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.

I'd like to see Raynor Wynn and Bill Bryson go on a long distance walk together. I'd walk off alone in the opposite direction. I'd be interested to read their parallel accounts of the same walk. I bet a whole lot of different things 'happen' - and I use that term loosely - to each of them, particularly in terms of people they encounter and conversations they allegedly conveniently have with them to fit their own narratives along the way.

Hamnet is hitting the top of the TBR soon - adjusting expectations accordingly.

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.

Sorry, heart of stone camp here. I found the book one of the most annoying things I read last year. I wouldn't wish serious illness on anybody but their self-righteous whining and sense of entitlement really grated. I spent the entire book thinking 'for gods sake do something sensible like plan ahead without relying on other people to bail you out'. The final straw was the awful snobbish comments the author makes about people in holiday camps. How dare they work hard all year so that they can take their family on an affordable holiday! The impression I got was that Winn clearly feels so superior to us ordinary people I'm surprised she lowered herself to go in cafes with the rest of the plebs.

I didn't warm to Raynor Win either. Wasn't there an episode in the book where they sneaked onto the edge of a campsite to spend the night use the facilities without paying, and she clearly felt entitled to do so with no respect for the campsite owner trying to earn a living? Plus the snobbish attitude to others mentioned above.

It very much made me want to walk the Salt Path, but with a more likeable companion.

@VikingNorthUtsire

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.

Oh I won't, it just struck me that going to the Avon was a good joke for a duff book as I live close to the Avon, I could walk there 😁

[quote Taytocrisps]@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'.[/quote]
I enjoyed The Year of Living Danishly, but concur as someone said that (as with Sarah M and Names for the Sea) the writer comes at the whole experience very much from a position of privilege, and as an expat who has gone with pretty well off husband rather than as someone who has gone to live in a place following their own bliss as it were.
Still liked both, nice writing, and informative.

Wynn not Win!

Viking my next audiobook is A Walk in the Woods, am really looking forward to starting it. I've read part of The Body and A Short History of Nearly Everything (hope to finish both this year) so this will be the first of his travel books for me.

I'm enjoying the Bryson/Salt Path discussions even though I have no desire to read the latter, and must be one of the few people on here who isn't that keen on Bill Bryson. Do like a bit of travel-writing in the right hands, though.

Anyway.

18: Cheek by Jowl: A History of Neighbours - Emily Cockayne

This seemed a good one to pluck off the tbr pile a year into a pandemic when we're probably all more aware of our neighbours than normal. The author draws on an impressive amount of research to show that we've always had a love-hate relationship with our neighbours - as often caring for them in bad times and bailing them out of trouble as coming to blows over such things as noisy pianos and boundary hedges (my favourite illustration is an 18th century print of two warring neighbours squaring up to each other, one with a speech-bubble saying 'come out, you bitch, I'll maul you'). But ultimately this doesn't really say anything I didn't know, although it has some enjoyable anecdotes.

19: Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh

Book club read. Studious aspiring clergyman Paul Pennyfeather is booted out of Oxford as a scapegoat after being debagged by the 'Bollinger' (ie Bullingdon) Club. Disgraced and disinherited, he's sent as a schoolmaster to the hilariously-terrible Llanabba School, where he meets various other rogues and failures and falls in love with the fragrant Margot Beste-Chetwynde, mother of one of his pupils. Ruination follows - but also a kind of rebirth.

This was Waugh's first novel and is written with huge verve and deadpan humour, taking potshots at assorted targets and mostly hitting them. Very funny and astonishingly modern-feeling for a novel of the 1920s, although it goes without saying - this is Waugh, after all - politically correct it is not (one chapter in particular).

I didn't love The Salt Path, and I expected to. I've walked most of the Cornish bit of the SW Coastpath, so lots of the places are familiar, and lovely. But, while I did feel sympathy for them, I found the whining annoying, and agree about the bit where they stay in the campsite without paying!

Not a massive Bill Bryson fan either - haven't read any for years. I was chatting to a friend the other day who says she used to find him tiresome but is now really enjoying his books and wonders if it's to do with age. So I may give him another go.

I was off mumsnet for a bit but I'm back! Would love to join in? My current reads for the year have been:

1. A Court of Wings & Ruin - Sarah J Mars
2. The Invisible life of Addie LaRue - V E Schwab
3. Queen Bee - Jane Fallon
4. The Foundling - Stacey Halls
5. Red Queen - Victoria Aveyars
6. My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell

I'm currently reading The Priory of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon - it's an absolute monster of a book at 848 pages! But it's soooo good!

My reading has changed so much since the pandemic, my fave genres used to be thrillers/crime etc but I just can't stomach them atm! I've fallen hard for fantasy and YA mainly due to the Book side of TikTok lol (another casualty of the pandemic I said I'd never go on it but now I go on for book recs even though I'm 30 and feel like a pensioner there lol)

Hello, Dwangela! (I’m 49 next month: what is this TikTok you speak of?)

11. Bully for Brontosaurus - Stephen Jay Gould
Gould’s fifth book of collected essays from Natural History. Particularly good selection on history of science. And a footnote that made me think of MN: ‘During the short heyday of that most unnecessary of all commercially touted products - vaginal deodorants - [my wife] wanted to market a male counterpart to be known as “cocksure”.’

12. NW - Zadie Smith
I’m obviously very late to the party on this one. Set in Willesden, it’s about where people come from and how their lives turn out. Brilliant writing, very moving. I didn’t think her first three novels quite came together, but this one certainly does. And made me miss living in London.

and must be one of the few people on here who isn't that keen on Bill Bryson

I'd like to say it was nice knowing you Terpsichore but.....well.

Have you read The Shipping Forecast by Charlie Connelly?

