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?

33. My Husband The Stranger - Rebecca Done

Such a thought provoking book which makes you realise how life can change in an instant. Molly and Alex are soulmates and are happily married until an accident leaves Alex brain damaged and a totally different person to the one he was before.

Molly finds herself married to someone she doesn't know, who is utterly changed, and Alex's confusion is evident, he can't help the person he is (and has no memory of the man he once was).

This book shows how they were before and how things are now (to coin a Boris phrase) in 'the new normal'. There is happiness, sadness, mystery, and betrayal. I enjoyed this book!

@Saucery

Christina Henry’s twists on children’s literature are very dark LadybirdDaphne. I have to be in the mood for them.

Phew, it’s not just me being a wimp then. I like dark fairytale retellings and the folk horror end of the horror genre in general, but small children in peril gets to me now.

I have to say I've enjoyed the Rivers of London books (and wasn't reminded of Soham by Foxglove Summer other than it featuring a missing child). They're definitely light fantasy, but I wouldn't have said the worldbuilding was inconsistent.

37. Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers. This has been reviewed several times recently. I don't have much to add but did love this. It's the story of Jean a journalist in the 50s who receives a letter from Gretchen, who thinks her 10 year old daughter was a virgin birth. The story follows Jean investigating Gretchen's story and getting closer to the family. It's beautifully drawn with evocative descriptions of food and life at the time. But like others I was disappointed by the ending which felt like another story had just been shoehorned in.

I need to catch up on at least two threads... Carrying my short list across from quite a while ago.

1. Pine by Francine Toon
2. Secret Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
3. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
4. Wintering by Katherine May
5. Starveacre by Andrew Michael Hurley
6. The Overstory by Richard Powers
7. My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams
8. The Tulip Touch by Anne Fine
9. High Rise by JG Ballard

10 A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore 11. Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

Since I last posted I've read
12. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. I didn't really warm to any of the characters in this one, and there were a lot of them so it felt like a bit of a slog.
13 Piranesi by Susanna Clarke which I loved and am making DH read so I can talk to him about it before I have to take it back to the library (really need to get my book group going again).
14 The Dig by Cynan Jones which is a short and brutal book about rural life, grief and badger baiting. It's vivid and poetic so even though some parts were hard to read it's one of my favourite books so far this year.
Now reading Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey.

118. Blackwood by Michael Farris Smith

Short book I’ve had hanging around on my kindle for ages. Set in a small Mississippi town where people have started disappearing. Just before the disappearances, a strange family turned up in the town. Also, a man returned who had grown up there and witnessed a terrible event. This was a bit odd - the family members are never named (they’re just ‘the man’, ‘the woman’ etc.) and the story itself was a bit unsatisfying. He does a good job of building the oppressive atmosphere of the small town surrounded by kudzu vines though.

119. The Other Girl by C D Major

Another random from my kindle - I think this was another First Reads freebie. It’s set in an asylum in 1942. Edith was sent there as a 5 year old (she’s now 20) for telling strange stories. She’s now almost the only survivor of a fire that destroyed one of the accommodation blocks at the asylum. A doctor takes a fancy to her (literally) and delves more into her story. Bit boring, only finished as it was short.

120. Nella Last’s War: The Second World War Diaries of ‘Housewife, 49’

Many of you have probably heard of this as it was made into a TV drama by Victoria Wood. Mrs Last, a middle aged housewife from Cumbria, started keeping her diary for the Mass Observation project and kept it up for over 20 years. This covers the war. I can see this being a marmite book - there’s no plot as such and nothing much happens on a day to day basis so I can see that some would find it dull. However, I found it a fascinating insight into what war life was really like for those having to manage on rations, worrying about family members, and coping with bombing raids. If you’re interested in the Home Front aspect of the war then I recommend this. This is good because it’s not just about what she did each day - there’s a lot in there about her thoughts and feelings, about her family, friends, the war and life in general.

There are two sequels which I’m now going to read.

26 Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Reviewed already on this thread and much recommended on MN. This was the first book published in English by a black Zimbabwe woman. It's the first in a trilogy that covers the period of 68 to 99 in the history of Zimbabwe. The last in the trilogy was nominated for the Booker last year. This book has feminist and colonial themes, and there's lots of ideas skillfully packed into the engaging story. Thinking of the discussion upthread about books that were studied at school this is very much the kind of book that should be introduced into the English curriculum instead of all the dead white men. I'll be encouraging the DDs to read this.

