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?

Fingersmith is one of my favourite books, but I've found the rest of her output variable. Loved The Little Stranger but found Tipping the Velvet, The Paying Guests and The Night Watch various degrees of meh, with The Night Watch being the most forgettable of those. Which may expain why you couldn't remember much about it Chessie. Speaking of meh

36. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver I'm usually a big Kingsolver fan, but this is the weakest of hers I've read. Alternating chapters set out middle class problems in America in 2016 and the 1870's, represented by a very dull set of characters, each of which seems to have been developed simply to be a mouthpiece for a certain viewpoint or demographic. The 1870s sections were particularly turgid. In an afternote, the author reveals that these were based on real events and people unearthed in a local history archive. I can see how she might have thought this provided a leap off point for a novel, but it just never really got off the ground.

It feels like a book that will focus on feeeelliiiingssss in a way that kills my interest in reading a story.

Distinct potential for this 😂

I hated The Heart Goes Last. Tripe.

Agree that for Sarah Waters its Fingersmith and The Little Stranger and the rest meh.

Paying Guests has been on my TBR for years and never drawn me in.

I'm having a clear out though so I might get done this year.

I am obviously a minority as I loved The Night Watch. Excellent descriptions of the Blitz and I thought the backwards structure made the story of the central female characters very moving.

Chessie I've just bought the Cricket St Thomas book for FIL's birthday, thank you. Perfect choice for him!

21. The Offing by Benjamin Myers

Robert, a lad of 16 goes walkabout from his County Durham village, working his way south before he has to knuckle down to being a miner. He meets Dulcie Piper by chance and their ensuing friendship changes them both.

I think I must be in the wrong mood for this because I thought it was completely forgettable. Some of the descriptions of the countryside and nature were involving and sensual. The dialogue was crap - just crap. Ive never read anything so bad in a serious novel, it was more like the kind of really bad chick lit I avoid (don't mind good chicklit). Stilted, ahistorical and raw chunks of exposition abounded. I was amazed to find the author was in his 40s; Dulcie was a terribly written character who made no sense at all. There was poetry written by one character, always a mistake, not the worst I've read but pretty pedestrian tbh. There was a suicide, obviously not all suicides are the same but i couldn't understand the actions of the person involved or the reactions of those left behind.

I feel bad about this review as I have friends who have loved this. I just might try a contemporary novel of this author as it's the appalling tin ear of the dialogue attempting to capture the past that is unbearable.

I didn't finish Nightwatch - thought it was terrible.

Keith I loved The Nightwatch too (and the BBC version), found it very moving, and like the sense that Waters is essentially writing lesbian culture back into literary history. I wasn’t as keen on The Paying Guests although I still found it readable, and enjoyed The Little Stranger but it felt a little too long. I wish her novels came with complete lists of her sources though, I’d like to be able to read more of the work she draws on: some are explicit like A Pin to See the Peepshow but others less so. I think The Nightwatch drew on Barbara Bell’s memoir Just Take Your Frock Off which I keep meaning to track down.

Museum agree totally about the Kingsolver, only one I haven't been able to finish, very disappointing.

"DNF Fingersmith. In fact DNF any Sarah Waters."

What is 'DNF'? A naughty abbreviation?

Did not finish but we could come up with a ruder version

"Cote - The Crimson Petal and the White is one of my favourite ever books! "

In that case, you'll love my review from December 2014

59. The Crimson Petal And The White - Michel Faber

This book started out really well, with original and spirited narration and fine detail about Victorian-era London, focusing on a young intellectual prostitute called Sugar. It was so promising in the beginning that I kept on reading it & hoping that something interesting would happen, even after it went downhill and died a long slow death between pages 100 and 500 or so.

