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.

@Stokey I'd suggest Uglies and sequels by Scott Westerfield. It's essentially a YA updating of Brave New World & pleasingly nuanced compared to a lot of YA dystopia. (Plus, they have really cool hoverboards!)

ChannelLightVessel, I felt the same about Motherwell. The use of narcissism as a one-size-fits-all explanation for so many different phenomena didn't match the intelligence of the rest of the book. The book also made me sad because it seemed permeated by a profound bitterness and disappointment not that the bitterness wasn't justified, but for Orr's own sake I would have wanted her to find greater inner peace. Will Self seems to have been a very difficult person to be married to. I was following Orr on Twitter shortly before her death, and it all sounded pretty ghastly he was trying to get into her house to get the books she had promised to leave to him after her death, even though she just wanted to be left in peace.

OMG I just thought I'd have a look at Orr's Twitter feed again, and apparently Twitter has deleted it, presumably at her ex-husband's request.

I hope that writing and publishing that book brought her some sense of closure and peace.

Bookshark and barnanabas -- about reading in French, I just find it a very different experience to reading in English. Even though I've taught French for many years now, I'm still a non-native speaker and haven't lived there for a long time. So I read French books much more slowly and thoughtfully than I do English ones. In a way I think that's an advantage, because it's a much more attentive way of reading for me. In English I read fast and have a tendency to gulp pages down whole. So it's pleasurable but I often forget what I've read quite quickly.

I enjoy French novels more if I can turn off my academic superego telling me that I should be looking up any unfamiliar vocab in the dictionary as I go along. There's a lot to be said for just letting the language wash over you and not being perfectionistic about reading.

I read Viv Groskop's Au Revoir Tristesse last year, which is a memoir of her rereading the classic French books she read as an undergrad doing a modern languages degree. It was witty and enjoyable, and one thing I took away from it was that it is OK never to be French enough . In other words, you should interact with the culture and the literature on the level you want to, whatever level that may be, because it's still enriching. That may sound obvious, but I found it quite empowering.

The books Groskop discusses are heavily weighted toward the dead white male canon (something she herself acknowledges), and that was my main complaint about the book, but given that the dead white male canon was mostly what was taught in modern lit departments a generation ago, I guess that makes sense. I came across the French literature anthology that was used in the Intro to Lit class I took in the US as an undergrad in the late 80s, and there was Not. A. Single. woman or non-white writer in it. A big fat book that claimed to represent all of French literature from the Middle Ages to the present day. Shocking. A student anthology like that would never be published now, and that is a Good Thing.

I had similar reservations about Motherwell. I also found her lack of empathy for others hard to read.

1. Walking with Ghosts - Gabriel Byrne. This slim memoir was OK but too meandering for me and I'd have liked to have read a little more about his long stage and film career.

8 September - Rosalind Pilcher. Easy read family saga. Predictable plot but more enjoyable than The Shellseekers.

1. Life of a Country Vet. Interesting as the setting is quite local to me.

10. Any Human Heart. Well written but I was seriously underwhelmed. Can’t see what all the fuss is about.

12 The Snakes by Sadie Jones.
13 Talking To The Dead by Helen Dunmore
14 Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

Loved the Dunmore - the novel explores the relationship between two sisters and the past secret they share.
Dear Edward is a feel-good read - highly recommended. A 12 year old boy survives a plane crash in which all the other passengers died - the novel is about his grief and the way he processes his new life, but it’s full of hope. I raced through it and it made my heart lift!