It cover the first few years of the education of Tambu, a girl whose well-educated and rich Uncle pays for her education after her brother dies. It focusses on Tambu (who is the narrator looking back at her childhood) but also covers the story of her cousin Nyasha who has lived in England while her parents studied there and struggles to integrate back into traditional black Rhodesia. We also hear of the struggles of Tamba's mother Mainini, Nyasha's mother Maiguru and Mainini's sister Lucia. Some manage to carve a space for themselves in the patriarchial society, some fall apart under the effort.

It was written after Zimbabwe had full independence but is set during the period after the white minority government unilaterally declared independence and there was a 15 year guerrilla war until full independence was declared in 1980 under Mugabe. The guerilla war is not explicitly mentioned but there are oblique references to it. The younger generation are restless and struggling with their identity, and there is the constant reminder that only compliant blacks will be rewarded with status. The situation of women under the patriarchy and blacks under colonialism are compared.

This all sounds very serious but it's a very readable story, and Tambu is a thoughtful and complex character. One of the best books I've read this year.

That sounds great @JaninaDuszejko, really interesting.

I just saw a review of Laurent Binet's new book Civilisations. He wrote HHhH which was much loved on here I seem to remember. Is it the one that Cote & Remus agree on? Anyway review is here. It sounds interesting and slightly bonkers.

Great review Janina. Added to my wishlist.

28. Frankisstein by Jeanette Winterson
    This had two duel stories, one which follows Mary Shelly through her marriage to Percy Shelly, the crafting of Frankenstein and many years later. The other storyline set just after Brexit involves artificial intelligence and sex dolls. I really enjoyed this, its something very different and in parts very playful and funny. There are topics of debate which have been put into characters conversations (things like Brexit etc) which seem like they were just placed in the story because the author just had a thought and wanted it in there, this happens a lot but I was quite happy with this. I’d say it would help if you had read Frankenstein but not essential.

29. Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
    I know Normal People divided people on here but I did like it. Conversations has similar themes and characters but Normal People I would say is more successful overall. It’ll be interesting to see where the author goes in the third novel as I wouldn’t want to read the same again.

30. You have to make your own fun around here by Frances Macken
    This is a coming of age story, a young women grows up in rural Ireland with her two best friends and leaves for Dublin to go to university. The lives of her friends pan out differently and there is a missing persons case which hangs over the village over a period of a few years. This isn’t original but I really enjoyed reading this, I wanted to know what happened next and I got through it very quickly.

31. Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
    Statistics which detail how systems made by men are minimizing and marginalizing women. The statistics are overwhelming which means I had to read this more slowly than I otherwise would have. Not recommended if you have high blood pressure.

32. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
    I’ve seen a few adaptations multiple times so I know the story so well including lines from the text so this felt like I was reading it for the 5th time whereas in fact it was my first reading. The result was it felt very familiar and I was able to just let it wash over me, absolutely loved it.

44: The News from Waterloo - Brian Cathcart

When people fought battles overseas in the 19th century, how did governments and the general populace actually know what was happening, who'd fought where, and who had won? These are the interesting questions (from our position of instantaneous news) explored in this book, and it turns out that the battle of Waterloo - arguably our most famous/infamous military engagement, which took place on Sunday, June the 18th, 1815 - wasn't even known about in London until almost the middle of the following week, let alone that Napoleon had been defeated.

Cathcart follows the progress of the young officer charged by the Duke of Wellington to carry his official dispatch back to London - he ended up in a rowing boat off the coast near Broadstairs, desperate to get ashore with the news - and also looks in depth at the role of the main London newspapers and into the effects on the stock market of rumours around the outcome of the conflict with Napoleon. Along the way I was pleased to have an explanation of the term 'omnium' for a type of share, which incidentally shed an amusing side-light on Trollope's 'Duke of Omnium'. I do like the kind of book that gives you little snippets of accidental information like this An enjoyable short non-fiction read.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie thanks for highlighting that article, I've just googled for it and I think the book is going to be a DNF.

I hate not finishing books I've started, but life is way too short to drag myself through hard to read fiction books posing at historical fact. I've got better stuff sitting patiently on my TBR list!

It’s strange isn’t it Terpsichore, thinking how long news took to get out back then, especially now when we’re used to immediate updates. And of course even when the news got to London it would probably have still taken days/weeks for those living rurally to hear about it (ok maybe not in the 1800s but in the 1400/1500s).

34. Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss

I read this after seeing the review by @mackerella, it sounded interesting and intriguing. Other than that I purposely didn't read any reviews.

