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.

@BookShark

I think The Goldfinch is a big first book for the year. I know it doesn't work that way, but I do think some books should count for extra. I woke up in the middle of last night, couldn't get back to sleep, so read one of the Trebizon books on my Kindle as it was better than turning on the light and waking up DH. But I wouldn't count that as a book as it only took 30 minutes! Equally, my first book was a whopper so took as long as three "quick read thriller" library books would have taken.

Anyway, I guess my point is that I'm not going to feel bad for not making 50 - I'm more quality over quantity and want to read for the enjoyment of it, and if that means only reading 20 books or whatever, so be it.

By the way, I don't think anyone on this thread has suggested otherwise, which is why it love it - the number is almost irrelevant, it's just for the love of books. I just mention it as there are some huge variances in numbers, and wouldn't want anyone to feel they're "failing".

Absolutely. I tend to do a "99p psycho neighbour/detective genre" followed by something a bit more demanding. (I also felt a bit guilty adding Greta Thunberg to my list but having been reprimanded and menaced by her for 2 hours on Kindle I felt I deserved to )

Having hurled Ken onto my "Don't Know Why I Bothered" Goodreads bookshelf as a DNF, I'm halfway through The Sealwoman's Gift Late to the party (I'm another one who refuses to read things because people at large tell me to, especially if those people are called Richard and Judy,) but I'm loving it. Will probably finish it today.

Oops. That's my AIBU name up there. . Now I've told you, I'll have to kill you etc.

1. The Mermaid of Black Conch - Monique Roffey

I decided to read this as it recently won the Costa Book of the Year. It is set on a tiny Caribbean island and tells the story of a mermaid pulled from the sea in the 1970s from 3 view points: the present day diary of a local fisherman who falls in love with her looking back to the 70s; the mermaid Aycayia ('sweet voice') in a kind of free verse and an omniscient narrator. Aycayia is from the ancient Taino tribe, wiped out by Spanish colonialisation, and was cursed by the women of her village. Out of the water she turns back into a woman but the ancient curse proves strong. It is a love story but also manages to touch on themes of colonisation, feminism, nature, stories, love and possession. I highly recommend.

1. *Screen Time: How to make peace with your devices and find your techquilibrium

by Becca Caddy* A really interesting book looking into the psychology of our technology use. She looks in detail at all aspects of mobile phone use and how we use technology our lives. She offers practical tips to give you more control. Really well researched and referenced. Very up to date even mentions the pandemic. The best book I've read on the psychology of technology use.

11. Figure of Eight by Compton Mackenzie A re-read following on from my previous book, London Belongs to Me
    Written in 1938, this starts in 1913, & follows a group of eight women dancers aged from 18 to 32 - the 'first line of boys' at a London theatre. The first half of the book has a chapter about each character, then an interlude, & then chapters re-visiting each of them in the 1930s.
    At the start, the 'boys' find out that one of their previous members has been murdered, and reflections on her life & what she meant to them form one of the centre points of the book.
    I first read this as a teen, and coming back to it I'm still impressed by how convincingly Mackenzie writes the women. Although it's a very much shorter book, compared to London Belongs to Me the characters felt far more real, and I feel that the city comes much more to life in its diversity because of that.
    I'll probably re-read Carnival which this is a sort-of-sequel to at some point also this year if I can get hold of a copy, mine seems to have gone astray.

I just finished Apple of My Eye by Helene Hanff, which was recommended earlier on this thread and is a non-fiction book which details the author visiting many New York sights with her friend in the mid-70s. I loved 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene and New York is my favourite city but this began to feel very samey, very quickly.

It's OK, SOL, we won't breathe a word

Just sneaking on to the end of this second thread (END OF THE SECOND THREAD??? IT'S NOT EVEN FEBRUARY!) to post my latest read:

7. Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd

This is the third William Boyd book I've read, and for me there have been diminishing returns. I really, really liked Any Human Heart, but the two spy/psychological thriller type books I've read since (this and Restless) just weren't as good, and this was definitely the least impressive. It is hard to sum up the plot because there's just so much - too much! - going on. We first meet actor Lysander Rief just before WWI in Vienna, where he is undergoing treatment with a Freud devotee for sexual problems. He meets a woman who is rather more effective as a cure than his therapist, but this leads him to get caught up in an increasingly unlikely sequence of events. Espionage, double-crossing, barely believable coincidences that draw in linked characters, it's all there in triplicate. Maybe if I'd really been able to concentrate on this and hadn't been squeezing it in in short gaps between work and childcare it would have been easier to follow, but right now, it was just too much. It wasn't terrible, and I was never tempted not to finish, because I wanted to know what happened, but the "solution" was pretty unsatisfactory too. I have a couple of others by him on my TBR and am hoping they're more like Any Human Heart, because I'm not convinced by his l"literary thrillers".

