26-ish books in 2021

[MercedesDeMonteChristo]

Thought I’d kick start the new thread for this year.

I’m starting with Outlander by Diana Gabalon and reading Anna Karenina Tolstoy one chapter a day, so expect to finish September sometime - I’m on chapter 4.

@KobaniDaughters I read Animal Farm when DS1 was reading it for school. He loves history and with my non historian hat Russian history is my thing so we had a great time talking about it. It was so witty (and sad) too.

Who is the Belle one about? Is it the story around Lord Mansfield’s ward and Kenwood?

Were they trying to promote a book they'd written (or some other product/service?)

That would make sense. I’d love to think it was way more interesting though.

I read Animal Farm at my grandparents’ house ages ago. Whenever I went to stay the night there, I’d have a small pile of books on the bedside table by my bed to read/look at. One of them was always Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs, about his parents.
@StColumbofNavron Becoming Belle is about a woman called Isabel Bilton, who leaves her childhood home in Aldershot to become a star of the stage in London. She meets a young member of the Irish aristocracy there and falls in love with him. Before that, though, she meets an American man and has a son by him - unfortunately he turns out to be a total arse and ends up in prison for fraud. The baby is sent to a woman in Sussex to be fostered. Belle - which she adopts as a stage name - and the Irish man get married, which doesn’t go down well with the man’s father... I can’t give away too much obviously!

Ah totally wrong on my part then. That sounds good though. I will look out for it.

32. Evil Games - Angela Marsons
This is the second book in the Detective Inspector Kim Stone series. I enjoyed the first one that I read last year, after being recommended the series by a friend, and have been picking up others when they drop down to 99p on Kindle.

In this book troubled DI Kim Stone meets her nemesis in the form of a sociopathic trauma therapist who is conducting a grim experiment on her patients and is determined to break Kim by making her confront the past she works hard to keep locked away. Nothing special but an enjoyable crime read.

33. Daisy Jones and the Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
This book in written in the script/interview style, which I've never come across before in the fiction genre. It was a great way to unfold the story of a hugely successful 70s rock band, as the interview kept cutting between different people and so you could got to experience it through different voices/eyes.

It reminded me of a lot of a Netflix documentary, and I enjoyed how the people would contradict each other as they remembered things differently. I wasn't surprised when I read that it was loosely based/influenced by Fleetwood Mac. I also appreciated the strong female characters. Highly recommended.

Book 12, Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.
I enjoyed this more than I thought I would but it was very much "Murder They Hope The Novel".

1. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
2. Diary of a Provincial Lady, E M Delafield
3. The Duke & I, Julia Quinn
4. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
5. Us, David Nicholls
6. The Autumn of the Ace, Louis de Bernieres
7. Migrant City: A New History of London, Panikos Panayi
8. Frenchman’s Creek, Daphne du Maurier
9. The Outsider, Albert Camus

10. The Battle of Green Lanes, Cosh Omar 11. Malamander, Thomas Taylor 12. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens 13. The Interest, Michael Taylor 14. Twenty Years After, Alexandre Dumas 15. The Disappearance of Emile Zola: Love, Literature and the Dreyfus Case, Michael Rosen 16. Gargantis, Thomas Taylor 17. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka 18. The Uses and Abuses of History, Margaret Macmillan 19. The Wrong Side of the Table, Ayser Salman 20. Stoner, John Williams 21. A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room, Lemony Snicket 22. The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey, Julia Laite 23. A Series of Unfortunate Events #4: The Wide Window, Lemony Snicket 24. The Alienist, Caleb Carr 25. Mixed/Other, Natalie Morris 26. The Viscount Who Loved Me, Julia Quinn 27. A Series of Unfortunate Events #4: The Miserable Mill, Lemony Snicket 28. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

This was a reread that we read bit by bit for book club. I still loved it as much as when I read it for GCSE many moons ago (and on subsequent rereads). I’m sure most of you know the story but just in case. It’s narrated by Scout (the best narrator in the history of narrators) a young girl witnessing various local events in 1930s Alabama. Her father is the local lawyer and is selected to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping a white woman. There are various subplots about enticing a reclusive neighbour out of his house. It’s just a fantastic read, great prose, dialogue, characterisation, plotting - I really just think it has everything.

1. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
2. Diary of a Provincial Lady, E M Delafield
3. The Duke & I, Julia Quinn
4. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
5. Us, David Nicholls
6. The Autumn of the Ace, Louis de Bernieres
7. Migrant City: A New History of London, Panikos Panayi
8. Frenchman’s Creek, Daphne du Maurier
9. The Outsider, Albert Camus

10. The Battle of Green Lanes, Cosh Omar 11. Malamander, Thomas Taylor 12. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens 13. The Interest, Michael Taylor 14. Twenty Years After, Alexandre Dumas 15. The Disappearance of Emile Zola: Love, Literature and the Dreyfus Case, Michael Rosen 16. Gargantis, Thomas Taylor 17. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka 18. The Uses and Abuses of History, Margaret Macmillan 19. The Wrong Side of the Table, Ayser Salman 20. Stoner, John Williams 21. A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Reptile Room, Lemony Snicket 22. The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey, Julia Laite 23. A Series of Unfortunate Events #4: The Wide Window, Lemony Snicket 24. The Alienist, Caleb Carr 25. Mixed/Other, Natalie Morris 26. The Viscount Who Loved Me, Julia Quinn 27. A Series of Unfortunate Events #4: The Miserable Mill, Lemony Snicket 28. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee 29. The Holiday, Guy Bellamy

I probably should have waited to update.

This was a ridiculous book and I probably should have DNF’d it. Three couples end up at The Carlton in Cannes and all sorts of silliness and bed hopping occur. It was written in the 1990s and has not stood the test of time. I have a strong tolerance for context but it was just awful: women = girl, woman sleeping her way to the top, twat man encouraging her. All one dimensional characters. I only read it because I was hoping for some sense of Cannes but even that was surface level. I googled the author and apparently he was a highly successful comic writer.

@StColumbofNavron I have To Kill A Mockingbird on my TBR bookshelf (as part of my reading the classics project). I also read it at secondary school but I'm looking forward to reading it again.

Also, meant to say, I picked up Pachinko for 99p the other day, based on your earlier recommendation.

Oh fab, it’s a great read. If you like it and Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane comes up again in deals then def grab that. I would argue it’s better than Pachinko.

Never heard of Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, but as I went to add it to my Wishlist I saw it's 99p at the moment so I bought it!

34. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Rather embarrassingly this is my first time reading this classic. Of course I've seen TV/film adaptions but I really wanted to read the novel. I chose the Collins Classroom version, with an introduction regarding the background of the author, time/culture, and themes of the novel, which I find useful to enhance the reading experience.

I haven't updated my list on this group for some time - apologies. It is a mix of being very busy in work, so no mental capacity for reading and having to drag myself through some of the books I selected!

Book 15 Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole by Allan Ropper written by a neurologist this book is about different illnesses and injuries that affect the brain. I was diagnosed and treated for PTSD a number of years ago and I think that is what drew my interest. It was a very interesting read, although I found the author to be very egotistic, a bit patronising and his attitude towards those suffering mental illness as a result of sexual abuse was just awful!

Book 16 Educated by Tara Westover I didn't love this book if I'm being honest and realise I'm not in the majority on that view. Some of her story is so bad it is almost unbelievable, so I definitely admire her for getting to where she is today. I just dragged myself through this book and was glad to make it to the end.

Book 17 was Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams I really enjoyed this read, while sometimes wanting to step into the book and give Queenie a shake at some of her choices.

Book 18 The Midnight Gang by David Walliams I read this to my children. We had taken a break from his books for a bit and were reading shorter stories, but really enjoyed this one.

I've just started Conversations with Friends.

@StColumbofNavron I have never read To Kill a Mocking Bird. It has been on my TBR list for so long and I have gone to start it so many times and have stopped. I'm actually afraid that I won't like it - mad really!

37. Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a time of pandemic by Rachel Clarke

I read this because I’ve read other things by Rachel Clarke and they’ve been interspersing, because it was. kindle Daily Deal and because I have a slightly morbid fascination with the effect of Covid on the health service (disclaimer, I work within healthcare). This was an interesting read, of not earth shattering since we’ve literally just lived through it, but I did find some of the perspectives that she brought as someone who usually works in palliative care, and the individual human stories were nicely woven with the more factual aspects of the story.

