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.

10. The Shape Of Darkness by Laura Purcell.
Got a review copy of this book, but I would have bought it anyway, on past experience of the author. Her first book The Silent Companions grew on me slowly - I was reading a lot of Haunted Spinster Women novels at the time and......wtf? Fire screens in the shape of people that move about?
In my opinion she has developed as a writer in the genre with every subsequent book. Women on the edge of society trying to find and/or keep precarious employment, thwarted by the supernatural.
This takes the reader to 1840s Bath and the lives of a young girl with albinism, her fiercely protective sister who nonetheless makes her masquerade as a ‘Medium’ and a silhouette maker whose creations start to foretell the gruesome deaths of her sitters.
To be fair, I did think near the end that this could have been two separate books, with a bit more detail about each of the characters, but that’s a very minor criticism (and probably due to the fact I love her books and always want more when I finish them).
As usual, the clues as to what is really happening are all in there if you can pick them out, but if you can’t then you can still revel in the deft way she knits together social history and gothic horror.

1. Pine by Francine Toon. I had reasonably high hope for this slice of Scots Gothic but after a strong tart it becomes rather cliched and - worse- very piecemeal and confusing. It's Toon's debut but it has been quite favourably received. It's short and has large print on the plus side! As I am now doing live teaching 5 hours a day , large text and accessible is my level. And it still took me a week.

I thought TMC was OK and DS (aged 16) read it and thought it OK too. It's Midsummer Murders in a book really. I agree with the comment by the end I wasn't sure who anyone was. I am surprised Spielberg wants it but could definitely see it on telly.

Spielberg has been 'making' an MLK biopic for about 15 years though, so...

I am not normally much of a reader, but with the pandemic I have read more than I usually would. I also discovered my local library does ebooks and all of the ones I have read have come from there.

1. Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman (really enjoyed)
2. Berlin Private - James Patterson (very good though similar to others in the same series)
3. The President is missing - James Patterson (enjoyed)
4. India Private - James Patterson (enjoyed and preferred to the Berlin one)
5. Harry Potter - Prisoner of Azkabhan (until December I hadn't read any of the series, I tried years ago and couldn't get into it, but now don't understand why I didn't. I preferred this one to the the first two books (which were good), but read it in short segments and it would have been better if I had read it in a day or two).

A high proportion of the women on the Faroes are Asian brides, they are the largest ethnic minority on the islands. There have been various documentaries about it in recent years.

When I went it was unheard of for there to be immigration other than from closer countries - Iceland, Denmark, Greenland were where some immigrants came from to work. More recently women have left the island and there has been a shortage of potential Faroese wives.

Well, I enjoyed The Thursday Murder Club and will definitely read the second one! It's not Great Literature, but it's a moderately funny, warm-hearted and competently-written murder mystery with some nicely drawn characters. I don't think it's ghostwritten, as Osman himself is clearly intelligent and funny, and not do I think it was cynically aimed at TV - or rather, I think its suitability for TV probably stems from the fact that Osman has a well-documented love of TV as a medium.

Actually, I'm not even sure how well it will translate to TV, anyway - the characters would work really well, but the plot suffers from the "chuck all my ideas into the book so they're not wasted" syndrome that often seems to afflict first-time authors (she pontificates from her lofty position as a non-writer). I'm not sure that the rather convoluted Cyprus plot was needed in addition to all the other stuff that was going on - it just cluttered things up unnecessarily. If they streamlined the plot, I can see it making a good Saturday night family programme, though.

I'm happy to wait for The Thursday Murder Club to appear in my library loans and I will read it (I read the sample chapter when it came out and it seemed amiable enough) but I'm just feeling a bit daunted by seeing it pop up everywhere at the moment, I think.

Just finished 3. Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe

I really enjoyed Reasons to be cheerful by her last year, not realising til afterwards that it was the last in a trilogy, so I started again with the first book (this one) and it was every bit as funny and well observed. Looking forward to part 2, Paradise Lodge

Just finished books 4 and 5
Dear Mrs Bird - entertaining read , set during the war about someone who thought she had applied for the job as a war correspondent but found herself typing up letters for a problem page. There is more to it but I don’t want to give the plot away so if you want a fun entertaining read it is worth giving it a go.
Little Fires Everywhere. Very different to Dear Mrs Bird. Carefully crafted, well developed characters. Possibly too slow at times but a gripping read nevertheless.

