50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Six

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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, the fourth one here and the fifth one here.

So, we're now almost half way through the year - how's the first half of the year gone for you, reading-wise?

49. Animal Societies - Ashley Ward (Audible)

Fascinating survey of social animals, ordered by increasing behavioural complexity from krill to primates. Read with a down-to-earth northern charm by the author, a professor of animal behaviour; chimps prefer an older lass with a bit of meat on her who's already had a few kids, apparently I would have liked a little more overarching analysis, for example on the evolutionary origins of communal living, as really it was just an animal-by-animal description of behaviours, but still very interesting.

50. Botanical Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland - Lisa Schneidau

Short collection of folk tales featuring plants and trees, ordered roughly by the cycle of the year. The style was deliberately very simplistic and the author fancies herself as a 'storyteller'. Interesting to me as I'm always keen to learn about the capricious antics of the small folk in green, but really quite insubstantial.

24. A Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys
1948: Eve Forrester is trapped in a loveless marriage, in a gloomy house, in a grey suburb. Out of the blue, she receives a solicitor's letter. A wealthy stranger has left her a mystery inheritance but in order to find out more, she must travel to the glittering French Riviera. Eve discovers her legacy is an enchanting villa overlooking the Mediterranean sea and suddenly, life could not be more glamorous. But under the heat of the sun, all is not as it seems. Now, Eve must unlock the story behind her surprise bequest - before things spiral out of control...
I had an idea of what I expected from this - lots of descriptions of the setting (both the historical period and the Riviera scenery), family secrets and characters that may or may not be what they seem. It perfectly matched all that I hoped it would be! If you've read A Dangerous Crossing by the same author, this is the same style but I liked the ending of this better. I really enjoyed this novel, and looked up her newer one online and found it was 99p on Kindle .

@bibliomania

I share the love for books about books, Eliot!

Me too.

I have just ordered the special edition of Jackie Morris's The Unwinding.

95. Queen Mab by Kate Danley

A fairytale type retelling of the Romeo & Juliet story from the POV of Queen Mab.

I thought it was a good idea but it turned out to be quite simplistic and unsubstantial.

I had it read really quickly.

It's not a YA, but it fits much more into that genre I felt...

Lurker popping in to say that The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning is one of today's kindle daily deals. I read it about 20+ years ago & loved it. I've lost my copy so might invest 99p for a re-read.

Lurker popping in to say that The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning is one of today's kindle daily deals. I read it about 20+ years ago & loved it. I've lost my copy so might invest 99p for a re-read

I loved these books when I read them! Totally transported me to a different time and place. Envy people discovering them for the first time.

47: Nine Pints - Rose George

Another cracker from the ever-excellent George, who writes jaw-dropping books, researched at first hand by her, about things you don't normally give much thought to - previous winners have been her books about container ships and toilets (trust me, it's fascinating).

Here she investigates blood - we all have it, but what happens when some of us need more of it, or less of it? How does the practice of leeching work? What led to the start of the blood transfusion service? What if the blood or plasma we're given is contaminated in some way, and there's a cynical governmental cover-up that leads to thousands of haemophiliacs dying - and they are still dying - of HIV and/or hepatitis C?

Her controlled but unmistakable fury over this terrible episode is unmistakable...then she moves on to periods and is magnificent. She travels to Nepal to meet girls and women who are shunned and treated like dirt when they menstruate, exiled to tiny, unheated, rat-infested huts because they're 'unclean' (although strangely enough that doesn't stop men forcing their way in to rape them). She goes to Delhi to meet an ordinary man who, with superhuman persistence, took it upon himself to design a cheap, reliable sanitary towel and a simple machine that could make it, and finally allow women and girls in poverty-stricken parts of the world to carry on with their lives, to go to school, without fear and without resorting to unlikely materials - grass, ash, sand, anyone? - to deal with their periods.

There's so much more in the book but I'd go on for even longer, so I'll just end by saying this is a brilliant read.

Another vote for The Balkan Trilogy, and also a heads up that the Levant Trilogy is also 99p at the moment.

Thank you for the review of Fatal Inheritance, Clueless. I'm reading Dangerous Crossing at the moment and really enjoying it, especially the descriptions of the stops on the journey.

@HarlanWillYouStopNamingNuts

Another vote for The Balkan Trilogy, and also a heads up that the Levant Trilogy is also 99p at the moment.

Just bought the Levant Trilogy - thanks for that heads up.

read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in a rattling few hours!

This was good fun. I shan't say more because spoilers

I do like a Christie and I like it that DS 2 reads them , too, so we can discuss..

I thinks he is really underrated : her style is often actually quite inventive. Horrific snobbery and some jarring misogyny and occasional racism aside, her style feels really modern. It's surprising to me that this book is 1926.

DS1 prefers them to have a higher body count but does seem to like the Poirots more than the others.

Piggy quite agree re Christie. I feel the need for one the minute I finish 1927.

