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?

Coinciding with Tanaqui in reaching book no. 50!

50: Shepperton Babylon - Matthew Sweet

DH and I are devotees of obscure British B&W films, have Talking Pictures on speed-dial and take an unhealthy interest in spotting little-known bit-players on cast-lists on IMDb, so this history of British movie-making from its earliest days should have been right up my street.

Unfortunately it wasn't quite what I'd hoped: satisfyingly detailed, and with plenty of good anecdotes, but also with a dismissive tone that started out as mildly amusing and then became a bit too relentless. Given the title, this was presumably intended as an in-joke, a knowing nod to Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon - but after a while, the routine putting down of every star of British film was just wearisome. Nobody comes out of this with unqualified praise; there are little (or not so little) digs at everyone from George Formby to John Mills to Richard Attenborough. All the interviews Sweet conducts with aged actors of yesteryear seem sad and ultimately a bit pointless. And I'm not sure that the last chapter, a fairly long exploration of the cheap and tawdry 'sexploitation' genre of the 1960s and 70s, sits all that logically with the rest (Sweet's argument is that these 'films that will never be released on DVD by the BFI' deserve to be included because they 'reveal just as much about the ideological texture of their times').

A bit of a frustrating mixed bag of a read for the nerdy film-lover, in other words.

28. Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers

This has been reviewed on here as it was where I heard about this book - and I am glad I did. Set in the 1950s with Jean Swinney, a reporter on a local paper covering a potential virgin birth. In investigating the story, Jean becomes entwined with Gretchen and her husband and daughter. The plot is absorbing but I particulary enjoyed the evocation of 1950s suburban life, listening to the radio in the evening, small, regular, shopping trips, plain food, weekly baths etc. As I am rubbish at plots, I did not spot the obviously sign posted ending which broke my heart. I found this a really enjoyable, absorbing, poignant read.

@tanaqui - definitely worth a re-read. I got so much more out of it the second time through

I fell off the thread due to ridiculously slow reading (I don't think I can count the Grayson's Art Club exhibition catalogue even though the interviews are fascinating).

Just want to agree with PepeLePew about H is for Hawk. I was given this as a present, and having little interest in memoirs and none for birds of prey only read it out of politeness. I was gripped.

I followed An Instance of the Fingerpost with Arcadia by the same author which was also very clever and very enjoyable. In fact, I should look see if the library has any more of his books now they're open again (once I've got through the - real and virtual - pile I've already got from them!)

58. There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton I picked this up from the library following on from reading PB's book of essays Fifty Sounds . It's a gently quirky novel, following a young woman who has had an (initially unspecified) bad experience in a previous job, through a series of temporary posts.

Congrats to everyone who has reached 50 with half the year still to go!

31. F* You Very Much: the surprising truth about why people are so rude - Danny Wallace
Gently amusing exploration of modern rudeness, a good no-effort book for last thing at night.

Just started How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House. It’s unrelentingly grim and awkwardly written, isn’t it? But I paid $5 to read it as a Hot Pick from the library, so I’m going to stick with it to the (no doubt) bitter end.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

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.

I have to admit that I didn't get much out of the penis sizes, either

The guy slowly going mad was well done, though, and I also liked the meta stuff.

Ladybird - re 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.

"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."

Since you're not sure, let me explain it to you: "Stupid on purpose" = Acting stupid. He says many women act stupid because from an evolutionary point of view we were selected to seek consensus and make allies to survive in a dangerous world where men dominate. The women who followed other women, agreed with them and "groomed" them survived and passed on their genes. Those who didn't, challenged authority, had their own opinions just didn't survive as often so their genes were passed on at a lower rate.

It is not misogyny but a concisely put bit of astute observation about human societies. It is not insult or compliment, and it rings very true. You know it does.

Humans are big animals with big brains. That is all the "big animals" comment is about and, again, it is not an insult or a compliment. It just is.

Do you not find it curious that you see an observation about evolution and human societies and your reaction is on an emotional level, about whether it is an attack on the group (of all females)? What seems to matter most to you is to defend women, and not to figure out whether it might be true. So you leave the thinking/problem solving part of your evaluation at "Not sure" (doesn't matter as much) and immediately go on to assess the possible threat to all women by branding it "misogyny".

