50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Six

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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, the fourth one here and the fifth one here.

So, we're now almost half way through the year - how's the first half of the year gone for you, reading-wise?

Des I hate it when I have really high hopes for a book and it doesn't quite meet expectations. It always feels quite disappointing, like I've been robbed.

Widmerpool is my abiding memory of DTTMOT - such an excellent character!

@FortunaMajor @DesdamonasHandkerchief I loved the Mermaid, maybe because I was expecting not to? We did it for book club and actually I think we all really liked it, and several of us have bought copies for friends. I found the baddies bit one of the least successful parts, but apart from that I loved the layers and all the themes - history, mythology, racism, poverty, love - I just thought she really pulled it off without it feeling like she was trying to. Most of the characters were well drawn and convincing, the whole thing just rang true for me.

I'm about a third of the way through The Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead and enjoying it so far.

I've just bought The Bookshop too after Sol's endorsing review.

The feel good ending was a bit too schmaltzy for my dark and twisty soul

Ha ha, I relate to this

Thanks all for best wishes. Am cracking on with reading!

cassandre my BIL is in Alabama. He has just had a minor cancer op, is prone to blood clots and has a DS with Down Syndrome. Totally anti vaccination. No one is vaccinated in Alabama....it's like a different universe.

Sorry that your summer has been so tough, Piggy.

Catching up on my holiday reading. I started off with some re-reads:

• In Ruins, by Christopher Woodward. I love the author's reflection on the poignancy of ruins, and how they have inspired artists through the centuries. He has a section on Sir John Soane's Museum, which I visited as I passed through London, hence the reread.
• The Thirty-Nine Steps, by John Buchan. I then headed up to Scotland, so read this to put me in the mood - it's mainly a giant game of hide and seek around the west of Scotland.
• Some Tame Gazelle, by Barbara Pym. Just for pleasure.

I started The Stand, by Stephen King but it wasn't the right book for the holiday (Lord bless the Kindle so we're not stuck with the books we thought would be right).

Instead I read:

76. Hungry, by Grace Dent
Like others on here, I enjoyed this account of her childhood, her family, and how she started on her career. Warmly and affectionately told. I identified with the complicated feelings around pulling away from your roots and still feeling the tug back.

77. Don't Tell Alfred, by Nancy Mitford
It was mentioned on here that this was a sequel to Love in a Cold Climate, which I hadn't realized. Nice to get glimpses of an older Uncle Matthew and Davey and of course the Bolter, although they only feature fleetingly. Interesting to see how 50s youth were so shocking to their 1930s parents, who had once shocked their own parents so much (not Fanny and Alfred themselves, but their contemporaries). It's not as good as Love in a Cold Climate and I'm not sure it stands up by itself, but I was sufficiently interested in it as a follow-up.

78. The Blessing, by Nancy Mitford
Young English woman marries French men and needs to learn to accept that he can't be fettered by dull English expectations of marital fidelity. This reads as Nancy talking herself into staying with her own French lover, who had no intention of being faithful to her. Again, it's more interesting in context than as a stand-alone work, although I did laugh at a ball scene where two newborn babies are potentially mixed up and the mothers, giggling, toss a coin for the prettier one.

79. Can Medicine Be Cured? by Seamus O'Mahoney
Irascible consultant at the end of his career sets out his views on everything that's gone wrong with the profession, from the uselessness of most medical research to protocols that fetter clinical judgement to managerialism and consumerism. This won't be everyone's idea of holiday reading, but part of me wishes that I had opted for a medical career and it gives me perspective to realize the frustrations of this profession.

80. I Leap over the Wall, by Monica Baldwin
Fellow lovers of nun lit, I bring you tidings of joy! This is a memoir by a woman who joined a strict order of Catholic nuns in 1914, emerging into the very different world of 1942. I enjoyed her account of how she flounders around trying to make sense of a changed society and do meaningful war work while feeling entirely ill-equipped for this new life.

81. Three Rooms, Jo Hamya
A recent release. A young woman meanders around Oxford and London, brooding on the fact that postgraduate degrees in English Lit don't allow you to buy property in expensive areas in your twenties. I think the author was aiming for something like A Room of One's Own, but she didn't manage to universalise the injustice in the way that Woolf did, and it came across as petulant rather than powerful. I'm sympathetic to the intergenerational unfairness of the property market (and the holder of financially unrewarding postgrad degrees myself), but the privileged young protagonist needs to do a bit more career research and stop feeling sorry for herself.

Ooh, I like the sound of I Leap Over the Wall, thanks bibliomania!

I Leap Over the Wall, yes! It's been years since I read that. Wasn't she some distant relation of Stanley Baldwin?

biblio, you've jogged my memory into remembering a more recent memoir, Through the Narrow Gate by Karen Armstrong, who joined a Catholic order at 17 and was there for 7 years. She had quite a distinguished career as a writer and broadcaster after that.

