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?

Shaun Bythell has a third book out now I think - I have one bought Kindle book and two Netgalleys all TBR,

I finally got round to copying and pasting my list and going through it.

The works listed from here do range a bit in length - from a 6 page essay and a novella (pages not numbered in my Kindle copy) to a 700+ page novel and several hefty Collected Stories volumes (taking print size and density into account, I think some of them are actually longer than the Jane Smiley book).

Sorry, here's the list this time:

1. Flannery O'Connor, Complete Stories
2. Emylia Hall, The Thousand Lights Hotel
3. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
4. Babita Sharma, The Corner Shop
5. Beth O'Leary, The Road Trip
6. Lindsey Davis, Poseidon's Gold
7. Lara Feigel, The Bitter Taste of Victory
8. Sita Brahmachari, Tender Earth
9. Elly Griffiths, The Night Hawks

10. Penelope Lively, Pack of Cards 11. Jane Smiley, Golden Age 12. Laura McVeigh, Under the Almond Tree 13. Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys 14. Rachel Hore, A Beautiful Spy 15. Kerry Hudson, Lowborn 16. Lissa Evans, V for Victory 17. Dorothy Whipple, Young Anne 18. Sydney Taylor, All-of-a-Kind-Family Downtown 19. Anne Enright, Yesterday's Weather 20. Anthony Quinn, London, Burning 21. Peter Lovesey, The Tooth Tattoo 22 Ellen Wiles, The Invisible Crowd 23. Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half 24. Susanna Jones, The Missing Person's Guide to Love 25. Anne Tyler, Clock Dance 26. Cathy Cassidy, Looking Glass Girl 27. Rachel Holmes, Eleanor Marx: A Life 28. Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Daughters of Night 29. Jeanette Winterson, Frankissstein 30. Amy Hempel, The Dog of the Marriage 31. Janine Beacham, Hounds and Hauntings 32. Claire Fuller, Unsettled Ground 33. Joanna Moorhead, The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington 34. Alix E Harrow, The Once and Future Witches 35. Abir Mukherjee, A Rising Man 36. Margery Sharp, Cluny Brown 37. Rebecca Pawel, Death of a Nationalist 38. Marianne Wiggins, Bet They'll Miss Us When We're Gone 39. Claudia Renton, Those Wild Wyndhams 40. Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass 41. Barbara Comyns, Sisters by a River 42. Ciara Geraghty, This is Now 43. Ambrose Parry, The Way of All Flesh 44. J Courtney Sullivan, Friends and Strangers 45. Polly Samson, The Kindness 46. Sydney Taylor, Ella-of-All-of-a-Kind Family 47. Cathy Rentzenbrenk, Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books 48. Elizabeth Fremantle, Watch the Lady 49. Philip Kerr, A German Requiem 50. Sigrid Nunez, The Friend 51. Emma Stonex, The Lamplighters 52. Adelle Stripe, Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile 53. Sally Phipps, Molly Keane: A Life 54. Robin Sloan, Ajax Penumbra: 1969 55. Clare Chambers, Small Pleasures 56. Hisham Matar, The Return 57. Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond 58. Sarah Moss, Summerwater 59. Liz Moore, The Words of Every Song 60. Rosemary Dinnage, Alone! Alone! Lives of Some Outsider Women 61. George Orwell, Why I Write (essay) 62. Patrick Gale, Three Decades of Stories 63. Louise Welsh, Death is a Welcome Guest 64. Rosa Guy, Bird at My Window 65. Paula McLain, When the Stars Go Dark

73. The Noise Of Time by Julian Barnes

A short fiction novel depicting the life of the composer Shostakovich and his struggle to survive in the USSR, from fear of arrest to oppressed forced conformity.

Shades of The Trial but overall a bit repetitive and dry.

Finished Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann which is really interesting for reevaluation of long held beliefs and tropes about the presence of black people in Tudor and Stuart Britain and also the attitudes towards their presence. Quite eye opening in places although I glazed over during the many forays into naval history!

I have finally retyped my list after the computer ate it. Half bold is a 4 and full bold is a 5/5. Italics is anything that got 1 or 2. Comments on the last few to follow.