I find this fascinating.

10. (New here!!) The Split

A year ago Felicity Lloyd fled England to South Georgia, one of the most remote islands in the world, escaping her past and the man she once loved. Can she keep running her whole life?

Freddie Lloyd has served time for murder - and now he wants her back. Wherever she is, he won't stop until he finds her. Will he be able to track her to the ends of the earth?

• Not sure about this. I'm a third in and it's not grabbing me. I don't feel anything for any of the characters. Will continue on!

Cote, I think we may have different ideas about the value of evolutionary psychology in explaining the ‘nature’ of women. Arguing that women are compliant and agreeable by nature (because natural selection ensured the preservation of those tendencies) rather serves the dominant patriarchal narrative. Certainly enough women of an argumentative and opinionated nature survive to produce me.

@Tarahumara, I didn't realise how perfectly I had timed that - I wonder if I will make 100 this year? Possibly, if I continue hiding from real life in the pages of Agatha Christie!

@Sadik, @YolandiFuckinVisser, thank you for the advice - I shall plan a reread and also look at his other work.

51. Evil Under The Sun by Agatha Christie. Not quite a classic Poirot (imo), as although the setting is lovely (a hotel on an almost island), and the characters are fairly well fleshed out, I am not entirely sure I buy the murderer - the red herring clue is almost more realistic! But a good ride to get there.

If anyone's interested in Jane Harper's latest, The Survivors, it's down to 99p today.

15. The silent treatment by Abbie Greaves A man hasn't spoken to his wife for six months. This story looks back over the marriage and eventually reveals why.

This was an interesting premise and I really enjoyed the early parts of them meeting at uni. The ending wasn't that surprising but it was an enjoyable read.

16. Unsettled ground by Claire Fuller Twins in their fifties living in the countryside cope with the death of their mother.

I love the writing of this author. It was interesting to read about older unmarried people who don't seem to get many books written about them. I enjoyed this one but don't think it'll win the women's prize. My favourite of hers is swimming lessons.

Waves back to Pepe. I completely agree with your review of Luster, vital modern day themes, odd central non-plot. It is interesting how books can resonate (or not) depending on when we read them in our lives.

😂Olly and Eine for your entertaining reviews.

Stokey, re: The Stormlight Archive I’m with you on that! I read the third book half way though last year and I’m still not tempted to read the fourth yet.

@LadybirdDaphne

Cote, I think we may have different ideas about the value of evolutionary psychology in explaining the ‘nature’ of women. Arguing that women are compliant and agreeable by nature (because natural selection ensured the preservation of those tendencies) rather serves the dominant patriarchal narrative. Certainly enough women of an argumentative and opinionated nature survive to produce me.

If you have a "different idea" re women's predominantly consensus-building nature and innate aversion to cause offence, do please explain what it is rather than suggest that you have one. I don't have a different explanation and this one that I read in Breakfast of Champions felt like it was an astute observation.

Those of us with an argumentative and opinionated nature do exist but we are a small minority and our position in especially female society is somewhat shaky. Women don't like women who stick out, and when we want to talk about controversial subjects, we are often shot down by other women who take offence (emotional, not intellectual) at our arguments and questions - like what you did in your previous reply.

As for whether or not the above "serves the dominant patriarchal narrative", I do not care one bit. What I am trying to talk about here is that there is TRUTH in the observation that many women DO act stupid, DO NOT want to show that they excel in maths and sciences, DO seek approval, consensus, and a secure place among a circle of other females. And whether this has to do with evolutionary pressures of being physically weaker and needing strength in numbers to survive in the male-dominated world.

@Tanaqui I've just realised that I've missed a month - we're five months into the year, not six! 🤦‍♀️ So you're doing even better than we thought 😀

FinishedThe Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy. Like her other novels this is beautifully written and evocative. Quite uneventful which I suppose to be deliberate. The simple uncle and his fawn subplot engaged me the most. I like this writer but think the other two I have read by her may be better, plot wise.

