50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Ten

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the tenth (and final?) 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 still not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The previous threads of 2020:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

I've just checked and these threads this year have moved more quickly than any other year since they started back in 2012! We'd never reached ten threads in any other year.

13. The Need by Helen Phillips. Working mother of a two has an intruder come into the house while her husband is working away.

I thought this was going to be a psychological thriller but it went a supernatural. The first few chapters are well written to draw you in, alternating between the present and eight hours before leading up to that moment. Once you are drawn in it takes off in a bizarre way and ends abruptly. It can be dissected and interpreted in a few ways. I took probably a negative slant on the ending...maybe it makes me a pessimistic and because of that I didn’t like it

Not time for Remus to be woken up just yet...here’s my list.

1 Guest House for Young Widows by Azadeh Moaveni
2 Little Women by Louisa Alcott
3 Homegoing by Yaa Gyasin
4 Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner
5 The Institute by Stephen King
6 Dracula by Bram Stoker
7 The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
8 Snowblind by Ragnor Jónasson
9 Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievicho
10 A Little Book of Language by David Crystal
11 Rewild Yourself by Simon Barnes
12 Smashing Physics by Jon Butterworth
13 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
14 Over The Top by Jonathan Van Ness
15 Rosewater by Tade Thompson
16 Imogen by Jilly Cooper
17 We Are Made of Diamond Stuff by Isabel Waidner
18 You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy
19 Natural History of the Hedgerow by John Wright
20 Letters from an Astrophysicist by Neil deGrasse Tyson
21 Christy Malry’s Own Double Entry by BS Johnson
22 Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman
23 Maid by Stephanie Land
24 The Familiars by Stacey Halls
25 People Like Us by Caroline Slocock
26 Bad Blood by Colm Tóibín
27 Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry
28 The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
29 Unpacking Queer Politics by Sheila Jeffreys
30 Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James
31 Octavia by Jilly Cooper
32 The Visitor by Lee Child
33 A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
34 Under The Skin by Michael Faber
35 The Women’s Room by Marilyn French
36 The Stand by Stephen King
37 Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
38 The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
39 Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir
40 The Journal of a Disappointed Man by WNP Barbellion
41 Excitements at the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer
42 The Chalet School and Barbara by Elinor M Brent-Dyer
43 The Coming of Age of the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer
44 Just For One Day by Louise Wener
45 Notes from an Apocalypse by Mark O’Connell
46 You People by Nikita Lalwani
47 The Iliad by Homer
48 The Tale of Troy by Roger Lancelyn Green
49 First Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton
50 Second Form at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton
51 Third Year at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton
52 Until The End of Time by Brian Greene
53 Frost in May by Antonia White
54 My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
55 Pet Shop Boys, Literally by Chris Heath
56 The Friendly Ones by Philip Hensher
57 Patience by Toby Litt
58 Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton
59 The Plague by Albert Camus
60 Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
61 Natives by Akala
62 Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.
61 The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker
62 The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
63 Mindf*ck by Christopher Wylie
64 The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombard
65 Action Park by Andy Mulvihill
66 The Evenings by Gerard Reve
67 Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran
68 Our Universe by Jo Dunkley
69 Slow Burn City by Rowan Moore
70 Murderous Contagion by Mary Dobson
71 Magda by Meike Ziervogel
72 The Universe Speaks in Numbers by Graham Farmelo
73 Clothes and Other Things That Matter by Alexandra Shulman
74 Pale Rider by Laura Spinney
75 Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins
76 Sula by Toni Morrison
77 My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay
78 Corregidora by Gayl Jones
79 My Last Supper by Jay Rayner
80 The Dead Zone by Stephen King
81 Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hessian
82 House of Glass by Hadley Freeman
83 Dept of Speculation by Jennie Offill
84 The Planets by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen
85 Our Bodies Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb
86 Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
87 Without Fail by Lee Child
88 Girl by Edna O’Brien
89 A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio
90 Silence by Shusaku Endo
91 Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam
92 One Two Three Four by Craig Brown
93 The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey
94 Exit Management by Naomi Booth

46. Boule de Suif – Guy de Maupassant Maupassant denounces the baseness of human nature in his novella about a prostitute, set in late 19th century France.

161. To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine

I really want to thank the posters on this thread for advocating for Viv Albertine's books. I never would have read them without this thread and they are both absolutely brilliant.

Whilst CCCMMMBBB recounts Viv's life, TTAU focuses on her mothers death, her relationship with both parents and the state of their marriage.

It's really an astonishing feat of honesty and internal revelation and rawness and good writing.

It really resonated with me as I too am from quite a dysfunctional family.

