50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Two

[southeastdweller]

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

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2021, 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. Could everyone embolden their titles and/or authors as well, please, as it makes the books talked about easier to track?

The first thread of the year is here.

1. The Humans by Matt Haig

Someone or something has arrived from the future to prevent a change on Earth that will result in terrible consequences. To stop the future disasters, they are set to kill individual human beings.

Book club choice for us, supposed to be quite an easy read, and I guess I started it not expecting any great life-changing things to happen. I have two simultaneous reactions; some criticisms of style and story, which both have big limitations, but also a huge emotional wave that resulted in me spending a large chunk of the morning crying after reading it. It's about love, really, and there are some truly lovely passages in it that I won't forget. The limitations mean that I'm unlikely ever to re-read it. I felt that the author wasn't entirely certain what the point of his own story was, and the prevention of the future issue, having been hugely present in the first few chapters, disappeared almost completely. I get that the protagonist also loses track of this quest, but I still felt as if the spine of the book had been cut short. I also thought the writing was fairly ordinary at times (obviously much better than I could do). I was also moderately unconvinced by the main female character. But the emotional response was so strong that I'm very very glad I read it and am likely to seek out more of his books.

Loving the Dick Francis adoration on here. Hmm, haven't read Rat Race for ages, the last one I re-read was Flying Finish which is so great.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit ... im afraid too I dunno if I want hear it haha! The House of Mirth has been a favourite since I was a teenager... whats hateable about it? I could understand it not being to someones taste... but what is there to hate?

I snapped up the latest Jodi Picoult book the other day as it's 99p and her books are a guilty pleasure of mine. Unfortunately I didn't read the blurb and the protagonist is a death doula and I'm not in the right place to read that right now.

Tara I enjoyed your review of the Wendy Mitchell book, it's one i intend to read some day.

I'm appreciating the Dick Francis love, I really enjoyed his books as a teenager. I'm tempted to treat myself to one a month this year, I think I need to find the chronological list and work my way through it.

[quote Unicant]@EineReiseDurchDieZeit ... im afraid too I dunno if I want hear it haha! The House of Mirth has been a favourite since I was a teenager... whats hateable about it? I could understand it not being to someones taste... but what is there to hate?[/quote]

I cannot cope with deeply unlikeable characters and I found Lily Bart insufferable (it is Lily Bart?)

The novel is an ongoing misery fest.

Total Absence Of Mirth

I read The Age of Innocence a few years ago. Definitely one of the worst books I've ever finished, and put me off touching anything else by her ever again.

oh dear Eine I am about to start Station Eleven

I'd say my most hated in the last couple of years (Based on my 1 star reviews on Goodreads). Am I likely to hate Station Eleven?

Normal People by Sally Rooney
Three Things about Elsie by Joanna something
Tinman and When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman (not touching anything by her again
Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward
The Librarian by Sally Vickers
Wuthering Heights
The Hive by Gill Hornby
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Crosstalk by Connie Willis
The Cazalet Chronicles - granted I only read the first one

Raven

It is one of two Great Divide books of the thread

You will love it

OR

You will hate it.

Which it shall be, roll the dice.

Going off your previously expressed tastes I'd say you're on my team

Chessie, I like the look of Apple Of My Eye - doesn't seem to be on kindle so I requested a hold at the library. I think at one point I may have had the Helene Hanff Omnibus and I wish I still did because a paperback of it is available on Amazon for $870!!!

Tayto, yes I loved The Queen and I as well, I must re-read. I thought she predicted how each would cope very well! Such a funny writer.

