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?

I got my adult library ticket when I was about 12. I remember being so excited - I had really exhausted the children's library, and YA didn't really exist in those days. I read lots of highly unsuitable books, but my favourites at the time were Agatha Christie and Jean Plaidy - most of my dodgy history knowledge is from her books.

1. The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sheriff (1939) – this is the first book I’ve managed to get through for a while. Several hundred years after a cataclysmic event destroyed Western societies a manuscript is found by archaeologists exploring the now-abandoned United Kingdom. The manuscript dates from 1945 and is an account of the events that led to catastrophe, starting with the revelation that the moon is set to collide with the earth. Written by Edgar, a former schoolmaster now poultry farmer, and centred on his experiences, whose chance membership of the British Lunar Society gave him a unique perspective on what was about to happen. It begins as a droll story, a sort of cross between The Diary of a Nobody and something by John Wyndham (seems Sheriff was an influence on SF writers like Wyndham) but gradually things take a more sombre turn. I really enjoyed reading this one, although the ending was slightly unsatisfactory and elements of the denouement rather grating. I was also fascinated by unexpected parallels with the current crisis, people’s reactions, government policies, and Edgar turning to his childhood books for comfort, the only ones he can concentrate in his heightened anxiety. I read another of Sheriff’s novels last year, the more upbeat, gentle story of a middle-class family and their annual holiday in Bognor A Fortnight in September, which was an excellent comfort read. He seems to have been incredibly prolific, writing plays, filmscripts and novels. Although his novels have a plot, his main skill seems to be his ability to portray the everyday.

Nice to see so many people keen on Just William, I have a number of the audiobooks narrated by Martin Jarvis, we usually listen to them at Christmas but might dig them out again soon. Also have an ancient Puffin of The Growing Summer what I remember most are all the references to Lear and other books. I read a great review on Goodreads that listed all of the books and works mentioned in it.

@bettybattenburg

I was the same, might have had it unread for 5/6 years wanted to read before watching the series and in the end did neither.

I have got off to a good start with clearing the unread, but have bought so many because of this thread 🙈

I'm in good company then Eine

21. The black ice. Michael Connelly
A body is found in a hotel room and it seems to be the body of a missing cop. It looks like suicide and that suits everyone. But Detective Harry Bosch isn't so sure and starts doing his own investigation unofficially after being told to keep out of it.

Fast moving drama, not too taxing with bit romance on the side. Funny reading a book with pagers in it and without mobiles, had to check the date of publication.

11. Fleischman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
In which New York herpetologist Toby Fleishman is suddenly left solo parenting, after his estranged wife Rachel drops the kids with him before going AWOL, and is surprised and dismayed to find that being a lone parent eats into his incessant sexting time.

This was pretty tedious. I was surprised to find that Brodesser-Akner is in her mid-forties, as the portrayal of all long-term relationships as stale and joyless smacked of immaturity. This was packed full of the ridiculous first-world non-problems of keeping up with the Joneses, when the Joneses in question are Manhattan heiresses. Everyone was whingey and joyless and annoying. The final part flips the narrative to look at the marriage from Rachel's perspective, but the more feminist angle was too heavy handed to be successful. A proper wet fart of a novel.

Has anyone read Hamnet? I didn't realise the plague was in it. There is a whole rather prescient chapter about how the plague spreads across the globe. Kind of spooky!

Piggy I'll be starting Hamnet in the next few days. I'm saving it for my last of the Women's Prize longlist reads as I'm hoping it's very good. I've got to finish A Thousand Ships first.

I've been enjoying catching up on the thread, I've been on a bit of an audio binge and have a few to update.

I remember trying and failing to check out a Stephen King on a children's ticket, so my mum got it instead and got a lecture off the librarian about suitability. It also created a 'sleeping with the lights on' level of enjoyment à la Idiom.

Off to start my updates, I may be some time...

Oh, OK , no spoilers then!

Re childhood memories of going to the library, my dad was a big reader and happy to regularly deposit us in the children's library for long periods. I clearly remember a really scary older lady librarian who would fiercely demand to inspect our hands to see if they were clean before we were let loose on the books. And no sound above a tiny whisper. I loved it though.

When I was young if you were lucky enough to be given a book token for a pound you could afford eight paperback books at half-a-crown each. So exciting! My mum would try to ban us from buying Enid Blyton books but my dad insisted we could choose what we liked .. which was the right decison because we all loved reading and all moved on to more demanding stuff later. Mum detested Noddy (I totally get it now to be fair) and I think that coloured her views of all EB's output!