I really liked the idea that at the beginning of the book we get a glimpse of how life in the Iron Age was lived through the eyes of a young/teen girl and her experience.

Fast forward to today and Silvie and her family join a college course spending time living as they would have in the Iron Age. The men throughout are very much the superior and women their skivvies, in Silvie's family this is taken to the extreme by the domineering father.

I was really looking forward to a connection somehow between the girls through the ages and ultimately their joint experience (simulated in Sylvie's case). Maybe some element of the paranormal. It's clear enough for the reader to draw comparisons between the two experiences, and how although a vast amount of time has past the treatment of women by men (in some cases), really hasn't altered that much.

The ending was abrupt and left me feeling 'was that it?', but I'm not sure if that was because I expected more from the book. I have gone back and read reviews of it now, and it looks like I'm mostly a lone voice.

Altogether this book left me feeling very disappointed.

Chessie yes, the news of Waterloo made its way outside London relatively slowly. One thing I hadn't quite grasped was that there was a system known as the 'telegraph' which involved a system of shutters signalling to each other from one high point to another, much as fire-beacons had been used (more primitively) in earlier centuries. But the English didn't actually use it much - France was much keener on it. So the English were still conveying news via horseback/carriage at a relatively slow pace.

Amazingly, someone came up with the technology for the electric telegraph only a year after Waterloo - the man who invented it offered it to the Admiralty and they turned it down!

Viking and mackerella - I read Autumn ages ago but am moving Winter up the tbr pile based on your interesting discussion of the quartet.

My latest reads:

24. North by Seamus Heaney.

Powerful poetry contemplating Ireland.

25. Holy Sister (Book of the Ancester #3) by Mark Lawrence.

Third and last in this high fantasy series. Found this one the least interesting of the trilogy.

26. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.

YES, I really liked this book. The intersectionality of class, race and gender; identity, family and love all come together in this thoughtful and absorbing book. These are weighty subjects, brilliantly brought to life in this story of two sisters and their divergent paths. Together with The Burning, this is my favourite fiction book of the year so far.

28. The Long Falling - Keith Ridgeway
    Grace kills her husband by running him over with his car after his drunken violence pushes her over the edge, then flees to her estranged son's house. Martin, thrown out by his father when he told his parents he was gay, welcomes his mother into his life, introduces her to his friends and the pair settle into a tetchy domesticity until Martin finds out what Grace did and reports her whereabouts to the police. In the background runs a story about a 14-year-old rape victim denied permission by the Irish courts to go to England for an abortion. I think the reader is supposed to draw parallels between Grace and the unnamed teenager and their trapped situations but it's clumsily done and Martin comes across as a petulant arse.

29. Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
    Loved it!

38. Walking the Great North Line, Robert Trigger
The author walks from Stonehenge to Lindisfarne, visiting ancient monuments and stealth camping along the way. I'd rather be out walking, but reading about it is something at least. His thoughts about our shamanic ancestors are a bit, well, rambling and I was faintly annoyed by his descriptions of woman (why do you instantly assume she's a farmer's wife rather than a farmer?) but overall I enjoyed it as a bit of escapism.

• his descriptions of women

@Stokey

That sounds great *@JaninaDuszejko*, really interesting.

I just saw a review of Laurent Binet's new book Civilisations. He wrote HHhH which was much loved on here I seem to remember. Is it the one that Cote & Remus agree on? Anyway review is here. It sounds interesting and slightly bonkers.

OOOO

And I didn't know he'd done a second.

Thanks

I'm being good and have joined the library though. I moved counties last year and hadn't got around it

18. Medical Grade Music - Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi

Took a break halfway through David Copperfield for this extremely enjoyable, unlikely tale of how a world snooker champion and Iranian psychedelic musician ended up DJing and forming a mind-bending band together. Filled with enthusiasm and utterly heartwarming.

23. Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer
24. Venetia by Georgette Heyer
I'm having some work done in my house and am moving books around as it gets done, so inevitably I end up reading things I've unearthed from boxes etc. Enjoyed both these though Bath Tangle was weaker than I remembered (it's quite a late one and rather 'by the numbers'/paying the tax bill, apparently Georgette Heyer was virulently right-wing, disagreed with all tax and never planned for it, with the result that she was always nearly about to be done for not declaring her income). Venetia is a decent historical novel in its own way, one of her very best.

Any Jilly Cooper fans on here?

First of May, first of May......

Brrrr Chessie bit chilly for that!

You offering, Chessie? I'm up for it, given there isn't much to entertain me in the kindle monthly deals...