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?

72. Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead. This is on the Booker longlist and is the story of a female aviator Marian Graves who attempts to fly from pole to pole, one of the great circles. It's set from around the 20s until after the second world war when flying is literally taking off. There's a second story that is in present day where an actress, who has just been fired from a Twilight type series, is trying to redeem herself by making a biopic of Marian. This was a big book with lots to take in, a historic novel with a modern twist, lots on aviation, painting, fame and reinvention. I really liked it, the writing is beautiful, although it did drag a little in the middle. I don't know if it'll make the shortlist, it struck me as a bit too traditional for the Booker, bit it's a good yarn & I'd recommend it.

Stokey That sounds great. I love anything aviation-related so I bought this when it was on the daily deals. It does sound a bit out of kilter with recent Booker shortlists.

Thanks for the review of Great Circle, Stokey. I've got it on my kindle and was wondering what to read next so will put that too of the list.

Eine, I’ve made a start on The Absolute Book (since we’re locked down anyway and so I won’t need to cart its massive bulk anywhere) - wish me luck

Post holiday update, I got more reading done than usual on holiday, although it’s mostly easy reads.

80. Life Without Diabetes by Professor Roy Taylor

This is an expanded version of Your Simple Guide to Reversing Type 2 Diabetes by the same author.

Same basic message - type 2 diabetes is caused by excess fat in the liver and pancreas, it can be reversed by losing lots of weight, and an explanation of the diet used by Taylor and his team in their clinical trials.

There’s a lot more background and detail about the research here, and a collection of recipes at the end. But for a layperson, Your Simple Guide to Reversing Type 2 Diabetes would be an easier read.

81. Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Set in a future Mars, Darrow is a Red, part of the lowest caste, toiling away to terraform Mars and do his part in securing the future of the human race.
And then he discovers his whole life is based on lies, and a rebel group gives him the chance to infiltrate the ruling Gold caste.

Great read. I’m waiting for the next in the series from the library now.

82. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J K Rowling

Finally finished reading this to DS1. He’s thoroughly enjoyed it.

83. Hellfire by John Saul

Horror.
The heir to a rich family is planning on refurbishing an old abandoned mill that his family used to run.
Unfortunately for his family, it’s cursed by a vengeful ghost.

84. No Time Like The Past by Jodi Taylor

A reread of one of The Chronicles of St Mary’s books.

85. A Company Of Swans by Eva Ibbotson

18 year old Harriet lives a lonely and dreary life with her strict father and aunt.
Ballet is her only escape, and one that her family try to remove when a visiting Russian ballet master offers her a place in his ballet troupe on its tour of the Amazon.

So Harriet runs away to join the ballet, and romance follows.
Good light read.

86. Fury by Elizabeth Miles

Meh.
3 mysterious girls (who are based on the Furies from Greek mythology) appear in a small American town, and start tormenting teenagers as vengeance for their crimes.

It’s not told in a particularly interesting way, and there’s unanswered questions about how and why the Furies are picking their targets.

87. Secret Vampire by L J Smith

YA supernatural romance.

16 year old Poppy is dying.
Luckily for her, her best friend James is a vampire, they both have unrequited feelings of true love for each other, and he offers to turn her into a vampire to save her life.
Plus there’s some mild peril before the obligatory happy ending.

I'm in danger of hitting the halfway point soon - only two months behind schedule

24. In A Lonely Place - Dorothy B Hughes

A Backlisted recommendation and a short but perfectly formed piece of LA noir, subtle and chilling. Can't talk too much about it without spoilers but well worth a read for fans of Chandler etc (paging @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie)

@nowanearlyNicemum I really loved The Old Ways, possibly my favourite Macfarlane book. Definitely worth 99p

@LadybirdDaphne

Eine, I’ve made a start on The Absolute Book (since we’re locked down anyway and so I won’t need to cart its massive bulk anywhere) - wish me luck

Godspeed Daphne Godspeed

Meg - glad you enjoyed In a Lonely Place. Can I strongly recommend her The Expendable Man , which is even more impossible to précis because....one enormous and stupendous spoiler!

Daphne sounds like you've got things sorted apart from the lockdown putting a spanner in the works. Hopefully things will be a bit easier once the wee one starts school.

129. Mrs England - Stacey Halls Early 1900s Norland nanny takes up a new post in the North where things in the mill owner's home are not quite right. She tries to get to the bottom of it while hiding her own secrets.

Passable swirly gothic. I did spend a lot of time wondering where it was going/what the point of it was, but as a mindless read it was fine.

130. A Comedy of Terrors (Flavia Albia #9) - Lindsey Davis
     Roman private investigator series. Set around Saturnalia celebrations, Flavia falls into one mystery that treads on the toes of her husband's formal crime investigations. She runs rings around the authorities as usual.

131. Maybe in Another Life - Taylor Jenkins Reid
     Sliding doors style chic lit in which a young woman moves back to LA and bumps into an old flame. Story diverges after a major event and two plot lines follow.

More chic lit like than her other novels and not as good for me, but still an OK read.

Thanks Meg, I was too slow on this occasion but it's on my radar now.

I’m listening to Malcom X’s autobiography (Lawrence Fishburne does an incredible job narrating - it’s so gripping).

He’s currently explain some very questionable views about women and marriage (although I hear they mellowed later) but I did laugh when he said ‘most marriages end because of meddling in laws’ very mumsnet.

Daphne, let me know how you get on with The Absolute Book. I have a hardback copy purchased with great enthusiasm and I got stuck around chapter 3. Everything about it suggests I should love it, so perhaps I need to give it a proper try rather than expecting to be instantly hooked.

