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.

Don't forget to add the Follett breasts.
Well, that goes without saying. I think Mary's breasts would definitely enjoy quivering, or whatever it is that Follet breasts tend to do.

My Persephone recommendation would be A London Child of the 1870s - Molly Hughes' charming and fascinating autobiography. I love the Provincial Lady books, but would have thought they're well known enough that anyone likely to enjoy them would already have read them? (Ditto Miss Pettigrew ?).

17. Running for the Hills by Horatio Clare I wanted to read more of Clare's books having really enjoyed The Prince's Pen. This is his first volume of autobiography, and tells the story of how his journalist parents bought an upland sheep farm in the Brecon Beacons. After they separated, Clare's mother moved permanently to the farm with their two small children. There's some beautiful writing & descriptions of the farm & wildlife, & the ups & downs of childhood. I have to say I got rather distracted by irritation at his mother, who is eternally penniless, but makes no apparent effort to earn money other than through her (not at all profit driven) sheep farming. I felt that someone with a background in literary journalism and 72 acres of incredibly beautiful land & no mortgage could have written articles / started a campsite / engaged in more enterprising farming or something ! The young Horatio finally gets despatched by his lefty miner-supporting / anti-nuclear / anti-Thatcherite mother off to private boarding school on a state-funded assisted place. However, obviously, none of this is his fault, he's an excellent writer & I'm looking forward to reading the next in the series.

I've also ordered A Time of Gifts :)

Oh good Lord. I've had a (very enjoyable) proper catch up on this thread and as a result I have added FOURTEEN books to my 'Wanted Books' note. Mackerella, I blame you in particular [stern]. I've actually bought What matters in Jane Austen because it's so obvious I'm going to love it, and it will be odd if I resist Charlotte.

A mere 14 pages into the new list, here's my list so far:

1. The Revelation of St John the Divine
2. Detroit 67: the Year that Changed Soul by Stuart Cosgrove

3. The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson

1. The Humans by Matt Haig
2. Dear Enemy by Jean Webster

6. Pale Rider by Laura Spinney 7. Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelly

1. The Foundling by Georgette Heyer

I've had an intense and rather brutal week, was struggling to settle to reading anything and decided I needed a comfort read. If you like Heyer... actually, you still may not like this; but it's one of my favourites. I like the Heyers with quiet/hidden strength main characters, of which there are quite a few, as she was damn good at her market and knows this is a type that appeals to a lot of women. I don't always read my Heyers cover to cover, but usually begin at the beginning because to my mind she is at her best and most witty when setting the scene and introducing characters. And this one, this time, I rode all the way to the end. As light as a fairy cake and just as delightful.

I DNF Hamnet

If you’re going to include Follett breasts then you need to include som anachronisms to. Maybe have them riding bikes or something.

some

too

In Hamlet, I can’t stop noticing the endless attempt to impart portentous significance by listing things in threes, so I feel grumpy, dissatisfied, unsettled, when I want to relax into it, to lose myself, to become unanchored from repetitive stylistic quirks...

9 Financing Mr Bridgerton Julia Quinn
10Revelation C J Sansom
11The Grand Sophy by Georgette Beyer

Continuing through my re reads of the Shardlake books with the Julia Quinn book as a palate cleanser and I couldn't resist The grand Sophy when it was cheap on the kindle. One of my favourites

Romancing

The lists of three in Hamnet made me want to throw it in the river. I read it in Stratford Upon Avon and really should have given it a sacrificial drowning there, but it was on Kindle.

I DNF Hamnet either

Ah interesting opinions on Hamnet. I’m about a third in and keep drifting off to other reads. Wondering if I should persevere now.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Don't forget to add the Follett breasts. Well, that goes without saying. I think Mary's breasts would definitely enjoy quivering, or whatever it is that Follet breasts tend to do.

