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.

Based on all this it really is high time to launch into Ducks, Newburyport, isn't it?

Do it, noodle! I think karma is also currently reading Ducks, so we can form a support group together . I've taken Fortuna's excellent advice and am listening to it as an audiobook, rather than reading the print version. The narrator is brilliant, and really brings the book to life - I think it's a book that definitely benefits from being listened to instead of/as well as read.

I don’t mind whether or not characters are unlikeable as long as they’re believable.

I do prefer books with a good plot over books that meander about aimlessly as a general rule.

I don't mean depressed people I mean wankers

Kitchen sink dramas only really appeal to me if there is an historical element, portraits of "life at that time"

4. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaimen

This was in my kindle library unread, I think I purchased it after reading Circe and Song of Achilles which I loved (just to announce my team!) and deciding to move into Norse god's.

I didn't really enjoy the book at all. It's a series of short stories and there's not much to characters and it moves through each legend so quick with no detail at all.

I do feel I know a bit more about the Norse god's, but it's all now mixed up with the Avengers of the same name...

I'm reading a non fiction from my unread library next, and then it will be time to treat myself to something off my wishlist.

Lovely to see all the Dick Francis fans. My mum had most of his books and I was allowed to read these from quite young. I remember being surprised there were sex scenes! I inherited the books from her, but only Dead Cert and Long Shot remain on my bookshelf. Maybe I'll re-read one of them this year

Noodle, I like your criteria for dividing readers into different categories!

• I can cope with 'non-likeable' characters but I do need them to be compelling in some way. For example, I didn't finish Fleischman Is in Trouble because I couldn't engage with Fleischman enough to care what happened to him.
• Plot, no, not necessary.
• Speech marks not necessary either. I loved Normal People.

Yes noodlezoodle do it!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

And FUCK ME

The Other Hand by Chris Cleave

I swear to God my hatred of this book was so fucking strong that if I could mentally unread it I would

I was reading thie discussion about types of books thinking 'well sometimes I'm in the mood for a plot and sometimes I'm not and I always find something to like about the unlikeable characters and I'm fairly relaxed about punctuation' then I saw Eine's comment above and immediately thought 'that fucking book is the book I hate more than anything else I've ever read'. So clearly what I don't like is badly written (one of the character's children was either unnaturally articulate or unnaturally retarded in his speach, can't remember which at this stage), preachy novels. Just piss off. It was a present as well so the giver obviously thought I needed to know more about refuges which I found quite insulting.

@mackerella

Based on all this it really is high time to launch into Ducks, Newburyport, isn't it?

Do it, noodle! I think karma is also currently reading Ducks, so we can form a support group together . I've taken Fortuna's excellent advice and am listening to it as an audiobook, rather than reading the print version. The narrator is brilliant, and really brings the book to life - I think it's a book that definitely benefits from being listened to instead of/as well as read.

mackerella I'm interested that you prefer listening to Ducks rather than reading it. As I have mentioned before, I found one of the great things about reading Ducks was the (to me, unknown) names and places she dropped lightly into the narrative and that once I had looked them up, I found really added to my enjoyment and understanding of the book as well teaching me a lot about American history. Can you pick up on these when listening (genuine question)? I suspect I would tend to miss them, but that probably says more about the tendency for my mind to wander when I'm listening.

@JaninaDuszejko

It scarred me for life

London Elite Sanctimonious Hypocritical Mawkish Hand Wringing Bollocks

@TimeforaGandT

finisterreforever - actually I am not that far off as my latest read, Banker, was 1982 so I should get to Kit before Easter (on the basis of reading one every few weeks).

Banker is one of my favourites. Tim Ekaterinburg can wait though, I'm enjoying Kit Fielding quite a lot right now

boiledegg I remember you saying that in your review! I do pause quite a lot to look things up (I don't bother with things like brand names, because they're either obvious or I don't care that much), but I've recently been looking up "macrophages", "tardigrades", "Indian corn" and lots of the places that are mentioned (Newcomerstown is a real place but Peolia College isn't!). I also fell down an internet wormhole yesterday, researching the history of the hot fudge sundae (which Wikipedia seems to suggest is not from Evanston IL, no matter what Ducks says), and have also bookmarked a recipe for apples and onions because it was mentioned in whichever chapter I was listening to yesterday! So I think I probably do stop as much as I would if I were reading in print .