Yes, Terp, she's a niece of Stanley Baldwin and he does appear in the book. I got I Leap Over the Wall free on Kindle Unlimited, if anyone is tempted. There were a few passages on theology that I skimmed a bit, but I enjoyed it. She says she knew after 10 years that it was a mistake to join the order, but she stuck it out for another eighteen years.

Hope things are improving for you Piggy. Our household also had two and a half weeks of Covid isolation and illness in the summer - very grateful that we are all well now but I couldn't manage a convincing smile when I went back to work after the holidays and colleagues said "wasn't it a LOVELY summer"! Look after yourself, it takes a bit of time to recover.
36. Falling by T. J. Newman
A pilot's family are kidnapped just before he takes to the air to fly a commercial passenger flight across the USA. He is told that he must crash the plane, or his family will be killed.
I wouldn't have picked this up if it hadn't been recommended on the Currently Reading podcast with the reassurance that it wouldn't put anyone off flying! The author was a flight attendant and her insight into what the crew would/could do really shapes the characters and plot. I enjoyed it - fast paced and propulsive and unlike anything else I've read for a while.
37. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Another book I heard about on Currently Reading, this is a short story collection centred on black, female characters. Some stories have funny moments, many are bittersweet, and there's quite a lot of sex which made me blush more than once as I was listening to the audiobook through headphones with DS interupting to ask what was for tea!
38. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Much reviewed, the story of twins who grow up to live very different lives, one as a black woman and one passing as white. I knew this was the premise, but there's so much more to this novel. The time periods in which it is set and the lives of the characters are fascinating. I thought it was excellent.
39. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Again, the premise of the black babysitter who is accused of kidnapping the white child who is legally in her care is well known. While there are issues of race and social class, this is an easy enjoyable read. It felt like the author was having fun with some of the characters which made me smile. I rattled through this quickly and will look out for future titles by this author.
These were all great reads, but The Vanishing Half is the one that I finished and almost wanted to reread immediately to savour the writing.

I have now finished Evie Epworth. I was possibly being a bit curmudgeonly before as its pace did improve. It's a book told from the pov of a16 year old girl in 1962 in Yorkshire. Here is where it falls apart a little. The author, Matson Taylor, is clearly very fond of Yorkshire but he is a male, and not 16, and not around in 1962 either. I did check a few anachronisms , and most were just about OK, but the references to precise 1962 culture were draining. And then suddenly, cheese is in a fridge, in 1962 , and a reel to reel tape recorder can pick up voices from inside an oven. I shit you not...

The portrayal of women is intended to be empowering, but only if they are educated cultured and privileged. If you are working class, you are a stereotype, thick, greedy,or backward. There are 3 men in the whole book. One is fairly fleshed out, the other two are either a rapist, or shagging a cow. Again, I shit you not.

Hmmmm.

The female readership was targeted, boxes were drawn up. And ticked!

Piggy, sorry you've had such a rough time.

37. Watch Her Fall - Erin Kelly

Difficult to review this one without spoilers, but as it's based around a production of Swan Lake it is no surprise to learn that the plot centres around dual identities.

Ava Kirilova, the daughter of ballet master Nicky Kirilov, is all set to star in a production of Swan Lake that will be the pinnacle of both their careers, when she is injured in a fall. Meanwhile another dancer from the same company, Juliet, recovers from injury in Ava's house in a gated complex. She falls in with Max, a Ukrainian security guard, and together they plot to break into Ava Kirilova's safe. The action diverts briefly to the Ukraine and we learn that Max is not who he seems, but the significance of this isn't immediately apparent.

This took me a while to get into, but in retrospect that's because the first two-thirds of the book are taken up by the set-up of two or three parallel storylines. Once the strands come together it moves very quickly and overall I would recommend it.

Thanks clueless. Will try to rest!

Forgot one:

82. Transient Desires, Donna Leon
Fairly standard outing for the Venice detective. The joy of the city remains undimmed. I noticed that a co-writer is credited as well - does feel a bit like the series is now being churned out to order.

Piggy, sorry about your summer. These past 18 months have been a slow lesson in not making plans that can't be cancelled. I really miss proper sunshine; it doesn't help that the weather has been so dreary. I'm currently in Brighton with three teenage boys, trying to make the most of the last break of the holiday. They are very low maintenance so I'm able to drink a lot of tea and read a little.

64 Summerwater by Sarah Moss
This was just what I wanted. It is a slight novel without much plot, and a strong sense of place - in this case a rain soaked holiday park on the edge of a Scottish loch. Moss draws each character brilliantly; they are all recognisable in their own way, from the frazzled mother who no longer knows how to use a spare hour without her children to the ageing couple who don't know how to navigate a changing world. Would highly recommend.

65 We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch

This wasn't really holiday reading though I don't know when a good time to read it would have been. It's a journalist's account of post-genocide Rwanda with accounts from survivors and the genocidaires who carried out the atrocities. Gourevitch doesn't try to be even handed and he doesn't spare any of the details. It's not happy reading but is an absorbing reflection on evil and moral failing. The failures of Western nations to stop what they saw unfold is particularly hard to read given what it happening in Afghanistan.

