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?

For fans of dysfunctional posh families, as mentioned upthread, House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild is also in the daily deals. I'm currently reading it and enjoying it. It takes place around the time of the 2008 housing crash and follows various members of a fading dynasty. There is dry humour but it has a dark feel, given the time it takes place and the family dynamics.

Caldicott Place by Noel Streatfeild
Found this in a charity shop and it's one I'd not come across before. Very sweet. Very predictable. Very Noel S. I liked it a lot.

43 Butterflies in November by Auđur Ava Ólafsdóttir. Translated by Brian FitzGibbon.

I enjoyed this quirky and off beat road trip round Iceland with an emotionally detached lottery winning narrator and the four year old deaf mute son of her best friend. There's some dark moments, including the death of several animals, disturbing sexual encounters and unreconstructed opinions but there's also the developing relationship between the woman and child and an 35 page appendix of recipes of the food eaten in the novel to lighten the novel and make it end hopefully. I would love to see a film of this, it would be all incredible landscapes, Björk music, and mundane encounters with strange people.

Remus, that's a nice charity shop find! I think it's one of her late books and less well known. I think I might have originally read a copy that belonged to my cousin. My much younger sister pinched some of my Noel Streatfeild books - there are 11 years between us so I left home to go to university when she was only 7. I've replaced some of my copies through charity shop finds and abebooks, and I've found and given S a few more spare copies.

Checking in from Florence. Not reading a Room With A View though as a) read that last time I was here and b) Stieg is finally starting to tell me a story rather than presenting me with character n 349. It does feel a bit weird to be reading about -37 degrees in rural Sweden whilst queuing for lemon and mango ice-cream but hey ho.

Have added Slow Trains to my wishlist.

Love Noel Streatfield and love even more finding old copies of books. In non Covid times I work on a UK summer school for furrin kids at a Kent boarding school and my favourite corridor of the school is lined with thousands of orange Penguins and blue Puffins and they're all from the 60s and 70s and I love just sitting up there and rootling in them. They've renovated this year while we've not been there and I have an awful feeling they'll have chucked my beautiful book collection out.

Ooohhhh I love 70s Puffins - I particularly like finding charity shop copies of books that look like the copies I had when I was a kid. A few years ago I got to read and review Valerie Grove's biography of Kaye Webb, who was Puffin Books editor through the 1960s and 1970s.

As I am still vexingly ill, I needed a light read and found it in Anthony Horowitz's Moonflower Murders. I like these book within a book whodunnits although one can feel a bit robbed by reading the interior book to find the clueseses were a bit silly!

Diverting and quite clever. Better than Osman...

@yoshiblue

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.

Thanks yoshiblue, I have just bought it. I have wanted to read this for ages.

Sorry to hear you're unwell, Piggy. Hope you feel better soon.

Re: charity finds: I also got A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively. Not sure if I read it as a kid or not. If I did, I've totally forgotten it.

@VikingNorthUtsire

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.

Yes. I read this a while ago and liked it very much.

@citygirlinwellies enjoy!!!

You've Got This - Louise Redknapp. An easy read but too brief memoir from the singer and TV presenter. She says she feels frustrated with her 'nicey nice' image but does nothing here to contradict that.

Currently reading Our House by Louise Candlish, ahead of the TV adaptation soon to be shown.

I just bought A Lonely Place for DH’s birthday and then it pops up here as a review! Glad you liked it, Meg.

A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively
Turns out I definitely hadn't read it before. It's lovely. Quiet and old fashioned and slow. Not much happens on the outside; it's more about the thoughts and emotions of the central character, with a sort of ghost story to justify the introspection. I liked it a lot and would have enjoyed it as a child too, but don't think it would hold much appeal for many of the youths of today!

Late to the party with Lady in Waiting - Anne Glenconner

Fascinating life.

Currently got a number of things on the go

None so Blind - Alis Hawkins - mystery set in the Teifi Valley in West Wales in the 1850s . Also a collection of Marian Keyes non fiction writings and a book on Alzheimer’s. I need cheering up by the former to manage the latter.

16. The world I fell out of - Melanie Reid Much reviewed on here. Certainly put all my aches and pains, trials and tribulations into perspective. Brilliantly written, excellent work.

For anyone who liked To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine, I think you would also enjoy The Consequences of Love, by Gavanndra Hodge.. It's in the August kindle sale. It's a memoir that sounds like the stuff of misery lit - the sudden death of a sibling, a beloved father who is also a drug dealer, but it's told thoughtfully and without self-pity. A great read. Reminded me of The Liar"s Club by Mary Carr.

The House by the Thames by Gillian Tindall Recommended upthread and thanks to Terpsichore originally. I very much enjoyed this absorbing account of the social history and geography of Bankside, packed full of fascinating details that brought the area very much alive in all its facets, (not least its smells: "The traditional trade of Bermondsey had been leather tanning. Tanning smells awful, even without the vats of dog-excrement that were used to steep the skins....."). Coincidentally, I happened to be along Bankside twice this week and it made me look afresh at the area, particularly at low tide when you can still see the remains of the jetties and steps that were so important to its development.

Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley First published in 1921 and apparently Huxley's debut novel, this is the story of a country-house party and is full of very arch description and dialogue of the characters and their social milieu. It also includes a couple of chapters written as the host's "History of Crome", the first of which is particularly poignant and could easily stand alone as a rather beautiful and sad short story.

So glad you enjoyed A House By The Thames, Boiledegg. I haven't managed a visit to that area for a while but I'll certainly look at it with fresh eyes when I'm next there.

Sorry to read the last part of your post Best - such a difficult time. I found Somebody I Used to Know by Wendy Mitchell really interesting.

Thanks Tara It’s my mum and early days. I will have a look at your recommendation.

I’ve just bought A house by the Thames. I took photos of that pair of houses last time I was in London 2 years ago so delighted to find the book.

It's a good one, Best. Very sorry to hear about your mum

I'm so sorry to hear about your mum Best. Having supported my father some years ago now, I know how difficult it can be for all sorts of reasons. Sending you all best wishes.

Added the Bankside book to my wishlist.

@BestisWest- been there with my mum who died last year. The early days are, in my opinion, the worst. It sounds mad, but it gets better as it gets worse if that makes any sense.