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.

@Tanaqui

Thank you for the new thread *@southeastdweller*. Sorry *@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie, I tagged you by mistake- I meant @RavenclawesomeCrone*! Fat fingers on the @ button! Glad to see more Dick Francis fans!

You are forgiven!

1. Transfer of Power (Mitch Rapp #1) by Vince Flynn

Terrorists take over the White House with many hostages and the President hiding in the bunker underground. Lone counter-terrorism agent Mitch Rapp goes in with a side kick to save the day.

I enjoyed this one. It was a bit "dick lit" but still markedly more intelligent than Jack Reacher books, and it had a lot of pertinent detail that looked well-researched and gave the impression that the author knows what he is talking about.

Ely cathedral is stunning. I was obsessed by the idea of it as a child, because of Tom's Midnight Garden and finally visited it about 15 years ago. Durham is lovely, as are both Liverpool ones. I also have a real soft spot for Lichfield.

Thank you for the new thread @southeastdweller.

My list:

1. Merry Midwinter (blearghhhhh) Gillian Monks
2. Bridget Jones' Diary Helen Fielding
3. The Christmas Chronicles Nigel Slater
4. Rupture- Ragnar Jonasson.

Another non religious cathedral (and church in general lover) I used to live in Liverpool and Canterbury is my happy place generally. I prefer Westminster Abbey to St. Paul's.
I like poking round looking at tombstones. Was in Madrid cathedral in 2019 where there is a female member of Franco's family buried (can't remember who) and people were leaving flowers and oohing and aahing. I also remember the first time I walked into St Peter's and it was a "Jesus! (Sorry!) I get now why people come over all rapturous".
I live in the town with possibly one of only a few cathedrals on the sea in Europe (bit outing but never mind) and DD and I are just back from a quick trot to it to get some fresh air.

Thanks southeast!

Here's my mini list:

1. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13&3/4 - Sue Townsend
2. Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain - Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
3. The Dinosaurs Rediscovered - Michael J. Benton

Currently reading The Terror (I may be some time...), Sue Black's Written in Bone and being soothed by David Attenborough reading me Life on Earth on Audible.

Also got this lovely late Christmas bundle in the post yesterday and have ordered Earthlings with a voucher from my brother

For cathedral-lovers, Ships of Heaven is a recent book on the topic, although it was a DNF for me. I'm not a great fan of cathedrals - give me a tiny parish church on a Roman footing with an Anglo-Saxon arch and some early Medieval tiles and I'm a happy woman.

Just place marking on the new thread - thanks south.

Thanks for shiny new thread South

My reading is super slow right now - homeschooling and working from home as well as having had three job interviews in the last two weeks!

biblio you really should check out the Friendless Churches website mentioned by boiledegg earlier, it's right up your street.

weebarra I'll be interested to read your review of Shuggie Bain when you've finished it. I read it myself last week and it's still very present in my head.

I'd never heard the word "luckenbooth" until today. The book gets great reviews and I do enjoy an Edinburgh setting but I don't do well with supernatural stuff (freaked myself out at To The Devil A Daughter at far too young an age) so I'm not sure it would be for me unfortunately.

Luckenbooth looks right up my street, thank you!

1. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

It's a re-read for me but such a long time I couldn't really remember it. What struck me most was in the 7th century AF they are still using pens to write stuff down and flying around in helicopters. I know that's not the point of this book but some of their technology just seems so old-fashioned reading it today. It was good to revisit though, and it's going back on the shelf for another go sometime.

and thank you southeast for the thread!

Thanks for the new thread Southeast

We're flying along this year. No list yet as I haven't got round to starting my word doc yet.

At this rate my cathedrals to visit list will be as long as my TBR!

Not sure what's next but looking at some bricks to get them out of the way.

1. Anna Magdalena Bach. Fanny Hensel. Clara Schumann - Three Female Musicians in the Spotlight

This was the short but fascinating book about these three influential female musicians, published by the Bach Archive in Leipzig, Germany where J S Bach lived and worked for most of his life.

