50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Seven

[southeastdweller]

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

What are you reading?

I just slogged through all 78 pages (why can't they make them easier to navigate?) and found a few possibles, but came on here to urge people to buy the Penelope Fitzgerald and Rosamond Lehman as noted by Satsuki above!

For anyone interested in history, especially the history of science, one of my all-time stand-out non-fiction books of recent years was Richard Holmes's Age of Wonder, and that's down to 99p. I'd grab that with both hands if I didn't already have it. He's a wonderful writer.

Also, Lyndall Gordon's study of 5 women writers, Outsiders, sounds good. Might try that one. Oh, and Alexandra Fuller's memoir Don't Let's go to the Dogs Tonight is really great. It was our book club choice once and is a brilliantly-written and evoked book about her African childhood, raised (well....largely dragged up) by expat parents determined to live in the back of beyond.

I'll shut up now....

And Bett, I just wanted to say that there's a strange magic to half-remembered quotations. They've picked up new resonances in the journey through another person's consciousness. They become something new and unexpectedly beautiful in their own right, like glass becoming sea-glass.

That’s lovely Biblio

I have bought The Five, Sandi Toksvig and a Graham Norton novel.

biblio that’s beautiful. What a lovely thought and so well-expressed.

Like glass becoming sea glass
Great name for the next album by an indie band (anybody remember Sarah records?).

Satsuki and Biblio I may just have something in my eye, how lovely of you both.

As for the monthly deals, I have bought David Olusoga's Black and British: A forgotten history. I've shied away from the various books on racism and white people as, whilst it's important, it's not my kind of book as I read to relax and not to be challenged but I've watched several of his tv programmes and I think his history book will be well worth reading, all 700+ pages of it.

Eine I was interested to read that you also didn't like the author of Rough Magic, I felt the same way at times but decided not to mention it when recommending the book.

From my wish list I bought This is Your Brain on Music: Understanding a Human Obsession and Queens of the Kingdom: The Women of Saudi Arabia Speak while they are both 99p, the first might be popular with the eminent musicians on here. And me

Love that @bibliomania.

I bought SwanSong and Good Omens

Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger

This was a reread. I was always a bit indifferent to this, found it readable and fine but always a little bit nonplussed as to all the fuss about it and in recent times it seems the general opinion is that it is overrated. This may come too from it’s being another that many were made to read at school. I read it again after unearthing some books from storage (new bookcase - steady ladies and gents) to see if I had a changed perspective on it and it turns out, I did. I loved it and found it extremely moving in a way that had completely bypassed me as a teenager. It could just be that I’ve read lots more since then and have a more developed eye for nuances I’d missed, and an understanding I don’t need to “like” characters to appreciate stories, or in the words of Bob Dylan “either I’m too sensitive, or else I’m getting soft” but whatever, I now read it feeling a maternal sympathy towards Holden Caulfield and felt each small hinted-at heartbreak between the lines as he battles to retain mental equilibrium against the slings and arrows of life. Going to go and hoover up the Salingers I didn’t read because I didn’t rate it now. I’m interested in how many people have the reverse experience - I imagine others might have loved and identified with it as a teen, then found they’ve outgrown it. Anyway it has reaffirmed to me the pleasures and the worth of the reread.

Satsuki I'm with you. Don't know whether you saw my review but coincidentally I re-read it about 3 weeks ago and felt almost exactly the same.

I just bought Silk Route Adventure: On Horseback in the Heart of Asia on the monthly deals, it'll be interesting to get a different take on the horse riding through Kazakhstan and Mongolia to the one presented in Rough Magic. The author of this book isn't doing the race but spends 18 months riding through Asia.

Came on to say that Swan Song is on the monthly deal in case anyone missed it on the slog through, but I see someone has done that already! I have also bought the Lehmann, Fitzgerald and William Boyd. And the rest of the Viveca Sten Sandhamn Murder series, as I should clearly stop pretending I'm not just going to read them all. Also The Guilty Feminist (written by a friend of a friend, so I kept meaning to buy it), The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey) and A Spell of Winter (Helen Dunmore). So, um, clearly I have continued my fine record of resisting new book purchases. Ahem.

Forgot to say to @bettsbattenburg and @noodlezoodle

And @mackerella the O'Farrell book is definitely worth a read and you are right, I am probably only so annoyed about the ending because I am so annoyed about the current state of the country/party!

for Betts and Noodle

I'm tempted by Expectation and The Knife's Edge (a heart surgeon's memoir) in the deals.

@bettsbattenburg, a last thought on the origins of the quotation, but it reminds me of Montaigne writing after the death of his closest friend:

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.

Welsh, I love Daughter of Time.

[quote bibliomania]@bettsbattenburg, a last thought on the origins of the quotation, but it reminds me of Montaigne writing after the death of his closest friend:

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.[/quote]
That's lovely, really similar in sentiment. The quote I used was AA Milne, almost.

The sale is terrible.

I found like, 11 things I wanted

In case I have found things others might want and missed :

Armada by Ernest Cline
Black and British by David Olusuga
The Bees by Laline Paull
Instrumental by James Rhodes
English Passengers by Matthew Kneale
History Of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr
The Devil In The White City by Erik Larsen
Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
The Favourite by Ophelia Field
The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook
Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquival

@bibliomania I've been waiting for ages for it to come on the deals!

From your list Eine I've read:

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale
History Of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr
Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquival

and can recommend them.

Remis Thank you for the heads up that Devolution (Max Brooks, World War Z author) is on the sale. It’s been on my wishlist for a couple of weeks, and I just checked and found it on iBooks for 99p too! (Exciting for me, as I only use iBooks and it’s a massive source of frustration that the kindle sale and iBooks sale don’t always match up!)

Just got Devolution as well. Clearly I have lost my head today. I wasn't even going to do the sale this month!

Hope Devolution is good - I really enjoyed World War Z.

For some reason I’m finding post apocalyptic/post disaster books really comforting this year. Is anyone else finding that? I feel like I should be hankering for gentle, upbeat stories but they do nothing for me at the moment.

terpsichore I just went back and looked and fully agree with your review. I wonder if it subconsciously added to my urge to pick it up again.