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?

I'm delighted (but not surprised) that there are so many Middlemarch fans. TimeforaGandT don't be ashamed - I reached 59 before I finally read it! It is thick, but once I started, I found it hard to put down.

Gosh Fortuna I really feel for you about your garden, especially at this time of year. What a mad thing to do.

Thanks for the new thread @southeast

1. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
2. Bookwormby Lucy Mangan.
3. Educated by Tara Westover. Bestselling memoir of a wo
4. The Nickel Boys by Colson
5. Finding Jenifer Jones by Anne Cassidy

6. The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer. 7. Me by Elton John.

1. Black Car Burning by Helen Mort.
2. The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein.

10. Conviction by Denise Mina. 11. In The Woods by Tana French. 12. when the wind Blows by Raymond Briggs. 13. Girl, women, other by Bernadine Evaristo. 14. Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg. 15. Dominicana by Angie Cruz. 16. Wolf hall by Hillary Mantel 17. Blue Monday by Nicci French 18. Its not ok to feel blue (and other lies) by Scarlett Curtis. 19. Adults by Emma Jane Unsworth. 20. Bridget Jones’ Diary Helen Fielding. 21. Bring Up the Bodies Hilary Mantel. Reread. I loved it. 22. A thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. This was a book about the end of the Trojan war and the fate of the characters (Gods and Mortals alike) told from the perspective of the women. The author narrated the audio and much of my opinion may be coloured by her performance which was terribly amdram. All of the women had the same slightly sarcastic tone which felt too modern. The letters to Odysseus from Penelope were particularly naff. The core stories of these characters are absorbing so it does read easily and I could feel the authors love for them but the writing was so weak.

Still working my way through physical copies of The Stand and TMATL. I had such confidence on reaching 100 books this year but think 50 may be a struggle now.

Thanks highland and sorry you’ve been run down too best.

fortuna that’s awful. We have only a small garden but I’ve never been more grateful for it and it is such a solace. Hope you can salvage something.

timeforagandt Middlemarch begins quite slowly but rewards perseverance through the first 100 pages.

And the great thing about books is they wait for you whenever you’re ready. I began reading it on my first maternity leave because I had the time for it and finished it weeping, holding a newborn.

Thanks Sadik thats actually quite a saving.

I'm currently on a three month £3.99 plan so I'll switch when that changes.

Thanks Satsuki - I would normally save a fat book which is not on kindle for my summer holiday - but not sure I am going to get one of those!

That’s good to hear Boiledegg - I like to think I appreciate the classics more now that I am older than if I had read them as a teenager!

Done it.

Just for anyone in the same boat, if you have a £7.99 monthly sub that's £95.88 per year for 12 credits doled out at 1 a month

The 12 book sub is 12 credits immediately for £69.99

Just good financial sense

God Fortuna I think I'd kill him!

Does he ordinarily trespass on to other peoples property and savage their garden and call it a favour or does he save it for you?

Fortuna what on earth was your neighbour thinking? Honestly I'd be tempted to report him for criminal damage. Have a stale, maggot riddled [biscuit[ for him.

fortuna, just why? What an odd neighbour you have! I hope you sort your garden.

Eine apparently he's done everyone else's and they've been grateful!

He asked if he could jetwash the path as he has a new pressure washer thingy and I didn't see the harm in that. He has then interpreted this as permission to do what he wanted. How anyone could think an antirrhinum about a week off flowering is a weed I do not know. He still thinks he's done me a favour. Des I have been feeling murderous about it and Betty I'm mentally putting that maggoty biscuit through his letterbox.

Thanks all for the commiserations, I was feeling a bit ridiculous at being so emotionally invested in it, but it's something my elderly mother and I do together as gardening is a real passion for her and a lot of planning went into it. The back is just a yard with a few pot and planters so the front is my only garden garden. I've put some stuff back in but it's 50/50 whether it will take. Another neighbour has split some bedding plants for me to help fill it back up. I only went out to take a friend to an emergency referral appointment that was given for next day and she couldn't get a taxi at such short notice.

