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.

Also hated Kevin

Couldn't bear the mother and thought it was very "self fulfilling prophecy" given her loathing of him was fairly instant

27: The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman

I'm probably the last person in the world to read this, after waiting for my library reservation for a good couple of months. I'd been a bit cynical about it, I hold my hands up, but certainly didn't hate it - it was initially engaging and seemed very Richard Osman-ish, if that makes sense (he does make me laugh on Pointless and House of Games). But I felt the narrative got fatally bogged down with too many twists and turns, and tried over-hard with its (many) characters. As it's already been serialised on Radio 4, the TV adaptation is on its way, and the next two books in the series are in the pipeline, I'm not sure I'll be in it for the long haul.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Hated Kevin. And have read a few interviews with LS which made me really dislike her, although I can't remember why.

I know exactly what you mean, I got that impression as well and also can't explain why.

Joining in.
My list so far this year. Still looking for my first 5 star.

1. Before I fall - Lauren Oliver (3/5 stars)
2. The real brass ring - Diane Bischoff (1/5 stars)
3. My secret lies with you - Faye Bird (2/5 stars)
4. The guilty one - Lisa Ballantyne (4/5)
5. Extinction Point - Paul Antony Jones (4/5)
6. All that glitters - Virginia Andrews (3/5)
7. When Jeff comes home - Catherine Atkins (3/5)
8. The Extinction Trials - S M Wilson (2/5)
9. The food of love - Amanda Prowse (1/5)

10. Between - Jessica Warman (3/5)

I haven't had a 5* yet this year either.

I've just picked my next Dick Francis (I'm reading 1 a month this year), this time it's Bolt which is the follow up to the other Kit Fielding book Break In which I read in January. I've just seen that I haven't read one this month so perhaps I will start Bolt tonight and then can get another one for March.

1. Midwinter Murder by Agatha Christie
2. Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
3. The Familiars by Stacey Halls
4. Three Hours by Rosalind Lipton
5. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz.

6.Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli.

1. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld A friend recommended this as being the best thing she'd read last year. It's an imagining of Hillary Clinton's life had she not married Bill and told as if a political autobiography. It feels a bit intrusive to read about her (imaginary) sex life- when is a novel in bad taste? However there is lots of good stuff in here too about misogyny in politics and academia, the workings of the American political system and I found myself rooting for her. I know there is a lot of hatred for Hillary in the US and this helped me see where that comes from. Also there is a toe-curling cameo appearance from Donald Trump which is great fun.

Next book: Love after Love by Ingrid Persaud
.

@ChannelLightVessel

18. The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting - KJ Charles Lightweight but well written and entertaining M/M Regency romance. Not a bonkbuster, but a fair amount of sexual tension and then bonking.

19. The Fire Next Time - James Baldwin
A slim volume, first published in 1963, but still essential reading. Baldwin’s writing on the black experience in the US is beautiful and cogent and quite rightly furious. If you’ve read his brilliant first novel Go Tell It On The Mountain, his discussion here of his religious teenage experience throws an interesting light on its fictional treatment.

ChannelLightVessel, The Fire Next Time was the first book I read this year, and I loved it -- it remains a timely read for today. The only other Baldwin I've read is Go Tell It on the Mountain, which was brilliant as well. Need to explore some more Baldwin.

I thought We Need to Talk About Kevin was very good at capturing the anxieties a person might have about whether or not to become a parent (Shriver herself is childfree by choice), but I just didn't find the portrait of the child himself to be convincing.

And now I refuse to read anything else by Shriver on principle, because I find her politics so ugly. She's been quite vocal about how she thinks immigration poses a danger to Western culture. Which is ironic given that she herself is an immigrant (from the U.S. to the U.K.) -- but her own case is different I guess because she's a privileged white native English-speaking immigrant.

She's been quite vocal about how she thinks immigration poses a danger to Western culture. Which is ironic given that she herself is an immigrant (from the U.S. to the U.K.) -- but her own case is different I guess because she's a privileged white native English-speaking immigrant.

That's a very good reason not to like her I'm guessing she's in the same mould as the former POTUS.

I've picked my next Dick Francis book, I'm going for an old favourite - Banker. It'll be interesting to see how well it's aged and if I still like it as much as I did as a teenager.

