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.

Yes, hopefully my actual real life will go back to normal one day, and I'll marvel as to how I had the time. So done with the pandemic it's unreal. I am craving simple things like a swim or a meal with friends.

Thanks Fortuna

Terps my library did the same and I totally agree that BorrowBox is disappointing in the range of books it offers, I can't remember if Overdrive was any better though.

I'm looking forward to a swim as well, I love going and I have the time now (but not the money but that's another issue).

It'd be good to be able to do something other than stay at home, we're self isolating and unfortunately it's when we have a milestone birthday in the family.

Hmm, I don’t borrow audiobooks so maybe this is where BorrowBox falls down. I’ve no idea whether it’s a centralised thing or whether your own library has a bearing; I have to sign in through my library so maybe the slightly disappointing range is a reflection of their stock decisions.

Having said all that, I’ve just reserved two books which will become free in January. Gabriel Byrne’s memoir and the latest Nicola Upson Josephine Tey mystery. So maybe I’m talking total rubbish

GABRIEL BYRNE HAS A MEMOIR?!

Thanks, Terps

Our library has Borrowbox as well. I feel like it's got better in the last year or so. I've picked up quite a few recommendations on here - as 'real' books I've just borrowed Gingerbread without any wait, had Night Boat to Tangiers & The Other Bennet Sister ditto. I don't find it so good for audio as it tends to take me longer to get through a book so my loan often expires before I'm finished - I think the only ones I've had this year are The Language of Kindness and Brit(ish) .

87. A Dog's Heart - Mikhail Bulgakov

In Moscow, 1924, a Frankenstein-esque professor takes home a stray dog, who starts to undergo a remarkable transformation. There's a lot going on here and I suspect you get a lot more out of it if you read it in Russian and know the details of this specific moment in Soviet history. The main message that seemed to be conveyed was that you might as well try to turn a dog into a human as turn a peasant into a citizen, but that seems like an unpleasantly reactionary position, and may be the Professor's viewpoint rather the authorial one. It feels like a book to study rather than one that works as a casual read, although it does have its moments of absurdist humour. And it's short and I'm toying with the idea of aiming for 100...

DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!

A few tactical book choices are all you need.

The thing is, I have to go back to work next year, so if I'm ever going to hit a big number it's got to be this year...

Yes and it looks good, Eine ! The sample won me over. I'm prepared to wait till January for it, anyway

Each library are has their own collection on the apps. My location is honestly great on BorrowBox but my relative gets nothing at the other end of the county.

Join The Olympic Team Idiom !

For library online access, may I suggest abusing your non-bookish family/ friends if you have any on other parts of the country/ world. For one birthday I asked for library log ins. They signed up to accounts that they won't use and handed out the details. As everything is auto returned on expiry I can't run up any fines/fees. I am from a ridiculous large family of nomads though so do have better options than most.

58.) Why Mummy Swears, by Gill Sims -- Eh. Unchallenging and mildly amusing. It reminds me a little too keenly of Motherland, and like the first one (which had me RAGING at the ending) I often find the situations in it infuriating. And Christ, the awful, awful husband. I enjoyed it though, I swear.

59.) The Colosseum, by Mary Beard & Keith Hopkins -- Fascinating and very readable history of the Colosseum, the people who fought and died there, with attention paid to what we know and what we don't know. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

60.) This is Going to Hurt, by Adam Kay I've seen this mentioned a lot on here and I've finally got around to reading it. I'm not sure I can expand much on what others have said: sometimes it had me gasping in shock, sometimes laughing, and I did end up reading out some of the entries to DH mainly, I must admit, the bits where awful things happened to penises.

Currently dividing my attention between Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle, and a book about Doctor Who.

244. Plain Bad Heroines - Emily M Danforth In present day a group of Hollywood starlets are filming a movie based on real events at a cursed New England girls boarding school in the early 1900s. At the school a series of boarders are found dead after reading a certain book. They had set up a secret society about it. The film is being made on location at the original building for the school which is rumoured to be haunted. The narrative switches between the two sets of teens.

This is gothic in atmosphere and quite ambitious in scope. A serious teenage me would have found it very clever and meta, but my old hag self found it far too contrived. It's also far too long and needed a serious prune. I think I am simply too old for it. Less cynical minds would probably enjoy it immensely.

245. Good Morning, Midnight - Jean Rhys A penniless middle class woman ekes out a miserable existence in inter-war Paris. Her mental state deteriorates as the novel goes on.

I read this feeling I'd read something similar but much better already this year. I thought it might have been a Muriel Spark, but it turns out it was another by Jean Rhys in an arc of 4 books written on this theme. This was raved about on Backlisted but I didn't see anything that special in it. I thought Leaving Mr MacKenzie was a significantly better book. That protagonist was a smidge less miserable, which could have something to do with it.