Wibble wobble wibble wobble Jelly on a plate

Lol at the Follett breasts and the frustration of not being able to toss away Hamnet. Very Austen

Permanent hope you're ok

12. A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson

In which the author sets out to walk the Appalachian Trail, a 2200-ish mile trail which runs the length of the eastern US, from Georgia to Maine. On the way he tells us about the history of the trail and some of the regions that it passes through, as well as the wildlife that he sees and hopes to see (or hopes not to see in the case of bears and mountain lions). We learn just how much wild space there is in America, and how little most Americans use it (apparently the average American walks 1.4 miles A WEEK, including walking around the supermarket or mall, to and from the car etc. 1.4 miles a week).

In addition, Bryson grumbles about his hiking partner, everyone he meets, the current and historic mismanagement of American natural spaces and various other things. I haven't read a Bryson for ages and I'd expected him to be a bit more sunny. However, if I had to choose a long-distance walking partner, I'd pick grumpy Bryson over the self-pitying, self-regarding, moral-high-ground-hogging Raynor Wynn any day.

Hadn't realised how much I needed to read this (Travel! Adventure! Open spaces! Other people! Thinking about stuff other than a bloody virus) until I started it. I read straight through like I was drinking a big glass of water after a long hot hike.

@Tarahumara - will be interested to hear what you think! Though it also made me feel quite sad as the descriptions of life for teenagers are obviously so at odds with my girls' current experiences of sitting in their rooms learning with the big event of the day being a walk with me!

@ChessieFL I read one of Sathnam Sanghera's novels Marriage Material years ago for book club. I would probably not have chosen it, but actually I really enjoyed it - very funny and well written, and a glimpse into lives I know little about.

However, if I had to choose a long-distance walking partner, I'd pick grumpy Bryson over the self-pitying, self-regarding, moral-high-ground-hogging Raynor Wynn any day.

@VikingNorthUtsire does this mean I need to go and throw my as yet unread copy of the salt path in the Avon?

Betts , lots of people LOVE The Salt Path. Don't chuck it just because I say so - and TBH even I liked bits of it. Just not the author.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

The lists of three in Hamnet made me want to throw it in the river. I read it in Stratford Upon Avon and really should have given it a sacrificial drowning there, but it was on Kindle.

Oh, the JK Rowling school of creative writing! And once you've noticed it, you can't un-notice. Is it full of "every verb must have an adverb and every noun an adjective" ?

@bettbattenburg

However, if I had to choose a long-distance walking partner, I'd pick grumpy Bryson over the self-pitying, self-regarding, moral-high-ground-hogging Raynor Wynn any day.

@VikingNorthUtsire does this mean I need to go and throw my as yet unread copy of the salt path in the Avon?

You all put me off The Salt Path last year. Have you read the Audible reviews? You almost feel sorry for whiny woman as she really gets slated for the whiny-ness. I wonder what possessed them to have the writer doing the Audible? Even The God of All Things Stephen Fry gets bits wrong...

@VikingNorthUtsire I loved Bill Bryson's travel books with the possible exception of 'The Road to Little Dribbling' where he came across as a bit Grumpy Old Man/Victor Meldrewish. I might look some of them up. I know exactly what you mean about travel books so I've ordered 'The Year of Living Danishly' and I'm also planning to order the Helene Hanff New York book. I've a few others on my kindle so I might look them up for you when I manage to source a kindle charger. I think someone started a thread already about travelling vicariously via books. What I wouldn't give to be stepping onto a plane right now or sitting at an outdoor café or restaurant and watching the world go by?

I seem to be alone in my love of 'Hamnet'.

I liked 'The Salt Path' (I reviewed it already) and I've ordered the sequel because I want to find out what happened next. The couple went through a really tough time - you'd want to have a heart of stone not to feel sorry for them.

LadybirdDaphne

I found the three phrases thing a bit intrusive too. Otherwise, I did enjoy the book, more than any other Maggie O'Farrell I've read.