50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Four

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth 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, the second one here and the third one here.

What are you reading?

Thank you southeastdweller.

Thanks, South.

Again no list to bring over, as I've stopped reviewing/counting. Currently reading Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer and will probably finish it today. Not one of her best.

Thank you. And checking in. List below. Looking forward to more high quality book chat. The rest of MN has gone mad.

1 Guest House for Young Widows by Azadeh Moaveni
2 Little Women by Louisa Alcott
3 Homegoing by Yaa Gyasin
4 Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner
5 The Institute by Stephen King
6 Dracula by Bram Stoker
7 The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
8 Snowblind by Ragnor Jónasson
9 Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievicho
10 A Little Book of Language by David Crystal
11 Rewild Yourself by Simon Barnes
12 Smashing Physics by Jon Butterworth
13 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
14 Over The Top by Jonathan Van Ness
15 Rosewater by Tade Thompson*
16 Imogen by Jilly Cooper
17 We Are Made of Diamond Stuff by Isabel Waidner
18 You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy
19 Natural History of the Hedgerow by John Wright
20 Letters from an Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson
21 Christy Malry’s Own Double Entry by BS Johnson
22 Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman
23 Maid by Stephanie Land
24 The Familiars by Stacey Halls
25 People Like Us by Caroline Slocock
26 Bad Blood by Colm Tóibín
27 Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry
28 The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
29 Unpacking Queer Politics by Sheila Jeffreys
30 Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James
31 Octavia by Jilly Cooper
32 The Visitor by Lee Child
33 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

Bringing over my small list:

1. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
2. The Reason I Jump - Naoki Higashida
3. My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh
4. The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell
5. You Will Not Have My Hate - Antoine Leiris
6. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - Horace McCoy
7. Something to Live For - Richard Roper
8. From Prejudice to Pride: A History of LGBTQ+ Movement - Amy Lamé
9. 84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff

10. Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams 11. Blood Orange - Harriet Tyce 12. Those People - Louise Candlish

Thanks for the new thread. Here's my current list.

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. (3/5) 20. Red Ribbons by Louise Phillips. (1/5) 21. The Girl He Used to Know by Tracy Garvis Graves. (3/5) 22. The Other Us by Fiona Harper. (2/5) 23. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. (3/5) 24. The Crow Trap by Anne Cleeves. (3/5) 25. The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King. (3/5)

Thank you for the new thread Southeast

I haven't kept my list up to date for transfer so I won't be bringing it over this time round. I find it really interesting to see everyone's highlights.

63. The Furies - Natalie Haynes A theatre director suffers a personal tragedy and starts a new life in Edinburgh teaching drama therapy at a Pupil Referral Unit. She has one class she really struggles with so introduces them to the Greek tragedies. As they build a rapport, some in the class start to take the plays and their lessons too much to heart and start to reenact the values they are learning in their own lives.

Billed as a suspenseful page-turner, but doesn't really meet the criteria. The writing is competent and it's engaging enough to keep you going, but it lacks tension or atmosphere and only manages a so-so plot. I also find it very hard to believe someone with an out of date PGCE with no NQT year would be let loose in a PRU with no supervision (or be considered to take over from the head after a few terms). The inspiring teacher leads troubled teens to new ideas with a terrible tragedy thrown in has been done so many times over and significantly better than this.

Thanks South! Here is my list:

1. The Secrets of Blood and Bone - Rebecca Alexander
2. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
3. Identity Crisis - Ben Elton
4. Sunny Side Up - Susan Calman
5. How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids - Carla Naumburg
6. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty
7. This Book Will Change Your Mind about Mental Health - Nathan Filer
8. Damascus - Christos Tsiolkas
9. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

10. Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse - David Mitchell 11. Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams 12. Between the Stops: the view of my life from the top of the number 12 bus - Sandi Toksvig 13. Murderous Contagion: a human history of disease - Mary Dobson 14. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood 15. Other Minds: the octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness - Peter Godfrey-Smith 16. When I Hit You - Meena Kandasamy 17. Around the World in Eighty Days - Michael Palin 18. How to Find Fulfilling Work - Roman Krznaric 19. The Foundling - Stacey Halls 20. The Butchering Art - Lindsey Fitzharris 21. How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way - Tim Seldin

Currently listening to Tamed by Alice Roberts, a history of the domestication of plants (yawn) and animals (interesting) and reading The Reddening by Adam Nevill, a folk horror that is treading a fine line between scariness and silliness.

