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.

@PepeLePew

Now I really did think A Little Life was gratuitous misery-porn, where she constantly inflicted more pain and suffering on (admittedly quite irritating) characters.

Perhaps it was because I didn't feel as if the point of A Fine Balance was just to make bad stuff happen to its characters. There was so much more going on than just that. Whereas the whole point of A Little Life (which I only finished because I was on holiday in a place with no WiFi so was reliant on what was already downloaded to my Kindle) seemed to be to explore how far she could go in making whatever his name was suffer.

Agree 100% with this.

And, as a true contrarian - a loved A Little Life with certain caveats on repetition

I'd be interested to know what you loved about it, Eine. I wanted to like it so much, and started off feeling that whatever she threw at me would be fine. But half way through I just didn't care any more.

God, I don't know what thread my review is on last year..

Basically,

Problems :

The sidelining of Malcolm and JB
The believability of the adoptive couple
The way every year became repetitive in terms of events.

Good.

Was absorbed in it.
Enjoyed the writing
Became a part of the world
As relentlessly tragic as Jude is, it is a believable and realistic portrait of a man with a mental illness who suffered CSA

24. A History Of Britain Vol. 3 1776-2000 by Simon Schama (Audible)

This, the 3rd and final volume of Schama's history is just a bit odd.

The first two volumes were very much Kings and Queens and Facts and then this one goes off piste and goes all social history instead.

Besides Churchill and Victoria he spends a load of time (hours) on Wordsworth, Wollstonecraft, Rousseau and Orwell and like less than 20 mins on Thatcher

Was a bit weird.

47. A Week In December by Sebastian Faulks

Follows the stories of 7 people over 7 days in December 2007, and each story is loosely connected to the others. Had the potential to be really interesting but focused far too much on the story of a hedge fund manager with lots of boring financial detail. Some of the other stories were more interesting but didn’t get anywhere near as much focus.

48. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend

An old favourite, still hilarious.

49. The Last Resort by Susi Holliday

This was odd and not in a good way. It’s a sort of techy upgrade of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. 7 strangers are sent to a hi tech private island, where they aren’t told what’s going on and have to follow clues. As they start having accidents it’s clear that there’s more to this than meets the eye. Had potential to be good but just got ridiculous quite quickly and the ending/explanation for it all was a let down.

50. Frozen Assets by P G Wodehouse

Not one of his best but even a weaker Wodehouse is still good. Here, a young gentleman has to stay out of trouble in order to inherit millions from his recently deceased godfather. Of course, lots of obstacles crop up to try and prevent this.

51. The Glass House by Eve Chase

Rita nannies for a rich family in 1971 and goes to stay with them at their country house, where they find a baby abandoned in the forest. Years later, Rita’s daughter Sylvia discovers some paperwork in her mother’s cottage that leads her to look more into what happened that summer. I like these past-present link books and enjoyed this one although the ending was a bit too neat.

11. When the Floods Came - Clare Morrall

I don't know if these has been reviewed on a previous thread as it is so relevant to now. It is set in a UK where many have been wiped out by the Hoffman's virus and the landscape changed by severe flooding. The UK is cut off from the rest of the world, relying on China for online employment and the USA and other countries for drone drops of essentials. A side effect of Hoffman's is infertility and children are a valuable commodity. In this world, the Polanski family live a happy, very British, family life, the only inhabitants of a tower block in Birmingham, the hippyish parents resisiting the governments wish to locate them to the new capital in Brighton. They have a goat, chickens, grow apples, the three children grow up happy and secure unaware of the outside world. Into this Eden comes a snake in form of an incredibly charismastic and charming stranger who knows about life beyond their narrow confines and is particulatly alluring to the oldest daughter, Roza, who has never met a man beyond her father and brother, although she has an online fiance. This is all really well done, the world that is created is very believable and Ashay's charm, charisma and menace are well drawn. I really enjoyed this right up until the end, which was abrupt and seemed like the author just wanted to wrap everything up.

book 5 was Upgrade by Paul Carr. A very strange book, which felt like it belonged in another time. The premise was intriguing, essentially a hacked off writer realised he can live in hotels cheaper than he can in his dingy London flat, so embarks on. year living out a suitcase, jetting all over the place. most of the book is taken up with his drunken japes, which made the end less than surprising. It just felt really dated, with climate change and covid, though I suspect the book might have been languishing on my shelf for quite some time

Book 6 however was very current, intensive Care by Gavin Francis. this was about the life of a mainly Edinburgh based GP in the coronavirus pandemic, and it was fascinating, although a bit depressing. But some really interesting history on how vaccines were first developed as part of if.

