50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Five

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth 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, it's not too late to join, 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, the third one here and the fourth one here.

How're you getting on so far?

110. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland - Patrick Radden Keefe
     This looks at the murder of a widowed mother of 10 who was disappeared by the IRA. It covers the broad history of the Troubles and the key players on the Republican side. It isn't and doesn't claim to be a comprehensive history and duly notes that it is one sided for the purpose of looking at this case. It is a fascinating snapshot of time. It's a hard and emotive read in places if you have any skin in the game (I'm half Irish from a mixed Cath/Prod marriage). The research is meticulous and the result is very well done.

111. Absolution by Murder - Peter Tremayne
     Essentially Cadfael but nuns in the 7th Century. It was ok, but I think I need to try another before I could decide whether to read the whole series.

112. The Rise of Darkness (Serrailler #3) - Susan Hill
     A number of children have been reported missing and there is finally a lead in the case. More of her detective series. I can't decide if I like these or not, but they are an easy go to for a bit of mindless entertainment.

113. The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places - Neil Oliver
     It's a good few years since I jettisoned the TV, but I did used to enjoy Coast. This is by the long haired Scottish presenter who looks at he history of the British Isles and chooses places that are historically relevant. It's a bit geological at the start as he works chronologically and looks the formation first, but soon broadens into a really interesting look at time and place. I think it might be better suited to dipping in and out of rather than reading straight, but it was really well done.

114. The Secretary - Zoe Lea
     School gate drama after the school secretary unwittingly sleeps with the husband of the head of the PTA. Book club read that makes Dan Brown look like a literary giant. I wouldn't have touched this with a barge pole otherwise and politeness dictated I finish it. Thankfully such basic writing meant it could be finished very quickly.

115. Everyday Sexism - Laura Bates
     A reread as mentioned above. I think this was a really important project that asked ordinary women to record the sexism they encounter on a daily basis. This is a hard one to stomach when you realise how much worse things seem to be now for girls, teens and young women even compared to the 80/90s and getting more dire by the day. As discussed just above, Lena Dunham's Girls does nothing to make you wish you were 20 and dating again. I did find parts a bit eye-rolly this time around as my own feminism is getting increasing radical and I find the more liberal feminists in need of waking up. Still a good book well worth a read.

Going to Hay for the festival is one of my dreams

I've been very lucky Fortuna to go five or six times. Not for over five years now as I felt it was getting really huge and recently I've gone to Edinburgh instead. To be surrounded by authors and books .. it's just the best thing and I'd rather do that than have a fancy beach holiday any time.

I sometimes find SF a bit much but having heard both you and a friend IRL saying his talk was great I'll try to watch it tonight while it's still available.

24. Hurricane Season – Fernanda Melchor

This no holds barred account of present day Mexican life will certainly not be for everyone, but I quite liked it. This reminded me very much of The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zeran, another book which does not pull its punches, and then I realised both books had the same translator Sophie Hughes who does an excellent job on each text. Both books have also been shortlisted for The Man Booker International Prize, in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

In Hurricane Season the writer focuses on the violent demise of “the witch” a mysterious, eccentric individual who operates on the fringes of village life, offering traditional cures and remedies and hosting drug and drink fuelled parties for local teenagers. The same story is told from several different view points, and with each chapter the connections between the characters are revealed. The subject matter is grim beyond grim, this is a world full of poverty, violence, and crime including child abuse.

The style is probably a bit marmite, long, stream of consciousness type paragraphs, with minimal punctuation which convey a kind of breathless urgency. I struggled to read this at the start of the lockdown as my concentration wasn’t up to it, but picking it up again recently I found I could appreciate the vibrant, propulsive quality of the writing which most definitely suited the subject matter. I was undecided about this book until the very last chapter which very cleverly put everything that had gone before it into context and it all suddenly made sense. Not for the faint of heart or easily offended, this book gave my brain a bracing work out and left me full of admiration for the writer’s skill.

Eine funnily enough, I have a second hand copy of The Memory Of Love by Aminatta Forma from many years ago gathering dust on the top shelf. I'm not sure why, but I've just never really fancied reading it, and I'm usually really strict with myself, at least attempting to read a book if I've bought it!

I also recently started The Gathering by Anne Enright, which I'm ashamed to say a kind colleague purchased for me in 2007 when I was on maternity leave. As 2007 marked the start of a long period of sleepless nights with my new daughter, I forgot all about it - until now. And you know what, it's actually pretty good, if a little yellow around the edges from being on the bit of the shelf that gets the sun in the morning.

Hay has been on my bucket list for years too, but I looked in to how to get there on public transport from here and it was a ballache and a half.

Yeah its weird Indigo Salt how those two books (Derby Day too) just sat there and sat there.

I just never had the inclination

Then after 2 years of not being well enough to read, this year was my year of getting back in to it.

To be honest in both cases it was less of a hobby "I'll read this" then a chore "I need to tick this off, and have done"

And I think thats why its taken so long because reading should never be a chore.

31. Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim

This is set in Virginia in the 1850s, and is the story of slave Mattie who has to leave her baby son to act as a wet nurse for Elizabeth, the new-born baby daughter of the white family who owns the plantation. Despite coming from different worlds, Elizabeth and Mattie, develop a very close beyond that deepens as Elizabeth gets older. Mattie dreams of freedom and Elizabeth is part of the world she is trying to escape but their connection is a lasting one.

