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?

Just popping in to say that two books I really liked, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett and Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld are on the Kindle Daily Deal today.

1. Aquarium by David Vann

Caitlin, the only child of a single mother, visits the Aquarium everyday after school until her Mum finishes work.

Alarm bells ring when Caitlin is befriended by an old man, but what turns out to be innocent for Caitlin, is devastating to her mother Sheri who spins out of control.

Difficult one, very good and almost became my first bold of 2021 but won't for two reasons :

Bit of a cheesy denouement.

Sheri is a woman who has had a hard life, undoubtedly, inexcusably hard but her behaviour towards Caitlin from the middle of the book onwards is repugnant and I found the emotional and physical abuse scenes very hard reading.

David Vann also wrote Legend Of A Suicide which I thought was absolutely brilliant, but the content is as daunting and as emotionally draining as the title implies

4/5

@Saucery

Harry Thompson was the producer of Have I Got News For You. His idea to replace Roy Hattersley with a tub of lard, was widely known to be having an affair with Victoria Coren. Wasn’t TTOD published posthumously? I know I bought it and wondered why after a couple of hundred turgid pages.

But.....life would be boring if we all liked the same things so I’ll stop slagging off old faves and get on with my next book.

We don't have to all like the same books at all (but anybody who doesn't like TTOD and does like Station Eleven is obviously wrong!).

PS: that is tongue in cheek, obvs.

[quote Saucery]@OnceUponAMidnightBeery I preferred Dan Simmons as a horror writer. I tried The Terror but it made a decent mini-series script is all I can say. The treatment of Hickey in both annoys me. We know fuck all about this person apart from his name and possibly his profession but hey, let’s have him as a murderous cannibal?
That’s the opposite of saying someone’s name from a gravestone and they live fleetingly again. Hate it.[/quote]
There’s a mini series?? Googling that, thank you, I never realised 😳
some fan I am

I see what you mean about Hickey, and to me the book loses its way later on, but I still love it - mind you I like Stephen King... I judge myself tbh

@LadybirdDaphne I loved The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs so much. For some reason it just hit the right spot with me and I was fascinated. Anything remotely similar is a good thing as far as I am concerned.

Can I just say, I also loved This Thing of Darkness when I read it a few years ago and it has stayed with me. However I do also rate Never Let Me Go AND Station Eleven so what do I know.

Nearly finished Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane. It’s very good. You won’t get me climbing a mountain anytime soon though. Well, unless Robert himself comes with me obvs.

@LadybirdDaphne

Whoa whoa whoa, no more spoilers for The Terror please, I'm about 1/3 of the way through!

Hope you enjoy it The whole expedition fascinated me, and this is what introduced to it, so guess I have a soft spot.

Thanks @DesdamonasHandkerchief, and @Saucery I’ll try not to lower the tone too much

I’ve reread 5 Elizabeth George books this year too. Again, much prefer the early ones.

I really want to try The Turn of the Screw again, does anyone recommend it?

I read Turn of the Screw last year and thought it was excellent.

So glad you like Mountains of the Mind, Whippet. I think I might have been raving about that on here for as long as I've raved about TTOD! Definitely his best.

I loved TTOD. Team Fitzroy all the bloody way. I did also enjoy Station Eleven though...

Anyhoo, just finished 7. Tell Me How You Really Feel - Aminah Mae Safi. I enjoyed this very sweet LGBT YA story which is basically an enemies to lovers story which the writer has openly admitted is based on her love of the Rory/Paris ship from Gilmore Girls. However, there are points where the parallels between the character of Sana and the character of Rory Gilmore are a bit much, right down to a certain incident involving a car and a cat. If you've ever seen the show, you'll know. There is also the indecision about her future, the wealthy grandparents and her mother being pregnant with her at a young age. The other main character, Rachel, is less of a direct rip-off of Paris Geller from the series although she is very driven and ambitious.

If you can get past the fact that this is thinly veiled fanfiction, then it's an enjoyable enough read. I think I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads but it's closer to a 3, maybe a 3.5 out of 5.

Now reading 8. Soon I Will be Invincible - Austin Grossman which is something I picked up after enjoying Hench. Essentially, it's super heroes and super villains but nothing is quite black and white. Nothing too deep so far, doubt it will get any deeper.

