50 Book Challenge 2020 Part Eleven

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eleventh (and final!) thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge was to read fifty books (or more!) in 2020, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and it's still not too late to delurk and tell us your reading highlights and lowlights of the year.

@Sadik

Dead Famous looks brilliant Mackerelfa - do you think it would work well as an audio book? I'm wondering what to get with my next credit Scoff also sounds excellent & on my wishlist, but sadly not available on audible!

I think it would be good, Sadik, although I don't know how they'd deal with all the footnotes and references! The Audible page refers to "accompanying reference material", so maybe you'd get a PDF as well (I've had this with books from them before). The book has a section of plates at the end, with portraits of some of the people he talks about, so it would be nice to have that as well. You can actually listen to an excerpt from the book, as well as watch a couple of interviews with him about it, on his website.

Thanks, Terpsichore! I also bought Eating Up Italy on your recommendation, so you're obviously my books-about-food enabler .

What a fantastic haul, southeast!

Highlights of the year:

Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott
Mothership, Francesca Segal
Mrs Miniver, Jan Struther
Requiem for a Wren, Neville Shute
Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders

Also jealous of southeast's haul!

Thanks for the final thread of the year South-East, this has been my first year and I have really loved it, will definitely be back for 2021!

Here is my final list as I don’t see me getting another book finished tomorrow.

1. Pet Semetary - Stephen King
2. The Outsider - Albert Camus
3. Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter: True Stories from Victims and Survivors of the Yorkshire Ripper - Carol Ann Lee
4. Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary's, #1) - Jodi Taylor
5. Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
6. 4 3 2 1 - Paul Auster
7. Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann
8. The Devil's Teardrop - Jeffery Deaver
9. A Symphony of Echoes (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #2) - Jodi Taylor

10. What Katy Did - Susan Coolidge 11. A Second Chance (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #3) - Jodi Taylor 12. A Trail Through Time (Chronicles of St. Mary's, #4) - Jodi Taylor 13. Elevator Pitch - Linwood Barclay 14. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari 15. The Talisman (The Talisman, #1) - Stephen King 16. Ayoade on Top - Richard Ayoade 17. The Black Ice (Harry Bosch, #2; Harry Bosch Universe, #2) - Michael Connelly 18. In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1) - Tana French 19. The Dutch House - Ann Patchett 20. Red Ribbons (Dr. Kate Pearson, #1) - Louise Phillips 21. The Girl He Used to Know - Tracey Garvis Graves 22. The Other Us - Fiona Harper 23. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline 24. The Crow Trap (Vera Stanhope, #1) - Ann Cleeves 25. The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, #2) - Stephen King 26. Guilt (Department Q, #4) - Jussi Adler-Olsen 27. This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor - Adam Kay 28. Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St Mary's, #1) - Jodi Taylor 29. The Very First Damned Thing - Jodi Taylor 30. A Symphony of Echoes (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #2) - Jodi Taylor 31. When a Child is Born - Jodi Taylor 32. Roman Holiday (Chronicles of St. Mary's) - Jodi Taylor 33. A Second Chance (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #3) - Jodi Taylor 34. Christmas Present - Jodi Taylor 35. A Trail Through Time (Chronicles of St. Mary's, #4) - Jodi Taylor 36. No Time Like The Past (The Chronicles of St. Mary's #5) - Jodi Taylor 37. The Outcast Dead (Ruth Galloway, #6) - Elly Griffiths 38. How to Stop Time - Matt Haig 39. Thinner - Richard Bachman 40. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Chronicles of St. Mary's, #6) Jodi Taylor 41. Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings - Jodi Taylor 42. Lies, Damned Lies, and History (The Chronicles of St Mary's #7) - Jodi Taylor 43. The Great St Mary's Day Out - Jodi Taylor 44. My Name is Markham - Jodi Taylor 45. Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders 46. The Sudden Departure of the Frasers - Louise Candlish 47. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1) - J.K. Rowling 48. Raven Black (Shetland Island, #1) - Ann Cleeves 49. The Eyes of the Dragon - Stephen King 50. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2) - J.K. Rowling 51. Skeleton Crew - Stephen King 52. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3) - J.K. Rowling 53. IT - Stephen King 54. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury 55. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4) - J.K. Rowling 56. East of Hounslow (Jay Qasim #1) - Khurrum Rahman 57. And the Rest is History (Chronicles of St. Mary's Book 8) - Jodi Taylor 58. Someone Out There - Catherine Hunt 59. An Argumentation of Historians (The Chronicles of St Mary's #9) - Jodi Taylor 60. The Battersea Barricades - Jodi Taylor 61. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd 62. A Perfect Storm - Jodi Taylor 63. Christmas Past - Jodi Taylor 64. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5) - J.K. Rowling 65. Look For Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #9) - Lisa Gardner 66. The Man Who Fell to Earth - Walter Tevis 67. The Steam-Pump Jump (The Chronicles of St Mary's #9.6) - Jodi Taylor 68. And Now for Something Completely Different (The Chronicles of St Mary's #9.7) - Jodi Taylor 69. Hope for the Best (The Chronicles of St. Mary's, #10) - Jodi Taylor 70. When Did You Last See Your Father? (The Chronicles of St Mary's, #10.5) - Jodi Taylor 71. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6) - J.K. Rowling 72. Enigma - Robert Harris 73. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry - Jon Ronson 74. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7) - J.K. Rowling 75. Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading - Lucy Mangan 76. White Nights (Shetland Island, #2) - Ann Cleeves 77. Red Bones (Shetland Island, #3) - Ann Cleeves 78. Blue Lightning (Shetland Island, #4) - Ann Cleeves 79. Dead Water (Shetland Island, #5) - Ann Cleeves 80. Thin Air (Shetland Island, #6) - Ann Cleeves 81. Sole Survivor - Dean Koontz 82. Three Wishes - Liane Moriarty 83. The Power - Naomi Alderman 84. Noughts & Crosses (Noughts & Crosses, #1) - Malorie Blackman 85. Beastie Boys Book - Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz 86. The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden - Jonas Jonasson 87. Since We Fell - Dennis Lehane 88. Fractured - Dani Atkins 89. Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit - John E. Douglas 90. The Torment Of Others (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #4) - Val McDermid 91. Beneath The Bleeding (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #5) - Val McDermid