I was obviously lucky in the library department - not only did I get 4 tickets, even in the children's department, but my parents went to two separate libraries pretty much every Saturday (we lived on the border of two counties). Saturday morning was shopping and library no. 1, Saturday afternoon usually either a walk or a trip to the tip & library no. 2

I grew up on a council estate in the 1960s and 1970s and although I certainly wasn't an abused or neglected child my family didn't go anywhere and my mother had a daily routine of housework that she stuck to rigidly , so in the holidays and at weekends her children were in the way. The library was my happy place and even now I always relax and feel comforted in a library.
25 The Age of Light Whitney Scharer . Told exclusively from her point of view this novel tells the story of Lee Miller and Man Ray's love affair against a richly described backdrop of the artistic scene of Paris in the late 1920s. There are also brief sections about her time in Germany as a photographer and reporter during the 2nd world war and at the end of her life .Fascinating description of a flawed and fragile woman struggling to find a way of being true to herself and her work but I found it a challenging read as there was so much unhappiness and destructive behaviour.

highlandcoo I never could get on with the tv casting - I have very clear ideas of Siegfried and Tristan because I’m in love with them and they don’t hit the spot.

Thanks boiledeggandtoast - I know it’s not a regular occurrence, I must have worried him. It did help.

Thanks keith I’m hoping I’ve turned the corner now as have started reading the James Herriot to myself. And thanks for the heads up re: Absolute Beginners been waiting for that to be reasonable for ages!

biblio your daughter and the unlimited visits made me laugh - they’ve no idea! The library we go to is massive and busy and mine know not returning week after week to the same small shelf, hoping for something new. I remember getting the grown up ticket, I believe I went straight for Stephen King.

I loved the library mostly because it had free books, you didn't have to wait for a birthday to get a book token or anything. No unsuitable reading was allowed though, my parents were strict evangelical Christians and any horror fiction was absolutely banned (I don't read a lot of it now, but still get a subversive pleasure from it).

When I was 12 or so I borrowed a book of vampire short stories from a friend and hit it in a drawer, but my mum was the sort to go through drawers (and read diaries) so that was futile. At about the same age I had to hide the fact we were reading The Witches in English lessons.

I was reading Bernard Cornwall's Sharpe novels openly by that age though. Because inflicting violent injury on the French was apparently unproblematic, and anyway my mum fancied Sean Bean.

turnofthescrew good review of Fleishman and eine I am in the same spot as betty re: Capital and it’s kind of made me want to read it.

sadik a trip to the tip and library no2, cheers to that, a pretty good weekend as I remember.

blackcountryexile same - if ever I don’t know what to do with myself or have something bad happen I always end up in the library.

We were allowed six books at a time when I was a child. My kids are allowed twenty!

It’s Sean Bean’s birthday today inmyownparticularidiom. Don’t ask me why I know, ok.

Another Sean Bean fan here my (male) friend even sent me a message today reminding me that it's his birthday!

54. Bizarre England - David Long

A 'dip in' type book of fascinating facts. Would have been more fascinating if it had been more precise. Says helpful things about 'this was the longest tunnel' or similar but then doesn't give the length. Grrrr.

I definitely didn't hate it @SatsukiKusakabe

"Enjoyable, easy, yet flawed" is accurate

I was basically brought up by my library and the books in it

YounghillKang funny you should mention The Hopkins Manuscript, I picked it up a couple of weeks ago and started it, then got a bit sidetracked. It did seem to have parallels to the current situation that were perhaps a little close for comfort - maybe that's why I put it to one side, but I must try again.

Until reading the intro I hadn't appreciated that, after the smash hit of Journey's End, RC Sherriff had struggled to repeat his success until he got his second wind and ended up as a highly-sought-after Hollywood scriptwriter.... Goodbye, Mr Chips was one of his, or at least, he co-wrote it.

(Love the library reminiscences btw - how well I remember those cardboard tickets. I outread the childrens' section too and was allowed free access to the adult library from about 11. Gosh, I read some shockers, now I come to think of it!).

Apologies for the mammoth update. I've realised in the past 2 years with a significant increase in reading volume that I don't put the same time into reviews as I used to. I also worry about spoilers, so only say the bare bones. I really appreciate the reviews here and it does influence my choices as I respect the opinions.

Some of these were part of my quest to read the Women’s Prize Longlist before the Shortlist is announced (22nd). I have 2 left. I’ve put WPLL next to the relevant ones.

