50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Eight

[southeastdweller]

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

What are you reading?

betts mine isn"t even in Spanish, I just thought it sounded like a good excuse

I'm so late with this, but here are a couple of my shelves of music books...

Great review @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

I have total fomo about King. I loved The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon but Bag Of Bones and The Stand my overwhelming feeling despite some great story telling was they were too misogynistic and full of uncomfortable racism. I don’t think he writes women well. But the storytelling does keep you overlooking these things a bit. I also searched our discourse on this and was surprised how little it’s been discussed. He does seem ‘sacred’.

@nowanearlyNicemum

betts mine isn"t even in Spanish, I just thought it sounded like a good excuse

Is an excuse really needed?!

@FranKatzenjammer

I'm so late with this, but here are a couple of my shelves of music books...

John Peel and The Ramones :-)

I've never read any King and never had the urge to - don't do horror at all in any way (& always skip the gory bits in thrillers), plus I don't do big, serious manly fantasy (which I reckon probably rules out the Dark Tower books).

In fact, looking at my fantasy shelf, the only Big, Male book on there is the Amber omnibus by Zelazney, which definitely isn't Serious (though tbf Corwin is definitely Manly, and I reckon probably has a bit of a 70s medallion & hairy chest thing going on)

To clarify a little about the group sex scene, what I mean is he literally only gets away with it because the female instigates it.

Imagine if Richie (and it WOULD be Richie) was like :

"Lets all have a go on Bev" and then they all did.

The scene as it is is gross but that would change it completely

Thanks @Palegreenstars !

been struggling to read for so long, all these seemingly never ending restrictions and the isolation of working from have left me quite despondent...

but my most recent two reads, which I have enjoyed muchly are
32 How to Disappear by Gillian McAllister. Domestic drama about a woman forced into witness protection after her daughter witnessed a crime, leaving her husband behind. I found this quite gripping, and tense in places.
and 33 Scabby Queen by Kirsten Innes, the story of a faded one hit wonder turned activist, told in flashbacks after her suicide. this was good, really good, but I didn't love which I really wanted to do, as it felt like it should have been such a "me" book with pop culture and politics, media and Scotland. but still a good read, although my general malaise meant it took me aaaages to get through it.
I am in awe of all of those in this thread who seem to be so much more prolific readers

63. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

This was the only one of the six major Austens that I hadn't read, and it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I raced through Northanger Abbey earlier this year, but MP is much darker and, though there are some of the trademark sly observations on human nature, there is not a lot of 'fun' in it. I feel edified to have read it, but not that I enjoyed it as such.

For a start, Fanny Price (the poor relation who is brought up in the family of Sir Thomas Bertram) is modest, submissive and a fully-paid-up subscriber to nineteenth century models of feminine virtue, and seems to have no spirit or personal agency at all. Her rival in love Mary Crawford is much more attractive to my modern eyes - lively, worldly and unmoralising in the face of family scandal, she was a character I really wanted to spend more time with.

Much more than any other Austen novel, this brought home the jarring realities of life for Regency women - complete dependency on their menfolk. If they made a bad marriage like Fanny's mother, they could be condemned to poverty and separation from their more fortunate relations for life; if they made a mistake resulting in scandal, like one of the characters, they could be cut off from respectable society forever with no hope of rehabilitation. Virtue in women consists partly in adopting without question the morals and opinions of their male relations; Fanny's character is shaped by her absorption of her cousin Edmund's sensibilities.

The romantic resolution in MP is not at all satisfying like that in, for example, P&P, because Edmund is just marrying the submissive little creature he has (in part) created, having been unable to cope with the challenging reality of Mary Crawford, and Fanny has no agency at all in bringing about this conclusion. I don't think Jane Austen likely intended this feminist reading, but as a 21st century woman I can't take the story at face value. I think MP will be one of those books that I didn't love at the time but my mind keeps puzzling over and analysing for a long time to come.

Great review Idiom. MP is actually my favourite Austen. I think you need to take into account the class element (Fanny as the poor relation being given charity, and constantly reminded of the fact). I also love that JA gives us an introvert as the heroine. I don't think that Fanny is entirely moulded by Edmund - I think she listens and thinks, though of course is influenced by the one person to treat her kindly and with consideration. (And of course Edmund as well as all the rest of the family very much wanted her to marry Henry C.) I always imagine that once she's out of a situation where she's treated as a lesser being by everyone bar Edmund, her personality will really have the chance to expand and flower.

