50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 and the second one here.

Loved Miss Pettigrew

Rather lovely in a British Film way describes it perfectly, Sauce.

Greenbanks is a good Dorothy Whipple novel.

You're all racing along. I'm out of books again and waiting for two parcels from the book shop. Still can't face 'Shuggie' but I'll get back to it and finish it off at a later stage, when we're out of lockdown. Memo to self - must note the books I'm interested in as soon as I read about them, instead of going back through a whole thread to find them .

Thanks everyone! My RL friend also recommended Miss Pettigrew, I will look up Greenbanks too.

1. Drop Dead Gorgeous. R L Stine

YA book, was a nice easy read whilst readi book 6 when I felt like a break. A new girl starts at school at the same time as people start dying and have been drained of blood. Pretty basic book and the twist that came was easy to figure out earlier on. Not a great book.

1. Mythos. Stephen Fry. I enjoyed this but agree with earlier reviews that it was a bit heavy going at points, especially earlier on with so many names and such to take in. Enjoyed parts of it and look forward to reading his next instalment.

Come on Remus, write the book! Do it in the style of Dan Brown and you'd have a runaway success. Especially if there were a few extra legs thrown in for good measure.

I do think stealing someone else's characters is a bit of a cheek and often the books can be a bit naff, but I did enjoy The Other Bennet Sister so will probably give Charlotte a read at some point.

Speaking of many legs, my 4 legged beastie is demanding a walk, so my reviews will have to wait until later.

11. I Thought I Knew You - Penny Hancock. Jules and Holly have been friends for years, but their lives are ripped apart when Jules's 13yo daughter makes an allegation against Holly's 16yo son. This is pretty good as a page turner.

morning all.
to weigh in belatedly on the The Remains of the Day debate, I loved it. Made my cry. DD13 has recently read it and enjoyed it as well, although it is a book where I wonder if you need to be somewhat aged to really get.

5. Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker. This tells the story of Mimi and Don Galvin, a middle class couple in Colorado, who have 12 children. Six of them develop schizophrenia. The book gives an in-depth look at family life, and reflects on what sibling groups can tell us about the aetiology of the illness.

A decent read. There's some critique of the roles that pharmaceutical companies and their investment whims play in limiting research and development. There's not much new here in terms of looking at understanding of the illness and potential treatments, but I guess that's just a sad reflection that there's generally not much new in schizophrenia research generally. The family story is fascinating and detailed.

7. Untangled - Lisa Damour - parenting book about raising teenage girls. Seen this recommended over and over through work (I edit psychology/parenting books) and have young teen daughters so thought I ought to get around to reading this. I thought it was great - really well written, direct and intelligent. I got it from the library, but I may buy a copy. DH reading it now too.

*8. Magpie Lane - Lucy Atkins. Recommended and reviewed previously on here. I found this very readable and enjoyable. I used to live in Oxford, but I think I'd have enjoyed it anyway - well paced and atmospheric. I found it obvious where it was going, but that didn't really matter.

Out of books until the library trip next week, so will be raiding the kids YA books again next.

Fortuna Lesbian Austen spin-off in the style of Dan Brown. The mind boggles!

@Taytocrisps

You're all racing along. I'm out of books again and waiting for two parcels from the book shop. Still can't face 'Shuggie' but I'll get back to it and finish it off at a later stage, when we're out of lockdown. Memo to self - must note the books I'm interested in as soon as I read about them, instead of going back through a whole thread to find them .

Do you use Goodreads.com Tayto ? I signed up after joining this thread a few years ago and it is the only way I can manage my booklists!

I only allow myself to purchase the 99p kindle deals if it is a book on my Want To Read list.

I have to app on my phone too so if I am in a bookshop / charity shop and something takes my fancy, I can check whether its on my list, or if I have read it before.

Virtually all by books on my TBR list have come from the 50 bookers, and I lag way behind the discussion of the currently popular books, which means I rarely have anything new to add to reviews!

12 The Politicization of Mumsnet by Sarah Pedersen

Mumsnet ran a webinar with Sarah Pedersen last year diacussing this book. She is a MNer and this is a clear but academic discussion of politics on MN. It particularly concentrates on the role of MN in the Transwars and explains the development of that well.

Read Remains of the Day years ago, loved it but suspect it might be interesting to reread now I'm older. But I do love a book where nothing happens.

@Sully84

5. Drop Dead Gorgeous. R L Stine YA book, was a nice easy read whilst readi book 6 when I felt like a break. A new girl starts at school at the same time as people start dying and have been drained of blood. Pretty basic book and the twist that came was easy to figure out earlier on. Not a great book.

1. Mythos. Stephen Fry. I enjoyed this but agree with earlier reviews that it was a bit heavy going at points, especially earlier on with so many names and such to take in. Enjoyed parts of it and look forward to reading his next instalment.

I would say Heroes is the easiest ro read as not many names to get your head around. I'd say Troy can fall into the many names trap as he explains how the battle came to take place and has to refer back to other well known myths and the gods so can find yourself wondering who he means with some names.

Plodding through my books slowly
3. The Familiars by Stacey Halls I have a feeling that this would be loathed by many people but I really enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for historical fiction, my absolute favourite being the Shardlake series, so this was right up my street. Set in 17th century Lancashire, it tells the story of the Pendle witch trials through the eyes of 17 year old Fleetwood Shuttleworth, a new bride who is struggling to produce the heir everyone expects. At first sight, and as a wealthy woman, Fleetwood appears relatively secure in society but it is clear that as for many women in the past that security hangs upon her ability to produce sons. She has few choices in her life and initially looks enviously at the village girls who appear to her to have more freedoms to live and love. She turns in desperation to a local girl who may or may not be a witch but who is ultimately caught up in the local witch hunt. I would have liked to learn more about the accused women but that is for another book: the names and locations used are real and I want to know more about them, particularly the political climate that led to the whole witch trial cult of the time.

