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.

A very belated thanks to southeast for the "new" thread

I have a few reviews to catch up on:

1. Warlight by Michael Ondaatje.

Described as "a novel of shadowy brilliance" by the Times reviewer. I wouldn't go that far, however it's an interesting and nuanced piece of writing.

Nathaniel and Rachel, teenagers in London during the second world war, have been left in the care of their parents' lodger, a benign but mysterious figure. They were told that their parents have gone to work abroad; they have no contact with them and, when not left to their own devices, become involved with the shadowy goings-on of various friends of Moth, the lodger.

Warlight is rather reminiscent of A Spell of Winter in tone, being atmospheric and beautifully written. However, for some reason I struggled to fully engage with the story. That might have been just how I was feeling at the time though.

1. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff.

Short and charming and made me want to wander round the second hand bookshops of London again. Or any bookshops really.

Thanks to the PP who mentioned the film. I did watch it, but immediately after having read the book was probably too soon, as the dialogue was almost word-for-word the same as the book so it was rather like going back to the start and reading it again.

I felt in the film there was a hint that Frank was in love with Helene, however in the book I didn't pick up on that at all; just liking and mutual respect.

10. The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow

I know opinions differ on this book I enjoyed it.

The negatives first: it could have been shorter; the ending came as no surprise (love + obstacles to be overcome = marriage) but it took the author a long time to get there. There was the occasional bit of clunky writing, for example, I don't recall hearing the phrase "crack on" used in a novel of that period before . That should have been edited out.

The positives: I thought the author sustained the writing style really well most of the time. We were given a clear picture of what it must be like to be the least attractive daughter in a family at a time when a woman's future depended so much on attracting a suitable man and making a good marriage. Also, the hurt felt at being clearly the least favourite child. The way Mary develops and gains confidence as she begins to feel valued is nicely portrayed. And I really liked Mrs Hill and Mrs Gardiner as characters.

I love Pride and Prejudice and I enjoyed the opportunity to spend more time in that world. I thought this was a decent effort at a spin-off novel which stood on its own as a nice easy read.

I've just looked up"crack on" in the OED, highlandcoo, and it's not as anachronistic as you might think: the earliest use cited is from 1835 and it was used in that sense without the "on" in 1824 - a mere 13 years after P&P was published!

To be fair, it does sound like the kind of thing that a rather vulgar, sporting type (like John Thorpe in Northanger Abbey) might say - I can imagine some of Georgette Heyer's more bumptious young men saying it, too.

Mack - I enjoyed your review hugely, although I will never read the book.

Enjoying Murderous Contagion so far. I'm taking it a chapter a day, and finding that having a bath full of typhus or Syphilis each night before dinner is oddly relaxing.

That's so interesting mackerella; I would never have guessed. Maybe because it's a phrase I never heard when I was young, so to me it feels quite recent. But perhaps just more an English than a Scottish expression?

Mack - I enjoyed your review hugely, although I will never read the book

Me too, and I'll probably give it a bash in the future but having just read The Other Bennet Sister I'll leave a gap between them I think.

Thank you, Remus and highland - and Remus I'm also enjoying your updates about Murderous Contagion very much although I'm glad it's not me having a bath full of typhus every night .

8. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
I've read all of Gaskell's "big" novels, but had always avoided Cranford because of a perception that it would be twee and gossipy and trite. Well, more fool me – it’s brilliant! I don't know if it's because I'm older and wiser now (and perilously close to the age of some of the supposedly elderly women who seem to make up the bulk of Cranford’s population), but I found Cranford delightful, charming and moving. It’s very episodic – it was published in instalments in Dickens’ magazine Household Words – so it’s more of a series of connected sketches than a unified novel. However, the town itself is the main character/subject of the book and serves to draw everything together. There is also a loose story arc about Miss Matty Jenkyns, a rather fluttery but saintly spinster who lives in Cranford with her imperious older sister Deborah.*