1. Jane Austen, Secret Radical by Helena Kelly

An exploration of Austen's novels in the political context of her day. (Warning; long review) I picked this up from one of the clearcut boxes outside people's front doors that are a feature of this past year. I'm a huge Austen fan and prone to lengthy explanations of why she's not a romantic novelist. And I absolutely loved this. It's a deep dive into possible, veiled political and religious content in the Austen novels, strongly and elegantly written. I think it's very good on the 'mental furniture' of her readership - what would have been commonly known or understood or read at the time. And also on the big political issues of the time and how they could be thought to be showing up in Austen's work; slavery, wars, revolutions, economic and religious conflicts.

Kelly's big message, which I heartily endorse, is to read the novels. She also chooses to write imagined scenes at the start of each of her chapters. They are based firmly on Austen's letters, which I don't know really at all, and on the very limited known facts of her life. But it's an odd choice, all the same (even though I enjoyed the pieces) - to castigate those who make up things about Austen and then fictionalise her yourself. I was also conscious while reading that the academic literature (professional and amateur) on Austen is simply vast, and Kelly doesn't often explicitly refer to it in the text - what have others put forward, agreed to, argued against and why does she think that's not the case? To be fair this might be an editorial choice to make more of a popular read. A PhD can be written on one aspect of one novel, after all. And it's notable that my edition is presented as a chick lit read - pink cover and all.

In the end, I really loved reading this and found it gripping. But I don't really know how it sits with Austen experts as a group, who I understand are quite an argumentative bunch. The reviews suggest not too well.

I'm on book 10 now, I was all set to review book 9 when I got to the end and read the author's bio. She starting writing novels after doing a MA in Creative Writing so I dare not mention the book now!

WelshWabbit my favourite William Boyd is Brazzaville Beach, I ended up spending a lot of time googling Jane Goodall afterwards, the book is not about her but her work on chimpanzees definitely informed the book.

I also read:

Black Flamingo - Dean Atta. Told in verse this is an enjoyable novel about the life of a character called Michael up until his early 20s and his experiences of being a mixed-race gay male and drag queen. This was pretty forgettable but there's some moving passages.

The Move - Felicity Everett. Very disappointed with this listless thriller about a couple who move to the 'burbs from London and she suspects he's cheating on her again. Her previous book, The People at Number 9, was so much more enjoyable.

"I didn't really like any of the characters and it didn't make me laugh or cry"

If you wanted to like characters, laugh, or cry, The Goldfinch was probably not the best choice for you. It's like reading a Lisa Jewell book and saying you didn't get any intellectual fulfillment from it

New thread here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4152237-50-Book-Challenge-2021-Part-Three?watched=1

Thanks for the new thread southeast.

My list so far:

1. The Pull of the Stars – Emma Donoghue
2. Half A World Away – Mike Gayle
3. Pine – Francine Toon
4. In A Dark Dark Wood – Ruth Ware
5. Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout
6. The Girl on the Landing – Paul Torday
7. The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
8. The Silent Scream – Diane Hoh

I’ve almost finished The Thursday Murder Club on audio and reading The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton. The first is an easy enough entertaining read, not sure if it’s worthy of the hype though. The second though, is much better in my opinion. This is by the same author of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle which I also enjoyed (but finding his new one vastly superior).

It’s set in the 17th century on a trading vessel sailing from Batavia to Amsterdam. Before boarding, the passengers are given a warning by a leper that a demon is out to get them and while most don’t believe the warning, two of the passengers are a famous detective, Sammy Pipps, and his sidekick, Arent Hayes, who has past experience with demons. Things then happen on the ship after the journey begins that starts to change people’s minds about the presence of a demon and it’s up to Sammy and Arent to find out what’s going on.

I know we’re all of one month into 2021 but this is my stand-out read of the year so far.

@InTheCludgie

Psst. Wrong Thread

This

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Is

Now

Closed

Station 11 is shit

So is Never Let Me Go

Cote is wrong about Circe

Remus is wrong about The Lists