Some stats for the year:

• 91% Fiction / 9% Non-Fiction
• 86% Kindle / 11% Audible / 3% Books

• 33% Male / 67% Female

Favourite books of the year:

• The Outsider – Albert Camus
• This was a re-read and I loved it just as much the second time around.
• Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
• This has gone straight into my top ten books. It is a short read with not a single word wasted and I found myself really taking my time, savouring every moment. I was entranced, that’s the only word for it.
• Harry Potter Books – JK Rowling
• I have read the books before but this was my first time listening to the audible versions (in fact this year was my first year of listening to audiobooks) there was something very soothing and comforting listening to Stephen Fry reading some old favourites, especially during the lockdowns. Also it felt good to support JK Rowling after all the abuse she got this year.
• The Chronicles of St Mary's – Jodi Taylor
• I love Time Travel books and the team at St Mary’s have really captured my imagination this year. OK they are not high literature and the constant scrapes due to not following the rules (I am very much of the opinion that rules are there for a reason ) is a bit repetitive at time but the characters are great and I really enjoyed the sections set in the past. I mean working at St Mary’s would basically be my dream job.
• Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders
• I found this one a bit confusing at first and thought about giving up – I’m so glad I didn’t as the more I read the more it seeped into my consciousness and I found myself thinking about it time and again, both during the reading and afterwards. It was an emotional, affecting read and felt truly original to me.
• Beastie Boys Book – Mike Diamond and Adam Horowitz
• This was also an audible book and I absolutely loved it. The sections read by Horovitz and Diamond were by far the best, and the majority of the rest covered by guest speakers were good too with only one or two stinkers (Kim Gordon I am looking at you and your monotone!). It was an open and honest account with a couple of mea culpas and hearfelt apologies. The loss of Adam Yauch is dealt with beautifully and Diamond and Horivitz convey the love, respect and friendship without ever descending into mawkish detail on Yauch’s passing. As Horovitz says Yauch’s cancer diagnosis and death is “just too fucking sad to write about”.

I love Chris(topher) Brookmyre and I'm not at all Scottish (but I do have a rather black sense of humour). I reviewed two of the newer books (written as Chris) a couple of weeks ago and have just finished the third and last book in that series, which I'll review in a while. The series is about a private investigator called Jasmine Sharp and they do represent a slight change of direction, as they're less bleak/cartoonist/OTT than the earlier books (I think this is possibly why he changed his name for them?) I know some of the more hardcore fans were disappointed by how "straightforward" they were in comparison with the earlier books, but I think they're still well worth reading - his voice and Glaswegian sense of humour still come through loud and clear, as do the boldly-drawn characters, even though the action is more of a conventional police procedural.

Oh those sound good mackerelfa I will hunt them down.

I've concluded that anything resembling chicklit is definitely not for me and so for an easy page-turning read between more demanding stuff it has to be crime, preferably not too grisly - those would fit the bill nicely.