I know that this book has its fans on here and I was going to hold back in my criticism for that reason, but I feel that people have a right to know just how terrible it is. The original writing style that makes the first chapter so interesting disappears into thin air shortly thereafter. The so-called intellectual prostitute (well, she can hold a conversation with men and is writing a book about a female serial killer when the reader first meets her) quickly becomes a dull, boring servant. Gives up on the book she is writing, and judging by the evidence, on all efforts to influence her fate one way or another. Becomes a helpless puppy craving her man's affection, whereas she was previously capable of discretely manipulating him for her own purposes.

894 pages of this drivel on domestic boredom, and you don't even get a story with any sort of plot Well, at least the non-existent story sort of prepares you for the shockingly inept "ending" which was so not an ending that I was puzzled when I turned the page and didn't find anything there.

Gah. I can go on but you get the message. I'm actually feeling pretty pissed off about having spent two weeks on this and can safely say that I will not be touching another Michel Faber book ever again.

Also agree regarding Unsheltered, I've never been that keen on Kingsolver as it is but this one made me decide not to bother with her again.

116. A Bit of a Stretch - Chris Atkins This is the diary of a prisoner recounting his time in Wandsworth, notorious for being one of the worst prisons in the country. He takes a broadly humourous tone throughout, but highlights the issues in the prison system which ultimately are not very funny. I found this quite heartbreaking in places as it shows a justice system that is often not very just (or effective). He freely admits he had a much easier ride coming from a middle-class and educated background and he shows a lot of sympathy for those whom the system chews up and spits out. It's eye opening and well worth a read.

Eine

Cote lots of crime, voyeurism, sex and intrigue in Fingersmith not much in the way of ‘feelings’! The Korean movie based on it, The Handmaiden, also a decent watch, definitely emphasizes the raunchier elements. If anything think Fingersmith owes as much of a debt to novels like Moll Flanders - and to the Victorian erotic novels popular at the time, the ones Grove Press specialises in republishing, A Man with a Maid is a prime example - as it does to Victorian gothic.

Recently finished books 26 and 27 (ish)

26. Slaughter in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope . Part of a series about a house sitter, Thea, who seems to get involved in a murder wherever she is staying. This time it is in the picturesque village of Slaughter. Thea’s adventures with the house’s dogs are slightly more interesting than the actual murder, even if they do involve stereotypes of gruff but caring farmer and feuds about land ownership between families who have lived hereabouts for centuries. Pleasant enough read, but not enough to pass on to a friend.Will be returning to the charity shop as soon as they reopen.

27. A zoo in my luggage by Gerald Durrell . His adventures in what is now Cameroon collecting animals for his own zoo, despite the fact he doesn’t yet have a location for said zoo. Some funny tales of the antics of these animals.

Read the first chapter of The Handmaid’s Tale and have put it down again. Not in the right place right now for anything too depressing.

Have started the final one of my mid March pre lockdown library haul. A favourite sentence in the first few pages:
He hid a scornful smile under his moustache, which was not a good hiding place.

Love the moustache line, Tas - what's the book?

20. Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens
An interesting and absorbing study of loss, loneliness and becoming so at one with an environment that one can't exist outside of it.
At the start of the book six year old Kya watches her mother walk out of her life and by the time she is ten she is completely alone, fending for herself in the marshlands of the North Carolina coast. She survives through sheer determination and ingenuity but her loneliness is palpable. She constantly searches for reasons in nature to explain why a mother would leave her young and when two young men show an interest in her she drops her defences with disastrous results.
I thought this was original and beautifully written with a great big twist at the end!

The Silence of th Girls Pat Barker
A retelling of the last year of the Trojan War from a woman's perspective.
As the war drags into its tenth year the city of Lyrnessus falls to Achilles and the Greek army. It's queen, Briseis, is taken prisoner along with all the women who have sheltered in the citadel. She has a split second to decide whether to throw herself from the rooftop but chooses to live, a choice she has cause to question when she is awarded as a prize to Achilles, the man who killed her husband and brothers. Briseis narrates the story of the fall of Troy from her position as a sex slave to Achilles, then Agamemnon, then back to Achilles, and the stories of many of the other captured women.
This is brilliant, powerful writing that pulls no punches in its depiction of the brutality and dehumanising effects of war. Some of it is very hard to read, possibly especially so if, like me, you have teenage daughters, but it speaks for all those women and girls who have suffered and are still suffering sexual violence and slavery in conflicts.