I've finished off a couple of books now so can start properly. Thank you @southeastdweller for the thread - I have two prolific SE dwelling friends on Goodreads so who knows? maybe I know you 😁

1. Very British Weather by the Met Office. A different version of Fitzroy... kind of intrigued to try the infamous book now. Funny that it unites this and the other non-fiction I'm currently working through, On the Origin of Species. Nearly finished though 😂 Very British Weather anyway, was very interesting but not quite in enough detail to thrill me massively. A starter book for people interested in weather. Some bits were very 'Woah...' but there weren't enough for 5 stars.

2. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen something Fowler. Very good but not quite 5 stars for me.

I liked The Turn of the Screw but found it a bit vague in the ending, which is not something I go in for massively. My favourite gothic/ ghost story book is 'In a Glass Darkly' by Sheridan LeFanu. Poe's short stories are great of course, and MR James's are pretty good but I didn't find them as spooky as LeFanu's.

Finished 1. Woo hoo! Quite an achievement for me as I used to be an avid reader but in 2020 I don't think I read a single book!
The Snow Gypsy by Lindsay Jane Ashford. It was a kindle first read from last Jan that I started but didn't finish. Glad I've finished it. Not much to say-story was so so, set in Spain, post ww2. Pleasant and perfectly enjoyable read but nothing earth shattering.

Now for book no 2 Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl. Been on my list for a while and heard good things, so here goes...

1. The Trick is to Keep Breathing - Janice Galloway

A first person account of a young woman's breakdown following the death of her married lover in a drowning accident. She goes through the motions at work, maintains friendships and sexual relationships with unsuitable men while sliding further into depression, alcohol abuse & anorexia. It's a sobering read, though grimly humorous at times. One to keep for another read some time (but not while feeling fragile!)

Thank you @whippetwoman and @EugenesAxe, must admit I struggled with it, but that was many years ago. Will try again!

Love M.R. James, and think I have In a Glass Darkly lurking somewhere in my tbr pile - thanks, love most of LeFanu’s short stories so I’ll try and dig it out.

I don’t sleep well, this year I’d like to go back to reading rather than MNing all night!

@southeastdweller sorry, I feel rude for butting in without saying thank you for this thread. (shame faced beery who now has a very long amazon wish list)

OnceUpon - I was joking (I think).

I loved TTOD, but also loved Station Eleven, so I guess I am allowed to keep one foot in this thread

1. Memento Mori - Muriel Spark

A re-read, but I am counting it as I last read it around 30 years ago. It is an excellent read for these Covid times - a group of old people (70s and 80s, some in an old style old folks home) start receiving nuisance phone calls where the caller just politely says 'Remember you must die.' The book itself is asharp and cleverly observed reflection on human fraility, physical, emotional and moral. For me it was relevant to the pandemic as it is clear that humans at any age do not and cannot accept the inveitability death - we do not live remembering we will die, maybe we should but it seems we just can't.

2. The Mercies - Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Another excellent read and recommendation from the 2020 thread - extensively reviewed there so I won't repeat to much but I would heartily recommend this. It is female centred historic fiction (like Island of the Sea Women, also a recommendation from the last thread I loved) based on true events. Set in 17th century Norway, the depiction of the rigour of daily life made be feel the chill in my bones, especially as it is currently ice and snow for me in Scotland. The central characters are well drawn and the sense of a community turning in and against itself also had pandemic parallels - the treatment of the Sammi also linked to Trump'sAmerica and the UK's Brexit. Excellent fiction that depicts a specific time and place with accuracy but draws out timeless themes about white male fraility and the power of fear.

Thanks Saucery & Remus for explaining TTOD. I've just read the review, it sounds long and not really the kind of thing I would necessarily be drawn to, but maybe it's one I'll try once my current glut of TBR books is over.

I'm in the on the fence category for Station Eleven & NLMG. Think they're probably most appealing for those who haven't read much SF, whereas I read quite a bit.

But I do love Mantel & reread all of The Wolf Hall books in the first lockdown to enjoy the final one. I read APOGS years ago, one of the British Council reads IIRC, and was impressed by it at the time, but have no great desire to reread.

2. What Lies Between Us - John Marrs
One woman keeps another prisoner in their shared home - as the story and viewpoints change we discover more about what has lead to the situation.
This book was bonkers - and just gradually more and more bizarre. I quite enjoyed John Marrs’ sci fi books but this one, more of a thriller, was just too off the wall for me, but a fairly easy read.

