50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Five

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth 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, the second one here, the third one here and the fourth one here.

How're you getting on so far?

Continues to prostrate herself...

28. Becoming by Michelle Obama

It's taken me a while, but I have finally finished my first audio book of the year! Michelle Obama is famous as the wife of the first black President, Barack Obama, but there is so much more to her than that. We start, as is traditional, with her childhood in Chicago living with her close-knit and loving family, including her disabled father, in a house on Euclid Avenue (believe me you are not going to forget that name in a hurry!) and her journey through school, adolescence, Ivy league colleges, a career as a lawyer that she finds isn't all it was cracked up to be, her changing career, and of course meeting Barack.

I'm not particularly romantic but I loved the story of their romance which was sweet but it never felt like she was oversharing or looking at things with rose-tinted spectacles. In fact I felt that she was really honest throughout including her faults (she doesn't hold back on Barack's untidiness either ) and where she fell short, as well as her struggles with Barack's political career and its impact on their family.

I did find myself thinking once or twice that she was a a bit too good to be true but as she explains black people, especially those in high public positions need to be twice as good as the average white person and EVERYTHING she did was twisted so the Obamas had to be ultra-careful and above reproach.

My initial thoughts were that this book was a bit light on the politics, especially in the White House years, but then I caught myself, this is a book about Michelle Obama and not about her husband. Once I got over that unreasonable expectation I found her work as First Lady really interesting, prticularly her focus on education opportunities and the amount of suppot and encouragement she provided to cildren she met, having seen the benefit of education and having champions in her own life. Overall I really enjoyed this and think Michelle Obama is even more fabulous than I did before.

49. City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare On audio - I've both read & listened to this before, and it's certainly not great literature, but the audio book is well read & makes for easy listening at work.

Another pair for me:

42: Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed The World - Laura Spinney

Much-reviewed on here so I needn't add much, except to say that it was very strange reading about events of c. 100 years ago that mirrored our current experience so uncannily in many ways. Goodness knows how Laura Spinney felt, having written this definitive book, when Covid 19 struck....like some sort of soothsayer, I expect.

43: Early Morning Riser - Katherine Heiny

I know Standard Deviation was a bit of a marmite book but it was right up my street. I've been hoping there'd be another book from Katherine Heiny soon and when I happened to see this - amazingly - pop up on BorrowBox as soon as it was published, I got in quick with a reservation.
Primary-school teacher Jane moves to small-town Michigan and meets Duncan, handsome, laid-back and irresistible. Soon they're a couple and Jane is blissfully happy...but in his wake Duncan trails a never-ending string of former lovers and an ex-wife, Aggie, and has no wish to settle down. Life has to move on, until something happens to bind Jane and Duncan together in unexpected and poignant ways.
There's a lot here that explores themes of family and community, familiar from Standard Deviation, and Heiny uses the same technique of contrasting snappy humour and pathos, with a hefty dose of added eccentricity (cf Anne Tyler, who she acknowledges as one of her writing heroes, and often seems to channel). On the not-so-good side, it was definitely too long....but I still loved it. So many great lines and I often laughed out loud, which really isn't something I do readily.
TLDR: if you liked Standard Deviation, you'll like this. And if you didn't, you won't

33. The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym, by Paula Byrne
For a 600-page biography, this felt oddly lightweight. It doesn't add much to BP's letters and diaries, published as A Very Private Eye, and the previous biography by BP's friend Hazel Holt. Byrne claims these earlier publications were "heavily expurgated" and her new material might "shock and upset" her fans. This oversells the new content in here. I was a bit surprised that Nazis features in an early draft of Some Tame Gazelle but not much else felt new.

15. Middlemarch - George Eliot

Yes, well, as I may have mentioned before, I struggled with this. Just too long and slow for my liking, and became a vicious circle of not wanting to read it and so therefore taking longer to finish it.

16. Scavenger Hunt - Christopher Pike

Found some of my old teenage books and thought this would be a nice quick one to get back into reading. I remember Christopher Pike being a bit of a mixed bag - some were horror, some were fantasy horror - this was the latter, which I'm less keen on. But a quick refreshing read for a Saturday afternoon.

10. The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga Balram is born into poverty and servitude. This is a darkly humorous tale of his struggle out of the Darkness towards a ‘better’ life. Undeniably very well put together but I found it a very uncomfortable read. Quite possibly exactly what the author was aiming for! This has been on my bookshelf for a while. Finally got round to reading it as DH keeps suggesting we watch the film on Netflix and I was desperate to read it first. Not entirely sure I want to see the film at all now

17. Ghostways - Robert MacFarlane, Stanley Donwood and Dan Richards
This was a short book - more like poetry than prose. It focussed on two places: Sheerness and Holloways.
I enjoyed the first section about Ness. It has strong almost mythic component exploring the interaction between nature and man-made technology.
The second part about the return to the Holloway he’d previously explored didn’t grab me in the same way although the writing was beautifully descriptive.

