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.

Great review @Chickoletta I have this on my Kindle TBR pile and am looking forward to reading it.

Love the sound of Tea of Hummingbird Lane and Girl with the Loudest Voice, both right up my alley

I was a bit disappointed with Pachinko though now I can’t remember why!!

Just had my birthday and was bought a lot of books so def not allowed to buy anymore for a while

19. The Hand That First Held Mine Maggie O’Farrell

I enjoyed this, so busy at the moment but it was an easy pick up put down bedtime read and it didn’t end how I thought it was going to end - no spoilers but I thought a baddie was going to turn out to be really bad but I just felt so sad for them in the end. Loved the lead female character especially in the time she was living in. She’s an easy read is Maggie....and Hamnet has finally appeared in my local bookshop which I pre ordered!

I think the thing with Pachinko was that it was its was so hyped up, so whilst I liked it I couldn’t like it enough in some ways (plus I’d already read Tea Girl).

Has anyone read the Cazalet Chronicles? A friend has recommended them.

They are on my goals list for this year. I have the first one but have only dipped in when deciding what to read next then picking something else that just works at the time. I am looking forward to them though, they sound right up my street and MN is full of fans.

@Chickoletta

Has anyone read the Cazalet Chronicles? A friend has recommended them.

I've read the first two. They are utterly gorgeous and delectable IMO. I love the characters and when I've finished each book, it's a huge wrench. I plan to read the final 3 over the next 3 summers.

20. Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi
Read this for book club at work. I don't think I would have chosen it otherwise and I loved it, which I guess is the great thing about book clubs!
The story runs from the 18th century up until the present day and is set in Ghana and the US. Each chapter is for a different character, each of which is a descendant of two sisters whose story starts in the first two chapters. You get a snapshot of each characters life and experiences and then move onto the next character down through the generations. It's beautiful. The contrast between the side of the family who stay in Ghana and that of those who ended up in the US via the slave trade and the highs and lows on both sides of the Atlantic is incredibly evocative. An absolute blessing of a book.

21. The Good Neighbour - RJ Parker
99p on Kindle and not half bad. Although the protagonist, Leah's, decision making is pretty questionable throughout and requires some suspension of disbelief. She runs over a deer one night on her way home and knocks on the door of a nearby house for help. The man helps her call the AA and is perfectly pleasant. When she returns the next day with a bottle of wine to thank him, it turns out he doesn't live there at all and the person who does is dead. Decent, if a little nuts.

22. Everything's Eventual - Stephen King
A short story collection from around 2008. Picked this up in a bag of free 2nd hand books. Some of the stories are scary and others aren't but they are all pretty good and I thought two of them: Riding the Bullet and 1408 were excellent. This book reminded me that I do really enjoy reading short stories and I will try and seek more of them out.

@StColumbofNavron I did not know that. Thank you for sharing- how amazing to stay inspired and focused through such an ordeal.

14. Portnoy’s complaint - Philip Roth

Got this from a recommended reads in The Week. I’ve not read anything by Roth and thought I ought. But it’s gross. It’s a thinly veiled memoir about a sex addict. It’s boring and not at all funny, objectifies women in the most obvious of ways and just grosses you out. I hear his recent biography documented a very disturbing relationship with grooming and selecting ‘pretty girls’ to attend his lectures. gross. Nasty little penis obsessive.

@HoundOfTheBasketballs I loved Homegoing too, also recommend Behold The Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue in a vaguely similar vein but very similarly evocative and beautiful writing

Have not heard of Cazalet Chronicles

Book 13, half way, Snow in May by Ksenya Melnik. Absolutely gorgeous set of short stories by a Russian author, set in a former Gulag town in the far NE, with links to Alaska. I got a membership of the Shelterbox book club for my birthday and this is the first one. I just missed out on the online discussion though as I was a bit late finishing.

39. Rebel Ideas - The Power if Diverse Thinking by Matthew Syed

This was a really good read. Syed is a great storyteller, bringing his points alive with lots of relevant tales. This book made me go off on a tangent and explore a couple of the stories he used in more depth. However, the book did drag a bit towards the end as it seemed to run out of steam and get a bit repetitive. Nevertheless, makes fantastic points about elements of diversity beyond the obvious and why tokenism is a bad idea.

40. Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud

This is a beautiful book about human relationships and different types of love, set in Trinidad. I really enjoyed it, but for me it does fall short of being a pick of the year for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we’re here again with the kre8tiv punctuation. Given that the book also uses dialect to paint an authentic image of life in Trinidad, this made it somewhat harder to follow than it perhaps needed to be. And I guess I’m just tiring of this trend of breaking the rules of grammar, but maybe that makes me a stuck-in-my ways curmudgeon! Secondly, perhaps because of reason one, the characters didn’t fully get under my skin in the way I think they could have. Looking back on the storyline, I wanted to be able to feel more about the events that unfolded. I think written in a different way it might well have been a tear-jerker. Still a recommendation from me though.

I’ve picked up The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane (currently 99p on Kindle) on the strength of recommendations here. Although given my out of control TBR section, it may be a while until I get to it! The Girl with the Louding Voice is up next.

1. The Hills Is Lonely, by Lillian Beckwith
2. Early Riser, by Jasper Fforde
3. Dear Mrs Bird, by AJ Pearce
4. My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell
5. The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
6. The Silver Sword, by Ian Serraillier
7. Honor, by Lyn Cote
8. One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow, by Olivia Hawker
9. The Haunting of Gillespie House, by Darcy Coates

10. A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape From North Korea, by Masaji Ishikawa

11. Unnatural Causes: The Life & Many Deaths of Britain's Top Forensic Pathologist, by Richard Shepherd. After a bit of a reading slump, this memoir is the first book that's held my attention for a while. I'm only about a quarter of the way through and, although there's too much focus on his upbringing currently, it's interesting enough when talking about his work. I think this type of memoir could easily become sensationalist, but so far Dr Shepherd comes across as respectful to both the deceased and the bereaved in his writings.

@TheAnswerIsCake that's an insightful review of Love After Love - and you identified something that I felt too (although I didn't know what it was until you described it!) - that the characters didn't get under your skin enough that you really cared for them. Yes!!! I liked the characters, but the author could have done more to make me care for them. I still really enjoyed the book, but you're right, this would have taken it to a higher level.

36. The Five - Hallie Rubenhold
A non-fiction about the untold stories of the five women killed by Jack the Ripper. I loved how this book gave such an in-depth look into the lives of working class women in the 19th century. It really brings home how powerless women were and the shocking way everything was stacked against them (e.g. how if a married couple wanted to separate they couldn't afford to divorce, and whereas it was acceptable for the man to live 'as married' with another woman, if the woman did this she was deemed an adulteress). It's also sad how the media/society painted these women as prostitutes, even though there is no evidence that 3 of them ever were, and a 4th only briefly and not at the time of her death. And yet this is how the world knows them - it was the first thing a friend said to me when I mentioned I was reading a book about the women killed by JtR. I'm grateful to the author for dispelling this myth and giving these women a voice. Highly recommended.

37. The Recovery of Rose Gold - Stephanie Wrobel
When it comes to light that Patty has been poisoning her daughter for the past 18 years, it's Rose Gold's testimony against her mother that puts her behind bars for the crime of aggravated child abuse. During the 5 years Patty is inside, Rose Gold discovers a lot about her mother and herself, but will this knowledge help or hinder their relationship when Patty is released? And will Patty be able to forgive her daughter for testifying against her?

An interesting story concept and an easy read, but the plot was rather predictable and the characters were unlikeable, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped.

@livingonpurpose I'm very wary of true crime books generally, but want to read The Five and have it on my Kindle TBR! The same thing happened in the 1970s with Peter Sutcliffe (who was nicknamed the Yorkshire Ripper). There was a very good documentary series on BBC Four - don't know if it's available on Iplayer at the moment - one woman's kids were taken into care and they were very identifiably featured on the front page of the Yorkshire Evening Post, our main local newspaper in Leeds at the time. One of them was interviewed - his sister had ended up killing herself as an adult.

@elkiedee I saw that Yorkshire Ripper documentary series and remember exactly the woman you are talking about. There were striking similarities between both cases whereby the women's lives/lifestyles became a feature of the crime - almost as if they weren't as important as victims because of it. Shocking. In fact in the last chapter of The Five the author makes reference to a recent case where the judge instructs a jury to put aside any feelings they might have about the women's lifestyle/job (they were prostitutes in this case) when it came to making a decision! Like it should even be a factor - they were all still women, still humans, with as much right not to be killed by a man as any other person.

41. The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

I loved this, couldn’t put it down. It’s the story of Adunni, a 14 year old girl in Nigeria who dreams of an education and changing the world but is sold as a bride after her mother dies. In complete contrast to Love After Love (see my review above), Adunni just walked off the page for me. I could understand her pain, her fear, her frustration and despair. But I could also feel her hope and her spirit and was absolutely rooting for her. However, she definitely wasn’t the only victim in the story which isn’t always immediately obvious. I also liked the subtle progression of the language in the book as Adunni learnt more English, it underscored the progression she sees through the story. The sad part is that Adunni may be fictional, but unfortunately her circumstances are reality for too many girls the world over. Really highly recommend.

