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 Color Purple - Alice Walker

The last time I read this I was about 16. It didn't speak to me then, but to come back to it 30 years later was a revelation. It's heartbreaking, but not unrelentingly so. Celie's journey through a hard, violent & confusing life is beautifully & sensitively told as she learns who she is and makes her place in the world.

For those who like travel writing, starting today Stanford’s is doing a series of talks with various travel writers. I can’t do links on my phone but if you go to their website you can find details. @ChannelLightVessel today at 11am the talk is William Dalrymple talking about Anarchy.

6. Pale Rider by Laura Spinney
A history of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-20.

Heard about this last year - it was published before Covid but an obvious surge of interest. It's fascinating. Some great global reviews of what happened, the path of the epidemic and the numbers, but also humanised with individual stories. I particularly enjoyed the chapter about the artistic impact, which was not at all what you'd expect. Recommended.

Got my book numbers out of sync but think I've sorted it now...

I'm about half-way through Book No. 4 'Shuggie Bain' but it's really grim and unrelenting. Last night I needed something a little lighter, so I started Book No. 5 'The Salt Path'. I'll finish 'Shuggie' - just needed a night off.

I've a long list of tbr books inspired by this thread. I must go back and make a list of the ones I want to read.

Cote will definitely add Cage of Souls to my list. I loved Children of Time & Dogs of War. Have you tried his fantasy stuff? I read the Tiger and The Wolf trilogy last year. It's not as good as his SF, a bit long winded in places, but still a good read with really interesting concepts.

I just gave up on The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow, about 3 sisters at the turn of the century. It ties in suffragettes and fairy tales and spells, but I got about a third of the way through and was finding it quite full so couldn't really be bothered to read more.

*dull not full! Predictive text fail

The film of 84 Charing Cross Road is on Sony Movies Classic (Freeview 51) this evening at 6.55pm. (Sadly I may only get to see the first hour as it's Spurs v Liverpool at 8.00, and there are fans of both in our household.)

Oof @Taytocrisps, I was intrigued when I saw you were having to take a night off from reading that book and googled the plot! Yes, that doesn't sound like a bundle of laughs.

I am nearly finished book 4, The Thursday Murder Club. I love it. Hard hitting / intellectual literature it is not. It is very Midsomer Murders-y. I'm sure the plot has been vaguely outlined already on here, but it is about a group of 4 pensioners who have all had brilliant careers and / or have children with brilliant careers. They are all living in a gated community. They get together every Thursday to solve old, unsigned murder cases. Then murders start happening around their town and...you see where this is going. It is a lot of fun, even though the very odd part is a little bit sad. I cried at a bit last night which really surprised me, but it was sweetly worded. Osman is surprisingly good writing the voices of women in their late seventies and eighties! Mostly it is silly with some very amiable humour. Easy reading and good fun, without being too irritatingly frothy (imo). I'll probably buy the next one too.

I expect to finish it today and then I'm moving on to book 5, which will be The Shipping News, (as recommended on here - thank you whoever that was. It looks right up my street).

Unsolved*

That's interesting Yolandi, I read The Color Purple at around 15 or 16 too and it made a massive impact on me. One of those books that has really stayed with me. Last year I read By the light of my father's smile by the same author and absolutely hated it!! I think I was expecting another revelatory reading moment and was soooooo disappointed.

The Shipping News recommendation might have come from me Paris> I absolutely loved being immersed in that world and it felt very appropriate in our miserable January weather. I hope you enjoy it and look forward to reading your comments. I am definitely going to read more of Annie Proulx soon.

Yolandi I also reread The Colour Purple recently after a long gap and similarly thought it was great. It has really stood the test of time.

In the last year I've become a convert to rereading, something I rarely did before. Partly because on the first read I am probably focusing on the plot too much, whereas on the second I take time to engage more with the characters and appreciate the writing. Also, in late middle age I am coming at lots of issues from a very different perspective I think.

Tayto I thought Shuggie Bain was excellent but very bleak.

Boiledegg Thanks for the heads-up about 84 Charing Cross Road. I recently bought the book after recommendations on here. I wonder if I'd have time to read it before tonight?