I've picked up a few books in the monthly deal before it ends tomorrow night - A Yorkshire Vet (book 2), The Time Travellers guide to Regency Britain which isn't an era I know much about and The Smell of the continent about the British 'discovery' of Europe. Finally, I got Scoff so thank you Pepe (and apologies if I have named the wrong person)

What is the general view of the Alexander McCall-Smith books about the ladies detective agency?

Ha, Bett, she's not nearly as bad as POTUS 45! Though that's not saying much!

10. Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart. 5/5
    A vivid and compassionate account of an alcoholic mum in 1980s Glasgow, told partly from the perspective of her young gay son. At first I found the story relentlessly bleak – Agnes is already a full-blown alcoholic by the time the novel starts – but when she has a period of sobriety she becomes a much more sympathetic character, and the complex layers of her identity begin to emerge. I loved the book’s Glaswegian slang and occasional dark humour. I’m not often a fan of Booker Prize winners, but I agree with other readers on the thread that this one is brilliant.

11. A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin. 5/5
    I can’t believe I never read Le Guin before. In fact I did start this book once but gave it up after the first few pages, the more fool me. It’s beautiful – the prose is so elegant and sparse, it has a timeless feel about it. And the narrative world is at once original and packed with all sorts of echoes of classical and medieval myth. As an aside, I didn’t realise Le Guin started a PhD in medieval French… interesting. Or that she lived in Berkeley and her parents were the anthropologist Kroebers – I knew her mother’s book Ishi in Two Worlds quite well, as I spent part of my childhood close to where Ishi was found. (Ishi’s story is a tragic one, and the way he became a kind of living museum piece is chilling.)

I really enjoyed Detective Agency to start with betts

Light reading, but they got repetitive and inconsistent

I never really managed to get into them Eine, they seemed too laid back and, well...dull!

Thrilled to see Kindred on the daily deal, a non-fiction book on Neanderthals that I've been eyeing up longingly for a while. The monthly deal has some appealing offers too.

8. The Survivors by Jane Harper
Aussie crime. Kieran is back in his home town on the coast of Tasmania to see his parents as they pack up the family home. While he's there with his partner and young daughter, a body is found on the beach. It brings back memories of a huge storm 12 years early in which two local men lost their lives and a teenage girl went missing. Secrets are uncovered and the truth is revealed.
I really enjoyed Jane Harper's other books last year and this was great too. I like her settings and could really imagine Evelyn Bay, the small coastal town with it's beach, cliffs and caves. The pace felt spot on too, once the scene was set there was always something happening to keep me reading on. I'd definitely recommend it if you liked The Dry and The Lost Man by the same author. I listened to the BorrowBox audiobook and it also reminded me of The Blackhouse by Peter May in style - I'm not sure how much of that was the writing and how much was the narration. Slight suspension of disbelief required in what police would tell members of the public during an investigation, and I would never go for a swim in the sea while leaving my baby alone on the beach, but otherwise I really enjoyed this.

Just bought Kindred - thanks biblio.

I read the first Detective Agency book but wasn’t impressed. It felt quite YA to me although I know it isn’t.

Not much in the monthly deals for me although I did pick up Standard Deviation which has been recommended on here a few times.

Just bought All The Lonely People - Mike Gayle and The Husband's Secret - Liane Moriarty on the monthly deals; a couple of easier reads between some of the more heavyweight books I've got in my TBR pile!

Noticed Invisible Women and Kamala Harris - The Truths we Hold both in the monthly deals too. Just finished Kamala's book at the weekend and its a solid 4 star if you're interested in her stance on major political issues and the US political system.

@southeastdweller - we neeeeeeed you.

Will start a new thread in the next 30 mins 🙂

Just spent ages writing a post with my latest reads but it wouldn’t post! Can’t be bothered to write it all out again so here’s my latest reads, ask if you want to know more about them!

57. Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
58. Exit by Belinda Bauer
59. Gold by Dan Rhodes
60. The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole by Sue Townsend
61. The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
62. A Brief Guide To The Sound Of Music by Paul Simpson

New thread here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4179903-50-Book-Challenge-2021-Part-Four?watched=1

@bibliomania

Thrilled to see Kindred on the daily deal, a non-fiction book on Neanderthals that I've been eyeing up longingly for a while. The monthly deal has some appealing offers too.

I haven't looked at the monthly deal but I did spot Kindred so snapped that one up. I'm not reading it just yet as I've started Bolt and am half way through it, it's a good read so far, hopefully a first 5 star but maybe a 4.

Eine where are you?

Are you going to fill the thread?

Or not?