50 Book Challenge 2021 Part One

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2020, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

Who's in for this year?

Sonnet.

I must read TTOD but it isn't in our library online collection.

Hello @MirandaWest, excellent name choice! How was your holiday?

1. Marooned in the Arctic by Peggy Caravantes. This is an interesting true story to tell, about a young Inuit woman who accompanies 4 white men on an Arctic expedition, and is the only survivor. However, I did feel it was told in a terribly pedestrian way. It is YA, but it doesn't seem to know quite what age range it is written for- it explains that whales are not fish, but doesn't explain what blubber is for example. An odd book, and not a patch on Island of the Blue Dolphins, which iirc was a fictionalised retelling of a similar solo survivor.

Sorry about your cat Sonnet, how sad.

If I had £30 to spend on books that I hoped to enjoy for a long time, I'd buy a couple of nice editions of collections by my favourite poets. Poetry rewards being returned to over the years, which isn't always the case with novels, and it's easy to read in short sessions, without the time commitment required for novels, so it's a good long term purchase.

Ada - poetry is an excellent suggestion. I haven't bought a ne poetry collection in years.

Talking of poetry, Clive James' Fire of Joy sounds appealing. A selection of his favourite 80 poems with a personal commentary on each.

I haven't read any of his own poetry but would be interested to investigate.

I've had a soft spot for Clive James ever since his TV criticism in The Observer back in the day. Used to make me laugh so much.

I would agree - poetry. It's the only thing I can imagine going back to over and over again.

I enjoy poetry when I stumble across it but very rarely make a point of seeking it out.

Apparently Clive James knew all of his favourite poems by heart. My parents were of a generation where it was standard to do that at school and they remembered them for the rest of their lives.

Somehow that really appeals to me. I like a project and that would be an excellent one; to learn a new poem every week this year till the end of January at most I bet so thanks Ada and Remus for the inspiration!

HighlandCoo - I bought this on Kindle last year. Quite nice to dip into for poems to learn by heart. Here

Wind in the willows is free on audible today.

*1. Midnight Library - Matt Haigh.
*
Really enjoyed. It definitely made me think about life's regrets in a different way.

The last book of 2020 for me was The Handmaids Tale which i loved. So next I shall be reading the sequel. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood.

Just finished sex robots and vegan meat a book by a journalist looking at how tech will affect four areas of our lives, sex, food, birth, and death. It was interesting, if a little terrifying at times - and I now know too much about sex robots!

I have a massive bookshelf full of unread books and I can never pick which one to read so my system is that DH picks my next book each time.

Number three is endgame by Daniel Cole. A locked room murder mystery.

(Is it cheating to call it book 3 if book 1 was started in 2020?)

1.The Face of Trespass by Ruth Rendell
This was an e-audiobook book borrowed from the library via BorrowBox and was first written in 1974. Firstly the writing was beautiful and kept me listening to this. The story however was a slow burner but again I have to back this up with how I enjoyed just listening to the descriptive writing in this book. This was read by Ric Jerrom. When listening to audiobooks I quite often give up if I can not stand the sound of the voice reading the book. However Ric Jerrom told this story very well and I will look out for other stories read by him in the future. This was a good psychological story about a writer Graham Gray Lanceton and the after effects of his messy affair with Drusilla. He has writers block and has lived like a hermit shut off from the world in a tiny cottage for two years. It really pulled this together for me and ended with a good twisty ending. Would I recommend this? Yes I absolutely would and will read more Ruth Rendell books in future.

Thanks for the link Remus. Very interesting!

I've never been a big fan of Gyles Brandreth (funnily enough, exactly what the first reviewer of his book says too) however what he's been doing in care homes, bringing children and older people together to learn poetry, is really innovative. I'm impressed.

The preventing dementia aspect interests me too. A more attractive prospect than swimming in cold water, which is the latest thing advocated to keep it at bay.

More details below:

www.gylesbrandreth.net/blog/2020/3/16/making-the-most-of-self-isolation-learn-a-poem-b-y-heart

I might actually give this a go

@highlandcoo

Thanks for the link Remus. Very interesting!

I've never been a big fan of Gyles Brandreth (funnily enough, exactly what the first reviewer of his book says too) however what he's been doing in care homes, bringing children and older people together to learn poetry, is really innovative. I'm impressed.

The preventing dementia aspect interests me too. A more attractive prospect than swimming in cold water, which is the latest thing advocated to keep it at bay.

More details below:

www.gylesbrandreth.net/blog/2020/3/16/making-the-most-of-self-isolation-learn-a-poem-b-y-heart

I might actually give this a go

I quite like his Oscar Wilde novels. I know nothing about him otherwise.

Remus can I suggest the catalogue for the Artemisia exhibition at the National Gallery which costs exactly £30 and is beautiful as well as interesting:

www.nationalgallery.co.uk/products/artemisia-catalogue/p_1048656

or Mary Oliver's Devotions which I got for Christmas and is marvellous:

www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34272476-devotions

Happy New Year, 50-Bookers! I’m in for another year too.