Pepe - that was also my mistake. Ticks all my boxes so it'll be great right?

I remain bamboozled

I have Nothing To Envy on Audio, I was excited for it, loads of good reviews, but not enjoying the narrator. Not sure whether to persevere or get the physical book

34. Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid - I enjoyed this but perhaps not as much as others have. At first I thought it was great, then remained good, and was always easy to read and pulled me through. The group dynamics were interesting. But ultimately, for me as someone without a particular interest in the rock scene, it was just a fair bit longer than I was interested in.
35. All The Lonely People by Mike Gayle this was a book group choice that I came to without high expectations. I borrowed it on audio and it worked well for me as background listening while getting on with stuff. Others have said that they objected to the way that the central character’s Jamaican accent is rendered - on the audio I felt that it read naturally and it was the cockney and, satisfyingly, posh university boy characters that read with less dignity. A mainly feel-good read, as believable as it needed to be, that also raises themes of loneliness, racism and the deportations of Windrush generation immigrants who have lived in the UK for decades.

66 Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel
Short (more of an essay than a book) and a heavy reliance on Twitter. Nonetheless, his central premise - that anti-Semitism is seen as a lesser form of racism because Jews are seen as oppressors rather than oppressed, and that this makes it acceptable to progressives in a way that they would never consider acceptable with any other minority - rings true. Much impassioned debate over the dinner table as a result with the teens and a couple of their Jewish friends.

67 Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman
Pure coincidence that this comes up straight after the Baddiel. This is the story of an Orthodox Jewish girl’s childhood, marriage and flight from the community. I got a little bored half way through and put it aside as the school bit felt very repetitive. But Feldman’s account of her courtship, marriage and escape was riveting and I raced through the second half. It’s not at all like the Netflix show that was based on the book which is excellent in its own way but designed to feel much more of a thriller. This is more gentle and measured, with less of the frantic escape and life on the run. Fascinating.

68 Premonition by Michael Lewis
I don’t think Lewis can write a bad book, so I’m going to be generous here and pin the blame for this on me, for not paying enough attention, and the dire narrator who honestly should never read another sentence aloud again. It was as if the publisher got Siri to narrate it, but a Siri whose grasp of syntax and phrasing was seriously off. Actually, it reminded me a little of the terrible TikTok auto-narration where all the wrong words are emphasised.
^
Anyway, that aside this had lots of good stuff in it around public health, pandemic planning (or lack of), epidemiology, and some interesting organizational psychology. I’m not sure what it told me about Covid-19. But I know a lot more about other diseases than I did, and am more sure than ever that while we may have issues, we should be very grateful we aren’t in the US, where a combination of chronic underinvestment in public health and for profit healthcare provision created a system that was never going to react well to a health crisis like this.^

Weird italics there...

39. Llama Drama by Anna McNuff

I am reading three non fiction books at once, slowly, and this was the light option for when my brain is too tired to cope with any of those.

I love Anna McNuff and would like to be her friend. I think she is quite bonkers (but in a natural way, not in a 'look at me I'm proper weird' way). She goes on fab adventures across continents that I think I want to emulate and then I read the detail and realise what I want to do is go on a long holiday....

What I really love is that she is a great writer. Lots of these adventure travel books are only ok, the author is clearly putting some thoughts down on paper in order to fund their next trip, but Anna is more 'writerly'.

Highly recommended if you want to read about two ladies cycling through South America.

43. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent. 14yo Turtle (real name Julia) lives an unconventional life with her crazy father in a rural area on the Californian coast. Some parts of this are very dark and difficult to read, but Turtle is a great character and I raced through it compulsively. I felt that the ending descended slightly into farce.

44. The White Lie by Andrea Gillies. My first stinker of this year. It's a family drama about the Salter family - Edith and Henry, their three grown-up daughters, several grandchildren and various other family members - living on a crumbling Scottish estate. Two deaths in the past (their son Sebastian and grandson Michael - the story is narrated by Michael's ghost) continue to haunt the family, and over the course of the book we gradually find out more about the deaths. Unfortunately it is so long and boring (this type of book needs to be fairly pacey IMO) that by the time the truth was unearthed I really couldn't care less.

For Maud and anyone else who likes an aviation-themed novel, I can highly recommend TransAtlantic by Colum McCann. He tries together an account of the first nonstop transatlantic flight with a visit to Ireland by the abolitionist campaigner Frederick Douglass and the NI peace process. It's beautifully written.

Ooh, thank you Viking. That has gone on my wishlist.

44. True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey The story of Ned Kelly, written from the perspective of Ned himself in the form of rambling letters addressed to a daughter he never met.

It's another re-read for me, thoroughly enjoyed reading it through again. I'm not familiar with the actual true history of the Kelly gang so I don't know how much is based on real events. I love a book written in an unusual style and I think the author successfully conveys an intelligent but uneducated man by means of erratic punctuation and unconventional sentence structure.

83. Slow Trains Around Spain, by Tom Chesshyre
A travel book that does what it says on the tin. What I find soothing about this author is the banality of his experiences. The great travel writers can leave you feeling inadequate: you'll never match their adventurousness, knowledge and linguistic flair. This author is more "The train pulled into the station at 10.47. I didn't have time before the 14.14 train to look at the sights described in the guidebook, but I did have quite a nice ham sandwich at the station cafe and a chat with the ticket inspector He said he likes his job and has done it for five years. The next train was on time. Unfortunately about halfway through the journey we had to change on to a replacement bus, but the scenery was pleasant so I didn't really mind". There's a faintly Pooterish air about it that I find oddly comforting.

All the Light We Cannot See is 99p today. Absolutely loved this book, my book of the year so far. Grab a bargain if you've not read it.