I really admired it, and god I hope she writes more books, she's bloody good at it.

162. Quite by Claudia Winkleman

The Good

I've always liked CW and found her very witty. In her era of It Takes Two there was this endearing sense that the program could imminently descend into a shambles and that she would have found it funny if it had.

The book contains a lot of 'good sense advice' about relationships

The Bad

She has "side stepped the landmine" of having to dish any real dirt by not writing an actual autobiography, and instead writing Various Opinions About Things. As her sister is a Windsor and her kids are at school, and Strictly still going, dishing the dirt on anything probably smacked of self sabotage. Unfortunately this makes it all quite anodyne. Nothing earth shattering.

The Ugly

The RRP on this is like £16.99, and it took me all of 90 minutes to read

VERY MUCH A Stocking Filler, Christmas Coming Up, Money For Old Rope Situation

Would still say read but only if you got if from the library, or a charity shop.

113. Doing Time by Jodi Taylor

This is the first book in Taylor’s Time Police series, which is a spin off from the Chronicles of St Mary’s books.

I enjoyed reading this. Matthew Farrell (Max and Leon’s son) has enlisted in the Time Police, and is in a team with 2 other misfits. Needless to say, things don’t go entirely smoothly. Several of the other St Mary’s characters also make guest appearances.

If you like the Chronicles of St Mary’s, you’ll probably like this.

83. The Good People - Hannah Kent

Brilliantly atmospheric novel exploring fairy beliefs and superstition in early nineteenth-century Ireland. Newly-widowed Nora struggles to believe that the disabled boy she has charge of is really her grandson, and rumour in her tight-knit rural community, as well as the guidance of wise woman Nance, lead her to believe that the child is a changeling.

The women go to increasingly desperate lengths to drive the fairy imposter out of the child, and the novel is enveloped in a sense of creeping dread that meant it was a page turner while you were reading it, but once you put it down you didn't necessarily want to go back into that world again too soon. It was a deeply convincing portrayal of a marginal subsistence lifestyle, in which life was so precarious and alternative explanations so utterly lacking that the superstitions built into the fabric of their daily existence make perfect sense.

It wasn't perfect - the tension fell off in the last 80 pages or so and the ending was over-neat - but this will definitely be one of my most memorable reads of the year.

84. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster

Bored schoolboy Milo comes home one day to find a strange tollbooth in his apartment, and travels through to a fantastical world where he meets a host of weird and wonderful characters, and endeavours to restore Rhyme and Reason to a land where they've been lost. Aimed at readers of maybe 8-11, I picked this up as a 99p deal after it was recommended in Lucy Mangan's The Bookworm. Unfortunately, I don't think this is a book you can enjoy if you come to it for the first time as an adult. Basically, Milo just plods around meeting characters whose 'personalities' are built on puns and wordplay, while they drum didactic lessons into him. I'm not even convinced that the 8-11 year old me would have enjoyed that.

Idiom I have to disagree with you on The Phantom Tollbooth - I read it for the first time within the last couple of years and I thought it was great! I also think I would have loved it if I read it as a child.

But life would be boring if we all thought the same!

Yes Chessie, I know lots of people do like it. I'm just not a fan of the 'hero goes to a new place and travels about a bit without doing a lot on his own initiative' genre. I didn't like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for much the same reason

1 The Crime Writer Jill Dawson
2 After the Peace Fay Weldon
3 Number 11 Jonathan Coe
4 Machines Like Me Ian McEwan
5 Woman in Blue Elly Griffiths
6 Lost Girls D J Taylor
7 Broken Ground Val McDermind
8 Hotel du Lac Anita Brookner
9 Now You See Them Elly Griffiths
10 Out of Bounds Val McDermind
11American Dirt Jeanine Cummins
12The Sudden Departure of the Frasers Louise Candlish
13 The Gallows Bird Camilla Lackberg
14The Skeleton Road Val McDermind
15 Finders Keepers Sabine Durant
16 Tell Me A Secret Jane Fallon
17 Asta's Book Barbara Vine
18 The Ghost Tree Barbara Erskine
19 The Italian Girl Lucinda Riley
20 Look At Me Anita Brookner
21 We Know You Know Erin Kelly
22 Wild Fire Anne Cleeves
23 Beneath The Surface Fiona Neil
24 The Long Call Anne Cleeves
25 Where The Crawdads Sing Delia Owens
26 Lady In WaitingAnn Glenconner
27 The Flat Share Beth O'Leary
28The Sun Sister Lucinda Riley
29 Innocent Erin Kingsley
30Moonflower Murders Anthony Horowitz
31 The Invisible Girl Lisa Jewell
32 Find Them Dead Peter James
33 The Golden Rule Amanda Craig
34 Remain Silent Susie Steiner

I didn't like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for much the same reason

Idiom I was about to declare myself in your Tollbooth camp but then I read this unforgiveable comment

I've just finished two very polarised books - That glimpse of truth which claims to be the 100 finest short stories every written. It's over 1000 pages so I have three issues - they are not short, they are not the finest short stories ever written and if they are a glimpse of truth then they are typically the most miserable version of truth I've ever read. There is a slight redemption with a couple of Hans Christian Andersen tales enjoyed in my childhood which moves it from 0 stars to 1 star.