Bold fail there 🙄

17 Hired by James Bloodworth.
Not as good as I thought it would be, although I believe the author tried his best. All the places he goes to are ‘grim’, the women ‘chubby’, the men ‘grizzled and grey’.
If I start humming Pulp’s Common People in the middle of a book then it means I think they are a bit coddled and Wolfy Smith. He implies that working class people are too busy, run down and exhausted to write their own books, which is quite frankly, bollocks. He’d be better looking at the publishing industry for reasons why working class voices are rare.
Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey is a much better exploration of working class lives and wider attitudes. I know Hired aims to concentrate on the zero hours and unstable job part of culture, but I didn’t gain a great deal hearing about his time as an Uber driver tbh and he glossed over the safety concerns for users of the service in a sentence.
Interesting to read about B&M Bargains and the buy out and subsequent rebranding to Maymans. They are still trading very much on the ‘local business’ name up here in the North so enlightening to discover that they were out-Amazoning Amazon’s dodgy worker practices long before the latter got its claws into the revenue stream.

15. Hickory Dickory Dock, Agatha Christie
Poirot investigates dodgy deeds in a student hostel. Interesting period piece, especially for the attitudes to the "coloured" students, which make a modern reader wince but were clearly intended as well-meaning for the 50s.

16. The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins, by Antonia Hodgson
Dastardly deeds in Georgian London. Narrow escapes, betrayals and deadly dilemmas as we hurtle through fetid alleyways, rowdy taverns, gaols and palaces. Enjoyable genre stuff. It's the sequel to The Devil in the Marshalsea, which I haven't read as my library provided me with books 2-4 before book 1.

17. No Time Like The Past - Jodi Taylor

The fifth book in The Chronicles of St Mary’s series and a return to a format I enjoy moving between events at St Mary’s (this time an Open Day) and various time travel trips. The main trips in this book were to St Mary’s during the Civil War (when it was a private residence), The Great Fire of London, Renaissance Florence and the battle of Thermopylae. In the usual way not everything goes to plan and there are mishaps and injuries as well as continuing personal storylines. An enjoyable romp through history for those who are fans (and I appreciate there are plenty who are not!).

I had similar reservations about Motherwell. I also found her lack of empathy for others hard to read.

Very true about the lack of empathy, southeast. I guess the generous interpretation was that she was too damaged herself to show much empathy to others. She should have hung out for awhile on the MN relationship pages and the stately homes thread

Sadik I binge watched It's a sin and wish I hadn't then I could still be watching it. I love the new version of the song.

Channellightvessel hope you are ok. I can't make my mind up about Motherwell - I was all set to read it and then I read some reviews/comments on Amazon which suggested it might not be true so I've skipped past it, there are other books. I might yet give it a go. I've only just seen later in the thread (after I wrote the above) that the author has died, I didn't know that, nor did I know she was married to Will Self.

Chessie 50 books already! Well done you. I'd have put money on Eine being first as I think she's (sorry if you are a he not a she, assumptions assumptions!) storming through the books.

Stokey I felt like that about It's a sin too. All those week day nights spent in a nightclub and then going to work after just two hours or so sleep. I couldn't do that now!

I'm doing a lot of reading at the moment but I doubt you'd want to know much about it, it's all social theory about education and the impact of cultural experiences on the educational achievement of the 'lower classes' (to quote an educational 'expert' who I increasingly think is something of a wazzock, each time I read more he gets worse).

I'm trying to finish Wintering at the moment but I'm not feeling the love after a bereavement phone call yesterday following on from another bereavement phone call last week. Is it March yet?

@bibliomania

15. Hickory Dickory Dock, Agatha Christie Poirot investigates dodgy deeds in a student hostel. Interesting period piece, especially for the attitudes to the "coloured" students, which make a modern reader wince but were clearly intended as well-meaning for the 50s.

16. The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins, by Antonia Hodgson
Dastardly deeds in Georgian London. Narrow escapes, betrayals and deadly dilemmas as we hurtle through fetid alleyways, rowdy taverns, gaols and palaces. Enjoyable genre stuff. It's the sequel to The Devil in the Marshalsea, which I haven't read as my library provided me with books 2-4 before book 1.

You've reminded me I've got book 4 unread.

Having read Umbrella I can imagine that being married to Will Self would be a living nightmare.