Fortuna, I read Natalie Haynes' The Children of Jocasta a couple of years ago, and found she single-handedly managed to suck all the drama out of the Oedipus legend, which is quite a feat given all the incest, suicide, self-blinding and manky unburied corpses.

1. Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman
2. Vox by Christina Dalcher
3. In Evil Hour by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. Spasm by Lauren Slater
5. Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey
6. Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders
7. Written On The Body by Jeanette Winterson
8. Lion by Saroo Brierley
9. Tony And Susan by Austin Wright

10. The Purveyor Of Enchantment by Marika Cobbold 11. Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier 12. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnett 13. Friendly Fire by Patrick Gale 14. The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro 15. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng 16. The Girl With All The Gifts by MR Carey 17. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 18. Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth 19. Touch by Claire North 20. A Year Of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman 21. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 22. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth 23. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead 24. Small Island by Andrea Levy 25. Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper 26. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff 27. Ayoade On Top by Richard Ayoade 28. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman 29. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman 30. Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge 31. My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite 32. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern 33. The Wings Of The Dove by Henry James 34. The Mirror And The Light by Hilary Mantel 35. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood 36. The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain 37. The Five by Hallie Rubenhold 38. Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Now reading : The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Oh and Thanks South

InMyOwnParticularIdiom that sounds like quite a talent! She's recently done a rewriting of the Trojan War from a female perspective, A Thousand Ships, which has made it onto the Women's Prize longlist. I've done 9 of the 16 so far, but the pandemic has put me off my stride for anything needing concentration. I can't help feel the re-writing of anything Greek has been done to death in the past few years and makes for a competetive field. I imagine this will now be bottom of the list for those left.

*competitive

Thanks for the new thread @southeastdweller.

Here's my modest list:

1.	Idiot by Laura Clery
2.	Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty
3.	Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty
4.	<strong>S</strong><strong>he Said by Jodi Cantor and Megan Twohey</strong>
5.	The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty
6.	The Holiday by T M Logan
7.	<strong>F</strong><strong>orce of Nature by Jane Harper</strong>
8.	The Secretary by Renée Knight
9.	Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
10.	<strong>T</strong><strong>he Chalk Man by C J Tudor</strong>
11.	<strong>S</strong><strong>tanding in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin</strong>
12.	The Bigamist by Mary Turner Thomson
13.	<strong>M</strong><strong>idnight at Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham</strong>
14.	Twas the Nightshift before Xmas by Adam Kay
15.	The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

Midway through another Jane Harper at the moment so will be back with thoughts on that soon!

Thanks for the new thread, southeast. Here's my list:

1. My Name is Why- Lemn Sissay
2. Damaged- Cathy Glass
3. Wonder- R.J. Palacio
4. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race- Reni Eddo-Lodge
5. Lost at Sea: the Jon Ronson Mysteries- John Ronson
6. Gotta Get Theroux This: My Life and Strange Times in Television- Louis Theroux
7. Birdsong- Sebastian Faulks
8. Lord of the Flies- William Golding
9. The Beatrix Potter Collection- Beatrix Potter

