargasso Sea on my TBR list too. (Jane Eyre from POV of first wide who ends up locked in attic!)

I really liked Wide Sargasso Sea. I used to love Jane Eyre, it was one of my favourite books when I was a teenager who saw the romance between two people who were not the stereotypical handsome / beautiful main characters* as proof that I too might enjoy a great love. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't give the poor, mad wife a second thought in her own right - I actually felt sorry for Mr Rochester I think time, age and experience have helped me to reassess but the Wide Sargasso Sea definitely contributed. I do still like Jane Eyre but not as much and I definitely view it through a different lens. *

Oops not sure what is going on with the random bold text there!

I liked Longbourn too. There is a copy of The Wide Sargasso Sea somewhere in the house so I shall track that down. I recall a bit so good one which did Rebecca from another point of view - possibly Mrs Danvers? Clearly meh at best as I remember nothing.

I did enjoy a Trojan War/Odyssey phase last year - Silence of the Girls, Circe etc.

I absolutely HATED both Longbourn and Wide Sargasso Sea! The former almost bored me to death, and the latter made me furious.

Susan Hill wrote a sequel to Rebecca - Mrs de Winter - which I think got fairly poor reviews. Not sure whether that's the one you remember, though, Pepe?

In my tbr pile I've got Gaynor Arnold's Girl in a Blue Dress, which is a fictionalised memoir by the wife of a famous Victorian writer - ie Dickens's wife Catherine, whom he left (with extreme heartlessness) for the 18-year-old Ellen Ternan. Her side of the story certainly deserves to be heard - unceremoniously dumped after 20+ years and 10 children....

I didn't mind Longbourn but could never get past a few pages of Sargasso, tried to read the Rebecca "sequel" as a teenager but didn't get far

The worst one of all the one that gave me extreme rage is Death Comes To Pemberley an epically shit book that completely betrays its source material and all its characters. Not enough emojis in the world for it.

Why furious, Remus, I haven't read it, and was beginning to think maybe I should - not keen on these "written from pov of......." books which have recently come into existence. I saw them as tools for tired authors who'd run out of ideas, and so I haven't really pursued them. Mind you, I liked Circe but see that as a different sort of thing altogether.

Mrs de Winter is dreadful.

Jux I don't even like Jane Eyre* but thought Sargasso woman ruined Rochester for her own agenda and that nothing in the original justifies her treatment of him.

I've read Girl in a Blue Dress but can't remember what I thought about it. This suggests it was middling.

What about all the Shakespeare retellings? I haven't embarked on any of them either, for the same reason really.

Yes, Terpsichore, I think that was it. Eminently forgettable, at best.

I like the sound of March.

I also hated Mrs de Winter. I’m sure I’ve read another Rebecca sequel, more recent than the Susan Hill one.

Still have Wide Sargasso SeaTBR.

Jux, I've nearly finished reading The Porpoise by Mark Haddon - in my case because it's part of my mythology-themed reading this year, but it would also count as a Shakespeare retelling because it's based on Pericles.

Apologies for not updating for a couple of weeks- my mind (like everyone’s) has been on other things. However, during March, I have been conducting an experiment: only reading free books. These have included free Kindle books, library books, and Borrowbox ebooks and audiobooks. I’m still allowed to buy new ones but not to read them or listen to them.

47. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?- Jeanette Winterson I was surprised that I didn’t really enjoy Oranges are Not the Only Fruit last year, so I decided to give Jeanette Winterson another chance(!). I enjoyed this non-fiction version much more and her voice was also less grating this time.

48. The Perfect Child- Lucinda Berry I think a few 50 bookers read this last year when it was free on the Kindle. The story (about a couple who adopts a disturbed and damaged six-year-old girl) was reasonably interesting (if slightly predictable at times), but it is really not well written.

49. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets- J.K. Rowling Read by the lovely Stephen Fry.

50. To Siri with Love- Judith Newman Apologies, I have forgotten who recently reviewed this collection of articles about the writer’s autistic son, but the review piqued my interest. Like the previous poster, I also felt very uncomfortable about Newman’s view that her son shouldn’t be allowed to have children (then again, I haven’t walked a mile in her shoes). The rest of the book was interesting and, at times, humorous.

51. Prognosis- Sarah Vallance I couldn’t face The World I Fell Out Of but, bizarrely, I wanted to read this book which has some similarities. In it, Vallance describes her recovery from a brain injury sustained by falling off a horse. In the circumstances, she went on to have a remarkably successful life: she gained a PhD, had a good job, lived in several countries and had a few serious (lesbian) relationships. However she was plagued by depression, anxiety and self-doubt. I read this book in a day and found it quite fascinating.

52. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit- Judith Kerr I’d never read this when I was a child and, reading it now, I was slightly disappointed because I thought it would be a little bit more like Dogger (i.e. more about the pink rabbit!). That aside, the subject matter is handled very well.

53. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban- J.K. Rowling Another delightful Stephen Fry reading.

54. Another Forgotten Child- Cathy Glass My once-a-month guilty pleasure, the fostering memoir.

55. The Children Act- Ian McEwan Novel about a high court judge and the case of a 17 year-old Jehovah’s Witness who refuses a lifesaving blood transfusion. The story is told with great skill and it is beautifully read on the audiobook.

56. And the Ocean Was Our Sky- Patrick Ness I very much enjoyed A Monster Calls last year, but this one (about the relationship between man and whale) didn’t do much for me. However there was one line I loved, which was something like ‘I blew some water out of my blowhole in disgust’!

Stay healthy, everyone…