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?

16. The Fox by Frederick Forsyth

Another good book by this author, which tells the story of a teenage hacker with Asperger's Syndrome who is caught breaking into NSA in the US, and then secretly employed (deployed!) by UK government against Iran and North Korea instead of being extradited to the US to face charges.

It seems to be based on the true story of UK hacker Lauri Love, and highlights the missed opportunity of how such a genius could be used to work for UK interests rather than prosecuted to appease the US.

As in all Forsyth books, there is ample political background on the conflicts that make up the plot, concise and well-written as in all his other books.

What did you buy, mackerella? I love a book haul.
Sadik, I forgot that you had read Christy Malry. It’s quite something, isn’t it? If I wasn’t trying so hard to read the books on my current TBR pile I’d be exploring more BS Johnson.
And palegreenstars, you are so right about King. There is a lot that is problematic about his writing and his books are far too long and meandering but...there is something about them, particularly The Stand that get under your skin in a way that few other books do.

17. Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovski

This was brilliant An augmented human/dog hybrid created for war is the unreliable narrator of this surprisingly good story. Through his eyes, we see the wars he is deployed in and the legal aftermath where he gets to play a part, his camaraderie with the other hybrid creatures in his squad (Bees, Dragon, Honey), his instinctive devotion to the human Master, the recognition of hybrids as conscious beings, and the brave new world that starts to emerge when the chips and programs that are used to control hybrids are directed to humans.

I loved this book and I loved the narrative voice which was perfect for Rex, the augmented war dog/hybrid struggling for independence of thought and action. I loved the lack of drama despite the subject matter and bloody scenes discussed, and the deep issues raised that warrant serious discussion for our collective future.

Highly recommended.

mackerella I see you’ve listed The Constant Nymph - I’d not heard of it but coincidentally was listening to the new Backlisted podcast episode on it last night. It was very good.

31. Idaho by Emily Ruskovich

This is the author's debut novel, and I was mostly very impressed. It's told in fragments, jumping around in time, which can annoy me, but it fits with the fact that one of the main characters has early onset dementia. There are several mysteries at the heart of the story, some of which are explained to some extent; others are not. I read it without knowing anything about the plot, which I think is the best way so I've deliberately not included any spoilers although I think some of the developments appear in the blurb.

The writing is beautiful, both in describing the setting (on a mountain in Idaho with a lot of WEATHER), and particularly in its portrayal of siblings playing together; their little squabbles and the way they resolve them. I felt at times as though one of the central female characters (Ann) was a bit of a cipher for the rest of the story, which I think is deliberate, but at times I wanted to know and understand more about her rather than her relationship to everyone else. The only other potential quibble I have (and I can't decide whether it's a quibble or not) is that the writing was at times so fragmentary that the book started to feel dreamlike in quality. Again, I think this may have been deliberate, but there were points where it didn't really work for me.

Anyway. I definitely recommend this, but there are some tough themes in there so you may want to check out the blurb spoilers before plunging in.

There's something about the title The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes which pushes my buttons and makes me want to throw the book out of the window

Not disagreeing with you there Keith. The title tells you all you need to know.

My elderly neighbour is really sweet and was excited to lend me it so I had to read it. When I went to return the book to her I took her some scones I'd baked, which is exactly what a character in The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes would do

Ah, I see it's the same author who wrote The Keeper of Lost Things in which, if I remember rightly, a crotchety but good-hearted elderly widower, a manic pixie dream girl assistant and a smiley and wonderful person with Down Syndrome find sentimental items from people's lives and return them to them for no reason. That may not quite be exactly what happened. I think someone lent it to me and I read it to be polite, much like you, Coo.

It made me come over all Cote and long for a book with lots of science, no women and definitely NO FEELINGS :)

keith That description of Keeper almost sounds like a spoof but also something my Mum would love. I might get it for her. She swapped my copies of Old Baggage and Crooked Heart for an elderly neighbour’s sack of old Mills and Boon. I feel a bit like Jack’s Mum when she was presented with the magic beans. And my mum has been sadly crossed off my list of people I will lend books to.

TBF I don't think it was terrible if that's the sort of book you like. It's certainly been very popular, and I don't mind if other people want to read books that I don't like :)

But I do understand you banning your mother from any future book swaps, Satsuki ! Is there anything worse than being gifted a bag of second hand books and discovering that you don't want to read ANY of them?