I have just finished Motherwell. I wanted to read this because of its setting. I grew up in the West of Scotland (not Motherwell) a couple of decades later but much of the sense of place really resonated. I had never really heard of Deborah Orr, will admit.

I really warmed to the book after a slow start when I found her style tortuous and a her sentences a bit overwrought. I felt she settled into it.
Will admit I found the forays into ponderings of narcissism a bit irritating. Perhaps because I come from a very narcissistic family and have occasionally dipped into a lurk on the Stately Homes thread, I really wasn't convinced by the book itself as to why she as quite so traumatised as she maybe just seemed a bit repressed and underloved/ appreciated. It all sounded par for the course to me really. I wouldn't say it was self pitying, because it wasn't : I just think it may not have been all that fleshed out. And , to be honest, it just all sounded a bit Presbyterian and Scottish!

16. Dear Child - Romy Hausman A young woman is abducted and kept in a cabin in the woods. Her father never stops looking for her and hounds the police and press to do something. Years later a woman with 2 children is discovered and INSERT BIG PLOT TWIST.

Told from multiple POV in a time shift pattern this is a passably decent thriller. I was a bit put off however by an interview with the author at the end where she states she usually only reads/writes literary fiction, but came round to the fact that thrillers could be well written after reading Gone Girl. It could be a little lost in translation but the interview came across a little of 'I'm lowering myself in writing thrillers, but at least the writing is elevated compared to those other thriller writers who are only capable of writing crap books'.

17. Hum If You Don't Know the Words - Bianca Marais Set in 1970s South Africa during the Sowetu uprising, this explores attitudes of different people towards Apartheid. Told from the POV of a black mother with a teen involved in the uprising and a white 10 year old who loses her parents during it.

I like BMs writing as she creates excellent characters and really draws you into a place with vivid writing, but I preferred If You Want to Make God Laugh which I read last year. This felt a little over simplistic at times and while the girl was an excellent vehicle to explore changing opinions, she was awfully articulate and capable of critical thinking for one so young, so not realistic. I don't know much about that area or period of history so found it incredibly interesting from that perspective.

Come on Remus the idea's got legs. Quite a few each if you're writing it...

Maybe there ought to be a jointly-written 50-booker novel à la Nicci French, with one person contributing a chapter then leaving it for the next person to carry on

@BadlydoneHelen I enjoyed The Familiars . I read her other one The Foundling as well, but that was only OK (but a quick, easy read)

10. Heresy by S.J. Parris I chose this as I had enjoyed the Shardlake series so much and it seemed similar.

It's the story of former Italian monk Giordano Bruno who was a real figure), who has left his monastery after being found reading a forbidden book, and is now in Elizabethan England working as a spy for Walsingham, seeking out underground Catholics. Walsingham sends Bruno to the university town of Oxford, which he believes remains a pocket of Catholicism, and Bruno also secretly hopes to find an elusive book which describes how the earth circles the sun, which is only one of an infinite numbers of stars in the universe- a truly heretical idea by Elizabethan standards. While he is staying at Oxford, there is an horrific murder of one of the university fellows, and he begins to investigate.
In some ways it is very similar to Shardlake, a medieval whodunnit with a realistic historical background and a couple of murders to investigate by a likeable character just trying to get on with life, not really wanting to get involved with court intrigue and politics.
It's not up to Shardlake standards in my opinion, but quite readable and will probably pick up the next one in the series at some point

Terps that would be brilliant fun!

Ravenlawsome I'm glad you've said the Bruno books are good as I've been eyeing them up recently. I need a new historical series to get into and there are so many to choose from it can be hard to know where to go next.

See, I end up screenshotting about 10 of your lot's reviews every time I open the thread! My tbr pile ain't never going to get no smaller Great reviews today, have added most to my screenshot archive to be added to Amazon wishlist and Goodreads "want to" list.

Finished
10. The Sealwoman's Gift finally. I didn't think it would take me all week as I romped through the first bit. Having now read the reviews on Goodreads I can see I was lulled into a false sense of security...I won't go into the plot as I presume I'm the last person on the planet to have read it. First bit was great, middle bit seemed very "cut and paste from Google" and it seemed to me as though SM had researched thoroughly (I guess because of own background) the Iceland bit, and went for the Algiers bit in the manner of one who writes books called The Kite Runner etc ie- she wrote what she thought it would be like rather than what history might have told her. I dunno. The middle bit just felt 2 dimensional somehow and when the Love Interest happened it just went all silly and Victoria Hisloppy and I chuntered a lot at her. By the time we got back to Iceland, I'm afraid the middle bit had coloured my opinion too much and I just wanted it to end.

Decent premise though, and I'll read more of her. It just felt almost like a first draft that needed some editing suggestions.

I'm going to curl up with PD James now, as I may have bought most of the bundle on Kindle this morning. NB: watch it- one of the books in the bundle is actually £3.99 not 99p)

Interesting about the author having read Gone girl before writing Dear Child, FortunaMajor. I also thought Dear Child was a decent thriller, the narrative zipped along, although THE BIG PLOT TWIST was quite well signposted. I thought it might be very like Room but it was more Gone Girl in structure and tone now that you have pointed it out. I read an ARC copy last year so there wasn't an author interview.

@FortunaMajor
Yes, it's OK. A quick read, not too taxing. Not Shardlake by any stretch but there is much worse out there.
I picked the whole series up when they were 99p each just before Xmas. I think if I read them back to back, I would tire of them, but I'll certainly read the second one at some point.

@FortunaMajor

Come on Remus the idea's got legs. Quite a few each if you're writing it...

I think I'm missing something with the legs comments???