4 Foxcraft: The Taken. by Inbali Iserles This was just a book I had kicking around the house, I have some really cheap books I bought from charity shops that I can curl up and read to myself after lunch during quiet time/nap time (They are deliberately cheap and don't matter if they get trashed because sometimes my little girl takes them away and “explores” them!) This is an older kids book maybe 9-11 and it was good and diverting enough, not a great work of art but exciting and thoughtful.

5 Everything Under by Daisy Johnson This was shortlisted for the Booker prize and I don't really understand why. It’s a retelling of the Oedipus myth but It’s not mythic enough in its style and telling to make up for the character choices or decisions that make no sense to be glossed over or for the incredibly contrived coincidences to be ignored. It's also incredibly bleak. I feel like it could have been an interesting meditation on mental health, family relationships, intergenerational trauma, and gender identity, but it just didn't work for me. It was beautifully written though

9. The Crooked House by Agatha Christie

I really like the Miss Marple books so was looking forward to this stand alone tale. Lots of family members living in a huge house start getting bumped off and one of the suspects has just got engaged to the son of a very senior policeman, so of course he sends his son to investigate along with the police. It was ok but it was definitely not one of her best.

I think I will probably give The Thursday Murder Club a go when it is on offer but there's just something about it that is putting me off, part of it is the title (not sure quite what I find so objectionable) and the fact it all sounds a bit twee.

@Saucery I really liked The Silent Companions too and this new book sounds good, looking forward to reading that one.

@RazorstormUnicorn - I can't believe we are on the same book in our re-read! Yes Tommyknockers next, I have read it before but looking forward to starting once I have finished my current book. How are you finding the re-read? As I said in my Misery review I have really changed my mind on some of his books, old favourites have not stood the test of time and I suddenly appreciate books i wasn't that bothered about before.

Book 7 - BIll Bailey's Remarkable guide to happiness

This started as a real laugh out loud book and I felt it was heading for 5 stars as I was reading it when I was feeling really quite down and was struggling to read a book. The attraction paled as the book went on because a lot of the things that he talks about making him happy were things that need a lot of money to do - scuba diving in the Icelandic continental rift, trekking in remote places and whilst money doesn't necessarily buy happiness you wouldn't get the kind of happiness in some of the chapters without a lot of it. That said he does cover cheaper happiness inducing memories in the earlier chapters such as your local park and listening to music but it's all early on and almost as if he's getting those out of the way ready for the main act.

@Terpsichore

I'm happy to wait for The Thursday Murder Club to appear in my library loans and I will read it (I read the sample chapter when it came out and it seemed amiable enough) but I'm just feeling a bit daunted by seeing it pop up everywhere at the moment, I think.

Me too Terpsichore (incidentally I now know the origin of your user name thanks to Bill Bailey in the book I just finished), and the more I see a book mentioned the less I feel like reading it. I certainly have no intention of spending any money on it.

Re Pine by Francine Toon, I read this a couple of weeks ago and agree that it was very atmospheric and spooky and while I enjoyed it overall, I got irritated at the characters dancing around each other in conversations - nobody seemed to ask a straight question or give a straight answer and felt like screaming at one point with it all. Afterwards I listened to The Midnight Library on audio and found it refreshing that the main character asked very straightforward and probing questions!

1. Tales from the Folly by Ben Aaronovitch

Short story collection in the Rivers of London series - very slight but a nice fun read. Having said that, I got it from the online library, but I'd have been pretty teed off if I'd paid £5.99 on Kindle for it given the length - I read it plus The Penultimate Hours - a collection of short stories linked to Cassandra Clare's Last Hours series both in a couple of hours this evening. The latter was a freebie to newsletter subscribers & I reckon was pretty much the same length.

1. Exterminate All The Brutes - Sven Lindqvist

Hard to describe this as an enjoyable read given its subject matter, but an extremely well-written and important, if short book. Framed by a trip the author took across the Sahara, and Joseph Conrad's novel Heart Of Darkness, it explores in pitiless, heartbreaking detail the practice of genocide that was central to European colonial expansion and how it ultimately led to the horrors of the Holocaust.

Remus yes I'm up for a Bainbridge read-along name the book!

And just throwing into the Stephen King discussion that I haven't read any of the horror... Found The Dark Tower a lot of fun if flawed, The Stand overlong. On Writing is a really good book and 22.11.63 great too. But my heart belongs to The Talisman which must be one of the books I've read most in my life, it's very very special to me.