1. In The Crypt With A Candlestick by Daisy Waugh

I liked this, but it wasn’t the book I thought I was getting. The cover is rather Jazz Age, and the blurb and reviews on the cover liken it to Christie and Wodehouse so I was expecting something set somewhere 1920s-1940s, an amusing country house mystery. Instead it’s set in the present day, in a stately home that was once famous for having the TV version of a famous novel filmed there (clearly meant to resemble Castle Howard/Brideshead Revisited but here the novel is called Prance To The Music Of Time). There is a murder but there’s not really much detecting going on. The characters are all caricatures but they’re meant to be, it’s that type of novel. It’s had mixed reviews on Goodreads and I can see why. I liked it and will read the sequel, but I can equally see why you would hate it!

1. Her First American by Lore Segal

First book finished hurrah! This is a novel about an Austrian Jewish refugee who is beginning a new life in America in the 1950s. She stays with a relative in New York and gets a filing job whilst trying to find out whether her parents survived. Ilka is surrounded by other European refugees in her neighbourhood and so strikes out further afield on a short trip to find the real America and improve her English. Here she meets a middle-aged African-American intellectual, Carter Bayoux, from whom she learns much about the real America, and the book charts their ongoing relationship after they return to New York, in which the tensions and contradictions of the land play out in miniature. It starts out quite slowly, building character and context, but is full to the brim with interesting, challenging and often quite daring dialogue and observation, building to a middle section in which large scale issues of race, identity, prejudice and social embarrassment are examined through individual interactions and at this point I couldn’t look away. This book touches on many subjects that are currently being discussed and debated and feels incredibly relevant, especially after the events of the last year. It is a window into the immigrant experience and the experience of being Black in America, but it is a story of love and friendship as well as an alternately comic and sorrowful social commentary as Ilka and Carter come to terms with their “parallel experience”; parallels being “two lines that run side by side and never meet except in infinity”. It is insightful, funny and brings the characters and the time to life in a very visceral way. It takes huge risks to get to the bones of how we live with ourselves and others.

Lenny Henry - Who Am I Again?
The comedian’s account of growing up in a large Jamaican family in Dudley in the 1970s and his early years on the comedy circuit. Although he speaks of his family, especially his mother, with love, in some respects his upbringing seemed rather brutal and physically abusive.
He doesn’t have a bad word to say about any of the comics or actors he works with but you can sense his relief when he joins the anarchic world of ‘TISWAS.
It stops rather abruptly at this point so I guess there will be another volume to follow.

2. Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor

The first in the Chronicles of St Mary’s series about time-travelling historians. A bit marmite on here. I read this last year because it was on a Kindle deal and I had read reviews on this thread but having received the box set for Christmas will be working my way through them all in order. This first book introduces us to Madeleine Maxwell (Max), a historian, and the other staff at St Mary’s and sees Max travelling between France in WW1, the Cretaceous era and Ancient Egypt with lots of problems along the way. Quite silly but great fun and light relief after A Place of Greater Safety. Onto something more literary/serious next.

Hello,

Can I join in? Not going to count re-reads (which I do a lot of). I think I read a lot, but no idea how many new books I read in a year, so will be interesting to see.

Reads this year so far:

1. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Loved this - hooked in right from the opening scene. There's something operatic about the way it builds to the inevitable dramatic climax, but despite the subject matter (a group of people are taken hostage at a private opera performance), it's a gentle and hopeful book.
Not too sure about the ending, but it almost didn't matter (which I know is an odd thing to say about a book!).

Re-reads so far this year: The Secret History by Donna Tartt (still brilliant); For Love by Sue Miller.

Look forward to chatting over the year :)

Caught up on thread Time great review of Place of Greater Safety I must get round to it and also Mountains if the Mond whippet which I’ve had for ages.

Must say I did a little gasp when Saucery started ripping into TTOD - there really isn’t a less hospitable environment for those opinions than this thread

It isn’t about a boat, though it has to be said I do enjoy the boat aspect of it and would welcome other boaty recs.

Disagreements are fine, REALLY FINE!!!! and usually very good-natured. I’ve not read either NLMG or S11 because I am scared to have enjoy not having an opinion on them.

I also like Hilary Mantel and my Kindle.

Er - Mountains of the Mind. I am not the policeman from ‘Allo ‘Allo.