The book is warm-hearted without being cloying: like Dickens, Gaskell excels at portraying sincere, simple goodness without it becoming saccharine (in fact, she’s better at it than Dickens). I was genuinely moved when the other Cranford ladies rallied round to support their beloved Miss Matty when she encountered misfortunes, and by how they were keen to hide their kindness from others. It’s also much, much funnier than I expected, largely because of the slyly humorous narration by Mary Smith, a young woman who visits Cranford from time to time. The characterisation is perfect – each character is vividly and distinctly drawn without becoming a caricature. Nothing much happens – or rather, there are minor kerfuffles in each chapter, but they’re all neatly wrapped up by the end – but the nothing much is so charmingly written that I didn’t much care. (It reminded me of that series of Mini adverts from about 15 years ago that had the tag-line “It’s a Mini adventure”.) Cranford will definitely become a favourite novel of mine – I’m only sorry that I didn’t read it 20 years earlier!

• I realised halfway through that, despite her rheumatism and elderly mannerisms, Matty is actually only in her early 50s (i.e. around 10 years older than me!) – in my head, she was more like Miss Marple .

** Deborah is the source of one of the novel’s most jaw-dropping jokes: as a devotee of Dr Johnson, she deplores Captain Brown’s fondness for new-fangled rubbish like Dickens. When the Captain’s love of Dickens leads him to have an accident, she sees this as vindication of her reading tastes – which is a joke given extra piquancy by the fact that the story was being published in Dickens’ own magazine .

I've just got Charlotte from the online library, I'm impressed with how much more / more recent books I'm finding there just recently :) Obviously not the same as 'proper' libraries (my dad is missing ours terribly, even though he can't actually read paper books any more just for a browse to get ideas, a cup of tea & some book chat)

oops, half a post. Not as good, but a nice lockdown extra finding books I want to read in the online option

That's so interesting mackerella; I would never have guessed. Maybe because it's a phrase I never heard when I was young, so to me it feels quite recent. But perhaps just more an English than a Scottish expression?

That's interesting re English v Scottish - I'm fairly sure that I've heard it all my life (in England), but it sounds (in some lights) quite "posh" to me. (Obviously it can be very un-posh as well!) I assume it's from "whipcrack" or similar, so definitely from the era of fast horses. I also looked up "get cracking", which was the entry directly underneath, and that doesn't seem to have been used until the mid-twentieth century.

At least they didn't use "crack on" in the Love Island sense

11. Excession - Iain M Banks. This was the classic Culture novel I'd been after but it dragged a bit with a little too much works building for my taste.

I have now moved on to The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell. So far I have no idea where this is going. It won the Arthur C Clarke award in 2020, but we have a story about a colonialist in Zimbabwe in the 1900s and then a story about a very hairy girl after the second world war in Italy. I'm not googling as am quite intrigued to know what happens next.

Mackerella That is a lovely review of Cranford. I read it years ago, but on the strength of your review I will revisit it, now it seems I am the age of elderly Miss Matty!

Just finished 4. The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason

This was a re-read, since I absolutely love this book. I'm somewhat fanatical about ancient Greece, and Homer in particular, and this is one of my favourite of quite a list of modern retellings I've read.
It's a shortish book consisting of 44 short (mostly 2/3 page) pieces which purport to be previously undiscovered alternative books of the Odyssey, but are in fact little flights of fancy of the author, centring around Odysseus, Achilles and other characters from the Trojan War and its aftermath. The writing is so beautiful, with stunning imagery that stayed with me after I'd finished it, and the stories are very clever and engaging, some slightly bizarre, like the idea of Odysseus trapped in a hut, having totally lost his memory, finding a copy of the Odyssey. Each one stands alone, but I wouldn't really describe them as short stories, as in most of the pieces the author never ventures far from the same familiar world of Homer.

I'd love to know if anyone has read and enjoyed this.