72. Dominicana - Angie Cruz WPLL Set in 1965, a 15 year old Dominican girl is married off to an older man in the business interests of the two families. He takes her to the US where she has to navigate being married to a controlling man she doesn’t love and the difficulties of being an immigrant. Meanwhile at home political unrest makes life difficult for her family.

I can’t say I was overly bothered by this. I didn’t have any thoughts of not finishing it, but got to the end and thought, “what was the point of that?” It kept throwing in political references (assassination of Malcolm X / political issues in Dom.Rep.) but doesn’t really do anything with them. Ultimately this was an uninteresting love story in the guise of something meatier that it failed to deliver.

73. Actress - Anne Enright WPLL The daughter of an Irish theatre legend traces the career of her mother and reflects on their difficult relationship over the years.

Of all the Women’s Prize Longlist, this is the one I was least enthused about reading. It didn’t sound very interesting. I was then awed by a masterclass of writing from an author at the top of her game. Written as a stream of consciousness, this was a subtle exploration of fame, Irishness and mother-daughter relationships. The type of book you close slowly.

74. Fleishman Is in Trouble - Taffy Brodesser-Akner WPLL
    Reviewed upthread by TheTurnOfTheScrew and I have nothing further to add as I completely agree. It does not deserve the hype it is getting.

75. Weather - Jenny Offill WPLL

The fleeting scattered thoughts of a librarian trying to juggle her commitments to her own family while meeting the demands of her wider family and a new job for an old mentor working on a climate change podcast.

Written in very short paragraphs of a few sentences each that jump from topic to topic, this jigsaw puzzle of a book leaves you piecing together the wider picture. I was very sceptical of the writing style and content at the start and completely won over by the end. Strange, fragmented , charming, captivating. I loved this. The author does something experimental that appears effortless rather than contrived.

76. How We Disappeared - Jing-Jing Lee WPLL A young woman in wartime Singapore is forcibly taken from her family to become a ‘Comfort Woman’ for Japanese soldiers. She survives but then has to deal with the secrecy, shame and stigma when she returns to her family. A harrowing but sensitive account of the lives of women during the Japanese occupation and the effect it had for their entire lives.

I wouldn’t use enjoyed for this, but it was very readable and tells an important story of the rape of women in war that is often overlooked. This one will stay with me for a long time.

77. Saltwater - Jessica Andrews Coming of age of a working class girl from Sunderland. Escaping poverty and a difficult home life she strikes out for London as a student to make more of herself but finds life in the capital a far cry from the dreams she had. Disenchanted with it all, she returns home to find she no longer fits in their either. Later she travels to rural Ireland for a funeral and reflects on what home means.

Another fragmented narrative in short sections. This is so well observed and captures that difficult, awkward, transitional period of life perfectly. The fish out of water feeling of being northern and poor and evaluating your worth in a world predisposed to look down on you for it. The urge to get out vs the pull of home. Raw and realistic, the portrayal of the north-east in the mid to late 00s is bang on. The writing is lyrical and the imagery is stunning. The real internal churning of the young adult mind, there is no pretentious navel gazing wankery here, just pure northern soul. I loved it.

78. Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS - Azadeh Moaveni Non-fiction. Covering events from the Arab Spring to present, this looks at the social and political climate in various countries that led to 13 young women from around the world joining ISIS. It gives their accounts of life in Syria, what led them there and the aftermath of their decisions.

This was very readable. It does jump around a lot from person to person as she builds an overall picture and timeline interweaving their stories with events. Very well written, meticulously researched and absolutely fascinating.

79. Unsheltered - Barbara Kingsolver I don’t have it in me to recount this and I am astounded I finished it. A very preachy tour of the author’s thoughts on modern day American life and society in the guise of a novel. The subtlety of a brick to the head. I’m not a particular fan of Kingsolver as a person and this has cemented my feelings. I don’t think I’ll bother again.

I did not finish Outline - Rachel Cusk at 46%.

A writer goes to Athens in the summer to teach a writing course and recounts the life stories of the people she meets.

I think I may have spectacularly missed the point of this as the finer elements of it sailed directly over my head. I was bored by this, really bloody bored.

I am always bored by Rachel Cusk, Fortuna. I never seem to learn, and approach each book of hers with some kind of enthusiasm, before abandoning it or slogging through to the end. Couldn’t tell you anything about any of them. People seem to get randomly angry with their middle class lives and have unfathomable existential angst in London suburbs. Balham, I reckon...

Although not always, it would appear from your review. Sometimes the angst happens in Athens. See, I can’t even concentrate on a review of Rachel Cusk.

Balham, I reckon just made me snort. A comic poem in just three words.