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.

Happy Christmas and thank you to everyone on this thread!

Yes, thank you lovely 50 bookers.
This year has been tough and I am barely hanging in there. I realised this morning how close I am to the edge when I couldn’t get the parking app to accept my card and burst into tears. I’m now late and massively stressed for a volunteering shift and feel terrible. I think my relationship may be on the rocks and the DC have become resigned to all that they look forward to being cancelled and it breaks my heart and I am so fed up and feel guilty about it because we still have a home and my parents are fine, we just can’t see them. But really, I am so over 2020 I could cry (against). You lot keep me going, you really do.

This thread has felt like a safe place to come to when the world has been strange and difficult.

Two more to add:

129. Persons Unknown, Susie Steiner
Second in crime fiction series. A sincere thanks to whoever originally recommended this series - right up my street. Engaging characters, good dialogue, and I was desperately rooting for one character to be saved.

130. The Gran Tour, Ben Aitken
Non-fiction. The author, aged 33, signed up for a series of coach tours. He doesn't tell us much about the places he visits, but he turns an affectionate eye on the elderly passengers he is travelling with, intent d they are on finding pleasure and joking despite the hardships and loss they've lived through. The highlight was the dialogue - very Alan Bennett with a hint of Les Dawson. I found it funny and poignant.

Sorry things are so hard, Pepe. [Flowers]

55. Golden Child - Claire Adam

I read this after a recommendaiton on here but it was not for me. Very good descriptions on Trinidad, but the story was so disturbing and sad, I wasn't in the right headspace at all.

56. The Dutch House - Anne Patchett

Similarly read as a result of recommendations on here and I am very glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this and will read more of her books. Plenty has been said about it already, so just to say I found it very poignant panaromic look at family life in all its complexities.

I have enjoyed this thread so much and discovered some wonderful books as a result, so thank you to all my fellow readers and copers with a terrible year

to Pepe and everyone else who's finding things hard-going at the moment

Pepe Sorry that things are so hard It's normal to cry over something seemingly inconsequential as if it was something dreadful, I know I have done in the past (few years ago now, not recent) when I couldn't open a plastic carrier bag in the supermarket.

I've added Selection Day and The Thirteen Days of Christmas to my TBR list, thank you for the reviews.

Is anybody on here on their own on Xmas Day?

I'm so sorry, Pepe , have a heartfelt 50-Booker if un-Mumsnetty hug and some and/or

Oh @PepeLePew I’m so sorry I think it’s ok to feel devastated this year even if you are lucky in many ways. The last week has definitely felt similar to the beginning.

I introduced my daughter to The Sound of Music yesterday (ball dance fan) and in between waltzes round the living room (QT getting a bit weird) started to catalogue my books. So satisfying. I’m not going to have a book ban in Jan as I still want to support authors / book shops but I’m going to go cold turkey with Amazon at least.

It really is lovely talking about books here and reading everyone’s thoughts. I finally saw David Copperfield this week - such a joyous film.

@PepeLePew I don't think you should feel bad at all - this year has been absolutely pants even for those who haven't suffered a loss or had bad Covid themselves.

69. The Seagull by Ann Cleeves

The last of my Vera purchases from earlier this year when they were on the Kindle Big Deal, and again very enjoyable, although I didn't think it quite lived up to the standard of the previous two (especially Harbour Street, which I think is the best). Vera delves back into her past when a former associate of her father's, now imprisoned and disabled, gives her a lead on a twenty-year-old crime. The plot is as ever enjoyably tangled with very little prospect of figuring out whodunnit (although I did have a suspicion about a couple of characters that proved correct). It was nice to see Charlie developed a little more as a character in this one, and I like what Cleeves is doing with Holly, although I get the impression she doesn't really know what to do with Joe any more beyond the "harassed family man" trope.

Obviously I will be buying the new one, although I might at least try to wait until it comes down a bit in price.

David Copperfield! I shall watch that on Boxing Day - great idea.
I was going for a tier 4 compliant walk with a friend but she’s just got a positive Covid test so that won’t happen. I may get her on the phone instead while I walk the dog and pretend she’s there - I do that a lot with my sister who is overseas and it’s always fun.
I will take the idiot dog out on Boxing Day morning then curl up on the sofa with leftovers and books and movies once the DC have left.
I’ve bought myself Shuggie Bain and a box of chocolate gingers for DD to wrap for me (they have bought me gifts too but as I asked for a cheese grater back in November I decided I should top up!). So that will be cheering. And thanks everyone. Today feels particularly bleak - the DC will be back from their dad’s later and that will be good. And at some point I should confront the reality of the crumbling relationship - my sense is it’s really up to me what I do at this point, so there is no real rush.

to Pepe and bookwitch and Terps and everyone else on the thread who is struggling. I know many of us have lost loved ones in the last year or so and nothing is as any of us would wish.
Christmas plans in disarray here reading remains a solace even if I can only manage cosy, easy, comforting stuff at the moment.
Thanks to all on the thread for making me laugh and cry.