At the opposite end was Helen Jukes' A honeybee heart has 5 openings which has been sitting on my kindle for just over a year when I came across it after looking for a suitable follow up to Three Hours which just had to be non-fiction as I couldn't find anything fictional that seemed a fitting follow up. Helen lives in London and is planning a move out to a home counties town (which shall remain nameless as to me it's always The other place and decides to keep bees. She's forgiven for choosing that particular town to live in as she's written a corker of a book which I couldn't put down and finished off in the early hours. She writes about both the bees and her life and friendships and gets the balance right between the subjects. I suspect it'll be a Marmite book with some of you drawing pitchforks for a vigorous debate of the book. 5 stars.

Interesting.

Loved The Phantom Tollbooth as a child

Was distinctly unimpressed with Hitchhikers as an adult.

Eine

73. Twice Shy - Dick Francis

This was the first Dick Francis book I read in the early 1980s (soon after it was published). It is unusual in that it has two key protagonists - brothers Jonathan and William Derry. Jonathan is a physics teacher and William is the link to the racing world. The story is also split with a gap of 15 years between the first part (focused on Jonathan) and the second part (focused on William). Jonathan’s friend is a computer specialist and has been commissioned to turn some betting system notes into a computer program. It all starts to turn nasty when it turns out the notes were stolen and the computer betting program is in hot demand by those who don’t mind using violence to obtain it. Jonathan pits his wits against the wrongdoers and it looks like all is resolved. However, 15 years later, William finds himself facing demands for the computer program which he doesn’t have but needs to produce quickly unless he wants to end up dead. Pacy as usual but has not aged as well as many of the other books as these were the days when computers were still scarce and computer programs were recorded on cassettes.

I felt very clever when I read Twice Shy in the 80s and understood all the computer stuff! I didn't like The Phantom Tollbooth as a child, but I quite liked Hitchikers Guide as a teen.

71. The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie This is a thriller rather than a whodunit, and a sequel to one of my favourites, The Secret of Chimneys. The ending is a bit silly but overall it is a fun read.

163. The Power Of The Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy

Though there are some ideas here about internalising positive outcomes and that speaking positively about things influences your outlook and that of those around you - "the power of positive thought" that I might try out :

This very Secret type book falls into the usual claptrap trap of blaming poor or unwell people for just having negative thoughts, and they'd be rich, healthy and successful if being poor wasn't all in their head

Also, this is VERY VERY dated. I think from the 1960's. He uses the word cripple with cheery aplomb garnering more from me

As well as this, absolutely not a book for a book for an atheist, Bible quotes ahoy.

You'd be a success if you believed in God you know

Having a reading day today, no doubt I'll be back later.

I loved The Phantom Tollbooth and so did all the DC. When I read it to DS a few years ago he was much more enthusiastic than I was - I found it slightly tedious reading it as an adult. But still have very fond memories of reading it over and over again aged 10 or so.

Place marking.

Reading and quite enjoying an undemanding little thing. Will probably finish it in the next few days.

Tanaqui TimeforaGandT I must re-read Twice Shy now you've both reminded me of it, I think it was another one of the really good ones.

Wail! I find it so hard to read now it is dark all the time!

I have got new glasses today, called enhanced readers and am finding them hard to adjust to. they make everything a funny shape and my eyes are blurry when I take them off. they are supposed to mean i can read laptop and book, but I could do that anyway with reading glasses. I haven't even tried marking yet. Forgot to mention that necessity to the optician.

Woe is me.