Yes it is disappointing and the worst part is the lady didn’t even want or expect anything in return, was just offloading, but my mum felt like she ought to give something so chose the two books I’d recently lent her and told me afterwards

Yasss Keith I totally agree about twee titles, and Wife or Daughter titles and pointed Holocaust reference titles.

39. Heaven, My Home, Attica Locke

This was fabulous. A young boy goes missing in rural Texas; the 9-year-old son of white supremacists. Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is sent out to join the local police, as his team in Houston are investigating hate groups and hope they might pick up some evidence. Darren is black, Trump has just been elected into the White House and the whole area is seething with suspicion and potential racial violence.

There are so many layers here which make it a great read. Darren himself, who is a typical flawed noir detective (drinking problem, rocky marriage), but who brings his own racial prejudices into the mix. The nasty small-town atmosphere, the politics, the history with its ghost stories of escaped slaves and boats going missing in the local swamps. Locke paints this world beautifully, pulling in music and food and avoiding cliché to twist the reader's sympathies and suspicions despite the presence of an very obvious "baddie".

There's a lovely review in the Guardian which sums up how much Locke has packed into her story:

It is buttressed by passages of gorgeous lyricism, with loving, elegiac evocations of Texas set alongside extended meditations on displacement, reconciliation and forgiveness, and on what “home” means in a place where it’s an idea you can’t “exactly touch”. In some scenes there’s an old African American spiritual playing in the background, an anthem of resistance from which the novel takes its name: “I make heaven my home, I shall not be moved.” Locke suggests that being black in America has meant a constant, disorienting search for terra firma, fighting to claim some piece of the “fields and prairies that we once tilled until our backs broke and bled”, and that this feeling has returned with terrible urgency, or perhaps that it never left.

Oh and The Profession Of Location books can fuck off as well

And anything called The Little Teashop By The Buttercup Meadow or similar.

The Little Beach Cupcake Cafe

The worst title I currently have on my TBR is The Interestings and one of my most hated titles ever is When God Was A Rabbit though I seem to remember quite liking the book in the end.

I was going to mention When God Was A Rabbit - it was that one that made me swear off twee titles for good.

I ended up liking When God Was A Rabbit enough to get A Year Of Marvellous Ways which I read this year.

Explosion in the Twee Factory. Dire.

Not Just annoying titles but covers. How many books have a cover with a woman holding a suitcase with her back to the camera?

The Little Chocolate Shop at sea shell cove at the end of Cherry Tree Lane Vom.

@keith I read that as The Little Beefcake Cafe which sounds comparatively better.

I read A Year Of Marvellous Ways and thought "Joan Didion", which isn't right (I think A Year Of Marvellous Ways was the one with the old lady in Cornwall, right?) but shows that good books can have titles like woman-holding-suitcase books.

And on that note I am off to read Little Cornwall Bookshop for the Broken-Hearted by Camus and The Grave-Digger's Sister by Toni Morrison.

It's literal Keith, the old woman is actually called Marvellous Ways... 🤮

Palegreen How many books have a cover with a woman holding a suitcase with her back to the camera?
She's always in colour walking into a b&w street. I've officially sworn off these after being burned a few too many times. I think someone put a link up a few years ago on here about there only being about 7 variations of book cover meaning you very definitely can judge a book by its cover.

124. The Foundling - Stacey Halls Mid 1700s, an unmarried mother leaves her baby at a foundling hospital and returns 6 years later to claim her only to find someone else already has.

Readable enough for this sort of thing. The first half was better than the second.

125. St Clare's Collection - Enid Blyton Moralistic jolly lacrosse sticks boarding school stories. Very tied up with being the 'right sort' ie not plain, fat, lazy or poor.

I'm counting the 6 as one for my total purposes as they are a very quick read individually. I loved these as a kid and goodness knows how many times I reread them. I did enjoy them this time round from a nostalgic point of view, but they have definitely aged.

A lone voice for little cupcake cafe with bookshop included on remote island in or off Scotland or Cornwall type books here. I am rather a fan of Jenny Colgan. Love a bit of romantic escapism.
I don’t like anything with ‘Wife’ or ‘Daughter’ in though.