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?

I'm in. I had a lot of DNF books last year as I tried to read mostly newly published and ARC books. It just was a bit of a disappointing year for books. Hope my hit rate is better this year.

I always lurk on these threads for ideas so this year I am going to take part.

1. Away With The Penguins . Counting this as my first one as if it had been any good I would have finished it today. As it was, I skipped to the end (not something I usually do) because I found it got sillier and sillier. The background history stuff was interesting, could have read a whole book about that, but the main plot and the major development in particular, was just so far-fetched it put me off.

Hello all! I joined you part way through last year and loved it. I am seeing the new year in re reading a classic - Memento Mori by Muriel Spark, which I lost read around 30 Yeats ago. Now I have started I have realised it is a bit grim for these Covid times....

Read a huge (for me) 67 books last year but will still have 52 as my target for 2021.

Downloaded from the kindle deals the good habits, bad habits one and the virgin suicides

Hello and happy new year to you all! I’ve been a lurker on this thread for all of last year and got some fantastic recommendations for books I loved that I never would have come across otherwise. Made it to 43 books in total last year and hoping for similar again this year. Kicking off 2021 with Apeirogon which was much reviewed last year. It’s fantastic so far.

Joining you this year after being absent last year and twirling a new and optimistic new name.
I read all of the threads last year but somehow missed the start and then weird old 2020 got in the way.

I am currently reading At Home by Bill Bryson (my comfort food reading) and enjoying it immensely. I love to imagine him wandering round and stopping suddenly going "did you know..."

I am also (as every Christmastime) reading Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles and various other foody books.

My reading aims this year are simply to read more and buy less. I probably have 500 unread Kindle 99ps. I want to force myself into a random number generator selection every so often...I want to reread some of my old desert island favourites. I collect the versions of my childhood books from eBay etc and I shall continue with that too. I'd like to get into Audible but I just find my mind wandering.

Bett I enjoyed Born Lippy last year, love Jo Brand, she's my kind of woman. Eye rolls a lot 🤣

Currently reading Clanlands

Hello readers, and Happy New Year. I was on the threads a few years ago but generally lose track about halfway through, so will endeavour to do better over this year. Have spent a Covid Christmas mainly in bed with cosy crime courtesy of Louise Penny, think I did her 5 most recent in the last week. Have moved on to Adam Buxton's autobiography, mainly chosen because we went to the same school and it was a Kindle deal.

SOLINVICTUS-I'm the same with Bill Bryson, I listen to him on Audible mostly. My favourites are A Walk in the Woods and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. The description of his mum's cooking had me and dd laughing so much we had to pull the car over.

Yay! Thank you @southeastdweller

I’m aiming (very high!) for 50 books and starting with books I own; so it’ll be an eclectic mix! I’m one fifth of the way through The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla. So far I’m finding it illuminating & informative ... I will never again say ‘naan bread’ (instead of naan) or chai tea (instead of chai).

I would love to join. I managed 59 books last year and am starting today with The Five by Hallie Rubenhold

@RavenclawesomeCrone

Bett I enjoyed Born Lippy last year, love Jo Brand, she's my kind of woman. Eye rolls a lot 🤣

Hey, that's great - I must be Jo Brand

I thought might be a gentle start to the year as I'm feeling rather fragile at the thought of going back to work (primarysad)

Me too @BadlydoneHelen.

I just noticed that Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell are free on the kindle right now.

Happy New Year to you all!

Joining you for 2021 and have my first finish (started it yesterday).

1. The Foundling - Stacey Halls (4 out of 5 stars)

London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst, that Clara has died in care, Bess is astonished to be told she has already claimed her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why.

Less than a mile from Bess's lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart.

A thoroughly enjoyable easy read. As with her previous novel, The Familiars, Hall captured the time and place well, and piqued my interest to read more around the setting, and I had a great time looking up the places mentioned on John Rocque's map of London and reading more about the history of the Foundling Hospital.

Mama I have just seen in the paper that Orwell falls out of copyright as of today

Placemarking! Aiming for 50 only managed about 25 last year

Good morning 50 Bookers, I'm rejoining you again.

Currently reading The Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie , the second in his Age of Madness trilogy

Mog - that's my current listen on Audible. Love Joe Abercrombie.

Oh well..I was planning to spend the day mired in my own misery but you have all piqued my interest so I will join
Managed 30 in 2020 but that was with a three month hiatus due to general terror and panic so I'll aim for 50 as long as I can retreat into childhood favourites when it all gets too Covidy.

Already started The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
So far so gripping.

@KeithLeMonde ah right that explains that then! Just off to download the others

Thanks Fortuna - once I pick it up I enjoy it but I only pick it up if I know I have got at least 30 minutes as I need to concentrate. Even though I am familiar with the French revolutionary period I still get confused by all the political factions. Certainly not a light Christmas read. Was hoping to finish before I go back to work on Monday but that seems unlikely on current progress (particularly as I am also working on one of the marvellous book jigsaws that was recommended on last year’s thread).

I'm back in. Welcome to all the new joiners; it's great to see more readers aboard this lovely thread.

My resolution, if any, is to ignore the inevitable panic when everyone else shoots off like a turbo-charged rocket and notches up 20 books within the first week of the new year while I'm still plodding away with no. 1 This happens every single time and I should know by now that it all levels out at some point.

Currently reading the latest Nicola Upson Josephine Tey mystery - The Dead of Winter - which is jumping on the fashionable bandwagon of guests-isolated-in-a-cut-off-castle/island/stately home/whatever.

Happy new year 50 bookers!

Funny two people are starting with The Five - it was my first read of last year and it was one of my favourites of the year.