Dropping in from a sunny waterside deck in Norfolk (smug? Moi?????) to mention that Unbound have 10 of their ebooks at 99p to mark their 10th birthday: twitter.com/unbounders/status/1399331087160168450

The only one of the 10 that I've read is Mary Sate, Imbecile which I loved. Can't find my review but it was completely original and one of my best reads a couple of years ago.

Ah Norfolk would be lovely. I've made it to the Worcestershire which is beautiful but far from any sea.

44. The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett. I'm sure this has been reviewed as is on the Woman's Prize shortlist. It's about twins who grow up in a small town in the US where everyone is fair skinned but black. They run away and one of them starts passing for white and disappears while the other returns home. It follows both twins and their daughters. I felt like there were some really interesting themes going through this, and didn't know that "passing" was a thing, but it lacked a bit of characterisation for me. The strongest parts were when the "white" sister was making friends with a black woman in her neighbourhood as she felt quite genuine then, while I felt the other sister didn't have as much of a voice. The two daughters were also not that strong. There's also a trans character who again is thinly drawn, although there is an obvious "passing" parallel. I feel like it was a bit of missed opportunity.

19. A Crooked Tree, by Una Mannion. Got rather more than I bargained for here. As a family are driving home one night, their mother, exhausted from the children fighting, stops the car and forces 12 year old Ellen to walk home. The rest of the story follows the family as the ramifications of that night unfold. This was fantastic. I was expecting a crime novel and got a coming of age novel that brilliantly puts you in rural 80's America and explores family relationships, teenage friendships, and unintended consequences.

20. The Lamplighters, by Emma Stonex. Three lighthouse keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse at Christmas 1972. What happened to them? Told by different characters in 1972 and years later, there is some brilliant writing here, and I loved it as I read it. However, it hasn't stuck with me as I expected and I'm left feeling pretty ambivalent about it.

21. The Cutting Room, by Jane Casey. I wasn't familiar with Jane Casey and it turns out this is the ninth in the series of Maeve Kerrigan books. Maeve is a DS in London, investigating the disappearance of a journalist who was in turn investigating the goings on at a secretive member's club. Excellent, will definitely be reading more of this series.

22. The Postscript Murders, by Elly Griffiths. The second in the Harbinder Kaur series. I love Elly Griffiths and as much as I'm a fan of Ruth Galloway, it's a nice departure to have a new set of characters. Very well done, although gets a bit too convoluted towards the end.

If you have a "different idea" re women's predominantly consensus-building nature and innate aversion to cause offence, do please explain what it is rather than suggest that you have one.

Socialisation?
Girl babies and boy babies are treated differently from a very young age.
If traits like compliance, seeking approval and so on are encouraged and rewarded in girls, but not so much in boys, then it wouldn’t be all that surprising if a boy / girl pair born with similar temperaments behaved differently when fully grown.

I take the point that girls who are seen as too “difficult” might have been less likely to find partners and have babies, but I’m less convinced that personality traits are genetically linked to sex chromosomes.

Cote, my questions about the validity of evolutionary psychology in explaining women’s nature are based on intellectual concerns. While evolutionary psychology does come under the umbrella of science, it’s not a hard science and it’s hypotheses are not testable. It can posit ideas about why we are the way we are, based on evolutionary history, but they can’t be proved or disproved, because we can’t get in a time machine and see what our ancient ancestors were up to.

Other narratives are possible, based on the role of culture and socialisation, as Stitches says. We can’t prove/disprove those either, so people’s position in nature/nurture debates is necessarily an opinion (albeit sometimes very well informed) rather than objective truth. It seems most likely that both nature and nurture are implicated in the formation of human personalities.

Even if we do go along with the suggestions of evolutionary psychology, it’s not just human females who are thought to have evolved to be agreeable and consensus-forming. Human males are generally also less aggressive than our nearest relatives (chimps). And even in chimp societies, the most successful alpha males aren’t the biggest and most violent, but those who spend a lot of time on relationship building as well as shows of strength.

26. Mr Penhumbra 24 hour bookstore by Robin Sloan

I read this as part of my tidying up effort on my kindle, I can't remember why I purchased it.

It's about a group of friends who all happen to have complementary skills and band together to try and solve a centuries old code with new technology.

I liked the main character and how he relates to his friends. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous and far fetched but on the whole enjoyable enough.