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 was about to say it's preposterous, but it's about vampires so that kind of goes without saying ...

Eine I also have only read the PD James and that was as a teenager nearly 40 years ago. I'd recommend it though - do let me know if it's aged well if you do read it please.

Oh blimey Eine. I have to say, when I can't bear to take anything off my TBR pile, I need to read something else rather than force myself to read something on it. I'd give the Roddy Doyle a go personally, because I've enjoyed everything he's written that I've read, but I've never read that one.

10. The Second Sleep by Robert Harris The book opens in the year 1468 with the effortful arrival of Father Fairfax at a remote village to preside over the burial of the parish priest Father Lacey. He has been told by his bishop to get in and out in a day, that there is nothing to keep him in this sleepy community once he has done his duty. But a rainstorm is about to begin, which with the instability of the Devon earth and the surprises that await in the parsonage, will keep Father Fairfax for longer than he expected.

I gulped this down in a couple of days, with reluctant breaks for my job, and appreciated that very much - nothing like a true page-turner. I'd also somehow managed not to read or remember much about this before I read it, so the Big Twist in the first chapter affected me the way the author surely hoped that it would - I felt the ground shift strangely under my feet for paragraph after paragraph as I read and understood what the setting really was. Chapeau, Mr Harris. I also really enjoyed the characters, the interaction, the plot, all of it, until perhaps the final four or five chapters, when they all seemed to behave completely differently. I can live with it and still enjoyed it, but it leaves me a bit unsatisfied. I would have been happier if there had been a less dramatic or resolved ending with the characters behaving more, erm, in character. I think, therefore that the author didn't really take on board his own lesson - that when the world is much more threatening than we are used to, our rules of behaviour and sense of our place become more important, not less - stepping outside convention is for the safely fed and housed.

Anyway, I highly recommend it as it's already got me thinking, and was a very engaging and well put together story. Coulda been a trilogy though.

The only one I've read is A Star Called Henry. It was very good, lots of interesting history of the Easter Uprising. Not cheerful at all though. And no idea of it will get you reading again Eine.

I grabbed The Second Sleep from our Little Free Library at the weekend and planned to start it tonight. Glad to hear it was engaging.

18. Sex Robots and Vegan Meat - Adventures at the Frontier of Birth, Food, Sex & Death by Jenny Kleeman This was another serendipitous online library find (maybe the dodgy search results are intentional?) and unsurprisingly I picked it up because of the title. The author investigates the bleeding edge of technology in the world of ultrarealistic sex dolls, lab grown meat, artificial wombs, and assisted dying. The amount of research that she's put in is really impressive, and I think she does a great job of giving a nuanced exploration of some very emotive technologies (though I think she wildly underestimates the potential demand for having babies without being pregnant ). The writing is what I'd consider the best sort of journalism - easy to read, engaging - and often funny - without oversimplifying the subjects. I didn't always agree with her conclusions, but appreciated the evenhanded and always respectful approach to her interviewees that let me come to a different end point. Thoroughly recommended.

@SapatSea I have the same experience with Follet and perhaps Stephen King too. There’s crap writing of female characters but I do manage to look past it because the stories are very good. I don’t feel too bad a about that as we’d basically have to rule out 95% of literature otherwise. I’m looking forward to Pillars of the Earth at some point.

Not had much time recently but:

1. Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness. A memoir of the hairdresser and Queer Eye star. Unlikely to appeal unless you’re a fan but a pretty light read which is what I need at the moment. He does have more substantial things to say about homophobia in middle America, his HIV status and childhood events. However, there was a lot of American therapy talk, finding ones truth and and a lack of recognition of his own flaws combined with absolute obsession with Insta love made this pretty insubstantial.

I’m reading 3 books right now
Hollowpox Jessica Townsend. Lovely third in the series middle grade fantasy that rivals Harry Potter for me.
Black and British: A Forgotten History David Olosoga. Non Fiction. The audio is 24 hours + but it’s narrated beautifully and absolutely fascinating.
Know My Name by Chanel Miller. The authors experience of sexual assault at Stanford University. This writer knows how to write, as she showed in her victim impact statement. I feel like everyone should read this to show what women go through.

