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.

@drspouse I'm about a third through Girl, Woman, Other and relishing every single sentence

I'm nearly afraid to post this here, but after all the love for A Gentleman in Moscow I jumped in. I'm over a week into reading it and still only at 20% read. I just can't get into it and put it down after a page read each time.

So, does it get better? Should I persevere, or just give up on this?

As a lover of the book I would say DNF it. If it isn’t working for you, it isn’t working.

Hi All. Fell of the radar and lost my reading mojo for a while. Back on track now. I can't remember my last post so hoping this is right.
No 18 Cry Baby Mark Billingham
No 19 What have I done Laura Dockrill. This book is amazing. I'm hopefully going to do a pyschology degree in sept and would like to work in the area of maternal mental health. it fascinates me.
20:In case you missed it Lindsey Kelk . A predictable chick lit book, funny in some parts. I needed a lighter read after number 19.
21: The flower girls Alice Clark-Platts. Really enjoyed this, found it very emotive. It did play on my mind a bit though.

I'm nearly afraid to post this here, but after all the love for A Gentleman in Moscow I jumped in. I'm over a week into reading it and still only at 20% read. I just can't get into it and put it down after a page read each time.

So, does it get better? Should I persevere, or just give up on this

I loved that book but if you're not enjoying it just put it to one side and read something else.

MargotMoon I loved this book too and really didn't expect to.
It's so vibrant and vital.

Want to read Mr Loverman, meant to be fantastic too.

Currently reading The Dutch House.
Halfway through and superbly written so far.

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 30. The Austere Academy, Lemony Snicket 31. Mr Loverman, Bernardine Evaristo 32. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy 33. The Ersatz Elevator, Lemony Snicket 34. The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford 35. Straight Outta Crawley, Romesh Ranganathan

I like Romesh’s stand up, particularly the stuff he does with his mum so I was predisposed to enjoy this. It’s exactly what you expect, there are some hilarious parts, some witty parts and it’s just a load of anecdotes really. I’m in a bit of a slump and am sick with Covid so it was a good read in bed with the rain outside. I was surprised to hear some of the stuff about his early life, his father going to prison m, quite how much he and his family struggled. This was 99p deal and for that it did what I needed it to.

19. The binding - so crap, don’t bother! Exciting premise that books bind the memories and lives of people and wipe them from their memory… but the dialogue, the predictable love affair… yawn yawn.

20. The gap of time- Jeanette winterson’s rewrite of a winters tale. Some beautiful moments in it but also so pretty silly quick endings where everyone lives happy every after but I guess we have Shakespeare to thank for that. Winterson isn’t one for pastiche but I felt, as a Jewish woman, that her portrayal of her Jewish character was excruciatingly embarrassing and overdone.

I finished Bel Canto by Ann Pachett last night making it 13 so far this year. Looks like I'm a little behind schedule but I do have a holiday booked soon when I'm hoping to catch up.

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 30. The Austere Academy, Lemony Snicket 31. Mr Loverman, Bernardine Evaristo 32. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy 33. The Ersatz Elevator, Lemony Snicket 34. The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford 35. Straight Outta Crawley, Romesh Ranganathan 36. Someday in Paris, Olivia Lara

This is an unabashed, unapologetic love story. It centres around Leon and Zara who meet during a power cut in a provincial museum. They fall in love and their paths cross but miss each other over the course of twenty years. I liked the premise. Overall I quite liked the book, though there were elements I wasn’t sure of. Lots of dialogue - not sure why I didn’t love all the dialogue but I didn’t. Over amplifying of the love story - yes we know they love each other and it feels fated, enough already. It was a decent 3 stars and I’ve been sick so it has been welcome.

Welcome @TheoriginalLEM no pressure to hit target in this friendly little group!

26. The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlette.

Pandemic fiction! I love a bit of near future dystopia, this is set after a virus wipes out all the human race after humanity has colonised several planets. The protagonist initially thinks she must be totally alone until she comes across other survivors. An interesting exploration in what different sects of society do in the face of such international trauma.

I liked it well enough, but it felt like there were a lot of ideas the author wanted to fit in and therefore a lot were superficially brushed over. I would have preferred if she’d really gone in depth with a smaller number of them and something just didn’t hang together fully for me - worth a read though.

I finished 3 books in July:

13. This Lovely City - Louise Hare
Saw this featured on the Sara Cox book club show on BBC2. Enjoyed it a lot, the post-war Windrush characters reminded me a little of Small Island by Andrea Levy, but the story is more of a whodunnit (or rather, what happened).

