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:

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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.

I think I may get to 60 books this year but not the 100 I hoped after joining you guys with 80 last year. I’ve done a lot of walk / audiobooks and so many rereads but happy just to be concentrating on reading.

My stand out was Britt Benner’s The Vanishing Half and nonfictions Afropean and Natives.

I’m looking forward to more great stories next year and making a dent in the tbr.

Congratulations, Eine, that's a really impressive total and it's great to see how many of them you enjoyed!

We have banned Monopoly, Keith, because it's so bloody tedious (but I have put the Monopoly Deal card game in our games hamper this year, in the hope that it's quicker and less dull than the original, just as the Cluedo card game is better than the board version).

I have just sent DH out to buy the Guardian so we can do the crossword (and also fail to do the King William's quiz), Terpsichore! We have been doing the Guardian/Observer crosswords and the Times Saturday jumbo cryptic together for the last few months and it's been a really lovely way to end the day .

I have just looked for my copies of The Dark Is Rising but can only find that one, Over Sea, Under Stone and Greenwitch. Maybe I've misremembered and borrowed the rest from the school library???

All Dark is Rising fans - do you know Backlisted are covering it for their Christmas episode? Live tomorrow at least for Patreon supporters, then available to everyone after that if not tomorrow. I have read it so many times I decided to not re-read in advance. But I am excited.

And mackarelfa, I can confirm Monopoly Deal is much less tedious than Monopoly. It is in fact fun and I loathe Monopoly.

I've just started reading The Dark Is Rising for the first time and I love it so far. I seem to have missed out on a lot of the classic children's books because my parents favoured abridged/children's versions of Dickens, etc.

Merry Christmas to all 50 bookers, and sympathies to those in flood-hit areas.

Well done Eine!

Happy Christmas to you all, you lovely 50-bookers.
There has not been a lot of reading going on recently chez nowanearly but I'm determined to finally hit the 50 mark this year (2 to go!!)
May your 'festive' season be as lovely as possible, given the circumstances. And whatever else happens - may there be books!! Cheers

I loved Dark is Rising - a very good recommendation for this time of year. I didn't enjoy the others so much, but I always recommend them for kids who enjoy Harry Potter

I am thinking of trying another Dickens next year. I've read Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, also listen to A Christmas Carol on Audible every Christmas . Thinking of Great Expectations or The Old Curiosity Shop but happy to take recommendations.
I am about to finish Wuthering Heights which has been a monumental slog I won't be sad to see the back of, but what other classics would you recommend? (to intersperse with lighter stuff next year)

I didn't @PepeLePew - thanks for the tip, I will make sure to catch it some Time! Lovely to see so many other Dark Is Rising fans on here. I love the whole series, especially this one and The Grey King for its Welsh setting. I've read a few of Susan Cooper's other books but I don't think they are as good.

Just finished my annual Christmas short story collection , A Surprise for Christmas edited by Martin Edwards. A good collection of seasonal crime stories. All rather old fashioned and quite good fun to read. I liked the long one (Give Me a Ring)the best but at 80 pages long it wasn't really a 'short' story!

Wishing a Merry Christmas to all!

@Welshwabbit my fave is Frankenstein. It’s very creepy.

Did you hear that John Le Carre died last week? Sad news.

Merry Christmas, 50 bookers! This thread has been such a wonderful retreat in this most horrible of years. Thank you all for the company, reviews, support and excessive additions to the TBR list.

I am grimly determined to make my 50 and will probably just about manage it. Just finished:

47. Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Pailey. This was completely bonkers. "The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing." I liked the idea a lot but it would have worked much better as a longer novel rather than a 200 page novella. The world building was a bit weak and the characters pretty one-dimensional.

I was really bothered that the main character is on the run after her (secret) lover has been killed, but is very quickly attracted to someone else, and minorly bothered by one character's 'they' pronouns which were sometimes really confusing in multi-character scenes.

Not sure whether this is a recommendation or not!

BookWitch have you read Nicholas Nickleby ? I'm very fond of that, but you might want something more serious (not that it doesn't have its very serious themes, mind you - Smike and the ill-treatment of the pupils at Dotheboys Hall was clearly something Dickens felt passionate about).

It's very funny as well, though.

As for other classics, Trollope is fantastic, but a big commitment! I read a couple of the Barchester Chronicles years ago, loved them, and have been dithering on the verge of The Way We Live Now for ages. 2021 in lockdown might be time to start it.

BookWitch - I can highly recommend The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins if you haven’t read that. It was one of my top reads this year. I was less keen on Middlemarch.....it went on for a long time

Merry Christmas one and all! It's been a trying day here, DD (4) has been utterly demented with excitement, has refused to use the loo all day and has just done her business on the floor behind her door (This is not her normal MO as she has been toilet trained since she was two!)

Don't think I will do any more reading today as I will be opening the alcohol (any kind). Have two books on the go though and am on 98 read at the moment, so hopefully will hit the 100!

Merry Christmas to everyone! Currently watching A Muppet Christmas Carol and started on the rum now the DCs are in bed. I have one present to wrap, a game for the family (Frustration). I should probably do that before pouring another drink! Hope everyone has a lovely day tomorrow 🎄

We've also just done our annual watch of the Muppets Christmas Carol, with a box of Quality Street. My dad was a reader and A Christmas Carol was one of his favourites, and I treasure his copy. He always maintained that the Muppets was the best film version, so it always reminds me of him.

I've not read Nicholas Nickleby. Might give that a go. Middlemarch is on my TBR list, it's a bit of an undetaking though

Merry Christmas, lovely book people. x

Merry Christmas one and all.

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy Christmas.

Merry Christmas Gang x

Just popping back on to add one more book to my list - I'd intended to rest on my laurels after hitting 100, but somehow managed to accidentally-on-purpose buy a kindle book I saw recommended on Twitter, and raced through it in a day. So...

101: I Lost My Girlish Laughter - Jane Allen

Jane Allen was a nom de plume and this book, published in 1938, was actually the brainchild of Hollywood insider Silvia Schulman, secretary to the famous producer David O. Selznick (she was working on his production of A Star is Born while secretly writing her novel). It's told in letters, diaries, memos and telegrams by secretary Madge Lawrence - clearly Schulman herself - and is a very thinly-veiled and amusing exposé of studio goings-on. Selznick, aka 'Sidney Brand', is about to start production on an exotic drama starring sultry foreign actress 'Sarya Tarn' (Marlene Dietrich in RL), but things don't go according to plan....step forward Madge to try and iron the problems out.

This was a fun, sparky read, a real tonic, and especially so if you're interested in behind-the-scenes film history, though you really don't need to be to enjoy it. Screenwriter Jane Shore collaborated on the book with Schulman, and there's a fascinating foreword by J. E. Smyth filling in the real-life background to their Hollywood careers and the real risk both women took that discovery of their authorship of the book might mean they 'never ate lunch in this town again'.

MERRY CHRISTMASSSS EVERYONE!!!

Happy Christmas to all 50 Bookers 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Thank you for helping to make a very hard year so much more bearable with your humour, understanding, wisdom, curiosity and good company.