I've abandoned Ian Mortimer's Outcasts of Time but may go back to it at another point. I'm now on Jonathan Pie's Off the Record which is full of rage and sweary ranting about politics so it's helping.

Palegreen I was so grateful to read your review of A Thousand Ships. I am still baffled that it made the shortlist for the Women's Prize and was starting to think I must have missed something.

Fortuna it's not at all ridiculous to feel upset. My son did something similar last year when he massacred my twenty-year-old honeysuckle that a friend's elderly dad had brought from his garden in Scotland as a tiny cutting. It looked like dead branches during early spring and my son genuinely thought he was being helpful, and felt awful when he saw I was horrified and close to tears.
Garden centres and nurseries may be open soon hopefully although I know that new plants are not the same when you've worked hard to make it lovely already. What a pillock.

People who interfere under the guise of being helpful just can’t be stopped fortuna. A friend of mine has a neighbour who regularly pops in to mow her lawn without asking and it makes her feel quite unsettled. Our little garden is a much needed source of conversation apart from anything else at the moment, we all look out at it and talk about what roses are out and if the sage looks like it’s about to flower.

highlandcoo my husband attacked my honeysuckle similarly the other year, decimated it and I had a similar reaction. It fought back though and so we remain married.

I’m sorry to hear about your garden Fortuna

It’s such an intrusive and odd thing to do.

One of PIL’s next door neighbours once cut a hole in their hedge - while PILs were on holiday - so that he could use their garden as a short cut. They were very very angry about that.

I still haven’t forgiven DH for doing similar to a clematis twenty years ago and in a different garden. I would be furious too.

Just popping by to commiserate with Fortuna. My garden is a real solace at the moment; I'd be so upset I'd feel sick with rage, so I can understand your distress - I do hope you salvage things. At least you can be sure it will renew itself, even if not as originally planned.

But I hope the officious prat understands he mustn't try the same stunt ever again

Good God Fortuna. I came on here to post my list for the new thread but have been completely sidetracked by that news about your poor garden. What on earth was he thinking? It's not remotely ridiculous of you to be upset. I'd be livid. Hopefully you can salvage something from the mess. If not, dig out a new border and bury him in it.

Fury at Fortuna's garden aside..

Thanks for the new thread south.

It's lovely to see all the Middlemarch love. I read it for the first time last year and thought it was completely wonderful. I had no idea what to read afterwards. I eventually decided I needed something wildly different and so went for Jurrasic Park

Also, Audible is bloody marvellous. I have had a very long commute for the last couple of years and it has got me through. I'm on their 24 books a year subscription, which is £109.99, working out at £4.58 per credit. Money very well spent as I practically live on the M4. 24 is nowhere near enough for the year but it's the most they do, so I top it up with their sales (lots of 2 for 1 and 3 for 2 deals throughout the year) and my library's app.

Here's my list so far:

1. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
2. The Body, Bill Bryson
3. The Man Who Was Thursday, G. K. Chesterton
4. Dishonesty is the Second Best Policy, David Mitchell
5. A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle
6. The Sign of Four, Arthur Conan Doyle
7. Notes From a Small Island, Bill Bryson
8. The Lost Man, Jane Harper
9. A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson

10. The Dutch House, Ann Patchett 11. The Girl With All the Gifts, M. R. Carey 12. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle 13. The Year of Reading Dangerously, Andy Miller 14. The Return of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien 15. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J. K. Rowling 16. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling 17. Mr Gandy's Grand Tour, Alan Titchmarsh 18. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling 19. World War Z, Max Brooks 20. Bookworm, Lucy Mangan 21. 44 Scotland Street, Alexander McCall Smith 22. Thinking On My Feet, Kate Humble 23. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass

And my recent reads:

24. Between the Stops, Sandi Toksvig

I really enjoyed this. It's part autobiography, part local history, part an opportunity for her to write about inequality and the frustration she feels about it. She moves smoothly from one to the other, mixing stories from her life with interesting snippets about certain roads or buildings she passes on her bus route from where she lives in Dulwich to the BBC HQ. She writes passionately without monologuing and comes across as a fierce advocate for fairness and positivity.