14. The Woman in the Window - AJ Finn
Easy to read, thriller-with-unreliable-narrator genre - finished this very quickly by my standards. Decent enough

15. Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo
I don't think I could have loved this any more than I did. Some of the characters resonated with me and reminded me of people I know, and those who didn't are so beautifully drawn I feel like I do know them. A masterpiece, in my opinion, will definitely read some more by her

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 30. The Austere Academy, Lemony Snicket 31. Mr Loverman, Bernardine Evaristo 32. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy 33. The Ersatz Elevator, Lemony Snicket 34. The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford 35. Straight Outta Crawley, Romesh Ranganathan 36. Someday in Paris, Olivia Lara 37. The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark 38. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, Balli Kaur Jaswal 39. The Vile Village, Lemony Snicket

The Girls of Slender Means
Set in a hostel for single women in 1945 this very small book (140 pages) gives a snapshot into their lives and loves. There is a bit of the Mitford type silliness, satire and underlying seriousness. I loved it. It is so witty and fun.

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
This is the story of Nikki, a Punjabi British woman who considers herself westernised. She ends up teaching a literacy class at the Gurudwara in Southall but the widows she is teaching actually just want to narrate erotic stories. She learns a lot about herself and the community and some of the characters are brilliantly drawn. I’m familiar with Southall and the sights and sounds (and smells) were really drawn out for me. A nice little read.

The Vile Village
Unfortunate Events continue to plague the Baudelaire orphans. Not my favourite.

15 The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Loved this book!

It's about a family who grow up in the so-called Dutch House in the US and how the house affects them throughout their lives.
At the centre of it is the relationship between siblings Danny and Maeve, so beautifully drawn.
The writing is excellent, insightful and moving.

If anyone else has read any other AP books, please recommend me a title!

Book 26 A Gentleman in Moscow . I decided to continue on and finished it. I actually really enjoyed this book in the end and sobbed at some parts! I didn't enjoy the start (book 1) but really got into it in book 2. Glad I persevered.

20. Starve acre- more a creepy short story than a proper novel. 21- hazards of time travel Joyce carol oates- loved my life as a rat so tried this. It was one premise was amazing but then turned into boring, whinging love story.

Hello, I'm joining very late! Just got back into reading this summer after a very busy year moving back to the UK. I'm hoping to make it to 15ish by the time the year is up.

1. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - VE Schwab
2. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Read 3)Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers
3. Learning to Swim - Clare Chambers
4. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

The last is a reread before I tackle The Testaments

Welcome welcome. I really enjoyed The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo last year.

Number 22: Our House, Louise Candlish.
Mixed feelings about this one. Book is about a couple who separate and the ex-husband is blackmailed into selling the house without wife's knowledge. It was as bit slow to start with, then started to get juicy then just sort of ended. I felt like I was left hanging a bit, didn't really know what happened to the characters especially the wife. I also thought this about one of her other books Those people, doesn't give you a concrete finish.

Welcome Musication.

Book 27 Lion - Saroo Brierly a true story about how Saroo as a 5 year old boy in India boards a train that transports him across the country and he becomes a lost child. Heartbreaking and fascinating story as he is then adopted by a couple in Australia and goes in search of his lost family as an adult.

27. Dirt Music by Tim Winton

Set in Western Australia following Georgie, a drifter who comes from a reasonably privileged background and has spent the last 3 years living with the king of the fishermen in a backwater town, and Fox, a poacher who lives on the edge of society following the deaths of his mother as a joy and his brother, sister in law and beloved niece and nephew, who fall for each other and have to extricate themselves from not just their physical situations but the stories they have told about themselves

I really enjoyed almost all of this book, Winton’s writing is lyrical and the characters he invokes are realistic and tortured but with enough humour to make them entertaining, and his descriptions of Australia are mesmerising. The ending was a little disappointingly neat for me and Georgie ended up being a bit of a spoilt brat but otherwise all in all a good read

28. American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins

Oh my god this book - I’ve never said I have a favourite book because honestly how can you but there was NOTHING at fault in this. I loved every single second, my heart raced almost throughout it and I was so so so scared all the time for all the characters. It’s life changing, honestly. I live in Southern California and it broke my heart thinking people like Lydia and Luca, Soledad and Rebeca are in migrant centres only a hundred miles or so from where I live. It opened my eyes and my heart and was truly breath taking in the way it was written. I devoured it over the last 2 days and almost want to start it all over again. READ READ READ

@KobaniDaughters I loved American Dirt too! I found it really eye opening and can imagine how it would be even more impactful when you're living where you do.

6. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood.

I know it's not so well reviewed here but I loved it, especially directly after a re-read of The Handmaids Tale.