18. The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker
I enjoyed this retelling of the fall of Troy from Briseis’ perspective. It didn’t shy away from what the war meant for the women who were captured or the brutality of soldiers. It was powerful but I could have done without the chapters from Achilles’ point of view.

More Women's Prize longlist reviews. All of these are novels that I enjoyed but wouldn't actually shortlist.

28. Exciting Times, Naoise Dolan 3/5
    I agree with Fortuna that this book is Sally-Rooney-ish: it channels the thoughts of a young Irish woman who embarks on sexual relationships full of self-doubt. The first half of the book, where the narrator is in a rather bleak relationship with a privileged, conservative young man, felt long to me. The story gained considerable pace in the second half. A strength was the motif of the heroine teaching TEFL and noting (in a dry, witty way) that the Irish English she grew up speaking wasn’t Standard English. The novel is set in Hong-Kong, but the setting seems almost incidental; the focus isn’t so much on the setting as on the heroine growing up and forging her own sense of self.

29. Consent, Annabel Lyon 4/5
    I really enjoyed this; it reminded me of a Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell) thriller. The exploration of sister relationships was interesting, and the narrative tackles the theme of consent in various provocative ways: can a woman with special needs consent to a marriage? What role does consent play in a BDSM relationship (The Story of O is referenced)? Is a family friend justified in concealing material information after a family tragedy, in order to spare the family members hurt? I also like the Canadian setting. This is a quibble, however, but it really irked me that the female PhD supervisor of one of the protagonists was referred to as ‘Madame’, whereas the male supervisor was ‘Professeur’. If you’re a woman academic superivising a PhD thesis, your title is not ‘Madame’! Weird.

30. Nothing But Blue Sky, Katherine MacMahon. 4/5
    Mixed feelings about this novel. The male narrator is quite limited in his view of the world, but that’s deliberate. It’s only after the tragic sudden loss of his wife that he realises how extraordinary his wife really was. I found the retrospective portrayal of the wife too saintly, and that annoyed me. On the other hand, there is a strikingly realistic depiction of how families can differ – one family is harshly critical, one family genuinely enjoys being together – and how this affects the personality of a child growing up. There are also loving, beautifully detailed depictions of being on holiday on the Spanish coast that reminded me of my own repeated holiday visits to the same little town in the south of France.

Those all sound interesting @cassandre, particularly Consent. Feel like they must be releasing the shortlist soon.

36. Just Like You - Nick Hornby. It must be a good decade or so since I read a Nick Hornby book but this was on offer. It's a love story between a 42 year old white teacher Lucy who's separated and a 22 year old black guy Joseph who works in her local butcher shop among other jobs. It's written from both their POV and deals with various issues around race and age quite lightly, at least in the first half of the novel. The second half gets bogged down by Brexit (it's set in 2016-17) and doesn't seem to quite know where it wants to go. It's weird how petty and dated all the Brexit stuff seems now after the year we've just had! ( And I say that as a reamainer who worked extensively on it for the last 3 years).
    I'm not convinced the voice of Joseph was quite accurate although some of the things he finds embarrassing or awkward about Lucy definetly rang true. The ending was a slight cop-out, but on the whole I enjoyed it.

Rattled through Girl by Edna O'Brien. Recommended by many on the thread, I found it absorbing and am in awe of O'Brien's ability to keep writing, and travelling and researching at 90.

I did worry a bit about cultural appropriation as I was reading but that probably isn't fair. if a historical novelist can imagine lives of Icelandic women many centuries ago, I am sure O'Brien can highlight the plight of Chibok girls in Northern Nigeria.

A sparse ,sometimes dispassionate book., it possibly didn't stand up too well read so soon after Half of a Yellow Sun' but a worthwhile read.

Now for the tome that is Obama...

29. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

This much reviewed and generally loved book has been on my TBR pile for a while now. I'm glad I'd seen so many positive reviews on here as I found it very hard to get into and would probably have given it up otherwise. I didn't love this book as much as many on this thread but it definitely picked up and I'm glad I persevered. That said I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be one that I'll think about and like more in retrospect.

32. The Generation - Holly Cave

A dystopian future, London 2052. Europe is bankrupt and a totalitarian Government is formed known as The State. Everyone is genetically mapped at birth and tagged. The State know the path of every individual's life, literally, but because of the mapping also their personality, career, criminal behaviour, sexuality, and health.