25. Untold Stories, Alan Bennett

I feel like I've been reading this for ages. It covers Bennett's diary entries from the mid 1990s to the mid 2000s, and includes some short pieces of writing at the end about a variety of things he worked on in the period, such as The History Boys and The Lady in the Van. I like his style of writing: sharp, funny, cynical - but I found I had to keep stopping to Google people he mentions as I was unfamiliar with a lot of them. It slowed things down somewhat. Overall, interesting and quite quotable, but perhaps a little too long.

26. A Man Lay Dead, Ngaio Marsh

The first in the Roderick Alleyn detective series. I enjoyed this, and its brevity was just what I needed after Untold Stories. I haven't read anything by Marsh before. This is the standard tale of a murder at a nice house in the country, and quite reminiscent of Agatha Christie. Gentle, easy read.

So sorry to hear about your garden Fortuna. I'm not much of a gardener and don't always know what's a weed and what's not in my own garden, but I certainly wouldn't go round interfering with anyone else's.

Ian Mortimer's Outcasts of Time is probably not worth going back to, it's like a stodgy history lesson only loosely disguised as a novel.

Deborah Orr’s memoir is on the 99p Kindle deal today - can’t remember if someone mentioned it here before?

Fortuna, that must be so upsetting. I'm so sorry that's happened. A similar thing happened to me when the neighbour at the end of my garden removed the ivy that was covering our shared garden wall. Fine if she'd wanted to cut it back on her side, but she leant over and pulled it all out on our side as well.

If anyone is interested, Pushkin Press have a different ebook each day at 99p. If you sign up for their newsletter or look on Twitter you can see what the week's titles are. Today I bought Hotel Silence, a short Icelandic novel, and later in the week they have a French noir - I'll need to start a new post as I will lose this when I refer to my email. Bear with, bear with .....

Right, these are the Pushkin titles for this week. Each is 99p for one day only. They did this last week and it seems to be ongoing, at least for the moment.

Monday: Hotel Silence
by Au∂ur Ava Ólafsdóttir
(tr. Brian FitzGibbon)

Jónas is done with life. He buys a one-way ticket to a war-torn country, but what he finds there changes everything.

Tuesday: The Inugami Curse
by Seishi Yokomizo
(tr. Yumiko Yamazaki)

From the bestselling author ofThe Honjin Murders.When the head of the Inugami clan dies, his will reveals a surprising twist. Soon, aseries of gruesome murders begin to befall his beneficiaries...

Wednesday: The Letter for the King
by Tonke Dragt
(tr. Laura Watkinson)

Now a major Netflix series, this beloved Dutch adventure follows a young knight-in-training as he's tasked with a world-changing mission.

Thursday: Mazel Tov
by J.S. Margot
(tr. Jane Hedley-Prôle)

For fans ofUnorthodox, this charming yet candid memoir ofa young girl tutoring the children of anOrthodox Jewish family is an eye-opening yet genuinelyfunny read.

Friday:She Would Be King
by Wayétu Moore

Gbessa is an outcast. Forced to leave her village, she discovers that she has mysterious powers... and she's not the only one. A magical exploration of the founding years of Liberia.

Saturday: Lost
by Ele Fountain

From the award-winning author ofBoy 87,Lostfollows Lola and Amit, brother and sister who are forced onto the streets after their father doesn't return home one night. Compassionate and compelling.

Sunday: Bird in a Cage
by Frédéric Dard
(tr. David Bellos)

Set on a trip home to the family and unravelling like a paranoid nightmare,Bird in a Cage isanexistentialist French noir for fans ofSimenon.

My honeysuckle has recovered amazingly too Satsuki. They must be hardy plants. Thankfully!

My reading seems to have ground to a halt for a couple of days but I'll get going again on Big Sky and post a few reviews soon.