12: Quicksand Tales - Keggie Carew

This was a bit of an oddity, borrowed from the library in slight desperation when I was trawling for anything non-fiction I could try (they really have a pretty dismal selection, unfortunately). I read Dadland by the same author a couple of years ago - a memoir about her charismatic father's wartime exploits and latter years afflicted by dementia - and I'd highly recommend it, but this was very different and just rather hard to categorise.

It's billed as a selection of true stories about the awkward, embarrassing moments that have happened to her, and that happen to all of us...misunderstandings, mistakes, things we blurt out that ruin friendships or change the course of events for the worse. Some of the stories are quite funny (eg her evening failing to recognise someone famous as her dinner companion) and some rather laboured (an uber-pretentious writing circle she strayed into). But some tales don't really fit her brief that well, and one just feels like very public revenge for a disastrous stay at an expensive but appallingly-badly-run hotel (she doesn't name the hotel but gives so many clues she clearly wants you to google it).
I whizzed through the book happily enough, and winced sympathetically at various points, but since quite a lot of her stories stem from her alarmingly spur-of-the-moment tendencies, my sense of fellow-feeling with Keggie as she embarked on another reckless unplanned adventure wasn't always 100%, I have to admit.

@Saucery

I'm reading Bone China at the moment. I was a bit "meh" at the Silent Companions- but that was because, knowing nothing about the writer I picked it up (2 years ago possibly?) on the back of one of those "most terrifying book you've ever read" threads.
And it just wasn't.

BUT, now I've rejigged my expectations, and know I'm not going to be quivering under the blankets too terrified to turn out the lights, but rather feeling worried about the overhanging menace and brooding gloom and hints at dark family secrets and vaguely unexplained goings on, I'm enjoying BC much more. And your analysis of LP's USP is spot on. Women in a time when women were expected very much to be one thing if they were to be tolerated in society and the slightest deviation pushing them towards its edges.

Meg - let's do it! I don't mind which one, as I don't know anything about any of them.

Speaking of King, The Green Mile is in the kindle deal today.

I'm reading The Other Bennet sister. It's very, very dull. The writer has taken everything that sparkles in Austen and turned it into drab tedium, like some sort of reverse King Midas. The only thing in its favour is that it's shit, but not quite as shit as Longbourne.

@WednesdayalltheWay I really enjoyed Man at the Helm - even more so as I bought two books at the same time and the other was billed as being around a tragedy and got muddled about what I was reading. So I was pleasantly surprised when nothing tragic happened

1. The Casual Vacancy - JK Rowling

This was a reread and am sure almost everyone knows the storyline - but to sum it up, it’s horrible people doing horrible things in a parochial village. I do love it though!

Am now reading *In an Instant by Suzanne Redfearn - really enjoying it so far, but will update when I’ve finished.

I quite enjoyed The Thursday Murder Club. I thought for what it was, it was fine. It wasn't really a crime novel in the way Ann Cleeves, Val McDermid and Peter May write crime; I'd put it more in the "whimsical" category of books.

I have The Other Bennet Sister in my TBR pile. I'm a big JA fan but find that spin-offs very rarely work. I didn't mind Longbourn too much but detested Death in Pemberley. Seriously one of the poorest pieces of writing I've ever encountered. What was PD James thinking? And all those people who wrote glowing reviews of it - who are you trying to kid? It was absolute tripe.

I did enjoy the TV series Lost in Austen years ago; that was fun. And of course P&P with Jennifer Ehle is classic. Nothing beats rereading the original novels though.

1. Congo - Michael Crichton

DH has been suggesting this for agesls, so I thought I'd give it a go, but it's no Jurassic Park. A expedition team in the Congo are mysteriously killed, and so another team sets out to try and find out what happens to them. It was fine, but there are better Michael Crichton books out there.

1. Poirot - Book 2 - Agatha Christie

Another one that's fine, but there are better books by the same author. This is a series of short stories, and they're just too short - by the time you know what the mystery is, it's already been solved so no time to try and guess for yourself. A very quick read in bed on a Saturday morning, but that's all it was.

4. Circe, Madeline Miller
Having read the debate on this thread a couple of pages ago I was unsure what to expect when I started this.

It was ok. Fundamentally I thought Circe was rather boring and all the interesting myths and events happened elsewhere off the pages of the book. Her divinity seemed to come and go as it suited the plot and nothing happened for pages except descriptions of her island.

Book club has chosen The midnight library which has also been much reviewed on here so I’m hoping for better things!