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?

17. Linda Grant - Stranger City - For anyone in England suffering from a gut-wrenching, sleep-stealing ohGodohGodohGod fear for the future, well, this book ain't gonna help. It's fair to say that the author doesn't see this ending well either.

The book jumps between several characters living in, having died in, or escaped from London, often with glancing connections to each other. It's very much a hostile environment novel. It's evocative of time and place, the characters you meet are for the most part good people, and the prose reads effortlessly. However it wasn't quite the novel I wanted to read.

For me, the book doesn't offer a new angle, or shed light on our predicament. It doesn't satirise or send up, or empathise with the non-like-minded, or seek to explain. I'd expected an element of suspense which I didn't find. It just wallows almost joylessly in the grimness of it all, the occasional glimmer of friendship and familial love not enough to leaven it. There are 2 child deaths, the most horrific of which was thrown in as a traumatic memory to establish a policeman's character. So, not a winner for me.

The Girl With The Louding Voice is 99p on Kindle daily deals if anyone has it on their TBR list.

@VikingNorthUtsire - re Prairie Fires and your excellent review, I read and reread most of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a kid. I don't think that The First Four Years about the early years of Laura and Almanzo's married life, was ever published here or by Puffin but someone did bring back a copy of me from the US, and it did start to show a lot of hardship. I can see why Puffin might not have wanted to publish it as it's quite bleak and not really a book for kids as such.

The author of Prairie Fires has also written a book on environmental issues (from the title listed on LibraryThing) and is quite concerned about them. Some of the problems affecting the Ingalls and Wilder families stemmed in part from the way settler land was divvied up into small parcels and then trees were cut down etc, and the settlers and the US government who had established policies of encouraging people to move to knew areas and settle/farm the land (and disregard previous settlement and use of the land by indigenous people) really hadn't foreseen the consequences of their actions.

I certainly didn't realise at the time when I was reading these books but in another conversation recently I realised that these novels were being published in the 1930s at just the time when parts of the south and the west/south west of the US were being badly affected by the dustbowl..

That's strange Desdemona, it's not in the daily deals that I can see

That is weird NowANearly, I received an email with it listed as a daily deal kindle book at 13:19 but now it's not even coming up in a kindle book search at 99p or any other price. I reckon it's a cock up on their part.
Send them an email saying you tried to buy it at 99p and maybe they'll allow you to, this is a copy of the email I got today with it clearly showing

That’s weird - when I looked this morning there were about 5 books in the daily deal, including The Girl With The Louding Voice but now only 3 books are showing and TGWTLV isn’t there.

Great review Viking.

The Stonemason's Tale - Ann Swinfen
Last of her Oxford Medieval Series and not the best. Bookseller turned accidental detective gets caught up in the latest issues in the town. The whodunit element was easy to guess and the why was tenuous. Sadly the author died and had plans for more so the ongoing will they/won't they romance was not resolved. I've thoroughly enjoyed the series nonetheless.

Of Women and Salt - Gabriela Garcia
This looks at the immigrant experience to the US through the lens of different women but, mostly concentrates on Cubans as they entered under more welcome circumstances that those from other Latin American countries. I found it interesting in that I know little about Cuba, but overall it was not offering anything that different that the recent glut of similarly themed books.

Her Here - Amanda Dennis
A very consciously literary novel within a novel. A young woman dealing with the loss of her mother is asked by a family friend to retrace her daughter's diaries to find out what happened to her when she went missing in Thailand. While there were some beautiful bits of writing at times I'm not entirely convinced I "got it" and came away feeling it was pretentious shite.

My Name is Why - Lemn Sissay
Poet Lemn Sissay fought for years to get his file from the local authorities about his time in care in the 60/70s. Upon receiving it he wrote about his experiences alongside excerpts of the official documents.

I meant to read this last year when it was very popular on the thread but never got round to it. I found it absolutely heart wrenchingly sad. I am from the same town as his foster family and he was a few years below my older brother at primary. It was a strange experience to know the places he was speaking about and actually know some of the people mentioned. I asked my mum if she remembered Lemn and she instantly knew him as Norman as he played with her best friend's son regularly. As the boys went off to different secondaries my mum wasn't aware of him leaving the family and was very sad to hear it as she recalled he was a very sweet and well mannered little boy. This just made the whole book feel even sadder. The insight into the care system at the time is shocking and makes you wonder how people can be so cruel to one another, let alone vulnerable children. I'm not really into poetry but it has made me want to look into more of Lemn's work.

I really want to read Prairie Fires now after the reviews on here

51. The Trial by Franz Kafka

Though its a great concept, I found it to be absolute torture as a read, and would have DNFd if it wasn't short.

@DesdamonasHandkerchief

The Girl With The Louding Voice is 99p on Kindle daily deals if anyone has it on their TBR list.

For those who can't see it in the deals - it came up this morning when I checked (first thing - sadly, it's usually about the first thing I do!).

I just looked, having read the updates here, and it's still listed there for me at 99p. Most odd.

I think Puffin did publish Farmer Boy, elkiedee? I certainly read it as a child - my copy looks like this.

Pepe - You've made me really want to read some Patrick Hamilton now.

Farmer Boy was written for children and is the story of Almanzo's boyhood - Laura wrote it quite early on. The First Four Years is a darker account of the difficult time that they had as newlyweds, and according to Prairie Fires, Laura chose not to put it forward for publication but Rose got it published after her mother's death (I think that's right?)