I just bought The Levant Trilogy because my grandfather served in Egypt in WW2 so it might give me a tiny bit of insight to the region at the time.

I have just bought the Olivia Manning trilogy too. I'm thinking it will be right up my street (fingers crossed)

I’ve bought the Manning too. Oh dear and just after saying I wasn’t doing that sort of thing any more!

Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls

I’ve never read a Nicholls before though I’ve seen films based on his books and quite enjoyed this one. It took a little while to get into but by half way it fairly sped along. A man in his late 30s looks back on a significant summer - his Mum has left his dad, his dad is depressed, he’s failed his GCSEs, and begins growing away from his school friends in the very instant school is over. Then he meets a girl and joins an amateur theatre group for a production of Romeo and Juliet, which provides the backdrop for his own first love story. It is bittersweet, wittily told, and quite touching and realistic in its depiction of youth on the threshold of adulthood, the evolution of friendships and romances, and the painful process of reassessing your parents as an adult. The play within a play provides lots of very funny comic set-ups and Nicholls has an engaging take on precocious teenage dialogue. A lovely book about the trials of growing up and screwing things up that was especially enjoyable as it was set in the late 90s which was the era of my teens too, though it is not so culturally referential that it lays heavily on it. I also loved the interweaving of Shakespeare as the characters mull it over in rehearsal, an unpretentious look at familiar lines seen through fresh eyes. Good fun for sunny day, nostalgic but not too sad.

The Crow Road is also one of the 99p kindle daily deals today - one of my two favourite books (the other being The Secret History).

96. The Devil All The Time by Donald Ray Pollock

This was recommended by a friend and there is a film coming out but I just didn't click with it.

It's one of those "seedy underbelly of small town Americana" books as orphans Arvin and Lenora find themselves surrounded by corruption, grifters, murderers and paedophiles lurking under a "respectable Christian" surface.

The various narrative strands don't hang together and some of them are boring. Not for me.

21. The Perfect Storm - Sebastian Junger

The book on which the film was based, and I found it a pretty gripping account of the terrible sea storm of October 1991 which claimed several lives off the East Coast of North America. It's a compelling insight into the harsh world of commercial fishing as well as a skilfully told disaster story. Not recommended for anyone with a fear of water / drowning though!

Good to see so much support for Olivia Manning, such an underrated writer. I was really pleased when NYRB classics added her to their list. The Balkan and Levant trilogies are favourites, must have read them at least three times if not more. But I like the luxury of following a character across six novels and the depiction of the conditions in wartime Eastern Europe and beyond are so vivid and detailed. Although how Harriet puts up with Guy is beyond me, particularly as the novels are supposedly semi-autobiographical and Manning stayed married to his real-life counterpart.

More Furrowed Middlebrow:
35. A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell – Frances Faviell’s wonderfully vivid account of living through the Blitz while based in Chelsea and working at a First Aid Post and with refugees from war-torn Europe. This is a favourite of Kate Atkinson’s and Virginia Nicholson cites it as by far the best of the wartime remembrances she’s read, and I can see exactly why. Faviell was an artist and writer who studied at the Slade in the 1920s, during the war she rented a flat in Chelsea with her Dachshund Vicki (affectionately dubbed Miss Hitler by locals!). This is a much less stiff-upper lip memoir than Anderson’s, slightly less humour and more detail about what was going on in the actual war too. Faviell travelled extensively before WW2, including working in a hospital in India and studying art in Paris, so has a broader range of reference and friends than in other pieces I’ve read from the same era – really refreshing to read something from this period that features relationships with Asian, Polish, Dutch, and Norwegian people in Britain. I found her depiction of wartime London completely fascinating although, unlike Anderson or Dickens, Faviell’s personality takes a while to show through in her writing.

Now moving on to The Dancing Bear Faviell’s second memoir, based on her experiences of living in Berlin during the post-war Allied occupation.

I love The Crow Road too noodle.

Did you see the TV adaptation? I thought they did it pretty well. Lots of good actors .. Bill Paterson, Dougray Scott, Peter Capaldi. Joe McFadden and I thought Valerie Edmond was brilliant as Ash although I haven't seen much of her since.

I'm a big Iain Banks fan. Such an admirable person as well as a good writer. Espedair Street is also one of my favourites. After he died I set about reading all his books in order. I couldn't get on with his sci-fi though.

I now want to read The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy as well as all those Furrowed Middlebrow books!

Thanks for the heads up - I've just bought The Levant Trilogy and The Balkan trilogy

Yes, highlandcoo, I was a bit nervous about it but I think the tv adaptation is great. In fact I may have to have a re-watch. I really love Iain Banks too although like you, haven't managed to get on with the Sci Fi. My other favourite of his is Stonemouth although I think I might be one of the few people that actually likes it!

I agree Noodle and Highland The Crow Road is a great novel, from that brilliant opening onwards! And the BBC version was good I thought. I think it's on YouTube still but one of those where you have to root around to find all the episodes.