299. The Way of All Flesh - Ambrose Parry 19th century Edinburgh and a medical student has noticed a spate of unexplained deaths of young women. As they are all either housemaids or whores, nobody seems that bothered so he sets out to investigate. Fab easy and entertaining read. The whodunit element was blindingly obvious, but the journey to get there was still interesting. There's a sequel which I will definitely read.

I have started book 300 which fittingly is Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year. At 16% it's proved that people really haven't changed much in 350 years. All the rich lot have just fled to their second homes in the country. Self isolation is 28 days though. There are some serious rules going on. This is fascinating!

highlandcoo I really don't get on with Deborah Levy either.

Eine I feel you could save blurb writers a lot of work with your one line synopsis method.

southeast Lovely book swag. I didn't realise Waterstones did a hurt book sale.

HeadNorth Damian Barr has written a memoir about growing up gay in 80s Glasgow called Maggie and Me.

Keith I've gone back to your Apeirogon review. I found the format hard work in audio and I was interested to see it wasn't exclusive to that. It was interestingly done, but I was more interested in what happened than playing mental hopscotch to find out. I don't mind a fractured timeline, but this took it to an extreme.

Ham I think the consistently high numbers usually come from Chessie and Stitches who in previous years have inspired me that it is possible to read a good number of books. My first few years I was in awe of anyone hitting three figures and couldn't fathom how it was possible. I'll be back to normal numbers next year as I won't have the same free time as the past 2 years.

This year has been exceptional for reading, if crap for everything else.

Does anyone get on with Deborah Levy? Her fiction is such hard work for so little reward. Though her memoirs are more engaging. I enjoyed The Cost of Living.

Highlights below. I read 110 books this year which is fewer than usual. I found myself struggling to concentrate a lot of the time and also didn’t have the same number of really absorbing novels I usually have which I think made a difference. I think I need to track down some real escapism for January as it’s going to be bleak.

Guest House for Young Widows by Azadeh Moaveni
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
Christy Malry’s Own Double Entry by BS Johnson
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman
Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
The Stand by Stephen King
The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran
Corregidora by Gayl Jones
House of Glass by Hadley Freeman
Our Bodies, Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith

Looking back over the list, 63 out of 110 were by women and 68 were fiction. The two best were House of Glass and Ducks, Newburyport. Seven books about pandemics, fiction and non fiction.

I need to think about what I want to get out of reading next year - this was the first year in a while I haven’t been goal-oriented when choosing books and while I didn’t hate anything I read I don’t think it feels like a vintage year for reading.

Bett
Your comment on Kes really made me laugh.

Going to attempt my last two OMF chaps today and finish another book to seal off 2020...

Bit distracted by the News so this may be optimistic...

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Bett Your comment on Kes really made me laugh.

Yes, & it also made me wonder whether I should try and re-read Cider with Rosie and Nostromo

All I can say is that Lord of the Flies had certainly improved between 1979 and 2019. Astonishing really.

So, looking at my Goodreads I started keeping track of my reading in 2014 when I managed to read 55 books and since then have never bested that. UNTIL NOW. In 2020 I managed to read 58 books, and am currently on my 59th although it will end up being book #1 of 2021. Thank you to everyone on this thread, it has genuinely been a little spot of light on the internet. I have a few additions from the last time I posted, but just adding them on to the end sans review because it's Hogmanay and I'm feeling lazy.

1. Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
2. This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El Mohtar
3. I Might Regret This - Abbi Jacobson
4. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng
5. The Cactus - Sarah Haywood
6. Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo
7. Story of a Soul - St Therese of Lisieux
8. Daisy Jones and the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
9. Queenie - Candace Carty-Williams