I really enjoyed The Five. We read it in our uni book club and I have to say it was panned a bit, but that’s because everyone in the group is a historian and they didn’t feel her claims stood up to scrutiny, though all thought it was a brave and good attempt and sowed the seeds of reasonable doubt. I was more forgiving and enjoy the huge amount of context that she was able to invoke. Nineteenth century prostitution was in many cases different to now and one might sell sex today but not tomorrow.

I’m going to go and see how much Love after Love and The Girl with the alluding Voice are. Don’t try and stop me!

p.S. I already recommended up thread but if you liked The Five then Julia Laite’s The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey is even better.

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins.

Enjoyed this a lot.
The exciting tale of Lydia and her son who flee their home in Mexico to travel to the safety of the US after a terrible tragedy occurs. It’s a roller coaster adventure story about their perilous journey and of the gut wrenching love of a mother for her son.

I haven’t allocated a number for this as I’ve just changed phones and unfortunately lost all my apps.
In my perimenopausal smog I’ve completely forgotten the name of my book list app!
Could anyone direct me to an app which allows me to record the books I’ve read, am reading and with pictures of the front covers?

I use GoodReads but do you use Library something??? I’m sure we’ve talked about it here @BaconAndAvocado so you might find it.

@BaconAndAvocado could it be Reading List? It’s a very straightforward app with the lists you describe. (I use it on my phone, although I’ve also started using Good Reads as well now, but I prefer Reading list for keeping track of my TBR pile!)

StColumbofNavron
Yes, we did discuss this early on in the thread and it was Reading List that I was using TheAnswerIsCake
Thank you

Just downloaded the app onto my new phone.

Now I have to reload, one by one, all the books I’ve read this year, which is thankfully nowhere near the amount you two have devoured so far!

I’ve just started Girl, Woman, Other and despite its unconventional style, I’m loving it!

I am reading The Girl with the Louding Voice right now, TheAnswerIsCake, so pleased to read your glowing review!

Thanks for the recommendation StColumb, I've just added The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey to my Wish List.

38. The Boy Between - Josiah Hartley and Amanda Prowse
Non-fiction co-written by the author Amanda Prowse and her son Josh about his struggle with depression as a teen and attempted suicide, and how they tried to cope as a family.

I read this to gain a better understanding of depression and mental health illness and it's affects. As the mother of a son, I also admit I wanted to be proactive and learn how best to help should I ever face the situation Amanda found herself in.

This book also opened my eyes to high incident of suicide amongst university students, and the lack of mental heath support available to them. As well as touching on some issues I'm already aware of that worry me as a parent: the pressures put on children/students to succeed, be the best, not to fail, etc. This is something that I work on with my (10 year old) son already, as he has a reluctance to try new things for fear of failing.

Overall an interesting, if upsetting in parts, book.

@BaconAndAvocado glad you found it. Devoured seems to be the word! I was in such a rut with reading - the first lockdown last year Really killed my reading mojo and then I’d gone back to formulaic thrillers that we’re all very same. This thread has had a massive positive effect on my reading, making me excited about discovering new books again! (I will slow down at some point though!)

@livingonpurpose I hope you love The Girl With the Louding Voice too, I’ve actually had The Boy Between on my Kindle for months. I’m pretty sure it was on First Reads last year, or if not was a deal. I haven’t read it yet as someone who had experienced serious depression in my teens I’ve not actually been sure if I really want to read it or whether it may be distressing. That you describe it as upsetting makes me wonder if you’d also not recommend it in this context?

@TheAnswerIsCake Hmmm, I'm not sure whether I'd not recommend The Boy Between in that case...it really would be a personal choice. But to add some context...the bits that upset me personally were first, the concept that someone could end up in a place where they just want to 'delete' themselves from the world made me feel so sad for them. And secondly, the thought of how it must feel when the person feeling this way is the most important person to you in the whole world (i.e. as Amanda feels about her son, and how I would feel in her shoes): that feeling of helplessness that you might not be able to keep them safe.

I found it helped to answer some questions I have had about why some people end up taking this irreversible step. For example, I've often wondered how people can do this knowing the impact it will have on the people they leave behind, and I think the book helped me understand this.

But ultimately, despite it reliving Josh's (and his family's) lowest moments, I felt it was a book of hope. That was definitely the message Josh wanted to get across to anyone going through what he went through.