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?

20. The Paladin by David Ignatius

This was one of the better spy stories I have read in recent years. CIA operations officer Michael Dunne infiltrates a cyberterrorism organisation which then orchestrates his downfall, prison sentence, and divorce. Once he is released from prison, he starts a security company and recognises the hand of the cyberterrorists who cost him everything in one of his first cases.

This was interesting, fast-paced, and full of realistic details. I liked the fact that it featured modern technology and spy craft that is relevant to the 21st Century. Recommended to everyone here.

21. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

I'm not entirely sure what this book was about, but I liked it

It has madness, unreliable narrators, author-as-creator interacting with the characters, and quaint illustrations. In its own flippant, odd way, it also has some of the most astute observations about humans and human societies that I have ever seen in print, such as this one:

Patty Keene was stupid on purpose, which was the case with most women in Midland City. The women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they did not use them much for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies, and the women, if they were going to achieve any sort of comfort and safety, needed all the friends they could get. So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.

Recommended.

25. Hitman Anders And The Meaning Of It All by Jonas Jonasson

I have read another by this author but still can't decide what I think about the writing style. I do think it's fairly witty, I love the humour. However the plots are ludicrous and I just don't get absorbed in the books, I think to myself 'well I suppose I'd better read another few chapters so I can move onto the next book'.

Vaguely entertaining, but never read more than 20 minutes or so before putting it down.

I'm going through another period of struggling massively to concentrate on reading, so unfortunately my strike rate has slowed to a dismal crawl, but I was pleased to find this in BorrowBox, as it's been on my wish list for ages:

48: The Address Book - Deirdre Mask

Reviewed several times on this thread. I enjoyed this exploration of the history and importance of addresses, especially as I live off a main road and in a location which delivery people invariably claim not to be able to find (the sentence 'stay there and I'll come out and find you', which Mask quotes in the book, is all too familiar).
Quite a lot of the book focuses on America - the author's an American who now lives in London - but with forays into India, Ancient Rome, Vienna, S. Africa and Iran. I did particularly enjoy her chapter on the total absence of accurate street names and numbering in Japan, having spent many baffled hours in Tokyo trying to find specific addresses and finally realising that it's essentially a guessing game. The moment you feel you've mentally mapped your own little neighbourhood is one of real triumph!

Posting less often as my phone has loftily decided to withhold access to Mumsnet. Unsure what I did to offend it but can currently only post from laptop.

50. Scoff, by Penn Vogler
Non-fiction account of the evolution of British food preferences and the social attitudes attached to who eats what. Read this in short sections. Enjoyable enough as it goes, but it did feel fairly familiar and while there's quite a lot of it, it didn't add up to a very satisfying meal.

Currently on Diary of an MP's Wife, by Sasha Swire. If you see the Tories as self-satisfied, entitled, and lacking in any understanding of how other people live, this will not change your mind, but she exposes her entire milieu with an irresistible glee.

Barnanabas, the lighthouse book sounds like it might be a perfect birthday gift for my DM, thank you. Also loving the concept of an upstairs book and a downstairs book Ravenclawsome - it sounds very decadent

47. My Rock 'n' Roll Friend, Tracey Thorn

I wouldn't have picked this up if I hadn't happened to read a review which piqued my interest - a story of female friendship in the music industry, featuring the drummer from a band I'd never heard of? But I'm so glad I read it - what a great book.

Lindy Morrison was the drummer of The Go Betweens, an Australian 80s band who are often described as "the best band you've never heard of" (seriously, check out "Cattle and Cane" on Youtube, it's a great song). Both Lindy's life story and the story of the band and its simmering resentments are fascinating - think Daisy Jones and the Six except not made up and not trashy. The story of Lindy and the band, though, is also the story of being a woman in a male industry, of working twice as hard and being twice as good but only getting noticed for your looks or what you're wearing. It's the story of how myths are made, and who makes them, and who gets put at the centre and who gets left out. I am absolutely not a music industry nerd but I've worked in "male" industries all my life and so much of this story resonated with me.

The other half of this story is the friendship between Lindy and Tracey Thorn, and this is told with affecting honesty and emotional openness - there's so much cheesy cliched writing about the friendship between women but this isn't an example of that. I was reminded, when I stopped to think about the friendship element, of Elena Ferrante - the mixture of emotions that Thorn describes when she thinks about her outspoken, obnoxious, courageous and open-hearted friend.

Female friendship can be so complicated. Too often people are sentimental, and idealise it, focusing on the closeness, the warmth, the empathy. When I'm being honest, I will admit that I have hated female friends, possible more than I have ever hated anyone else. Certainly more than I've hated any man.....