@HeadNorth

11. When the Floods Came - Clare Morrall

I don't know if these has been reviewed on a previous thread as it is so relevant to now. It is set in a UK where many have been wiped out by the Hoffman's virus and the landscape changed by severe flooding. The UK is cut off from the rest of the world, relying on China for online employment and the USA and other countries for drone drops of essentials. A side effect of Hoffman's is infertility and children are a valuable commodity. In this world, the Polanski family live a happy, very British, family life, the only inhabitants of a tower block in Birmingham, the hippyish parents resisiting the governments wish to locate them to the new capital in Brighton. They have a goat, chickens, grow apples, the three children grow up happy and secure unaware of the outside world. Into this Eden comes a snake in form of an incredibly charismastic and charming stranger who knows about life beyond their narrow confines and is particulatly alluring to the oldest daughter, Roza, who has never met a man beyond her father and brother, although she has an online fiance. This is all really well done, the world that is created is very believable and Ashay's charm, charisma and menace are well drawn. I really enjoyed this right up until the end, which was abrupt and seemed like the author just wanted to wrap everything up.

I thought this began really well, but that it got sillier and sillier. I can't actually remember the ending, but do remember not liking it.

1. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez Thoroughly researched, convincingly presented, utterly depressing. Here's the evidence that almost every policy, law or product you can think of has been designed with a man as the default human being, with women barely being thought of, much less consulted or involved when it comes to their bodies, social and employment needs, safety and health. Got properly angry reading this, and it got me thinking about how the pandemic will change things for women - some marginal improvements in some areas (and mostly for the economically better off) but mostly for the worse I fear. I wonder if the author will revisit this post-pandemic - it would be a very worthwhile exercise. An important but not cheering read.

Something lighter next.

Congratulations, Chessie on reaching 50 books with 10.5 months to go!

22. Falling Upwards - Richard Holmes

I've mentioned on here before my love for Richard Holmes's superb The Age of Wonder, an extraordinary history of the development of science....one of the (many) topics touched on there is the pioneering balloon flights of the Montgolfier brothers, and in this book Holmes - who's a lover of ballooning himself - plunges further into the fascinating world of early ballooning, with some truly amazing stories of adventure and bravery, not to mention what often seems like total lunacy.

Some of the highlights for me were the English balloonists Charles Green - who made an epic long-distance flight from Vauxhall Gardens to Germany in 1836 - and James Glaisher, a scientist by training who ascended to over 30,000 feet (higher than Everest) in 1862, without oxygen, and almost died, along with his co-pilot.

But Holmes's favourite (and probably mine) is the extraordinary cartoonist, photographer, balloonist and all-found force of nature, Félix Nadar, whose genius led to the successful establishment of 'balloon post' as Prussian forces besieged Paris and cut off the city in the 1870s. Charmingly, even Holmes's footnotes are marked with tiny 🎈 symbols. I was completely captivated by this book (as you can probably tell!).

Thanks Fran. Lockdown has been good for something!

all round force of nature, not all-found. Although he was probably that as well.

8. Tommyknockers by Stephen King

I basically agree with @MamaNewtNewt that this is just way too long. And its hard to read knowing how good Kings best books are.

In order to get offset this really long and detailed novel, I'm going for something different next, When Is International Men's Day which I bought for my husband for Christmas. I am hoping it's short and funny!

Just checking in to keep this on my TIO list. I've started A Time of Gifts and enjoying it but finding it works best read a little at a time. Most of my reading energy is currently being taken up by It's a Sin - I don't usually watch much TV beyond Bake Off/Sewing Bee & the like, but I'm totally invested in it.

14. Dogs of War & 16. Bear Head - Adrian Tchaikovsky

I’m afraid I can’t remember who recommended these, but thank you. Moving and thought-provoking SF, set in a near-future where genetically-engineered animals have consciousness, while humans are (voluntarily and involuntarily) modified. Memorable characters including Rex the 7ft-tall soldier dog, Honey the genius bear, and a ghastly American politician strangely reminiscent of Donald Trump.

15. Motherwell - Deborah Orr
Had mixed feelings about this memoir. Orr writes well and interestingly about her childhood in 60s and 70s Scotland, in a working class industrial heartland. However, she periodically thumps the reader over the head with ‘insights’ from therapy, interpreting everything from her mother’s cruel remarks to the Holocaust through the prism of narcissism.