Eine I have a theory that people are very firmly in the camps of 'needs likable characters vs. don't' and 'needs a lot of plot vs. happy with a long ramble and v little plot' and that people in either camp often hate each other's favourite books I am firmly don't need to like characters, and don't need a lot of plot and I think a few of the people on here who have similar tastes to me are probably the same. I may have to expand the theory to include 'must have speech marks vs. don't care about speech marks'.

finisterreforever - do it, you won’t regret it (I hope!). Here’s the first twenty (in case you get tempted to do more than one a month....):

Dead Cert
Nerve
For Kicks
Odds Against
Flying Finish
Blood Sport
Forfeit
Rat Race
Bonecrack
Smokescreen
Slay Ride
Knock Down
High Stakes
In the Frame
Risk
Trial Run
Whip Hand
Reflex
Twice Shy
Banker

Thank you Time. I'm starting with Break In as it's one of the Kit Fielding books and I remember enjoying it and Bolt first time round, I'l get Bolt next month, conveniently forgetting my vow not to buy books this year but that's OK - I can blame you

noodle I'm firmly in your camp (re likeable characters, but also re speech marks)

noodle excellent theory, I'm in the Don't need likeable charcters, Do need lots of Plot quadrant of your graph!

I don't think I fit either camp

I need lots of plot

But I can't hate everyone in it

The only exception to this rule in my life was Sons And Lovers

Thought it was great, hated almost everyone

I dont need likeable characters... but I did quite like lily bart! I mean yes, its a very sad book... and she is a very flawed and repressed character.. but I related to her a lot. Its a tragedy and she is a tragic figure but she's very realistically drawn and that book is so interesting for showing how negatively a womans character could be effected by the type of society she was living in... you don't often see that in novels from that time.. its usually heroines or put upon victims, or true vilainesses... not complicated, flawed but clever women who are architects of their own demise, at war with themselves... I think shes a brilliant character.
I also love the Age of innocence!! LEAVE EDITH ALONE lol!!

You say : "tragic figure"

I say : Superior, snobbish, prejudiced, anti-Semite, pain in the arse!

finisterreforever, I am happy for you to blame me whenever you buy a Dick Francis. I am looking forward to re-reading the Kit Fielding books - not sure how far away I am from them....

@Unicant

I dont need likeable characters... but I did quite like lily bart! I mean yes, its a very sad book... and she is a very flawed and repressed character.. but I related to her a lot. Its a tragedy and she is a tragic figure but she's very realistically drawn and that book is so interesting for showing how negatively a womans character could be effected by the type of society she was living in... you don't often see that in novels from that time.. its usually heroines or put upon victims, or true vilainesses... not complicated, flawed but clever women who are architects of their own demise, at war with themselves... I think shes a brilliant character. I also love the Age of innocence!! LEAVE EDITH ALONE lol!!

The Age of Innocence was so boring. SO boring. Really, really boring. Unbelievably boring. Have I said yet that it was boring? It even made The Remains of the Day seem interesting in comparison.

@Taytocrisps when I mentioned to my MIL I was reading a Kate Mosse novel she said, oh is that the model?! 😂

For me it's....

• don't need likable characters (but I struggle if I hate all the characters - I'm thinking of The Slap here)
• happy with a long ramble and v little plot (in fact these are some of my favourite books)
• don't care about speech marks

Oh, and I also don't mind little/no plot (although I'm a big detective fiction fan!) - which is just as well, as I'm currently reading (and loving) Ducks, Newburyport, which is pretty much plot free

The Slap was unremittingly awful Tarahumara. Not just the terrible characters but also the writing and plot. I think I often hate hyped books. Another one I really can't stand that people seem to love is Shantaram.

I think I'm in the likable characters and plot camp which probably makes me quite shallow.

Also enjoying the Dick Francis love. When we were teenagers I had loads of Agatha Christie's and my brother had Dick Francis's. I think the one I remember most clearly was Hot Money where he wins "on the nod".

I think I need someone to root for (which is probably why I dislike Wuthering Heights so much - I can appreciate great writing but dear lord what a horrible bunch of people)

I don't mind a meandering plot as long as I like the characters.
I do get frustrated when there is a potentially great story in there but the writer doesn't get to the point (Sing Unburied Sing - I'm looking at you)

Hi Everyone! Checking in

@TimeforaGandT

finisterreforever, I am happy for you to blame me whenever you buy a Dick Francis. I am looking forward to re-reading the Kit Fielding books - not sure how far away I am from them....

Perhaps a while, they were published in 1985 and 1986. I was going to start in 1965 but then I decided to do it by series instead.