Meant to add that I had a delightful visit to Leakey's in Inverness. Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop, apparently, and a delight.

Stokey I'm really glad to hear that re Mermaid. Everyone I've heard speaking about it recently has been really negative about it.

Cassandre It may as well have ended And they all lived happily ever after. It was sickeningly sweet. I don't think I'm meant to read happy books, they make me grumpy.

129. Daughters of Sparta - Claire Heywood A retelling of the siege of Troy and the events leading up to it through the eyes of the Spartan sisters Klytemnestra and Helen. A slightly different spin to the many recent retellings. Competently done, but nothing special. Klytemnestra gets a much kinder handling than in *Colm Tóibín's House of Names.

I also DNF two Tom Cox books that were foisted on me with the promise I'd love them. Help the Witch and Ring the Hill. He's a wannable Robert MacFarlane but without the goods to back it up.

Very sorry to hear Piggy and Clueless have been struck down. Hoping you’re getting back to some sort of normality now but this really hasn’t been a great summer, has it?

My latest non-fic - 75: An Encyclopaedia of Myself - Jonathan Meades

Time was when J Meades was often on the telly in his trademark dark glasses, fulminating against something or other and always very entertainingly too. He’s kind of dropped off the radar a bit now but this book is a typically-hilarious/splenetic memoir of his childhood and adolescence in Salisbury which reminds me how good he was.

It’s set out as an A to Z, loosely speaking, but the categories are often eyebrow-raising (eg A is for ‘Abuser, Sexual’) and he doesn’t spare the invective against people and things he reviles, which include various family members and, especially, Tony Blair. He’s particularly good at evoking the bleak despair of a whole generation of men whose lives peaked with their war careers and who then had to spend the 50s and succeeding decades trying to find a purpose, often clinging to their Army ranks while toiling away in low-status jobs that earned pitifully little. There’s often a pall of quiet despair over much of what Meades describes of his childhood, but it’s also very funny at times too.

50. The Pull Of The Stars, Emma Donoghue
No surprises in this brief snapshot in the life of Julia, nursing in a Dublin hospital in 1918, but once again her understated style highlights the horrors of people doing the best they can in horrendous circumstances. Some leg-crossingly graphic descriptions of giving birth, a neat counterpoint to the anger she directs at Groyne, a bumptious Orderly who dismisses the efforts of women.
Goes well with Pale Rider by Laura Spinney and I Couldn’t Love You More, by Esther Freud. I will definitely look at the book about Dr Kathleen Lynn mentioned in the Acknowledgements. For now, though, I think I will choose a more light-hearted book as my next read!

Have added the nuns and ruins to my wishlist

@FortunaMajor, Is Daughters of Sparta quite old? I vaguely remember getting a library book out around the late 80s called that (I used to write all my library book titles in the back of my diaries- if only I'd known, I could have invented Goodreads ) It was this (and studying Andromache for French) that got me "into" Greek myths and ultimately led to a bonkers but enjoyable OU short course on Women in The Odyssey and the Iliad.

I am trying to quickly get into The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (I know, I'm always a decade adrift) but I've been reading it for two days and all the writer has so far done is introduce 538 different characters. Hmm.

@Solinvictus - think Daughters of Sparta is quite a new book - there's a whole crop of these this year. Helen and her sister feature in A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes too. I've had House of Names in my TBR for years, and think I recently upgraded from an egalley version to buying the proper ebook when it finally came up on offer for £1.99.

I don't remember a late 80s trend for new novels based on or inspired by Greek myths , and I devoured a lot of library books in my teens and early 20s when I wasn't trying to keep up with course reading lists, but there were quite a lot of interesting historical novels with central female characters - and I could well have missed stuff. There really do seem to be a lot now, and a lot more by and focused on women as well.

SOL this one has only been out a few weeks, but there are other books with that title.

This definitely isn't the first time round for the Greek based trend, but there has been a definite glut in the past few years. The Natalie Haynes is the worst of the lot though. Other people did it better first.

I also used to write what I'd read in the back of diaries and I'd love to still have access to them. I now keep a handwritten list in a designated notebook as well as religiously using Goodreads.

I've just spend an hour rummaging and had both Priam's Daughter and Agamemnon's Daughter
Interesting how the focus was on the fathers back then!

I suppose they thought people wouldn't know who the daughters were and were headlining the fathers to draw interest.

I still won't touch a book with a bloke's profession/female relation type title. Off the top of my head the only times it's been done to a man that I can think of is Lady Chatterley's Lover and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and yet the other way round is still rife.

Tabitha King kicked off a few years ago after an article about a charitable donation they both made was mentioned in an article as being made by Stephen and wife. She pointed out she was not Ofstephen and more than a wife with a successful writing career of her own. This prompted a library project called "She has a name" which puts all of the offending books into one display and they are relabeled with the actual name of the protagonist rather than her relationship to a man.

Speaking of Oftabitha, someone mentioned recently about taking The Stand on holiday and not fancying it. This is not a holiday read, but one to be saved for when off work sick with a respiratory illness.