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?

@SOLINVICTUS it is weird what you remember, being in Liverpool at the time must have made it all the more harrowing, I'm not surprised you won't be reading the book.

1 hour warning that the Hay Festival starts tonight.

Hay Festival

Nothing but Blue Sky is also on the 99p Kindle deal today. It was on the Woman's prize Longleat and think a couple of people on here have our positive reviews.

I'm still slogging through Brandon Sanderson book 3, I've read over 500 pages and still am only 50% through. I may give up.

*long list no idea why it corrected to Longleat, I've been there once about 10 years ago!

Public Service Announcement

The dirge of adjectival "I know lots of words, me" whiny twaddle that is I Am An Island is on the deals today.
If you thought the Salt Path woman was up her own backside, this one is so far up she's poking out of her own gob.
It went back for a refund after about 30 pages of dreary, smug, ate-a-thesaurus, poor me whining.
Cut out the bit where you download it and start it before sending it back for your 99p.
I'd sooner live with Raynor bloody Winn than read anything else like this.
It is, without a shadow of a doubt, the absolute worst book I have downloaded from the deals in the past 3 years.
My hatred is unbridled. You can probably tell.

Sol

@SOLINVICTUS Oops

Hello, new here.

I've read 6 books in 12 on account of the awful tv offering at the moment.

The Catch - TM Logan
Alcohol lied to me - Beck
The unexpected joy of being sober - Catherine Grey
The sober girls handbook - Millie Gooch
Glorious rock Bottom - Bryony Gordon
Drink? Prof David Nutt

(Not an alcoholic by the way, just decided to quit anyway)

@SOLINVICTUS @Hushabyelullaby

Greetings from another Scouser who wont be reading it. The atmosphere in the city at the time was dark and only slightly less awful and tense than the Hillsborough Disaster fallout

Ha, SOL I agree that the author is incredibly self absorbed and, erm, eccentric, but I found I Am An Island completely fascinating. Definitely wouldn't want to go on holiday with her though

Sol

Thanks for the heads up about the Hay Festival, Fortuna! I'm not sure how many events I'll actually manage to see - especially as I'm hoping that we'll be on holiday next week - but I've been through all the speakers and now have a massively increased TBR pile.

Sol, your review may have backfired, as I'm tempted to read I Am An Island to see if it's really as bad as you say

I'm currently in a fascinating online bookshop event with the Secret Barrister and Alexandra Wilson. Definitely going to read In Black and White and Fake Law soon!

47. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

I’m sure that just about everyone is familiar with the premise of this one by now.
It’s a chilling and disturbingly plausible read.

48. Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen

A reread of another one that I expect everyone is familiar with. I love this book.

57 Diary of an MP's Wife by Sasha Swire
I enjoyed this greatly - funny, bitchy and confirming all the worst things you may have thought about the Cameron government and his Eton educated inner circle. It covers the period from the 2010 election & the formation of the coalition government, through to Johnson's victory in the 2019 Brexit election (at which Hugo Swire, her husband, left politics).

65. The Power And The Glory by Graham Greene

Had this on the shelf for eons. It's my fourth Greene after The End Of The Affair, The Human Factor, and The Heart Of The Matter, I have never really "got on" with Greene and it might be my last.

A disgraced alcoholic priest goes on the run from a Communist regime that is executing men of the cloth.

Wherever he goes he knowingly endangers poor people whilst also trying to extract money from them for Rites and Sacraments.

I was willing them to shoot the fucker frankly.

Mort by Terry Pratchett
This was a re-read, having read it once before a very long time ago. I liked it the first time and enjoyed it again this time. Death is such a brilliant character. It's made me want to revisit a few others, having only read most of them once. Might get Reaper Man or Feet of Clay as a holiday read.

The Power and the Glory is a slog, Eine. It may have been the nail in my Greene coffin too. Shame, as I really enjoyed The Heart of the Matter and have a vague feeling that reading more Greene would make me a better, wiser person. But yes, that priest was duller than a dull thing and I don’t even remember if he was alive or dead at the end of the book. Silence by Shusaka Endo is much better for rogue Catholic priests on the run from people who want to kill them.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

65. The Power And The Glory by Graham Greene

Had this on the shelf for eons. It's my fourth Greene after The End Of The Affair, The Human Factor, and The Heart Of The Matter, I have never really "got on" with Greene and it might be my last.

A disgraced alcoholic priest goes on the run from a Communist regime that is executing men of the cloth.

Wherever he goes he knowingly endangers poor people whilst also trying to extract money from them for Rites and Sacraments.

I was willing them to shoot the fucker frankly.

I love GG. I don't even know why I think TPaTG is my favourite. I'm still trying to find the one of his that contains the quote that my friend sent me in the 1980s (as I lay sobbing and heartbroken at having been dumped) "if she had not wanted me to love her, she should not have looked at me". I changed the pronouns in a very before my time way calligraphed it onto a postcard and stuck it, dripping with sobs and gin, into my diary. Never come across it in his books though!

If you can get hold of it in translation or speak Spanish, my favourite priest book is Requiem por un campesino español by Sender. It's horrifically sublime. Can be read in an afternoon.

Welcome @homemadefries. Crap tv certainly does free up reading time!

Stokey, I skim read a fair bit of the third book!

30. Luster by Raven Leilani.

Living life through Edie, a black woman in her twenties working in New York. Soul-sucking jobs and boyfriends, small terrible apartments, loneliness and abuse, race and relationships. I just found it all quite miserable with interminable sentences. There are some similarities with Queenie (which I preferred). 3/5

I thought The Power and the Glory was brilliant! It may be in my top 10 books of all time. It is many years since I've read it though.

I changed the pronouns in a very before my time way grin calligraphed it onto a postcard and stuck it, dripping with sobs and gin, into my diary.

Love this, SOL.

Welcome homemade. Re the awful TV offering, I'm going to throw in a slightly random recommendation for Channel 4's We are Ladyparts, which I thought was hilarious and heartwarming and a gleeful smashing of stereotypes.

Have finished 51. Diary of an MP's Wife, by Sasha Swire and agree with Sadik's review. It's certainly a lively read, although it won't make you think any more kindly of Tory politicians - it's all a great big status struggle where any kind of mastery of your brief or understanding of what you're voting about is an optional extra. All that unexamined privilege. The author adored being close to the centre of power and dispensing her political opinions - ultimately she should gone into politics rather than pushing her husband into it - I picked up a supressed rage at being "just a spouse" when she is worthy of being part of the political scene in her own right.

When she feels worthy is what that should have said. Can't really judge "is worthy".

@homemadefries that's a great list of 'quit lit'. I'm 3 months into giving up alcohol and am currently listening to Gloriously Rock Bottom on Audible. You may also like Alcohol Explained by William Porter I've just had the second book delivered. He does weekly Facebook live sessions on his group as well.

Unexpected Joy of Being Sober was my first quit lit book, which I read after thinking in the back of my mind I was drinking too regularly. Loved this book and would highly recommend it to anyone questioning their relationship with alcohol.

Currently reading Fifty Fifty by Steve Cavanagh and really enjoying it so far. Have been fed up of same old story thrillers in the past, but this is structured around a court case, so feels much different. About two sisters who are blaming each other for their fathers murder. Was featured on last series on BBC Between the Covers too.