We need our women friends in order to see ourselves mirrored and validated: to counter those moments we all experience when it feels like we don't exist in the world; when we look and can't find ourselves; when we are erased, pushed to the margins, written out of the story; when we start to feel invisible. In those moments our female friends are invaluable to us.

Thorn is a good writer - I hadn't made the connection between songwriting (which I tend to think of as a musical process, with the words being a sideline) and the writing of prose. But she does. On one of the most moving moments in the book she picks out some beautiful turns of phrase from Lindy's letters and diaries and imagines them as song lyrics, wondering why Lindy never tried to write her own songs:

I can't help thinking of the voices we miss, the art that doesn't happen, the work that women don't make because they underestimate themselves.

If you want a book about women in the 80s music industry, this is a great one. If you think (like me) that you really DON'T want a book about women in the 80s music industry, but you want to read something absorbing, poignant and thought-provoking, then give this one a try - it's much more than you think it's going to be.

@CoteDAzur

21. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

I'm not entirely sure what this book was about, but I liked it

It has madness, unreliable narrators, author-as-creator interacting with the characters, and quaint illustrations. In its own flippant, odd way, it also has some of the most astute observations about humans and human societies that I have ever seen in print, such as this one:

Patty Keene was stupid on purpose, which was the case with most women in Midland City. The women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they did not use them much for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies, and the women, if they were going to achieve any sort of comfort and safety, needed all the friends they could get. So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.

Recommended.

Not sure whether that’s astute comment on human nature or a particularly nasty bit of misogyny . It recognises that women will play dumb to ensure their own safety, but then calls them ‘stupid on purpose’ for doing so. ‘Big animals’ isn’t exactly a compliment either.

Fantastic review, Viking! I think I read the same article/excerpt, if it's the one in the Guardian, and it sounded intriguing then - and you've really sold it to me now!

Welsh I can see myself pressing copies of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos on people, too (although I'd then be gutted if they didn't love it as much as I did)

Thanks for the review of The Paladin, Cote - I'll add it to my library list!

Thanks Mackarella - we often seem to like the same books so I'm going to keep an eye out for Sara De Vos after your review.

I read Sara de Vos last year and really enjoyed it so good to see others liking it too.

43. Unseen Things Above - Catherine Fox

This is the second book in the series set in the Cathedral Close of the fictional diocese of Lindchester. I complained in my review of the first book that I disliked the way the author speaks directly to the reader at times. It still annoys me but I am overlooking it because I like the characters and storylines. In this book the diocese is awaiting the appointment of a new bishop, two couples are struggling to resolve theological requirements and beliefs with their personal lives and former choir boy, Freddie May, is still causing mayhem and chaos. Undemanding and amusing.

29 Old Baggage by Lissa Evans

This seems to have been well reviewed and much loved on here over the years and I can add another satisfied reader. Mattie and her companion Flea are both wonderful characters and I loved this. I was looking for an easy read after Half of a Yellow Sun which this was but it had satisfying hidden depths. A book to be recommended to those who love overhyped books so they can enjoy something good instead.

Adding The Paladin My Rock 'n' Roll Friend and Lighthouse to my TBR list - I need to start reading more quickly!

I'm also currently reading Diary of an MP's Wife and enjoying it greatly, plus from the online library I've got Plain Bad Heroines and There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton who wrote Fifty Sounds which I reviewed up thread. Better get off MN

29. How to Work Without Losing Your Mind - Cate Sevilla.
Conversational, funny and insightful guide to the trickier aspects of the modern workplace. I liked her willingness to tackle the darker psychology of the office - things like jealousy between women, and the misplaced psychodrama that comes when you start seeing your manager as a mother/father figure. Very millennial (I’m a geriatric millennial myself but would certainly disagree with her on what a ‘woman’ is...) and London-centric, plus she really has a grudge against her former employer Google.

64. The Power Of Hope by Kate Garraway (Audible)

Not normally the sort of thing I would buy and nothing new if you've been following the Derek Draper story, but I bought it because I really feel Kate deserves the greatest show of support in frankly dismal circumstances, God love her.

37. Invisible Girl - Lisa Jewell

A girl goes missing and a local loner is in the frame. A little different to what you would expect, I can see what the author was going for but not sure she pulled it of. It kept my attention because I wanted to know, but it was mere curiosity that got me over the finish line.

38. I Let Him Go - Denise Fergus (mother of James Bulger)

This book is utterly heartbreaking to read, for anyone, but especially if you're a parent. I was a teenager at the time and didn't really pay much attention to it other than thinking how sad it all was, so knew practically no details about it (such an oblivious teen!), this book is in the words of his mother, it gives facts, but doesn't sensationalise.