38. No one is talking about this by Patricia Lockwood

Another book shortlisted for the women’s prize. I honestly still don’t know what I made of this - interested if anyone else has read it (will scroll back for reviews later!). I believe the story has some basis in the author’s reality and some passages were so absolutely spot-on and laugh out loud in relation to life online and social media. The second half of the book dealt with the diagnosis of a rare syndrome in her sister’s baby and all the impacts of that. Again, there were some profound statements here but it just felt like.... hard work. Honestly, I prefer a writer to tell a story, not leave the reader to piece it together from disjointed paragraphs. It makes me feel like the writer can’t accruals write, if they must rely so heavily on the reader to generate the plot themselves. “Experimental” stuff like this always make me think of Adrian Mole’s experimental novel with no vowels! But maybe the fact I wasn’t keen on the style is something about me. Interested to hear thoughts!

@Tinkhasflown I really don’t reread a lot, only really Austen and TKAM but my last read was 2013. Even in that time my view on so many things has changed, grown and matured. E.g. I have always bought into the heroic father of TKAM but this time (though I still hold a great deal of respect for his character) I saw him as far less perfect. I saw that it wasn’t prejudiced and non prejudiced characters but rather gradations of prejudice. You might not love it, but I am certain you will get something out of it.

@Tinkhasflown I have Queenie on my TBR pile so I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it.

35. The Girls - Emma Cline
God this was a depressing read. It was so slow and full of over-the-top descriptions, metaphors and adjectives.

The story is about a 14-year old girl who feels invisible and worthless - her parents are more interested in themselves, her friend ditches her for someone else, and boys don't seem to notice her despite her following all the advice in the teen girl magazines she reads. Then she becomes obsessed with an older girl she sees at the park, Suzanne, who turns out to be part of a Manson-like cult, living in a skanky ranch, led by a bloke who they all worship.

The premise was so interesting, and yet the author did nothing to help me like the main character, and I just couldn't see what the allure of Suzanne was. The story flip-flopped back and forth between the past and present (when the main character was now in her 40s and leading an empty and pointless life - which made me dislike her even more given that she had so much privilege and opportunity). I didn't get the point of the present day storyline either: all it did was reinforce how shockingly poor girls could still be at having or enforcing boundaries or self-respect.

Basically I dislike every single character. I disliked the flip-flopping between flashbacks and present-day. I disliked the over florid creative writing. And I found the book slow and depressing.

1. The woman in the window.
2. The Whole Truth.

Obsessed with Cara Hunter's DI Fawley series. This is book number 5 in the series. Noticed on the back of the book that they're planning on making a TV series out the novels 😱 so excited!

@MustBeTheWine I quite like the Cara Hunter DI Fawley series, although I do think they are getting weaker. My thoughts on The Whole Truth are a page or so back. It feels a bit like she is running out of ideas or trying to stretch it out - especially the drip feeding on some of the arcs of the secondary characters. They’re still very readable though and I will keep going with the series as more are released.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is one of the many books I have TBR. I've enjoyed several of Lisa See's books in the past and I'm always interested in books about people and families moving between countries and women exploring family history, themes in some of her novels. I would also really recommend another of her recent novels, The Island of Sea Women about two women from childhood to early years of marriage etc on an island in South Korea, through Japanese occupation, WWII, and also American involvement in the country from WWII and the Korean War. Like Taa Girl, it's come up on offer on Kindle a few times so worth looking out for.

@TheAnswerIsCake I snapped up Breathtaking from the daily deal. I have read Rachel Clarke's first book Your Life in My Hands and have Dear Life, her second, also TBR. I think she trained and worked for some years in A&E/emergency medicine - she was a slightly older entrant having gone to medical school after a few years as a news journalist, in quite high pressure situations, maybe some kind of foreign correspondent but I'm just getting this post done rahter than stopping to check!) Then she felt burned out and stressed by government policies towards the NHS, she was one of the people who spoke out as a junior doctor when they were taking industrial action a few years ago. So she moved into palliative care.

16. The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
This is my favourite book so far this year. Really powerful, ultimately life-affirming novel about a Nigerian girl’s struggle to overcome societal barriers and become educated. I listened to this on Audible which was amazing as the actor (Lady Danbury from Bridgerton) really brought the Nigerian dialect (pidgin?) to life in a way that I couldn’t have done for myself. This is heart breaking in places but also really warm and funny. The first person narrator, Adouni, is a really memorable character. Totally recommended.

Not sure what to read next...

@Chickoletta The Girl with the Louding Voice is next on my TBR pile, so it’s good to see such a strong recommendation.

I thought I had bought this @Chickoletta but just checking Kindle I haven’t. That sounds right up my street.