5. The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni This was a quick, fairly easy read. It is the story of Sam Hall, who is nicknamed Sam Hell or the Devil’s Boy, due to his rare genetic condition – ocular albinism, which cause his eyes to look red. His deeply religious mother is convinced his eye colour is God’s will and that he will live an extraordinary life. She enrols him in a private Catholic school, where he is bullied mercilessly by both the nuns and other kids. Gradually though, he makes a couple of friends and life improves. The narrative goes back and forth between Sam’s childhood and Sam as an adult. He is in a bad relationship, and works as an opthamologist where his old school bully comes back into his life, when he treats the bully’s daughter who is losing her sight, due to (what Sam believes) is physical abuse from her father.

I enjoyed it, a decent story but maybe if I am being super-critical, it was quite a simple story of good people v bad people and the characters weren’t terribly complex. Sam is a bit of a saint. Even though there is a religious element in Sam’s mother being very devout, there isn’t much religion in it until the last few chapters when the author ramps up the religion and it all gets very worthy and sentimental.
But I’d still say it was pretty good.

6. The Summer Queen by Elisabeth Chadwick I am fascinated by Eleanor of Aquitaine and really enjoyed the non-fiction account of her life by Alison Weir. This is the first of a fictionalised trilogy of her life. I know what happens – as is often the case with fictionalised history- so it was not a page turner in that respect but the narrative did certainly move along at a decent pace and it was very readable, and as far as I know about Eleanor’s history, fairly accurate. It begins when Eleanor and her younger sister Petronella are told that their beloved father the Duke of Aquitaine has died, and Eleanor is now the Duchess of Aquitaine, and at 13 years old is the most eligible, and potentially most powerful woman in Europe. Before his death her father has made secret provision for Eleanor to be protected in the event of his death, by putting her under the protection of the King of France, and planned a marriage for her to Louis, his heir. Once married Eleanor and Louis would rule extensive amounts of land in France and Europe and be incredibly influential politically. Eleanor understands her duty, but is nervous of marrying Louis, but before she is able to settle in her role as wife and Duchess of Aquitaine, Louis’ father the King of France dies, and Eleanor become the Queen of France at the age of 13. She is politically astute and is popular with her people in Aquitaine, but Louis proves to be weak, easily influenced by his lords and extremely religious (he had been raised by monks and was destined for a religious life until his older brother dies, making him the heir to France). He is angry that Eleanor has only given birth to a daughter and no sons. Louis announces that he and Eleanor will go on a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The narrative follows them on the long and grim journey to Jerusalem, via Eleanor’s uncle in Antioch, where everything is so bleak for Eleanor, and Louis is so difficult to live with, she decides to ask the Pope for an annulment of their marriage, leaving her free to rule her own lands and Louis free to marry again and have a male heir.

Eleanor is portrayed as intelligent and complex (she does some things which make her far from perfect) but she is likeable and believable and I will be reading the second installment at some point, which covers Eleanor’s second marriage, to the English King Henry II.

7. Difficult Women- The History of Feminism in 11 Fights by Helen Lewis I found this very interesting, exactly what it says, divided into very distinct sections about landmark cases in the history of feminism, including the case of Caroline Norton who tried (and failed) to change the divorce law to allow a woman to divorce her husband (rather than vice versa) and still retain the right to see her children, the story of the Suffragette movement, the campaign to allow the free access to birth control and the opening of the Marie Stopes clinic, the fight for the right to safe legal abortion, the opening of the first woman’s refuge and the fight for the law to be changed to allow women to study medicine (among other “fights”). The personalities of the “difficult” women shone through, and they were not written about as if they were saints, but real women with real struggles. The author freely admits that while she admires Marie Stopes greatly for what she did, the woman herself must have been an absolute nightmare to work with. Well paced and interesting – a very good read. I found it shocking that feminism and women’s rights have still such a long way to go, for example it was illegal for GPs to give unmarried women the Pill in my lifetime, and there are still women living in the UK who have no access to safe, legal abortion. I will be making it required reading for my daughters, and am now resolved to be more “difficult” myself .