Winter Solstice - Rosamund Pilcher - cosy, easy, comforting stuff.

to you Pepe - gingers sound perfect although I should warn that Shuggie Bain, though excellent, is not cheerful stuff (on which note sorry HeadNorth if it was me who recommended Golden Child )

to Pepe and everyone else on this thread, which has been a real life-saver this year. Chocolate fingers sound like an excellent idea - you are obviously a woman of taste and discernment!

I have just heard that our area will be going into tier 4 from Boxing Day, despite our town only having a rate of under 70 cases/100k. We're not that far from the areas where the new strain is rampaging, though, so I know it's a sensible precaution. I hope this will give me a cast-iron excuse for holing up with piles of board games and books for the rest of the year, anyway!

I agree, cosy, easy, comforting reads are needed this year, together with lots of cups of tea! or possibly something stronger
I've broken my normal pre-Christmas book-buying moratorium to get the next Rivers of London book I've not read, as I can be sure no-one will buy that for me. Was going to save it but started already while queueing for the vet (in borrowed work van as mine has a puncture).

Just got back & gone back to work sorting pre-Xmas paperwork and the (cystitis struck) cat came and sprayed my desk in revenge

Chocolate gingers, not chocolate fingers!! (The latter are also a fine snack, but perhaps not quite as refined as the former.)

@mackerelfa what board games do you play? We have overdone the scrabble this year so looking for inspiration.

Tier 4 for us too now. I’m eyeing the drinks cabinet greedily right now.

Not going to pretend I wouldn’t be happy with chocolate fingers.
I also have Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon, Keith, so maybe that will be a better option.
Sorry about tier 4, mackerelfa. We had all of four days in tier 3 to get used to the idea, but it still a bit crap.

Best my mum loved a bit of Rosamund Pilcher. I bought her all the books and she used to re-read them quite regularly.

It's a bit raw today as my DSis has been to collect her ashes. The funeral directors failed to do it (though they were supposed to) and just didn't contact us and we ended up having to organise it ourselves. I'm many miles away and in Tier 4 and can't travel to be there so it all feels very difficult at the moment.

Terpsichore [hugs] It's horrible being so far away and not being able to deal with things yourself, it's what I found hardest.

Games - I have bought Trekking the World which looks promising, we are hopefully playing it on Xmas Day.

Joining Pepe in having a cry, the news of changed tiers from Boxing Day has pushed me too far, now I am in a different tier from my daughter as of then. With our respective jobs seeing each other really isn't a good idea. My teenager has been stroppy all week as things are getting to him and I am struggling to cope now.

Terpischore so difficult.
We’re Wales so Tier 4 already but DD had planned to travel home today and of course that isn’t happening now. I’ve only seen her for a couple of hours outside since July.

I am also feeling fed up about the new tiers. However, I am also feeling guilty about feeling fed up because I know my position is fortunate compared to others - we will be in tier 3 from Boxing Day but other that not being able to go out for a meal (which I don’t do very often anyway) not much will change for me. I’ve been working from home since March, and I have been seeing my mum quite often as she lives nearby and is in a bubble with us (she lives alone). However, the thought of all this just dragging on and on is not good. I am counting my blessings though and I do appreciate that I am fortunate compared to others.

Tier 2 for us but my Tier 3 bubble person has ended our bubble tonight.
News just in flooding has started and our road is one that floods.
I'm leaving on an airplane...oh wait
Got to laugh haven't we?! I always did want an outdoor pool but I'd prefer a heated one please Father Christmas.

to everyone struggling at the minute.

We’d agreed to skip the normal family Christmas stuff a month or two ago, mostly because the nature of DH’s job means that mixing with all our relatives feels a bit too risky at the minute. So we’re fortunate to not have our Christmas plans dashed at the last minute. But all the recent news about new strains and tier changes is a worry.

At the minute I’m pinning my hopes on Easter as a substitute Christmas, hopefully our elderly parents, PILs and DH will have been vaccinated by then 🤞

Re. games, we’ve played Ticket to Ride a lot recently. Fun, although less brainy than Scrabble.