10. The Cold War: a History from Beginning to End- Hourly History 11. The Subtle Knife- Philip Pullman 12. The Amber Spyglass- Philip Pullman 13. Nine Perfect Strangers- Liane Moriarty 14. Brazil- Michael Palin 15. The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald 16. The Collector- John Fowles 17. Ready Player One- Ernest Cline 18. Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life- Peter Godfrey-Smith 19. Engleby- Sebastian Faulks 20. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure- John Cleland 21. The Boy at the Back of the Class- Onjali Q. Rauf 22. Prison: A Survival Guide- Carl Cattermole 23. The Children- Alice Meynell 24. The Year of Reading Dangerously- Andy Miller 25. This is Going to Hurt- Adam Kay 26. Mummy Told Me Not to Tell- Cathy Glass 27. The Aerodynamics of Pork- Patrick Gale 28. Aztec Civilisation: A History from Beginning to End- Hourly History 29. Cannery Row- John Steinbeck 30. La Belle Sauvage- Philip Pullman 31. War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line- David Nott 32. The Bookshop that Floated Away- Sarah Henshaw 33. The Imperial Phase: The Rise & Fall of British Indie Music 1986-1997- Ray Dexter 34. Lunch with the Wild Frontiers: A History of Britpop and Excess in 13½ Chapters- Phill Savidge 35. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind- William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer 36. Frost in May- Antonia White 37. Lyra’s Oxford- Philip Pullman 38. Scrublands- Chris Hammer 39. A History of Loneliness- John Boyne 40. Here Comes the Clown: A Stumble Through Showbusiness- Dom Joly 41. Nickel and Dimed- Barbara Ehrenreich 42. Inside Broadmoor- Jonathan Levi & Emma French 43. The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath 44. Doctor Sleep- Stephen King 45. The Lost World- Michael Crichton 46. The Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger 47. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?- Jeanette Winterson 48. The Perfect Child- Lucinda Berry 49. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets- J.K. Rowling 50. To Siri with Love- Judith Newman 51. Prognosis- Sarah Vallance 52. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit- Judith Kerr 53. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban- J.K. Rowling 54. Another Forgotten Child- Cathy Glass 55. The Children Act- Ian McEwan 56. And the Ocean Was Our Sky- Patrick Ness 57. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child- J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne 58. In the City, by the Sea- Kamila Shamsie 59. Fleabag: the Special Edition- Phoebe Waller-Bridge 60. Winston Churchill: A Life from Beginning to End- Hourly History 61. The Rehearsal- Eleanor Catton 62. The Saddest Girl in the World- Cathy Glass 63. Sal- Mick Kitson 64. It’s Not About You- Tom Rath

I've got several books on the go at the moment. On Audible, I'm listening to The Nanny State Made Me by Stuart Maconie, which is brilliant.

Thanks for the new thread. Will be back soon with my list!

I’m in the middle of Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I really enjoy her style of writing, the language is evocative, there’s a darkness hanging over the town and the people she writes about. No-one’s really happy - and yet I’m loving it.

I may have lay down in my DCs’ trampoline for an hour this afternoon to read it in the sunshine.

Thanks for the new thread @southeastdweller. Well timed as I have just finished a book!

Here's my list:

1. Autumn Term – Antonia Forest
2. Mutual Admiration Society – Mo Moulton
3. Swan Song – Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott
4. This Must be the Place – Maggie O’Farrell
5. The Bookshop – Penelope Fitzgerald
6. A Place Called Winter – Patrick Gale
7. The Reunion – Guillaume Musso
8. Black Water Lilies – Michel Bussi
9. Wilful Blindness – Margaret Heffernan
10. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos – Dominic Smith
11. The Farm – Joanne Ramos
12. The High Window – Raymond Chandler
13. The Lady in the Lake – Raymond Chandler
14. The Little Sister – Raymond Chandler
15. She Lies in Wait – Gytha Lodge
16. The Last Anniversary – Liane Moriarty
17. Bitter Orange – Claire Fuller
18. The Lost Man – Jane Harper
19. What Red Was – Rosie Price
20. Keeping an Eye Open – Julian Barnes
21. Heartburn – Nora Ephron

And my latest:

22. Crooked Heart – Lissa Evans

This was lovely. Much-reviewed on this thread and not an original plot (alone-in-the-world evacuee, initially unsympathetic parent figure) but so beautifully written. One of those books where not a word feels out of place and you just want to read phrase after phrase out to someone. The central characters were well developed and not sentimentalised, and you're really rooting for them by the end. Just the right sort of book to read at the moment. I'm going straight on to read the prequel, Old Baggage now, as I loved the suffragette back story.