Freya and Kane find themselves caught up in a terrorist attack by a group opposed to genetic mapping and find things out about the system, and ultimately themselves, which will change them, and potentially the world the live in, forever.

I loved the premise and thought that it was described so well, it's a London different to now, but not so different that it's impossible to imagine.

I listened on audiobook and wish I had have read it. I found the narrator slow and her reading style at times simply off putting. I was a little disappointed at the end, but don't know what I was expecting!

Definitely give it a go, but I'd recommend reading over listening.

115. Toksvig’s Almanac 2021: An Eclectic Meander Through The Historical Year by Sandi Toksvig

This consists of a bit of history about how each month was named and some festivals that happen around the world during that month. Each date then has an entry for a woman who was born, died, or did something on that date. Each entry is brief, with the idea that if something piques your interest you then go away and read more about it. I read this all in one go but I think it works better being dipped into - while each entry was interesting it did get a bit repetitive towards the end. I also read on kindle but I think would work better in physical format which would be easier to dip in and out of.

116. Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan

Liz is a paediatrician. One day her friend Jess, who Liz has always thought of as a perfect parent, brings in her baby with a fractured skull. Something about Jess’s story doesn’t add up - and this inevitably leads to events spiralling. This was ok, but all the men involved blended into one person and some things didn’t quite tie up.

117. Come Again by Robert Webb

Warning - spoilers ahead!
Oh dear, this was a mess. It’s as if he wrote two different books, realised neither was long enough to stand in its own right, so just jammed them together. The blurb says this is about Kate, whose husband has just died of a brain tumour. She then gets the opportunity to go back in time to when they met so she can warn him. I was attracted by this as I like time slip stories. However this doesn’t happen until at least a third of the way through the book. The first third consists of Kate getting sacked from her job and stealing a memory stick with a compromising video on. Then the time slip stuff happens. Fine, bit boring but ok. Then she wakes up back in the present day, gets involved in a car chase with some Russian gangsters and decides she’s in love with her (male) best friend. It apparently takes 9 months to wonder what became of her original dead husband and look him up. Wouldn’t that be the first thing you would do?! Also, this new life seems to have her having been married to him, for twenty years, but also him having a completely separate life in America which just wouldn’t have worked! Also, there’s a lot of bad language which I didn’t really expect - not necessarily an issue but I listened to this on Audible which was quite awkward sometimes when DD wandered in. Overall a big disappointment.

21 One by One Ruth Ware

Another from the "it's a 99p and that was 98p too much" genre. Or the "I read it so you won't have to" genre. Country house mystery but set on a ski slope. Never realised ski slopes could be written about in so much boring, and totally irrelevant and unnecessary to the plot detail. At least by about a third in I realised the piste-talk was the Ware equivalent of fucking Gandalf and a load of dwarves spouting poetry round a campfire so could just skip.
There was also too much information about some music app the main players were involved in that was also totally irrelevant and came across as very dated in our Alexa-Spotify world. Characters were cardboard cut outs (the chef is obviously gay, the dot-com millionaires are mockneys) The weirdest bit of all was the end, we all knew whodunnit from about half way because the character told us. D'oh. Then it went on and on and on. Even after the true ending there was more irrelevant gubbins.

That's two meh books this week I wanted easy reading, and that's what I got. Serves me right. I shall random number generator something a bit more oomphy now, hopefully.

"fucking Gandalf and a load of dwarves spouting poetry round a campfire"

I'm reading Prairie Fires but finding it strangely un-gripping. I think probably not helped by the fact that I did a fair bit of reading around LIW's life & the background to the Little House books a few years back when dd got into them. Also, I'm feeling quite sympathetic to Rose Wilder Lane by now, the author seems to put the most unfavourable interpretation on every single action of hers.

SOLINVICTUS

I picked up a copy of One by One from the library last week - now open for browsing, hooray!

I flipped through the first chapter or two before putting it down for later in favour of other books on my TBR shelf. I’m now wondering if picking it up at the library was a wise choice, but hey, it’s free to borrow it provided I return it on time.
There’s already been a brief description of this music app. It really doesn’t sound like an obvious candidate for a runaway money-making success of an app.

This thread is my happy place SOL ❤️

34. Remain Silent, Susie Steiner
A police procedural that takes a compassionate look at the exploitation of migrant labour. I really enjoyed the musings of the central character about midlife responsibilities and relationships and the expectation of happiness (or not). While it's crime fiction, as much thought and care has gone into making the characters real as any self-styled literary novel.