Have not made any progress with Hamnet because I’m not in the mood to read about a child dying.

@FranKatzenjammer

Congratulations, Chessie on reaching 50 books with 10.5 months to go!

I was going to make the same point. Puts my 7 books to shame!

Interesting to see a few French speakers on the thread. I like to read in French (and Spanish) occasionally to prove to myself that my degree wasn't a complete waste of time (I'm now an accountant ), but I'm finding it much more hard work as I get older. I wonder if I need to just accept that I should only be reading for pleasure, rather than trying to prove (to nobody) that I can still speak "foreign"!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit, your summary of A Little Life marries very much with my views. I'd add the believability of Willan falling in love with Jude at the point he does. I'm not saying that men previously seen as straight can't fall in love with other men - I can think of one excellent example of that happening (but don't want to say in case it's a bit of a spoiler) - but I wasn't convinced at all in this case.

I'm another person with a French (and German) degree who now makes little to no use of it. We go to France at least once a year (normally!) as my parents now live there and I'll look through a magazine while I'm there, but that's about it. Maybe I should give a book a go - you do kind of think, if not at the moment, then when?

@ForthFitzRoyFaroes your review inspired me to pick up Invisible Women again which I've been dipping into periodically between fiction. It's brilliant but incredibly depressing. I've just got to the part on work and specifically part-time work. Before we had children, I was earning the same as my husband. Now over the last 10 years my salary has decreased, including missing a promotion as I hadn't been putting in the work over the year I was on maternity leave with my second child, going part time, then freelance and then taking a lower paid role with more flexibility. During that time his pay has doubled. This story and far worse are repeated everywhere in our society. It's so frustrating.

Sadik we binged through Its A Sin last week. Amazing, funny and sad. It did really make my miss partying though!

15. Divergent - Veronica Roth. Dystopian YA fiction where a city has been split into 5 factions. Abnegation are selfless, Amity are kind, Dauntless are brave, Erudite are wise and Candour are honest. When you're 16 you choose which faction to join, and the heroine leaves Abnegation for Dauntless. DD1 who's 11 was desperate for me to read this (and the rest of the trilogy) as she's rather obsessed and wants someone to talk to about them. Every time I wear something grey, she says "You're so Abnegation".

Any other YA dystopian recommendations appreciated as she's burning through them. She's done Hunger Games, Noughts & Crosses and is now on Chaos Walking, but prefers a female hero.

Stokey what about The Maze Runner series? I'm not actually entirely sure, but I think they're dystopian. I'll ask DD (who is 12, and sounds like she has very similar tastes to your DD) when she gets up.

@Stokey my two enjoyed The Magesterium series, my DD is into dystopian, also Maze Runner

My next easy read was The Husbands Secret by Liane Moriarty
A very easy read but really almost two books in one with a very tenuous thread linking them. Rachel’s daughter Janie was murdered in 1984 and the murderer never found, although she suspects one of Janies boyfriend who also works at the school she works in. The second main female character is Cecelia, the alpha parent of the school that Rachel works out, it’s her husband who has the secret and no prizes for guessing what it is. The third female character is Tess who has moved back to Melbourne on a whim following her husband declaring her in love with her cousin, this is where the tenuous link comes in as the only reason I can see that she is part of the story is that she ends up shagging the teacher who Rachel thinks murdered her daughter, all very convoluted. The really resonant part was how Rachel treated her son after the death of her daughter, not taking into account that he was grieving and how her relationship with her daughter in law was affected by this. Definitely a read in the beach book rather than a wet and windy Dorset but was a good book to read in a week off.

@Stokey, my DD loves dystopian YA and has just romped through all the Maze Runner series. Loves Hunger Games, Divergent etc.

9. The problem with Men: When's International Men's Day by Richard Herring

This was even shorter than expected, I think I finished it in just over an hour.

It is also quite funny in typically British way, along the lines of I am doing this quite frivolous and small thing that is really stupid but might actually turn out to be important.

Every International Women's Day, Richard Herring finds all the men tweeting about it not being fair and when is Men's Day, and tells them it's 19th November. He's done it now for years so it's become A Thing.

This book (or essay) is a look at why he does it, is it really a big deal and should we celebrate international men's day.

I don't feel like I learned anything new, but I did snort with laughter a couple of times, and I think it would be a good starting point for anyone who doesn't see a problem with asking when men's day is, or saying all lives matter.

My favourite thing was that he used the wazzock a lot which made me feel nostalgic!

@Stokey what about The Testing series by Joelle Charbonneau?