It's a difficult read at times, and like all books addressing true crime, you can't say it's enjoyable, but it had me interested throughout and so very sad for James and his remaining family.

*39. The Fog - James Herbert
*
This was one of my favourite books in my late teens so thought 25+ years later I'd give it a go again. I still really enjoyed it, the characters, plot line, and each thread of the story coming together, (still), make for a great 'horror' book. It is badly dated by talking of prices and events at the time it was written but really that's only padding for the story. If you have never read a James Herbert book, this is a good one to start with.

40. The One - John Marrs

Scientists have discovered that everybody shares a gene with someone they are genetically made for, their soulmate 'The One'.

Ten years after the discovery, millions of people have taken the test. Your soulmate can be anyone, anywhere. They could be already married, live the other side of the world, be ANYONE, it doesn't matter. Some people will be happy with their match, others not so. You can't argue with science.

Here we meet 5 people who choose to test and meet their soulmate, the book tackles morals, ethics, pursuit of happiness, and what people will really do to get the ultimate match.

Of course there are many questions thrown up, and it's up to the match seekers how they deal with those.

This book had me truly gripped, I found it easy to believe that we could be there in the not too distant future. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I thought Breakfast of Champions was truly terrible.

Not got time to read the thread or review properly, but finished a very good book about Checkpoint Charlie and its part in the Cold War.

Found my review of Breakfast of Champions

I'm afraid that I absolutely hated this. He's obviously clever and some of the metafiction stuff was mildly diverting, but he wastes an awful lot of his cleverness/ink on being cocky and spouting drivel. Awful.

Lots of lists of penis sizes. Riveting.

It's another classic Remus/Cote book disagreement . Haven't read this one so no idea whose side I'm on.

@Hushabyelullaby The One sounds very like a show that was recently on Amazon called Soulmates. I wonder if it was based on the book?

Hushabyelullaby I got The One on BorrowBox earlier today after hearing really positive reviews of it on the Currently Reading podcast so it's great to hear you enjoyed it. Stokey I think it has been turned into a TV show but with the same title as the novel.
23. I Want You To Know We're Still Here by Esther Safran Foer
Non-fiction. The American author was born in the mid 1940s to Jewish parents who had fled from their villages in what is now the Ukraine during the Second World War. In this book she shares what she knows of her own story and her parents' experiences, as well as detailing how she researched the fates of their wider families and the villages that had previously been their homes. A short read and a little confusing at times to keep track of who's who, but poignant as Safran Foer reflects on how her parents became the people she knew and strives to recognise the lives of relatives who didn't survive the war.
Has anyone here read Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer? What did you think of it? He is Esther's son and she mentions this novel repeatedly as it is fiction very loosely based on one of the villages that his relatives lived in. I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close a few years ago and felt that it was a bit too clever for me.

Just snapped up Before the Coffee Gets Cold in the 99p deals today

49: The Guermantes Way - Marcel Proust

Vol 3 of Remembrance of Things Past, which I'm reading (slowly) with friends. It feels like a life's work, really, but to summarise very briefly, the eponymous narrator, having cherished a love from afar for the aristocratic Duchesse de Guermantes, without ever having actually met her (an unfortunate and now very recognisable character trait of his), finally does meet her and becomes part of her circle, just as his adoration fades. We're treated to many pages of interminable family trees as the flower of the Faubourg Saint Germain gather socially, while - much closer to home - Marcel's own beloved grandmother dies. At the end of the volume, another key character, the sinister and predatory Baron de Charlus, continues what will clearly be his ongoing pursuit of young Marcel. Impossible to sum up in a few lines and pretty pointless really, but I'm quite surprised to be enjoying the work and concentration this demands.

@CluelessMama - I've read Everything is Illuminated and I loved it. I tried Here I Am by the same author and hated it.

Thanks Yolandi

I remember really liking everything is illuminated at the time of reading it, but now I remember very little about it

@Hushabyelullaby

I was living in Liverpool during the James Bulger case and it's safe to say I won't be reading the book, but it was one of those "you'll always remember where you were" things. Not the disappearance and subsequent finding of his body (by the train track I went on every day) but the Saturday morning when on the radio news it was confirmed what had been whispered for days, that the two boys had been detained. I remember going up to my friend's bedsit (we had 2 bedsits in a shared house) and getting her up to tell her. The people banging on the side of the van taking them to court or somewhere. And me thinking they're ten years old. They must be terrified. Rightly or wrongly, a case I think with more than one victim. Then the trial. I was standing on my bed changing a lightbulb when the verdict came in.
It's weird what bits we remember.