Anna Magdalena Bach was a successful court soprano before her marriage to Bach and move to Leipzig where women could not sing in church, which quickly ended her singing career. She is best known now for Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, her collection of easy but beautiful pieces, a testimony to their family history that contains pieces by parents and children as well as guests and tutors, played around the world today by piano students.

Fanny (Mendelssohn) Hensel was an accomplished pianist, sometime composer, and the sister of renowned musician Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, with whom she corresponded extensively about their mutual admiration for Bach's music. Felix Mendelssohn famously revived interest in Bach's music decades after his death, raising money for the first ever Bach monument with a concert of Bach's music.

Clara Wieck was born in Leipzig 25 years after Anna Magdalena Bach died. She was a child prodigy and the most famous concert pianist of her time with an international career spread over 60 years. She was also Robert Schumann's wife. As it turns out, both were huge Bach fans and in fact wrote in their marriage diary that they spent the first two weeks of their marriage studying the fugues in Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier

I loved this little book, which was full of fascinating detail and pictures of historical documents and pictures. Since you are all now eager to read this book I'll let it be known that it can be purchased at Leipzig Bach Museum's online store.

Me again and back to cathedrals
Boiledegg that link for friendless churches is fab.

I went through a phase of looking at buying a small decommissioned church/chapel to convert into a home. There's an official website for such things. A colleague's daughter bought a flat in an old church in Clifton. Colleague couldn't figure out why anyone would want a ruddy great pillar running through the middle of the lounge. It was stunning (and ruddy big).

I'm trying to think of cathedral based books that I haven't read. I've done Pillars, The Spire and Name of the Rose. Any others?

I like the sound of that book, Cote. Poor Clara. I feel she had a pretty grim life, between her father, her husband, and all those children.

Presumably you've read The Warden and Barchester Towers, Fortuna? There's also The Choir by Joanna Trollope, and quite a few crime fiction books if your tastes run in that direction? (I'm thinking of Edmund Crispin and the like.)

Thank you @southeastdweller for the new thread. Can’t believe how fast it moves.

1. Not in the flesh Ruth Rendell

This has been sitting on my shelf for a long time, assuming it has been passed to me. Whilst truffle hunting in the woods with his dog, the dog unearths a body dumped a decade before. Whilst investigating another body is found nearby, a group of detectives investigate. I found this a pretty poor read. It is part of a series so whether reading earlier related novels would have helped me understand the lead detectives more and care more I don’t know. I found there wasn’t enough substance of details to follow the main characters, the story itself lacked excitement and had some lucky coincidences to help the detectives figure things out. Overall 2/3 out of 5.

Actually, The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss has lots of stuff about the building of the new Coventry Cathedral (I know she's a bit marmite on here but I and someone else - biblio? - read it last year and liked it).

Thanks for the tip, Harlan, will take a look.
Yes, that was me, mack and I did like it.

For churchy books, I adore Catherine Fox's updates of Trollope, starting with Acts and Omissions.

@weebarra

Yes, the Luckenbooth brooch is a symbol of love but the word luckenbooth in Scots itself is a stall selling them.

I never knew that, thanks - words and their meanings is an interest of mine.

@mackerella

Presumably you've read The Warden and Barchester Towers, Fortuna? There's also The Choir by Joanna Trollope, and quite a few crime fiction books if your tastes run in that direction? (I'm thinking of Edmund Crispin and the like.)

I haven't but I did get them last year on the back of a discussion and had forgotten about them. I'll look into The Choir too. Thank you! Looks like a whole lot of Trollope for me this year.

I'm part way through too many crime series to want to start any more at the moment, but will shout up when I run out.

I've just raided my shelves for crime fiction featuring cathedrals or deans/archdeacons - I can't find my copy of Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill otherwise that would also be on there (as it features a mystery play). There's also the Merrily Watkins books by Phil Rickman, which are set in Hereford and feature the cathedral and its politics a lot. I rather gorged on them a few years ago, but I think I'm ready for a re-read now (or to continue the series of there have been any out recently?)

Sorry, I'll stop posting cathedral books now .