The Other Half of Augusta Hope Joanna Glen
Augusta is the clever, awkward, plain younger twin to Julia, the child who is everything her dull, conventional parents hoped for. When Spanish Diego and his family move into the street Augusta begins an obsession with escaping to Spain. Her other obsession is Burundi which she researches extensively with the plan of writing a novel set there. Meanwhile in conflict-riven Burundi Parfait is losing his family to the violence and decides to head for a new life in Spain. Their stories collide on a Spanish beach with tragic consequences for both.
This was an enjoyably easy read although it took a while to get to the point and what I thought was going to be an interesting angle on the migrant crisis never really developed in any depth.

I quite enjoyed Crimson Petal when I was reading it, but agree it didn’t go anywhere and only feel it was ok looking back.

I saw the adaptation of Tipping The Velvet by SW and didn’t really like it so that stopped me getting into her books which is maybe unfair. I just remember the odd cockney accents “Cor blimey I smell like whelks” “no my sweet you smell like a mermaid”. It had more the feel of Crimson than of Shardlake.

My recollection of Tipping The Velvet was that parts of it were quite good but then it veers off and makes weird narrative decisions, particularly the final third.

So many books seem to fuck it up in the last act or is just me?

I remember reading the first chapter of The Crimson Petal and the White and saying to my husband I thought I was reading my new favourite book. But complete agree the promise just went nowhere and the rest was dull.

I loved Crimson Petal on a personal level as the exploration of the Madonna/whore theme was very relevant to me at the time. I thought that Sugar made sense on a psychological level and loved the raw physicality of her depiction. I quite like ambiguous/'unfinished' endings in general, so that part didn't bother me, although I know it pissed off a lot of people in my book club. In the end it's the sort of book I can't assess objectively as it's one I viscerally identified with and incorporated into my personal literary landscape (struggling to find the words to express this feeling...). Completely understand that people who approached it more rationally might assess it differently!

I generally like Sarah Waters and The Little Stranger is my favourite (love the subtly ambiguous ending!); The Paying Guests was a bit substandard. I could take or leave Shardlake and only read the first two.

I'm not Cote's total opposite though: Station 11 is crap and I like Cloud Atlas.

59 Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker
The story of the Galvin family - 12 children born between 1945 & 1965, 6 of whom developed schizophrenia - intertwined with a history of research & treatment of the disease from the early 20thC to the present day. Many thanks to Eine for the review / recommendation - The Heartland by Nathan Filer was one of my top books last year, and this definitely lived up to it.

Having said that I wouldn't particularly recommend the Audible version - the reading is quite odd, and I felt sensationalised the early part of the Galvins' story with lots of meaningful pauses and inappropriately dramatic emphasis. I'm really glad I stuck with it though, an excellent book.
Just downloaded The Unthinkable as my next listen :)

Am enjoying seeing the Dick Francises popping up! I cant focus to read at the moment- all I want to do is eat- but finally finished 30 (possibly, will have to search as have lost count) Caves of Ice by Sandy Mitchell A warhammer book (no I barely have any idea what warhammer is, I'm nearly 50!), but very enjoyable despite that. Lots of weaponry and barely a feeling in sight! Second in a volume of 3 and will continue.

32. Rat Race - Dick Francis

This one centres around a pilot of a flying taxi who flies jockeys, trainers and owners between racecourses. One aeroplane explodes and one has its radio disabled - who is doing it and why? Our sleuth this time is the pilot who has become friends with one of the leading jockeys as he pilots him around the country. Another readable one.

Still reading Hemingway too ...

Its The Lacuna biblio ,