@southeastdweller Thank you for the new thread
1 Motherland-Jo McMillan
2Force of Nature-Jane Harper
3 Silver Dark Sea- Susan Fletcher
4 The Immortalists-Chloe Benjamin
5 Fierce Bad Rabbit -Clare Pollard
6 Platform Seven-Louise Doughty
7 Fighting on the Home Front-Legacy of Women in World War 1 Kate Adie
8 The Truants Kate Weinberg
9 Paper Ghosts Julia Heaberlin
10 Strange Meeting Susan Hill
11The Murderer’s Apprentice Ann Granger
12 The Turning Tide Catriona McPhereson
13 Diary of a Bookseller Shaun Blythell
14 Lost Girls ;Love, War and Literature D J Taylor
15 All the Hidden Truths Clare Askew
16 The Gustav Sonata Rose Tremain.
17 The Body on the Train Frances Brody
18 Y Marjorie Celona
19 The House at the End of Hope St Menna Van Praag
20 The Confession Jesse Burton
21 Force of Nature Jane Harper
22 The Benefit of Hindsight Susan Hill
23 The Words in my Hand Guinevere Glasfurd
24 The Age of Light Whitney Scharer
25 The Last Voyage of Mrs Henry Parker Joanna Nell
26 The Museum of Broken Promises Elizabeth Buchan
27 Haven’t They Grown? Sophie Hannah
28 Before Wallis Rachel Tretheway
29 The Nightingale Kirstin Hannah.
30 One Enchanted Evening Anton Du Beke
31 Our Dark Secret Jenny Quintana
32 The Wild Air Rebecca Mascull
33 Educated Tara Westover
34 Saving Missy Beth Morrey
35 Love After Love Ingrid Persaud
36 Flip Back Andrew Cartmel
37 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston
38 Hamlet:Globe to Globe Dominic Dromgoole
39 The Late Scholar Jill Paton Walsh
40 The Night Visitor Lucy Atkins
41 Machines Like me Ian McKewan
42 Valentine Elizabeth Wetmore
43 The Dry Jane Harper.
44 The Amber Shadows Lucy Ribchester
45 Bitter Orange Claire Fuller
46 The Widows of Malabar Hill Sujata Massey
47 A War of Flowers Jane Thynne
48 The Chelsea Girls Fiona Davis
49 Kick Paula Bryne
50 The Library Book Susan Orlean
51 A Year Without Summer Guinevere Glasfurd
52 The Giver of Stars Jojo Moyles
53 These Wonderful Rumours May Smith
54 The 24 Hour Cafe Libby Page
55 The Century Girls Tessa Dunlop
56 Ladies Can’t Climb Ladders Jane Robinson
57 Victory Disc Andrew Cartmel
58 Moonlight Over Mayfair Anton Du Beke
59 Faith and Beauty Jane Thynne
60 The Ghost Fields Elly Griffiths
61 The Turn of the Key Ruth Ware
62 My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
63 These Silent Mansions Jean Sprackland
64 The Ninth Child Sally Magnusson
65 The Familiars Stacey Halls
66 The Golden Rule Amanda Craig
67 Burnt Sugar Avni Doshi
68 The Adventures of Maud West Susannah Stapleton
69 British Nannies and the Great War Louise Heren
69 The Most Fun We Ever Had Claire Lombardo
70 Few Eggs and no Oranges Vere Hodgson
71 Blue Sky Kate Atkinson
72 The Life Project Helen Pearson
73 The Dark Angel Elly Griffiths
74 The Dutch House Ann Patchett
@FortunaMajor @MuseumOfHam. I’m glad someone else plays favourites with authors! I’m the same with the Simon Serailler series although I think they are becoming less imaginative and realistic with each new story

74 The Dutch House Ann Patchett
The story is told in the first person by the younger of two siblings, from a dysfunctional family,whose lives are overshadowed by the loss of the strange house in which they grew up. I enjoyed the first half of the book with descriptions of family life in the Dutch house, and Danny’s move to New York ,but after that I felt the narrative lost its focus somehow and the characters didn’t develop. I wasn’t convinced by the maleness of Danny’s voice either.

Oh piggy I feel your pain. Never heard of enhanced readers. Really hope it's just a question of adapting to the new pair and you get your mojo back soon.

I hope it's resolved soon for you Piggy. I hate reading when it's bad light, which it always is in my bedroom at this time of year.

The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson

Lightweight historical crime, set in the Marshalsea prison. I enjoyed it enough to buy the second in the series, but it echoed Troubled Blood in that it all got a bit ridiculous towards the end.

Having adjusted to reading on my kindle with the font size enlarged, I find printed books really hard unless there is bright sunlight or a spotlight- a bedside lamp type light is just impossible. Sympathy Piggy.

72. Auggie and Me by RJ Palaccio This book is made up of 3 novellas, and is a companion, rather than a sequel, to Wonder. In some ways I liked this better - it's less saccharine (I did like Wonder, and thought it was a good achievement, but a few times it was just too schmaltzy for me- but I am not 10 years old!). Part of the Julian Chapter here is now also a graphic novel called Pretty Bird, which the kids in my class have really enjoyed (about hiding in France during WW2).