Sorry you're not liking Prairie Fires, Sadik. I agree the author is pretty vicious about Rose, who I found much more interesting than her mother.

I recall, as a teen, enjoying Huckleberry Finn much more than Tom Sawyer - but I don't think it would be an easy read now. I loved Twain's writing though - at what point does the problematic subject matter outweigh the historical context? I tend to let the racism in things like Agatha Christie "slide", because of the time they were written in; but although I used to love Dr Doolittle books as a child, even though even then I knew the colonial and racist parts were wrong, I did not read them with my children.

35 - 38) The Society of Gentlemen Trilogy and The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by KJ Charles. Light hearted gay romances very heavily influenced by Georgette Heyer, took my mind of a whole lot of work stress this week!

38. Spring, Ali Smith

Third in the Seasons quartet. The main characters in this one are Richard, a film director knocked sideways by grief after the death of his best friend (and maybe love of his life), and Brittany, a young woman who has drifted into a job at an immigration detention centre and is trying to work out how she feels about what she sees there and how she fits in. These two, completely unconnected at the beginning of the story, are brought together by a series of events which can seem confusing, coincidence-heavy and even magical, but eventually makes more sense towards the end of the book as we work out what has been going on.

I know that Ali Smith is not for everyone, but I like her a lot. I like the tricks that she plays with language and cultural references. I like the way that she makes the everyday seem unfamiliar and polishes language so that words blaze and sparkle (there's a quote somewhere in the book which is totally apposite to this but one thing about the way she writes with so little punctuation is that it's very hard to find a quote when flicking through, as the text all looks the same).

She gets her characters to look at famous or classic works of art (music and film as well as visual arts) through unfamiliar eyes, so we see them freshly. She hooks on phrases then drops them back into the text later at a point where they gain new meaning - Richard, going into a shop who are having a closing down sale with a big sign declaring "Everything Must Go", then hearing those words again in his head while he sits with his dying friend. She finds objects or ideas from the real lives of the artists who play such a significant part in these books - here, for example, are postcards and clouds - and weaves them into the made-up lives of her fictional characters too, so that when we discover the importance of a postcard to the poet Rilke, or clouds to the artist Tacita Dean, we get a thrill of recognition and significance.

These are tricks, and I know that not everyone likes them, but I do. She riffs here with the ideas of fairy stories and fables, as well as performance and artifice, (apparently the book is a refashioning of Pericles, which I don't know at all so I missed all of that I am afraid!) - you can see that Smith is deliberately building these moments of magic while deliberately letting us know that they're not quite real, that they've been put there for show, but they're no less effective. Like a great artist, she harnesses all these colours, all these flourishes and bits of linguistic show-offery, and weaves them into something which impacts you, something that you can't turn away from, something which makes you feel like a human being. Brilliant stuff, IMHO.

27. Secrets of the Chess Machine - Robert Lohr In 1770, Wolfgang Von Kempelen constructed a chess-playing automaton for the purpose of impressing the Empress of Austria. He presented it as a fully mechanical chess machine in the form of an android dressed as a Turk powered by clockwork seated at a cabinet with the chess board fixed to the surface. Of course it was a hoax, there was a concealed box inside the cabinet, hidden by the clockwork, at which a man sat and played the Turk's game, operating the android's right hand be means of a pantograph. There were sceptics at the time who sought to expose von Kempelen as a fraud, coming up with plenty of outlandish theories as to how the machine worked, but the truth behind the operation of the chess machine was not revealed until after von Kempelen's death in 1804.

The identity of the chess player inside the cabinet is not known, only that he must have been a great player and also very small! Secrets of the Chess Machine is a fictional novel concentrated on the operator. Tibor is an Italian dwarf, cast out by his family at the age of 14 due to superstitious neighbours who accused him of molesting their daughters. He has a colourful decade making the best of his abilities in the army (as a mascot) and a gardener at a monestary (where he learns to play chess and discovers his uncommon ability in the game) until von Kempelen hears stories of an itinerant dwarf who makes his living playing chess for bets.

Tibor and von Kempelen, together with Jakob, von Kempelen's assistant and cabinet maker, join forces to complete the automaton and succeed in fooling the Empress and most of her court into believing the Turk to be fully automatic, winning von Kempelen his fame and fortune, also the attentions of those who wish to expose him and who go to extraordinary lengths to reveal his invention as a fake.

I loved this book, it's a fascinating subject, and the characters are well-drawn and believable if not likeable! The chapters are interspersed with some flash-forward chapters concerning a match between Tibor and the Turk at a point in the future, providing a final focal point for the book to end on.