Just catching up with the thread and I have one more Patrick Leigh Fermor recommendation, Dashing for the Post, which is a collection of his letters. It's very illuminating on his relationship with Joan, who he seems to have loved but not always treated very well. She was a free spirit and seems to have looked after herself, but I'm not sure it's what she signed up for. Also lots of background on when they set up home in Greece. There is also a second volume, More Dashing, which I haven't read.

Tayto I loved Hamnet too.

How odd, I got The Salt Path as an audio credit not long after it came out and it was narrated by Anne Reid (In a Simpsons voiceover: You may know her as Celia from Last Tango In Halifax or as Daniel Craig's older woman love interest in The Mother) I complained that as a octogenarian she was really too old to narrate a 50 something woman's story but having listened to the Raynor Winn version I had a lucky escape. I wonder if you can still get the Anne Reid narration. And for balance I enjoyed the story and couldn't get too worked up about them occasionally stealing a pitch on a campsite as they were on the breadline and basically starving, I'm glad the book will have ensured a more comfortable life style for them.

On the Hamnet front I described it as 'ponderous and slow', so not a fan.

@BadlydoneHelen

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.

Sorry, heart of stone camp here. I found the book one of the most annoying things I read last year. I wouldn't wish serious illness on anybody but their self-righteous whining and sense of entitlement really grated. I spent the entire book thinking 'for gods sake do something sensible like plan ahead without relying on other people to bail you out'. The final straw was the awful snobbish comments the author makes about people in holiday camps. How dare they work hard all year so that they can take their family on an affordable holiday! The impression I got was that Winn clearly feels so superior to us ordinary people I'm surprised she lowered herself to go in cafes with the rest of the plebs.

I mentioned the caravan park comment when I reviewed the book - the author compared it to a concentration camp! Can't believe the editor didn't pick up on that. I just felt very sorry for the couple who had reached that stage in their lives when their kids were grown up and heading to college and they should have been able to enjoy their golden years and they were hit with a double whammy - Moth's illness and the loss of their home. I've been through a traumatic time myself in the past two years (the sudden ending of my marriage) and I faced the possible loss of my home, so I could really empathise with their plight. Unless you've been through something like that yourself, it can be hard to imagine the gut wrenching feeling of panic that goes through you as you face the possible loss of your home and all it stands for - security and sanctuary. And the couple's plight was exacerbated because their home was also their business - not only did they lose their home but they lost their source of income. So I'm prepared to cut them some slack. If I'd been in their shoes, I'm not sure I'd have opted for a three/four month hike along a coastal path. But I don't think either of them were thinking straight and the walk gave them a bit of breathing space and resulted in an improvement in Moth's symptoms (although that was more by luck than design). Aside from their own story, I enjoyed the travel and outdoors aspect of the book - the sun on their faces (they should have packed sunscreen though), the wind, the rain, the sound of the waves, the seals etc. I relished it all the more because I read it in lockdown in January. I'm curious to know what happens next so I've ordered the sequel and I'll let you know what I think of it. Looks like I'll be the only poster reading the sequel .

@DesdamonasHandkerchief

How odd, I got The Salt Path as an audio credit not long after it came out and it was narrated by Anne Reid (In a Simpsons voiceover: You may know her as Celia from Last Tango In Halifax or as Daniel Craig's older woman love interest in The Mother) I complained that as a octogenarian she was really too old to narrate a 50 something woman's story but having listened to the Raynor Winn version I had a lucky escape. I wonder if you can still get the Anne Reid narration. And for balance I enjoyed the story and couldn't get too worked up about them occasionally stealing a pitch on a campsite as they were on the breadline and basically starving, I'm glad the book will have ensured a more comfortable life style for them.

On the Hamnet front I described it as 'ponderous and slow', so not a fan.

I was so intrigued to hear Raynor Winn's annoying narration having read the comments here that, although I don't want to read the book, I just scooted over to BorrowBox to preview the audio-book version.....and it was the Anne Reid version. Curiouser and curiouser.

Go onto Audible U.K. for a sample of the Raynor Winn narration Terps, it does sound pretty dreadful and it seems to be the only option they're offering.

Place marking - have got three non-fiction books on the go, so I may be some time.

Oh and a lesbian Austen spin-off to write too, of course.

I love Bill Bryson with all my heart so I may be biased but I do think his books improve with age. Even Little Dribbling has improved in the time since I first read it. Probably because things have changed so much in the last five years or so.

I like travel writing and I enjoyed The Salt Path. It doesn't bother me if I don't necessarily like the author - I've enjoyed hate reads of Paul Theroux in particular. Currently reading a travel book set in Poland, to be reviewed in due course.

Patrick Leigh Fermor - totally agree with the recs for A Time of Gifts. If you don't like it - and it won't be for everyone - then he's not the author for you.

Janina, I'm intrigued by The Politicization of Mumsnet. Is it all about the trans stuff, or other issues too?

I was very disappointed with Dribbling and I've still not managed to get through more than about 40 pages of The Body but otherwise I'm firmly on #TeamBryson.

6. A woman of no importance - Sonia Purcell

Virginia Hall, the woman in the title, was a truly remarkable woman. An American who wanted more than society allowed her to have. She lived in France in the 1920s, was rejected by the state department, suffered an injury that resulted in a leg amputation and ended up recruited by the SOE in WW2.

She went on be crucial to the success of the resistance in Lyon during the Vichy regime, escaped over the Pyrenees into Spain as d was parachuted back into France in time to aid the liberation efforts.

This book was fabulous so interesting and really brought to life the barriers that Virginia faced in her life and the dangers she suffered and the commitment to the cause. At times the book suffers from a whirlwind of code names and places which I did find made it difficult to follow who the supporting characters were but well worth reading.