Great review, Idiom! It's a long time since I read MP, but I think I'd get more out of it now that I'm older: I liked it more when I was 28 than when I was 18, and I'm sure I'd like it even more than that now that I'm forty-cough years old. I think it's a quietly radical novel in its way - not just the class element, but also the contrast between Fanny's goodness and the wider, worldly context. I remember when it dawned on me that Sir Thomas' wealth was founded on slavery (which had just been abolished when the book was written), and that there was a whole context to the book that would have been a lot more apparent to contemporary readers. A bit like the soldiers in Meryton, who are clearly there because of the Napoleonic wars, or William Price joining the navy (which would be celebrating Nelson's victory at Trafalgar a few years earlier). Or the tantalising comparison of governessing with "the sale of human flesh" in Emma - it's not that JA ignores the world around her, it's just very subtly done! I'd love to re-read these novels now I'm older and hopefully a bit less self-absorbed.

I was howling throughout your review, Eine - brilliant! I've never read a Stephen King novel, and I'm afraid these discussions (on both sides) haven't persuaded me to change that yet.

I'm even later than Fran, but I'm going to post some shelfies anyway! The first is part of my crime fiction collection - the older bit that's mostly green Penguins. I used to have a great supplier in a local market stall but he's stopped selling them, and I haven't seen any in a bookshop for ages - anyone who knows of a source will have my undying gratitude! It's surprisingly hard to get a definitive list of all the green Penguins published (the numbers aren't continuous because they were interspersed with the other Penguin series) but I'm hoping that I'll have the whole lot one day.

I'm including the other two pics because they are shelves that iv had built specially in order to cram more books into the house! One is the left-hand alcove shelf in our sitting room, which has especially sturdy shelves (3cm thick!) because I'm sick of cheap shelves bowing under the weight of books. The other is the shelf on our landing, which was designed specially to fit paperbacks, and is thus less than 20cm deep. I'm going to cut it out and take it with us if we ever move house!

Oh, and some of my Georgette Heyer books for Sadik and Stitches. The general fiction is in alphabetical order, so they're cosying up to Joanne Harris and Joseph Heller on one side, and to Winifred Holtby, Kazuo Ishiguro and M.R. James* on the other.

• No Henry: for some reason ex English student classic fiction is housed on a different shelf altogether

mackerella those book shelves look amazing!

Can you buy ready made paperback depth shelves? I have just the perfect spot for some.

@BestIsWest

Can you buy ready made paperback depth shelves? I have just the perfect spot for some.

No! Or at least, not easily or cheaply. It's nuts - almost every bookshelf I looked at was 28-35cm deep, when it only needed to be about 15. I did find a tall slim-ish case from Argos which we have in our study, but it's pretty crappy quality and the shelves are bowing alarmingly under the weight of books (admittedly, it has bigger heavier ones on it, not paperbacks - like DH's programming tomes).

TBH, if you have s specific space in mind and you're not on a terrifically tight budget, I'd consider getting a quote from a carpenter to make something bespoke. The shelf on the landing was about £250 (MDF frame faced with timber strips and with a solid oak top). The alcove units downstairs were a lot more (but they were very wide, and include beautiful cupboards at the bottom that also have oak tops). We justified that by telling ourselves how much stuff we could put away in them (and also because we'd realised by then that we couldn't afford to move house, so decided to spend money on making our current house work better).

(Obviously, the even cheaper and easier solution is just to get rid of lots of stuff )

Just catching up on the thread. I read IT again this year as part of my read through of all Stephen King books in order and definitely found the sewer scene a very uncomfortable read. Not sure I agree with Eine that the racism and homophobia were an issue, I think they were of the time and in context. That said I do find it a bit difficult when white writers use the 'n' word.

King books I love:

The Stand
The Dead Zone
The Green Mile
Different Seasons
Duma Key
11/22/63
The Shining / Dr Sleep

They look gorgeous mackerella. What I should really do is make DD clear the bookshelves in her old room as she moved out 3 years ago and there’s an entire bookcase filled with Harry Potter/Hunger Games/Twighlight/Princess Diaries/Jean Ure/Jacqueline Wilson/Louise Rennison etc. But I can’t bear to.

Also Mackerella Murder and Mayhem in Hay-On-Wye May be the bookshop for you for the green Penguins. I think they are part of Addyman books.

Thanks for the rip-off, Best - looks as if you're right!

Tip-off, obviously!!

Underland by Robert Macfarlane is on the daily deal. Do I want it? I thought it sounded interesting but I have a hit and miss relationship with Mr Macfarlane.

Also reduced today, In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes - raved over on 'A Good Read' on R4. Her The Expendable Man was one of my 5-star reads a few years ago, and this one's been stuck on my wish list for a while, so I'm highly chuffed that it's appeared.

It was made into a classic film noir in 1950 with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.

Oh wondered about that one, sounds good. The detective’s name is Dix Steele.

Also One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a good read if you haven’t.

I’ve been meaning to read some of King’s books. Saying that, I’ve just had a new book order of books that are rather hard to find but I finally got them so all my money has gone on those for now.

Although, I was terrified of Harry Potter for agesssssss although I am starting to like horror and gory stuff so am likely to give king’s books a go and try to read IT before I watch it