Thanks so much for the thread, South - a great refuge in these troubled times. Here's my list:

1: Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym
2: The Sale of the Late King's Goods - Jerry Brotton
3: The House Opposite - Barbara Noble
4: Jacob's Room is Full of Books - Susan Hill
5: The Gathering - Anne Enright
6: The Night Fire - Michael Connelly
7: The Shadow District - Arnaldur Indriðason
8: 1939 - Frederick Taylor
9: North Korea Journal - Michael Palin
10: Clock Dance - Anne Tyler
11: The Missing Ink - Philip Hensher
12: A Very Private Eye - Barbara Pym
13: Odd One Out - Lissa Evans
14: Whistle in the Dark - Emma Healey
15: The Greengage Summer - Rumer Godden
16: Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym
17: The Lying Room - Nicci Gerrard
18: Not in Your Lifetime: The Assassination of JFK - Anthony Summers
19: Our Friends in Berlin - Anthony Quinn
20: Airhead - Emily Maitlis
21: Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane - Paul Thomas Murphy
22: Conclave - Robert Harris
23: Bring up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel
24: Me - Elton John
25: The Poison Principle - Gail Bell
26: A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell
27: A Buyer's Market - Anthony Powell
28: The Town in Bloom - Dodie Smith
29: Short Life in a Strange World - Toby Ferris

Ironically I've been busy wfh and don't seem to have much time to read. But I'm about to start a book set on the home front in WW2 by Carola Oman, and looking forward to making progress. Will report back.

Thanks for the new thread :) Just finished

42 Call Down The Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

Urban fantasy, first in a new trilogy following on from her Raven Boys series. This focuses on the Lynch brothers - middle brother Ronan, who can bring back items from his dreams, Matthew, youngest brother, dreamed by Ronan when he was a child, and oldest Declan who aims to keep his disfunctional family safe and invisible. I enjoyed this - the previous series was very much YA, but this felt more grown up in tone. It's a bit bitty in places, moving between characters & places, but I'll definitely read the next one when it comes out.

Thank you southeast.
I'm currently reading The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson.

Thank for the new thread southeast.

Bringing over my list and adding my latest read:

1. The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
2. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman

3. Once upon a River - Diane Setterfield

1. Tombland - CJ Sansom
2. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas - Agatha Christie
3. White House Farm - Carol Ann Lee
4. The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson

8. A History of Loneliness - John Boyne

1. The Last Tudor - Philippa Gregory

10. The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie 11. Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway 12. Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams 13. Pigeon Pie - Nancy Mitford 14. A Country Escape - Katie Fforde 15. Slow Horses - Mick Herron 16. Bookworm - Lucy Mangan

I have just finished:

17. Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Tyler

This is the first book in The Chronicles of St Mary’s series. I had never heard of this series until reading about them on this thread. I am struggling to focus much on reading at the moment so am avoiding anything challenging. This was a perfect book to read now as it’s bonkers, highly entertaining and not at all challenging. For those who haven’t read any - the book follows an academic institution for historians where the historians travel through time to study the period. It’s full of humour and action-packed.

My next read will be book two of the series....

Thanks for the new thread Southeastdweller

Here's my list:

1. The xenophobes guide to the English, Anthony Miall
2. Between the stops, Sandi Toksvig
3. Once gone, Blake Pierce
4. The Guilty Mother, Diane Jeffrey
5. The little book of hygge, Meik Wiking
6. It’s too late now, A.A. Milne
7. The world I fell out of, Melanie Reid
8. The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley
9. Christmas at Rachel’s pudding pantry, Caroline Roberts
10. The Patron saint of lost souls, Menna van Praag
11. The octopus nest, Sophie Hannah
12. The 50 list, Nigel Holland
13. The power trip, Jackie Collins
14. The lost child, Patricia Gibney
15. Heads you win, Jeffrey Archer
16. Titanic survivor: Life boat number 6, Pierre Beaumont
17. Sunny Side Up, Susan Calman
18. Honeysuckle House, Christina Jones
19. Double take tales, Donna Brown
20. The deal of a lifetime, Frederick Backman
21. My life in comedy, Nicholas Parsons
22. Seahouses, Richard Barnett
23. Little fires everywhere, Celeste Ng
24. A crime short story collection, Bloomsbury
25. Little girl missing, J.G. Roberts
26. The second book of general ignorance, John Lloyd (QI)
27. New Zealand calling, Alex Richards
28. Swimming with orca, Ingrid Visser
29. The sealand incident, Brent Saltzman
30. Ka Mate, Dan Coxon
31. Fresh of the boat, Simon Collins
32. New Zealand, James Boyle
33. The british colonisation of New Zealand, Charles River
34. The laughing policeman, Glenn Wood
35. Trustee from the toolroom, Nevil Shute Norway
36. The very picture of you, Isabel Wolff
37. Cop Out, Glenn Wood
38. The divine storyteller, William McCandless
39. Swell: a waterbiography, Jenny Landreth
40. If clouds were sheep, Sue Andrews
41. The telephone box library, Rachael Lucas
42. Two old fools down under, Victoria Twead
43. You’ll never see me again, Lesley Pearce
44. Keep calm and swim to France, Mark Ransom
45. Step by step, my life in journeys, Simon Reeve
46. Christmas at the lucky parrot garden centre, Beth Good
47. The MacFarlane guide to descriptive text: recommended reading whilst sitting on a glistening rock after a stroll along a gently babbling brook, Robert Macfarlane
48. Hourly Histories American Revolution
49. Squashed possums: off the beaten track in NZ Jonathan Tindale
50. All balls and glitter, Craig Revel Horwood

Thank you for the new thread southeast

I'm reading Trollope's Barchester Towers at the moment and thoroughly enjoying it. Should be finished ready to post a review tomorrow.

Thanks southeast, agree with Pepe that this may be not only the last remaining sane place on mumsnet but also on the internet.

I'm behind on both reading and posting, and have barely picked up a book in the last few weeks, but I'm not sure how quickly I'll get back into it. My lovely Mum has been very ill in hospital for the last couple of weeks and died on Thursday. I'm desparate to get lost in a book or find some comfort reads but my concentration levels are all over the place at the moment.

Bringing over my list in case anyone with similar tastes can recommend something comforting and diverting.

1. Me, by Elton John

1. Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, by Mike Isaac

3. Conviction, by Denise Mina

1. The Sober Diaries, by Claire Pooley

5. Nine Elms, by Robert Bryndza 6. Fleishman is in Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

1. The Vagina Bible, by Jen Gunter, MD

8. Long Bright River, by Liz Moore 9. The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo 10. Flash Count Diary, by Darcey Steinke

11. Class, by Jenny Colgan. Malory Towers for grown ups. Highly undemanding and mostly enjoyable.

12. Underland, by Robert McFarlane. I loved this but he could definitely find space in Pseud's Corner, and some of the comments on the last thread about his writing really made me smile. I think the Epping Forest and Paris chapters were my favourites but found the whole thing really compelling.

13. Uncanny Valley, by Anna Weiner. Bit disappointing. Good memoir about working in Silicon Valley but nothing startling. She also refuses to use real names for the most part, for example referring to Facebook as 'the social network everyone hated', which might be accurate but gets quite annoying after the first few times.

Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer

Got better in the second half, after quite a tedious opening.

I still fail to see why Heyer 's heroines insist on falling in love with men who try to strangle them etc - makes me feel very uncomfortable.

Once that was over though, and the long exposition which introduced far too many characters, this turned into quite a diverting farce, other than the three pages on dressing milord which I could have done without.

Not her best but okay for 99p and better than the appalling Powder and Patch at least.