Hamnet If you haven't read this then you should. If you've read it and didn't like it then why on earth not?!

Bett
I didn't like Hamnet!

Also, I've never thought of King as being crap at females.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I’m only 3 books into King and it’s not going well for the women so far but perhaps it gets better. Bag of Bones and The Stand felt similar to Follett to me perhaps.

@highlandcoo just been bookmarking some other episodes...I must be getting old but enjoying Radio 4 for company when I work these days!

@theturnofthescrew looking forward to hearing what you think of The Second Sleep

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Bett I didn't like Hamnet!

Yes, so I recall. Should I throw you in the Avon?

@HeadNorth

I read The Sea, The Sea years ago but I am sure we are meant to consider him unreliable (and highly dodgy) narrator. His self delusion is quite an achievement in itself.

Mostly what I remember about The Sea, the Sea is Charles Arrowby’s relish in the most disgusting food, things like a ‘salad’ made of mixing baked beans and red kidney beans with olive oil and lemon juice, or chipolatas with boiled onions and apples stewed in tea, followed by bananas with thin cream. Apparently that’s the kind of thing you got if you went to dinner at Iris Murdoch and John Bayley’s house.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit, of those I’ve read on your list, I would opt for the PD James. It’s proper old school detective stuff, with a very young private detective on her first solo case, desperate to make it work, and PD James’ characteristic preference for the solitary and austere. I’ve always been sorry she didn’t write far more books featuring Cordelia Gray rather than concentrating on Adam Dalgliesh.

10. William Blake Poems, Selected by Patti Smith.

An interesting selection of poems and a few letters. I’ll be re-visiting this collection from time to time.

11. The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste.

Historical fiction set in Ethiopia at the time of the attempted invasion by Italy in 1935. Serious in topic and mood, there is plenty to admire about this story which does not shy from the cruelties of war (a warning that it is not without violence) and gives centre stage to Ethiopian men and woman as well as the Italian counterpart. An interesting narrative style with interludes, Maaza Mengiste was inspired by learning her grandmother had also gone to war although very little was ever said about these fighting women, the female warrior/soldier being underrepresented in war stories and this beginning to address the imbalance.

Not everything works, I wasn’t convinced by the Haile Selassie interludes for one, but I’m glad I read it.

Any Human Heart is 99p on Kindle today. What are peoples' views on it? I've heard a couple of people mention it in the past but don't know much about it.

I really enjoyed Any Human Heart when I read it a few years ago so would say it’s worth snapping up but I guess it depends a little on what type of books you like.

I loved Any Human Heart it’s easily comparable to Boyne’s The Hearts Invisible Furies but I don’t think it has as much of the coincidence bits that some found annoying. As a character study it’s really excellent.

Another thumbs up for Any Human Heart here. Historically interesting and an excellent character study as palegreen said.

I think Any Human Heart is Boyd's best book. Unfortunately he seemed to write more or less the same book again in Sweet Caress.

Eine your list is interesting. Clan of the Cave Bear took me right back to my teenage years, I loved it at the time but not sure I'd read it now, was probably on a par with Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I didn't love How To Be Both either, but always feel a bit on the fence about Ali Smith. Also there are two stories which are randomly arranged. I think my copy had renaissance painter first and I actually thought I would have preferred it the other way round.

I've been reading the same book for ages, I'm rather bored by it but am so far through now, I need to preserve.

Bett
Please don't throw me in the Avon. It's flipping freezing and I'm not a very good swimmer. Maybe throw me into one of the tea shops in Stratford instead?

I loved How to Be Both but I am generally an Ali Smith fan. I know her use of language is a bit in-your-face but it really sparkles for me. I had the painter first too in my copy and I liked it that way; I thought the modern half was probably more accessible so found it satisfying to get that second - like looking at quiz answers only after you've tried your best to get the answers on your own.

Bett wild swimming is all the rage don't ya know....

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Bett Please don't throw me in the Avon. It's flipping freezing and I'm not a very good swimmer. Maybe throw me into one of the tea shops in Stratford instead?

Deal. You're paying.