Tarahumara - I remember talking about Umbrella with you. We were both like "Why is there no punctuation in this book? No paragraphs? What is going on?"

I can't imagine being married to Will Self, either. He must be certifiably crazy.

Re Flowers for Algernon - It's quite good where it describes his ascent from well-meaning idiot to normal and then genius, but the latter half of the book isn't that convincing IMHO.

Cote - was it for Umbrella that you coined the word "brainhurty"?

A couple of links to recent radio programmes which may be of interest.

Firstly Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain, on the World Service's Hardtalk this afternoon

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszbyp

Also, for anyone who enjoyed A Woman of No Importance, yesterday's Great Lives on Radio 4 extra about Kristina Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, a Polish wartime spy.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b078y4tv

Betts

23. *The Vows of Silence (Serailler 4) - Susan Hill Miserable police procedural, with annoying and unsympathetic characters. I oddly enjoyed this one which of course means I will punish myself and read another. Why do ee do this to ourselves?

6. Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville
Sarah Thornhill grows up in the Australia of the 1800s, the daughter of convict Will Thornhill who was transported from London but now makes a good living. From an uncomfortably young age she falls in love with older family friend Jack Langland, but challenges of race, prejudice and events of the past mean that they both face obstacles and difficult choices.
I read The Secret River by the same author a few years ago and, while I couldn't remember all of the events of that novel, I realised that I was imagining the same setting and I quite enjoyed that familiarity. Both books are described as part of 'a loose trilogy', but this felt more like a direct sequel and I'm sure that some of the critical events of the past which shape the lives of Sarah and Jack are from The Secret River...the problem being that I can't remember what happened after so long and it wasn't all entirely explained in Sarah Thornhill. I didn't love it, my first bookish disappointment of 2021.
7. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
On the other hand, this exceeded my expectations. I loved Little Fires Everywhere and had heard this wasn't as good. It felt like it had a narrower focus, and there were a couple of moments towards the end when it felt like the author was worried the reader might have missed what she was alluding to so spelt things out a little unnecessarily, but overall I loved it.
Teenager Lydia is found dead at the start of the novel, and it is unknown whether the cause of death is suicide or something more sinister. We follow Lydia's parents, older brother and younger sister as they cope with their own thoughts and feelings after her death, but also travel back to both parents' childhoods and to family life before Lydia's death to understand the dynamics of family relationships and the baggage that each character is carrying with them.
I felt that there were brilliant observations about how parents' baggage affects their relationships with their children - one parent loves when a child shares their interests but another finds it painful to see their children struggle with the same difficulties they had. The misunderstandings of everything that is never said lead to family members who are close but don't really know what each other are thinking and feeling. On this and with issues of race there are overlapping themes with Little Fires Everywhere, but the focus here is more specifically on the one family. I found it a really enjoyable, absorbing read that I rattled through quickly.
I now have The Survivors by Jane Harper on Borrowbox audio but a typo in capitals on the cover image is making me grumpy...EVEN THE DEEPSEST SECRETS RISE TO THE SURFACE...urgh!

Tarahumara - You might be right

I have the last episode of It’s a Sin to watch tonight. We’ve done it the old fashioned way and watched it week by week.

The long Way Home - Louise Penny Yet another Inspector Gamache Book. They seem to be alternatively good and bad. This is one of the better ones.

@BestIsWest

I have the last episode of It’s a Sin to watch tonight. We’ve done it the old fashioned way and watched it week by week.

The long Way Home - Louise Penny Yet another Inspector Gamache Book. They seem to be alternatively good and bad. This is one of the better ones.

Have a box of tissues on standby.

1. Difficult Women: a history of feminism in 11 fights by Helen Lewis

Loved this, especially the Time chapter ( selfishly because it was highly relevant to me!). Witty, intelligent and eye opening.

I used to live round the corner from Will Self and Deborah Orr. I used to see him walking around quite a bit. Not her, though.