@highlandcoo, that is what I am after, exactly; to be immersed in a new world. I love that part of the world, (not that I've ever been , but I love the sound of it).

I am so excited to read it! Thank you for the recommendation.

highlandcoo I think they put it on fairly regularly (although not necessarily frequently) so I'm sure you'll be able to catch it at a future date if you'd rather finish the book first. I hope you enjoy it!

I loved Cage of Souls too - DD gave it me for Christmas 2020, and it's just incredibly atmospheric, as well as a great story. I've not tried any of AT's fantasy, it's not appealed so much, but maybe I'll give it a go Stokey

(as an aside, dd & I saw AT speak a few years back, and he had the most amazing eyebrows - imagine Edward Heath in his prime but more so)

I watched 84 Charing Cross Road on Sony Classics on Sunday, so if they’re repeating it again already it possibly bodes well for further repeats!

I just caught the very end of 84 Charing Cross Road too, but luckily Sony Movies Classics does tend to re-repeat things a lot once they get hold of them. After tonight, it's on again on Saturday evening at 6:55 (although I do wish they'd stop breaking up their films with those pointless 5-minute 'movie news' segments, it's especially annoying if you're recording a film and have to remember to programme both parts, otherwise it'll only record half of it).

8 The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

I like Greene, and this was one I'd not read before, but after reading Silence by Shusaka Endo last year it seemed to be a good companion. Which it was as it deals with many of the same themes - persecution of priests and questioning of faith in particular - plus both share a very strong sense of place (coastal Japan in the case of Silence, and the jungles and rivers of Mexico for Greene). Any failure of mine to engage with this book is all down to me - I can see in a different time, in a different mood, I'd have loved it. I just needed something a bit less meditative and a bit more engaging.

9 Acts and Omissions by Catherine Fox

And that engagement was delivered in spades by this. Enormous thanks to biblio for the tip and I am so delighted there are two more in the series. This was just the right side of a light read - there are some fairly weighty themes in there around sexuality, questioning of faith, and love in middle age, and a massive layering of church politics, Anglican theology and the maintenance of historic buildings. But it's all wrapped up in a deliciously gossipy and pacey narrative that sucked me in completely and spat me out the other side thinking that it was enormous fun. A huge thumbs up from me for this.

Yay, Pepe, I'm thrilled you enjoyed it!

Slade House by David Mitchell is on Kindle daily Deal today

@mackerella

Oh, and I've got On The Map, also by Simon Garfield, on the same TBR shelf, in case any of you are interested - typefaces and maps being two of DH's enthusiasms!

Simon Garfield is on my must read author list, I really enjoyed that and the typefaces book. He's also written a book about engineering.

In Miniature is another good Simon Garfield book - all about things that are, well, miniature!

10. A Second Chance - Jodi Taylor

The third book in The Chronicles of St Mary’s series. In this book the time travelling historians spend most of their time in Troy but there are also brief excursions to see Isaac Newton, to the Battle of Agincourt and to the Gate of Tears. Mishaps and mayhem occur. However, the book ends quite confusingly. This is my final re-read of the series as I have not read any further previously. The ending mystified me last time and I hoped that on a second read I would understand it better - but I don’t! Hoping it may be cleared up in the next book. However, bar the ending, another enjoyable read - particularly the focus on Troy.

Onto something more serious next.

Thanks for the tip re. The Anarchy, Chessie

Pepe, you might like Rice’s Church Primer. I wonder if Thames & Hudson has anything on church architecture; I’ve got a good book of theirs on English cathedrals.

Any of the Simon Garfield books that might be good on Kindle? Just thinking about my Dad's birthday next month (he can't read paper books). I'm going to get him Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, but would quite like to find another interesting book to add - the fonts book sounds like a bad choice (& probably the maps one too) but perhaps the engineering one?

Timekeepers is an interesting one, Sadik - exploring how we became obsessed with being 'on time'; why certain things last the time they do (eg a CD); how some people insisted on living in their own self-imposed time-zones.....

....I also enjoyed Mauve (reviewed on the last thread), about the discovery of aniline dyes, which contrary to the way it sounds, was actually fascinating.

And of course all his Mass Observation books - Our Hidden Lives et al - are great.