1. Conjure Women – Afia Atakora
2. Prime Suspect – Lynda LaPlante
3. Ducks, Newburyport - Lucy Ellman
4. Three Hours – Rosamund Lupton
5. The Giver of Stars – Jojo Moyes
6. Honeymoon in Tehran – Aazadeh Moaveni
7. The Wife Upstairs – Rachel Hawkins
8. Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
9. The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt

10. Blue Ticket – Sophie Mackintosh 11. Death in Her Hands – Ottessa Moshfegh 12. The Art of Dying – Ambrose Parry 13. The Magician’s Assistant – Ann Patchett 14. Missing, Presumed – Susie Steiner 15. Persons Unknown – Susie Steiner 16. Dear Child - Romy Hausmann 17. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words - Bianca Marais 18. Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan 19. Away with the Penguins – Hazel Prior 20. Ghosts – Dolly Alderton 21. Summerwater – Sarah Moss 22. Mother for Dinner – Shalom Auslander 23. The Vows of Silence (Serailler #4) - Susan HIll 24. The Mystery of Mrs. Christie – Marie Benedict 25. The Troubadour’s Tale (Oxford Medieval #5) – Ann Swinfen 26. The Warden – Anthony Trollope 27. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole – Sue Townsend 28. Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes 29. Semper Fidelis (Ruso #5) – Ruth Downie 30. The Thirteenth Tale – Dianne Setterfield 31. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith 32. The Memory Police – Yōko Ogawa 33. The Secret Barrister - Anon 34. The Green Road – Anne Enright 35. The Cut Out Girl – Bart Van Es 36. All Things Bright and Beautiful – James Herriot 37. The Echo Wife – Sarah Gailey 38. That Old Country Music – Sebastian Barry 39. The Liar’s Dictionary – Eley Williams 40. Dark Horses – Susan Mihalic 41. I Hate Men – Pauline Harmange 42. Consent – Annabel Lyon 43. Exciting Times – Naoise Dolan 44. How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House – Cherie Jones 45. The Divines – Ellie Eaton 46. Because Of You – Dawn French 47. The Fours Winds – Kristin Hannah 48. The Year Of The Hare – Arto Paasilinna 49. Snow – John Banville 50. British History In 50 Events – James Weber 51. Putney – Sofka Zinovieff 52. No One Is Talking About This - Patricia Lockwood 53. Girl A – Abigail Dean 54. Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens 55. The Soul of a Woman - Isabel Allende 56. Goodbye Mr. Chips - James Hilton 57. Riot Baby - Tochi Onyebuchi 58. Burnt Sugar - Avni Doshi 59. The Narrowboat Summer - Anne Youngson 60. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix 61. Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters 62. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 63. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler 64. Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers 65. The Golden Rule - Amanda Craig 66. Cherry - Nico Walker 67. The Princess Spy - Larry Loftis 68. Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch 69. The Lost Apothecary - Sarah Penner 70. The Stonemason's Tale (Oxford Medieval #6) - Ann Swinfen 71. Of Women and Salt - Gabriela Garcia 72. My Name is Why - Lemn Sissay 73.Her Here - Amanda Dennis 74. Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov 75.Othello - William Shakespeare 76. Paradise Lost - John Milton 77. New Boy - Tracy Chevalier 78. I, Claudius - Robert Graves 79. Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina - Robert Graves 80. Peaces - Helen Oyeyemi 81. The Switch - Beth O'Leary 82. American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins 83. Nothing But Blue Sky - Kathleen MacMahon 84. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 85. Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination - Robert Macfarlane 86. Unsettled Ground - Claire Fuller 87. The Wild Silence - Raynor Winn 88. Adults - Emma Jane Unsworth

Some of these have been extensively reviewed recently or are very famous so it's just a brief few words.

I am not counting it, but I read the first of The Worst Witch series. I last read it when I was in about Y4/5 and it was borrowed not my own, so not that familiar to me. I was really shocked at how blatantly the broomstick lesson was filched by JKR for HP.

Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina - Robert Graves
Picks up when he becomes Emperor. This sadly didn't match the pace and interest of I, Claudius so it fell a bit flat for me.

Peaces - Helen Oyeyemi
Two lovers (and their pet mongoose) set off on a train journey to mark their 'non' honeymoon after a commitment to one another. The journey has many surreal twists and turns that spark a series of discoveries about themselves and each other.

As always, her books are very odd, but this was strangely compelling with some beautiful writing in places, exploring what it means to know yourself and someone else deeply. However, she's a bit too out there and surreal for me. You're twisting my melon, woman.

The Switch - Beth O'Leary
After an enforced sabbatical, a young woman moves into her grandmother's house for a few months while her grandmother takes on her London flat. They get to understand each other's lives more by interacting with those around them.

Incredibly predictable and cheesy chic lit that was an easy read. A book club choice. It was inoffensive but far too saccharine for me.