I rattled through it pretty quickly, easy to read and a good story. I think the realities of the brutality that the slaves had to live with were sanitised somewhat, but it was gritty enough to believable and at 270 pages it was pretty short and it could have been longer to be honest (there are not many books I say that about). It could have developed the other character more deeply, such a the tories of the other slaves, the other members of the white community etc.

But no complaints really, a good read.

I’ve never been to the festival but we’re just over an hour from Hay and normally make a couple of short trips every year. We usually go for my birthday at Easter and for our anniversary later in the year. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed it this year.

Currently reading Ellie Griffiths - The Zig Zag girl set in Post war Brighton. Detective Edgar Stephens and Magician Max Mephisto were part of the Magic Men during the war, conjuring up illusions to fool the enemy. Their past comes back to haunt them when a girl’s body is delivered in boxes to the police station. Very good so far. Nothing like the Dr Ruth Galloway series (which I love) but enjoyable.

20. Melville by Rose Tremain
Melville, a doctor of Charles II's court, faces the later part of his life and its various losses and struggles. He is torn between stil hoping for improvement in his circumstances (eg by gaining a place at court in Versailles) and trying to prevent losses (such as his daughter Margaret).

I absolutely loved this despite never having read Restoration - Melville is the sequel. I cried actual tears and laughed too. The 17th century dialogue and setting are wonderfully done. The structure and plot aren't as successful but I felt reflected Melville's increasing loss of purpose. Makes me want to read Montaigne again.

40: The Benefit of Hindsight - Susan Hill

A return for Simon Serrailler, Lafferton's most middle-class copper (exclusive flat in a cathedral close, sells his art through a London gallery, has a weakness for Laphroaig) - this time minus an arm, but with a spiffy bionic replacement. However, he's also experiencing panic attacks which, in typically lofty fashion, he refuses to acknowledge.

A series of professional, targeted burglaries has Serailler and his team stumped, while his sister, saintly doctor Cat, settles into her new job as a private GP, giving Susan Hill an opportunity to ride her pet hobbyhorse, the iniquities of the NHS GP system and the 'surprisingly affordable' alternative of her fictional 'Concierge Medical' (though, as in the last book, people are still whisked into good old A&E when there are medical emergencies). There's a strange, dull sub-plot involving a baby.....and..er...that's pretty much it, really. Except that everyone drinks epic amounts of coffee.

The 10th book in this series and very much not its finest hour, I feel.

Terps I don't know why the Serrailer books are quite so moreish considering that they are so awful. I would quite happily throw the whole Serrailer family into the sea (except maybe the grumpy dad who is a good character albeit an unpleasant person) and as for the varied lower class characters from the estate who people the books, the less said about them (and the author's opinions on them) the better. But I've read about six of them so far and in time, no doubt, will sit down with the one you've just described and love-hate it like the others.

There are 10 extra 99p books on the Kindle deal this morning. Fingersmith is worth it for anyone who hasn't yet read it and would like rollicking historical fiction well done. Does anyone recommend any of the others?

Wow I’ve never seen a Sarah Waters on the 99p sale and Fingersmith is one of my favourite books. The only other that looks interesting to me is A Man Called Ove which I’ve heard good things about.

I do feel a tremor of fellow feeling with the Serrailer triplet who escaped to Australia. If Simon and Cat were my siblings,. I'd relocate too. But I will probably still read the next one.

Ha! Spot on description of the Serrailer books Terpischore.

Do I want to read Fingersmith or is it just going to annoy me?

Keith I know, and yet I keep reading them.....

Who was it on here who coined the expression 'hate-read'? Though to be fair I wouldn't say I hate the books, just mentally grit my teeth when Hill is grandly dismissive of the NHS, or the oh-so-handsome, oh-so-heartless Simon messes around with another unsuspecting woman's affections. Or the coffee-pot comes out yet again ('Kenyan or Colombian beans?').

I'm baffled by Simon's apparent irresistibility.

And it should be Ethiopian beans.

Speaking of hate read, I bought the Candace Bushnell book in the daily deal. I expect to dislike it in an invigorating way.

Lots of Animal Farm quotations on Twitter today. My favourite being:

Napoleon himself was not seen in public as often as once in a fortnight. When he did appear, he was attended not only by his retinue of dogs but by a black cockerel who marched in front of him and acted as a kind of trumpeter, letting out a loud "cock-a-doodle-doo" before Napoleon spoke

Fingersmith is ace, but not if period pieces are not your thing Cote

Piggy

Very apt Piggy

Regarding the 10 'extra' 99p books - I loved A man called Ove.

Am tempted by Fingersmith....

I really enjoyed the Donald Crowhurst book that's 99p today. Quite technical in places but, like Into the Wild, it investigates the mindset of people who try to pull off great feats of self-reliance within a hostile natural environment whilst knowing they're woefully (and, in both cases, fatally) underprepared.

20. Sing, Unburied, Sing – Jesmyn Ward Much recommended on this thread last year, if I recall correctly. This kept me spell-bound from start to finish but can’t say I ‘enjoyed’ reading it. Wrong book, wrong time for me. I’ve had some rubbish news about my Mum’s health and so was overly focused on this part of her novel. Having said that, I loved what she did with her story-telling and was totally rooting for many of the characters and their damaged souls. Would definitely read more by her at a later date.

Currently reading Inventing Ourselves - The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain and am not bowled over so far.

@piggy

Though iirc there was only one Squealer in the book and now we’re absolutely crawling with them.