I've got a week to get on with my Our Mutual Friend chapters, but Muuuuuuuuuum Piggy, I don't wanna do my homework! Will you write me a note?

Fortuna what a fantastic Christmas present! I am pretty sure that my dad has my library card from our home town (where he still lives, but I don't) in his wallet, along with those of my sibling, so he can get 36 books out at a time.

We have CloudLibrary here, it's a bit buggy and you need either a tablet or a non-kindle e-reader, but the selection is fairly decent. I've just returned A Thousand Ships and currently have out Shuggie Bain, The Bass Rock and City of Girls.

Sounds like your dad is taking full advantage Keith.

This was all set up when my library had no online offering apart from magazines. They've since set up a temporary audiobook service during Covid which was originally only meant to run until July. It's with uLibrary which works perfectly fine, but the offering is very limited - about 500 books. It will disappear once the libraries can reliably open. They still have no ebook borrowing available. I'm half a mile from the county boundary where their library service has an extensive online catalogue. Very frustrating, so I took matters into my own hands! Sometimes having oodles of siblings and cousins can be an advantage, especially when they are far flung.

I couldn't handle another device, with yet more books piling up unread. I have so many to hand already that I really want to read and I don't know how I'll fit them in, and they just keep publishing more every day.

25. Slade House - David Mitchell

Halfway at last, and only five months late

A brilliant, short and ultra spooky haunted house horror tale featuring Mitchell's trademark interconnected stories.

169. Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Japanese short story collection.

I literally only bought this because it was the answer to the worst/most obscure clue in this years Caboodle National Book Token Quiz. I now know that it is basically impossible to get that clue without having read it, and the fact I'd never heard of it, and only got the clue with serious MN help really irritated me.

I absolutely LOVED this! It's hard to explain why without spoiling it really. It is four tales about people who have used the cafe, and one specific chair in that cafe, in order to time travel, but the rules are rigid, be back before the coffee gets cold, or be consigned to a half life as the chairs guardian.

I would have liked more of this really, and especially more about the system in which people who got stuck came unstuck and how getting stuck impacted them.

Very short, but I strongly recommend, particularly for the number conscious heading into December, but also for its own merit in its own right

5 star.

@FortunaMajor, what an excellent idea!

I find audiobooks slower than print, and am sometimes annoyed that our Overdrive sometimes only has the audio for a book I want to read. Sometimes I wonder if any of you are on the same County Overdrive as me, when I look for a book from this thread and find a long queue! BTW, I have a very old fire, so libby might work on other kindle devices. Although it really annoys me I can't use Overdrive on my paperwhite, which is much better quality!

@Welshwabbit, I have read Poirot's Christmas in the past, so will dig out again, but I have never seen The Mousetrap. One day, I hope!

48. The Island of the Sea Women - Lisa See

I heard of this and read it based on the positive reviews on this thread - which sums up why I love this thread, I would not have come across it otherwise. I won't add to what has already been said, it is an engrossing exploration of a fascinating culture - the female haenyeo divers in Korea - a tragic love story between two female friends and an insight into a terrible period of Korean and global history I knew nothing about. A big thumbs up.

86: Bookworm - Lucy Mangan

Some way behind everyone else in the world, but I finally got round to this. Mangan is younger than me so a fair number of her cherished books (most of the early ones, and all the teenage, Sweet Valley High/Judy Blume variety) were unfamiliar (as in, I've heard of them but not read them), but as a fellow bookworm who was easily reading before starting school and spent her entire childhood voraciously devouring printed matter, this memoir certainly spoke to me. In fact at some points she described the thought processes of the obsessive reader so accurately that I almost felt Lucy Mangan was me. A comforting read.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

169. Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Japanese short story collection.

I literally only bought this because it was the answer to the worst/most obscure clue in this years Caboodle National Book Token Quiz. I now know that it is basically impossible to get that clue without having read it, and the fact I'd never heard of it, and only got the clue with serious MN help really irritated me.

I absolutely LOVED this! It's hard to explain why without spoiling it really. It is four tales about people who have used the cafe, and one specific chair in that cafe, in order to time travel, but the rules are rigid, be back before the coffee gets cold, or be consigned to a half life as the chairs guardian.

I would have liked more of this really, and especially more about the system in which people who got stuck came unstuck and how getting stuck impacted them.

Very short, but I strongly recommend, particularly for the number conscious heading into December, but also for its own merit in its own right

5 star.

There is second book called Tales from the Cafe - I read Before the Coffee Gets Cold a couple of months ago and also gave it 5 stars.