I got my library selection bag! I asked for thrillers and contemporary fiction and am pretty pleased with the mix. Lots of new authors to try as well as some familiar ones.

First up

6 Fake Like Me by Barbara Bourland

A young artist loses her home, possessions and all her art work in a fire before a career defining exhibition. She decides to make all the work again in record time, faking it so that she can keep the exhibition.

Landing a studio at the notoriously glamorous Pine City art collective outside New York, she sets to work, but discovers she is treading in the footsteps of a tragically dead previous resident. Famous and enigmatic Carey has committed suicide in strange circumstances.

The story pokes fun at too-cool artists and celebrity collectors all set in a beautiful but dilapidated 1930s retreat. The themes of Identity, money, authenticity and webs of deception make for a vivid story and provided enough intrigue to keep me guessing.

HeadNorth hope you're not too decrepit to enjoy it!

Shotgun how exciting! How many books do you get? And how personalised is it? Do you just select a broad category, like thrillers, or do you get to talk to a librarian about what you've already read so they don't give you duplicates? I think our library does the same thing but I hadn't really considered it. I do like the idea of a book selection curated toy tastes, though - like a personal shopper but much better.

You fill in a form mackerella and tick the genres you want. You can put down any particular authors you like but I left it open. I asked for 10 books. They rang me to tell me they had packed my selection ready to collect.

When I got there they explained that they’d looked at my previous lending history too to see what I had borrowed in the past year. So I’m pretty impressed really! Thrilled to have a lovely big stack to choose from too.

Next up is Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley

Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman is 99p today on Kindle! I loved the Netflix mini series so have been looking forward to reading the book.

mackerella you have made me add Cranford to my list of books TBR this year - just need to make sure I don’t inadvertently purchase an abridged version via Kindle. I love North and South so have high hopes....

I don't think I've read Cranford and now I want to.

In fact, Mack , can you please list ten books you love, because your reviews are making me want to read everything you like (even when I don't trust you in terms of Austen spin-offs!).

Cranford is great. I would love to reread it but I'm still making my way through the Barchester Chronicles at a rate of one every couple of months, and have two left, so will finish them first.
I'm finding Victorian fiction a nice place to hide at the moment.

I have had a paperback copy of Cranford since the TV serialisation and never read it (or watched the series) so I'll be going for it soon too!

highlandcoo, Barchester Chronicles are also on my list....so many books and not enough time..

Also now intrigued about Cranford
Maybe we should have a readalong

17: Clara - Janice Galloway

Cote's mention on the last thread of reading a biography of Clara Schumann, and then AdaColeman's mention of this novel, reminded me that I had it and had always meant to get round to it. At just over 400 pages long and set in very small typeface it demands full concentration, and perhaps does flag a bit partway through, if I'm honest, but it's a remarkable feat of fiction and I feel as though I've been living alongside the Schumanns for the last few days (not always a comfortable experience).

Clara was brought up by an exacting and inflexible father (her mother left and eventually married someone else); a pianist and teacher who was determined to mould her into a concert virtuoso, and so he reacted with blind rage when young Robert Schumann - his one-time piano pupil and lodger in their house - fell in love with Clara and wanted to marry her (and thereby take her - and her earning potential - away). A few rounds of legal action finally did the job and they embarked on matrimony and music-making plus the first of what would be 8 children...but before long Robert's mysterious bouts of undiagnosable illness saw him increasingly unable to engage with the world, until a suicide attempt and a slow decline in a mental asylum ended with his death aged only 46.

Clara is the absolute heroine of this book, in a 19th c world so intensely evoked that you can almost reach out and touch it - the way Galloway does this is a triumph. I could only come away feeling the utmost admiration, but also sadness, for a woman of huge talent and courage in a universe shaped and ruled by men.

The Remains of the Day is in the Kindle deal today, if anybody fancies a fight about whether it's heart-rending or deadly dull.