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.

Thanks Count -will have a look.

Fortuna, great minds think alike

Help! The 2021 thread is invisible for some bizarre reason, I can't find it anywhere. Can anybody help with a clicky link please ?

@bettbattenburg

Try this:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4122000-50-Book-Challenge-2021-Part-One

[quote StitchesInChristmasTime]@bettbattenburg

Try this:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4122000-50-Book-Challenge-2021-Part-One[/quote]
Thank you @Stitches.

Hi all, I dropped off for health reasons about a month or two ago, reading came to a halt. I managed to get a few in this last week so posting my final list and hope to jump on the 2021 train. I’ve missed these threads and have enjoyed catching up with everyone’s final roundups. I over corrected towards women writers a couple of years ago as I wasn’t reading many and this year I did about 50/50 without thinking about what I was reading so pleased with that.

1. Black Hammer Vol 1

2. Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson

1. Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson

4. Jim Henson The Biography by Brian Jay Jones 5. Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow 6. A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

1. Thin Air by Michelle Paver
2. 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson

9. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt 10. The Pied Piper by Neville Shute 11. The Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard 12. The 101 Dalamatians by Dodie Smith 13. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien 14. My Wild and Sleepless Nights by Clover Stroud 15. Wild and Crazy Guys by Nick de Semlyen 16. The Topeka School by Ben Lerner 17. Trustee from the Toolroom by Neville Shute 18. The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks 19. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris 20. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami 21. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid 22. Persuasion by Jane Austen 23. The Island 24. Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss 25. Stasiland by Anna Funder 26. Ice Cold in Alex 27. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld 28. Matilda by Roald Dahl 29. The Railway Children by E Nesbit 30. The Mothers by Britt Bennett 31. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford 32. Millions by Frank Cottrell-Boyce 33. Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls 34. The Redhead at the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler 35. Back When We Were Grown-Ups by Anne Tyler 36. The Second Sleep by Robert Harris 37. Little Women by Louisa M Alcott 38. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger 39. The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel 40. For Esme with Love and Squalor by Jd Salinger 41. The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith 42. Emma by Jane Austen 43. One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown 44. Mary Oliver Selected Poems 45. Intimations by Zadie Smith 46. Therese Raquin by Emil Zola 47. Heidi by Johanna Spyri 48. The Wonder Spot by Melissa Bank 49. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 50. A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson 51. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead 52. Silence by Shūsaku Endō 53. Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward 54. Negative Capability by Michele Roberts 55. Lost in a Good Game 56. Go Giants by Nick Laird 57. Beowulf by Seamus Heaney 58. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince 59. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper 60. The Fire of Joy by Clive James 61. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke 62. The Queen’s Gambit

I had a really good run this last week as enjoyed all 3 immensely.

Piranesi is a mini masterpiece, it is so rare to find something so intelligent and stimulating and philosophical that also reads like a page-turning thriller. Not like anything else, and spoke to me very strongly. Best not too say too much about it as better to discover as you go. I’ve always been defeated by Jonathan Strange but this may send me back.

The Fire of Joy is a beautiful, beautiful moving book. James takes the reader on a journey through his life in poetry, giving commentary on his favourite poems, those which have lingered in his memory despite failing eyesight and deteriorating health, and what they have meant to him in the past and what they mean to him as he reaches the end of his life. This was extremely rewarding to read if you like poetry, and also to dip in and out of if you only have a passing interest.

The Queen’s Gambit really enjoyable read, ahead of watching the tv series. Will be reading Tevis’s other novels of which I am only familiar through the films.

I imagine I will read a similar amount next year as that seems to be where I sit, but would like to perhaps round up to 70.

Thanks and see you on the other side

Thanks to having time off and doing very little in 2020 other than work, not to mention 3 lockdowns and a broken limb, my total came to 222
which is up quite a bit. I also bought/acquired 56 books which is up a little, probably due to the book spree I went on when charity shops re-opened in July and the library being totally shut till August, and World Of Books online.

I am being defeated in my reading ambitions by the return of the much dreaded home schooling, really hoped to have a quiet day this week to finish Polly Crosby - The Illustrated Child, fingers crossed I will be back soon to finally update my 2020 list...

I'm trying to support more independent bookshops but Amazon always seem to be cheaper - I'd like to buy the Twochubbycubs Diet Planner in paperback and they're at least £1 cheaper than anywhere else I can find it, annoyingly. (The Kindle edition is much, much cheaper but I would like an actual copy to write in!)

Hope you are all recovered now @SatsukiKusakabe and @TabbyM

Psst! - New thread for 2021

[https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4122000-50-Book-Challenge-2021-Part-One]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4122000-50-Book-Challenge-2021-Part-One