Elkie, I'm not surprised to hear that Fraser has gone on to write about environmental issues. She certainly explains in PF the issues that you mention, that it was the methods and scale of farming on the grasslands which led to the destruction of the ecosystem and the horrendous hardships that the farmers faced.

Oh yes sorry I got confused but I did have The First Four Years as well.

Fantastic review Viking. Really want to read it now. The First Four Years was definitely published in the UK, I still have my copy (see attachment for the back page with the price: 90p!).

The Girl with the Louding Voice is coming up as 99p when I search for it. I'm currently in an earlier Lagos era because I've finally started Half of a Yellow Sun and loving it so far.

Darn it, definitely can't get The Girl with the Louding Voice at 99p. Have consoled myself with 3 books from the monthly deals instead
Abide with me - Elizabeth Strout
Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver
Our souls at night - Kent Haruf
Whoops!!

Nowanearly does this work?

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SD4XJDQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_WK8AZFZDJ3HY7XFR9AN2?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Remus, I’d really recommend him. One of the most overlooked authors from last century, in my view. Definitely
Slaves of Solitude or Hangover Square to start. They are his best and if you don’t get on with them you’ll hate the others. Hangover Square is the bleakest book I’ve ever read, and you did say you had Shuggie Bain put aside for holiday reading so it could be right up your street.

I loved your review, too, Viking. Much more eloquent than my ramblings.

Just catching up after a busy week or two.

I don't look at the book offers on Amazon, I just wait until the 1st and then go to ereaderiq and click on books under £1 and it shows me all those offers, it's much easier.

All the discussion and Vikings review has inspired me to finally finish

51. Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser As Viking says, this is very much a book of three parts, Laura's childhood (the 'truth' behind the books), her early adult life, & then her older life & the period when the Little House books were written. Her relationship with her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane is interwoven throughout.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this anywhere near as much as I'd been expecting. I think it didn't help that I've read quite a lot about Laura's life previously, and also know a reasonable amount about the historical context, so the first part wasn't particularly new to me. But as I mentioned up thread, the thing I really struggled with was the author's assumptions about what all of the players 'must have felt' / 'would have said'.

She talks about the 'obvious psychological connection' between the fire that destroyed their house when Rose was a small child & the various houses she built as an adult. Well, maybe, but then again, maybe not. She later criticises Laura and Rose for their collaborative approach to writing the books - Laura 'saw writing as a cottage industry'; 'she did not see how powerfully the writer's perspective - an emotional connection to the subject - affects a book'. I've chatted quite a lot with a friend who's a (reasonably successful) children's author about this, and found it interesting that she didn't see a collaborative approach like this as anything strange at all.

More generally, I found Fraser's relentless disparaging of Rose Wilder Lane very unhelpful. Even her (very inoffensive) teenage portrait photo is described as 'sultry'. Obviously she was a difficult woman and developed distateful political views in later life. But I really feel that a more objective and less emotive approach would have convinced me far more. Overall a disappointment.

45: I'm Not Complaining - Ruth Adam

I've got quite interested in this slightly forgotten writer since chancing on one of her books ( A House in the Country ) published by Furrowed Middlebrow, then managed to score a rare novel off eBay, Set to Patners, of which there appear to be no other copies around. I then sent off for this, which Virago republished in the 80s but which first appeared in 1938.

The narrator is 30-year-old teacher Madge Brigson, who labours away in a deprived Nottinghamshire school with a variety of other female colleagues. Madge is single, wryly humorous, and has no illusions about her pupils, regarding most children as savages - but she takes unsentimental pride in her work and her calling as a teacher.
Much of the pleasure of the narrative is in her observations of her colleagues, including her beautiful, sexually-free friend Jenny - it's unusual (I think) to read a novel of the 30s that's so frank about a single woman getting pregnant and having an abortion - communist Miss Simpson and gentle, spinsterish Miss Jones, who unexpectedly reveals herself to have a 'man-friend'.
Admittedly, the plot overall isn't superbly crafted but I was happy to follow in Madge's footsteps through the privations of the Depression in fictional Lower Bronton (even if her characterisation of the feckless 'lower orders' is sometimes very much of its era), and I liked her 'voice' very much indeed. It reminded me a lot of Winifred Holtby, though perhaps a bit livelier and more subversive. A fascinating curiosity, and I've already got a later Ruth Adam novel on order, this time about adoption.

Only just seen your message Viking so I'm not sure whether it would have worked yesterday but clearly this morning I'm too late! Thanks so much for trying though.

Loving all the chat about Prairie Fires. I don't know how many times I read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a kid.

Terpsichore what a great discovery - lovely review.

Pepe, thanks for the reminder that I really do want to get round to reading some Patrick Hamilton at some point!

Should be Set to Partners above 👆 Yet again, if only MN had an edit function.....

42. A Necessary End, by Hazel Holt
Cosy crime. The manager of the local charity shop may have been murdered, but if we have a sit-down, a cup of tea and a nice chat, we'll all feel much better. Soothing.

28. Three Women - Lisa Taddeo

Compelling but ultimately unsatisfying exploration of female desire as expressed through the stories of three American women. I was disappointed that the sex lives of all three women were problematic and under male control to some degree. Where is the space for female desire that is active, chooses for itself and finds satisfaction without shame? I understand that this is hard to achieve, but I’m pretty sure I sometimes came close in my (much missed and longed for) youth.