Thanks mackerella, it sounds as if you've picked up even more than I did! I got very carried away on people and places. It is such a remarkable book, perhaps I should try it on audio next time to get the full experience.

9: Mr Wilder and Me - Jonathan Coe

57-year-old Calista, composer of film scores living in London with her husband and late-teenage twins, looks back to her own experiences in the late 1970s when, as a naive 20-something, she happened to wander into the orbit of legendary film director Billy Wilder, and found herself acting as assistant/interpreter on the set of his last film, Fedora - an experience that set her on the path to her future life and career.

I'm a sucker for anything to do with films and this short novel, Jonathan Coe's latest, is an elegiac homage to Wilder and to a lost age of Hollywood. It's also quietly perceptive in charting the way Calista has matured and grown, from unsophisticated young girl to a woman in late middle age with her own problems of ageing and loss to confront and deal with. I could see how Coe used young Calista's cluelessness about Wilder and film history as a way to shoehorn in a lot of essential information, and this might be a bit of an irritation for anyone who's reasonably well-informed about film, but he does it very skilfully on the whole. For me, anyway, this was outweighed by the overall charm of the book.

Kitchen sink dramas only really appeal to me if there is an historical element, portraits of "life at that time"

Eine you might well find plenty of reading material in a few years when authors churn out 'The little pharmacist in the council estate during Covid' books

Re the "likeable" characters conversation... I think when people say they don't like the character, they sometimes mean they don't like the writing. If a book writes characters who I don't care about, I can't enjoy the book. It isn't about wanting to be buddies with fictional characters! It's whether I enjoy the author's company more than anything; how they write the characters. I feel the same about films; if the character is an amazing, likeable guy, but the script is shit and the acting is forced, then I won't enjoy the film.

If a book writes? I think I meant, if an author writes!

MamaNewt - there will be no more Edith Wharton here. 😁

@ParisJeTAime

Re the "likeable" characters conversation... I think when people say they don't like the character, they sometimes mean they don't like the writing. If a book writes characters who I don't care about, I can't enjoy the book. It isn't about wanting to be buddies with fictional characters! It's whether I enjoy the author's company more than anything; how they write the characters. I feel the same about films; if the character is an amazing, likeable guy, but the script is shit and the acting is forced, then I won't enjoy the film.

I'm in a book group and 'I just didn't like him/her' is a common reason people give when damning a book. To me it's a bit odd because we've read a lot of books with deeply unpleasant characters but it doesn't stop them being great pieces of writing. I completely agree that if the writing is good, you don't have to 'like', but you do have to believe, or be otherwise invested.

Thanks to those who recommended The Ninth House - I was up til stupid-o-clock reading it. Wasn’t what I expected at all, it is much better than the vague impression I had of it in my mind.

I think sometimes it is about if readers actually like the characters, I know my Mum (who reads widely) has told me before she hasn't enjoyed a book because all the characters were so unpleasant. Someone upthread said about not wanting to spend time with Humbert Humbert, that's a classic book brilliantly written precisely because you are made complicit in Humbert's behaviour which does make it an uncomfortable read.

Jenny Eclair writes superbly unlikeable characters, but I enjoy the way she manipulates them into uncomfortable situations and shows how they largely despise each other.

I'd agree with 'likeable' often being shorthand for 'well written and internally consistent / convincing' characters.

Thinking of Mrs Norris, Mrs Elton, Lady Catherine de Bourgh - all deeply loved Austen characters, but you couldn't call them likeable

@finisterreforever

Kitchen sink dramas only really appeal to me if there is an historical element, portraits of "life at that time"

Eine you might well find plenty of reading material in a few years when authors churn out 'The little pharmacist in the council estate during Covid' books

See I live in this era so no appeal

But I would read a Spanish Flu novel

@Sadik

DEFINITELY

Lily Bart - Jesus Christ You're A Pain in the arse

Catherine de Bourgh - Actual Legend.

(Particularly as depicted by the BBC)

Eine Have you read Year of Wonder by Geraldine Brooks?