10. Conviction - Denise Mina 11. Under the Dome - Stephen King 12. Still Lives - Maria Hummel 13. The Black Echo - Michael Connelly 14. The Wisdom of Compassion - The Dalai Lama 15. Black Ice - Michael Connelly 16. Watch Me Disappear - Janelle Brown 17. Fool's Assassin - Robin Hobb 18. Fool's Quest - Robin Hobb 19. Assassin's Fate - Robin Hobb 20. 11/22/63 - Stephen King 21. The Closer I Get - Paul Burston 22. Whisper Network - Chandler Baker 23. Elevation - Stephen King 24. The Outsider - Stephen King 25. Harrow the Ninth - Tamysn Muir 26. Mr Mercedes - Stephen King 27. Finders Keepers - Stephen King 28. End of Watch - Stephen King 29. The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley 30. My Lovely Wife - Samantha Downing 31. The Warehouse - Rob Hart 32. All Adults Here - Emma Straub 33. Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell 34. Summer - Ali Smith 35. 84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff 36. The Institute - Stephen King 37. Piranesi - Susanna Clarke 38. Killing Eve: No Tomorrow - Luke Jenkins 39. Killing Eve: Endgame - Luke Jenkins 40. A Far Cry From Kensington - Muriel Spark 41. Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes 42. On the Beach - Neville Shute 43. Reasons to be Cheerful - Nina Stibbe 44. One by One - Ruth Ware 45. The Deep - Nick Cutter 46. The Once and Future Witches - Alix E. Harrow 47. Hench - Natalie Zina Walshcots 48. The City We Became - N.K. Jemisin 49. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison 50. Eleanor and Park - Rainbow Rowell 51. The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics - Olivia Waite 52. Vicious - V.E. Schwab 53. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier Absolutely brilliant, can't believe I'd never read this before. Teenage me would have loved this. 54. How to Build a Girl - Caitlin Moran 55. How to be Famous - Caitlin Moran 56. Moranifesto - Caitlin Moran 57. The Falling in Love Montage - Ciara Smyth - This was a really, really sweet and slightly sad story about two girls in Ireland who try to have a no-strings summer romance inspired by romantic comedies before they both head off to whatever comes next. They're in that long summer after School and before Uni/life/work. Loved it to bits, and only wished I still worked in Waterstones so I could put a face out recommendation on the YA shelf. 58. All Systems Red - Martha Wells

40 of the 58 were written by women. The others were mostly by Stephen King who I read for the first time this year. I also seemed to go on a bit of a Caitlin Moran binge at the end there, and still have another of hers on my kindle to read next year.

54 were fiction as I'm not really a big non-fiction reader. The ones that were non-fiction were almost all autobiographies.

See you all next year, bookish Mumsnetters!

It didn't feel like a vintage year for reading either, *Pepe." Books has to fight for my attention.

I slipped in one more read for the year - I'd abandoned it before at 77% read so I realised I could easily finish it.
136. My Last Supper, Jay Rayner
Food critic muses about his ideal last meal, researching the perfect ingredients and interweaving anecdotes about his past. I like JR and enjoyed hearing about his childhood, but I wouldn't call this a profound work of memoir - more of a journalistic trot around some slightly random stories.

Highlandcoo and HeadNorth I have Shuggie Bain on my wishlist but think I need to be in the right frame of mind to read it. One side of my family were from a very (in)famous scheme in Glasgow so I spent a lot of time there in the 80s when growing up. Not been back there for about 20 years but I have mostly fond memories - AFAIK its now nothing like it was back then, but the negative 'image,' is still hard to shake for the place.

Fortuna you've just reminded me how much I enjoyed The Way of All Flesh, thank you. I lived in Edinburgh for a while and really enjoyed the setting. It was a fun read.

I've been waiting for the next in the series to come out in paperback and just found out it's due on 7 January so looking forward to that.

A bit off topic, HeadNorth and InTheCludgie (great name by the way) but do you ever watch Still Game? It's quite touching; the friendships and close relationships in what aren't the most beautiful surroundings. Obviously very funny too.

Betts interesting comment about A Kestrel for a Knave!

I also had to study Kes at secondary school. It stands out in my memory as the most unrelentingly depressing thing I’d ever read. Maybe I was just too young to appreciate it?

Although I can’t say that I’m in any hurry to revisit it and see if I like it any better now!

@StitchesInChristmasTime

Betts interesting comment about A Kestrel for a Knave!

I also had to study Kes at secondary school. It stands out in my memory as the most unrelentingly depressing thing I’d ever read. Maybe I was just too young to appreciate it?

Although I can’t say that I’m in any hurry to revisit it and see if I like it any better now!

Somebody on here recommended it months ago I think, it was worthy of a revisit. It's certainly a mark twain style improvement

@BestIsWest

All I can say is that Lord of the Flies had certainly improved between 1979 and 2019. Astonishing really.

@BestIsWest I might have to give that a go. DS has been studying it for GCSE, he says it's quite bad because he's predictable but also says I may as well read it because it's quite short but it's not amazing.

^ it's predictable, ds is anything but

highlandcoo yes Still Game is great, never saw the last series though as it was on TV round about the time my DF was really unwell. I did see the tall one with the nice eyes from the show when I was standing in line at a West end sandwich shop years ago. Felt a bit star struck and said hello. He said hello back

Adding to the Christopher Brookmyre talk, I also have The Way of All Flesh on my TBR pile. I bought it not knowing it was cowritten by CB, who I love, but I think his black humour is present from the first line.

Bridgerton - The Duke and I
I have only two words - fucking awful.
Read it for the wedding night sex scene. And then burn it. Jesus wept.