1. Fates and Furies by Lauren Geoff.

First book of the year, one of the books DH gave me for Christmas. Two points of view of a marriage - husband then wife. I raced through this novel, reading it in one day. There is some nice writing but, ultimately, I didn’t believe in the characters or their story. I was 🤨, really? A 2-3/5 kind of read.

2. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo.

Translated from Korean. A raw and straightforward account of what it is like to be female and middle-class in South Korea. Many hours at work as the norm, lack of affordable childcare and an entrenched societal patriarchy means it’s not easy. I watched Parasite over the holidays, an excellent film set in South Korea, and it provided an interesting backdrop to the book.

1. The Gran Tour: Travels With My Elders - Ben Aitken

Ben is in his early thirties, but when he discovers he can get a coach trip for £100 he immediately books six different tours, going on holiday with a load of pensioners. He has a great time and this is a lovely, lightly amusing read about the places he visits (not all in the UK) and the people he meets.

I'm in. New Year Resolution

1. Matt Haig- Midnight Library

Book 2 finished just now!

Snow by John Banville:** oh! I’m not quite sure how I feel about this. I chose this book for two reasons. It’s description as 'A typically elegant country house mystery.' And,because I’d loved his novel ‘The Sea’ I read years ago.

This book is set in 1957 in Ireland. Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called in to investigate the death of a highly respected parish priest at Ballyglass House who has been found dead at Colonel Osborne house in County Wexford. The Obsorne family are aristocratics. As Stafford investigates he faces obstruction from all angles and the town full of secrets.
I adored the descriptive prose, characterisation and the sense of time and place. I particularly liked Straffords internal musings.
Only about two thirds in did I realise there was a darker strand of child abuse in the story which if I’d been aware of means I’d probably swerved this book! Despite this, I thought it was well handled and overall an interesting and atmospheric read.

Thank you for the commiserations about my cat.
EmGee I must be odd too as I also loved A Little Life

Book 3 for me is, I’m hoping, a light and fluffy read - The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Always get thrown by the speed of this thread in the first few weeks!

2. Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

I read Bitter Orange by the same author last year and was underwhelmed, but had already bought this (her debut novel) and it has come up in the order of purchase, so I duly gave it a go. And am very glad I did. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with Bitter Orange; it just felt like a story I'd read before, done better by others. Whereas this had an unusual and engrossing plot - not really a spoiler to say that eight-year-old Peggy is abducted by her survivalist father whilst her concert pianist mother is away on tour, and taken to live in a remote European forest for nine years. The story is told through Peggy's eyes in a dual timeline: the events leading up to her departure with her father and her life in the woods, and separately, her thoughts and feelings after she has been returned to her mother. Both Peggy's previous life and her life in the woods are very well described (the book is beautifully written throughout) and I didn't see the (disturbing) end twist coming. Very good.

Hi everyone, will join if ok - didn’t quite manage 50 last year, wasn’t able to settle and really enjoy anything.
Discovered Tana French - The Wych Elm ( which I loved) then led me to The Dublin Murder Squad series. Not normally a genre I read but have so enjoyed Finding an author who doesn’t disappoint with each new book.
Currently reading Piranesi and also have Les Misérables on the go.

Still think that the reading of these threads should count as at least 1 book....

@plus3 I loved Piranesi, definitely one of my favourite books of last year. It has really stuck with me.

I didn't really like the Kim Jiyoung one. I felt the author couldn't decide whether it was fiction or non fiction so did a weird hybrid, which meant the fiction side didn't have much plot and was broken up by odd bits of research dumped mid text. Then again I don't think I've read anything Korean before, so it may be a cultural style.

Think my next read will be for book club, Fleishman is in Trouble. Have heard quite mixed reviews about this and it's not one I would have chosen but will give it a go.

I've only managed about 20 ish books a year for the past few years, but determined to up that by finding some really good page-turners!

I've just finished The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. Not something I would have picked up normally, but it came highly recommended.

It was a beautiful novel set in Alaska, from 1974 to 2000s. Well worth reading (but be prepared to cry!).

On to number 2 tonight - Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club.

3. A Double Life by Flynn Berry

This book is loosely based on the real life case of Lord Lucan, who disappeared after his children's nanny was murdered, most likely in a case of mistaken identity with the real target his estranged wife.

This is an intriguing concept and I enjoyed the early part of the book, started to lose interest during the main character's investigation into her father's disappearance but the ending really fell flat for me and felt really rushed.

Sonnet

1. The Flamingo’s Smile - Stephen Jay Gould

His fourth book of collected essays, originally published in Nature, in the early 1980s. Gould was a palaeontologist, but these essays range widely over evolution and the history of science, particularly misuses of and myths about science. A wise and humane writer. If you haven’t read anything by him, I would recommend Wonderful Life.

I have already broken my resolution to work on my TBR pile by splashing out on the Murderbot Diaries.