American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins
This was the second time attempting to read this. I think it starts well, but I was quite bored by the end and willing it to be over faster. I think other people have done similar much better, so it was a disappointment for me.

Nothing But Blue Sky - Kathleen MacMahon
A recent widower returns to the place he and his wife always went on holiday and mulls over his relationship and events that shaped them both through the years. It's a beautiful depiction of love, loss, grief and all the parts that make up a combined life. I would really recommend this if you are in a place to cope with the subject matter. It's wonderfully done. As an aside I lived very close to where this was set for a summer and it was a lovely trip down memory lane to hear some of the places I know well mentioned. Her descriptions are very evocative.

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
This is a very fine piece of writing that is an important commentary on social and political issues of the time, however it does wang on about farming far too much. My overall feeling was that while it was good, it wasn't Vanity Fair.

Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination - Robert Macfarlane
Explores why people climb mountains. I was hoping for a slightly more uplifting work that would spur on my own summit attempts, having recently gazed upon Scafell Pike from Wasdale Head and thought, "nah, not a chance". I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Mr M, but this was ok albeit a little dry in places. It only really picked up for the last section on Mallory's attempt on Everest. I wish he had brought that passion into the rest of the book.

Unsettled Ground - Claire Fuller
Two 50 something siblings still living with their mother are at a bit of a loss when she dies and they are evicted from their home.

I thought this was a really interesting exploration of lives that rarely get a mention in fiction. I did find the writing a bit overly emotive in places which detracted from the whole, but it was generally well done and is worth a read.

The Wild Silence - Raynor Winn
Follow up to The Salt Path that touches on the before and after of their lives in that book. It was interesting to see what brought them to where they were, as well as what they went on to do. I still have my reservations of her as a person, but I do think she can write.

Adults - Emma Jane Unsworth
35 year old woman disillusioned with life tries to get things back on track after a break up.

I feel this has some important things to say about modern life and what we were promised vs the reality, but it was trying so hard to be funny all the time that it really missed the mark and was grating and annoying by the end. It does explore things like use of social media well, but overall it was a dud for me.

@FortunaMajor, I think you should count The Worst Witch in your 86 reads. I've always thought that Rowling ripped off both this series (or possibly this book, as I think there were only a couple of sequels published, and others. Particularly the earlier Diana Wynne Jones books, and more specifically Charmed Life. I think JKR is a couple of years older than me.

162. The Seven Day Switch by Kelly Harms

This month’s Amazon first reads freebie. A grown up version of Freaky Friday, a working mum and a stay at home mum end up trapped in each other’s bodies for a week where they realise the other life isn’t as easy as they thought. Predictable but fine as a quick read.

163. A Symphony Of Echoes by Jodi Taylor

Continuing my Audible reread of the St Mary’s series - this is book 2. Good fun as always.

164. China Room by Sunjeev Sahota

Mehar is a teenager in rural India in 1929. She and two other girls have been married to three brothers, but they don’t know which brother each is married to ( they are veiled and have to keep their heads down in company, and their husbands only visit them in a dark room). Mehar’s story is interspersed with a more modern day story of her great grandson, who usually lives in Britain but has been sent to relatives in India to get over a heroin addiction. I enjoyed Mehar’s story, and would have liked to hear more about this. The modern day story doesn’t really add anything.

165. Do They Know It’s Christmas Yet? by James Crookes

This was fun. Grown up brother and sister get sent back to 1984, where they prevent Bob Geldof from seeing the news report that triggered him to create Band Aid. The siblings then have to try and get Bob to watch the news while also trying to get themselves back to 2020. It does all get a bit ridiculous, but if you just go along with it it’s entertaining and I loved all the nostalgic elements thrown in.

166. Nancy and Plum by Betty Macdonald

Children’s book from the 1950s that is a bit like an American version of A Little Princess. Nancy and Plum are siblings whose parents have died, and they are sent by their child-hating uncle to a boarding house where unknown to the uncle they are treated badly. However, there is a happy ending. I enjoyed this as the sisters are engaging characters. I hadn’t come across it as a child but I think I would have loved it.

167. British Summer Time Begins: The School Summer Holidays 1930-1980 by Ysenda Maxtone Graham

This is the same author that wrote Terms and Conditions about life in girls’ boarding schools, which several of us read and enjoyed a couple of years ago. This is similar - recollections of school holidays. It includes actual holidays (mainly in Britain but occasionally abroad) as well as the day to day activities that filled the summer up. I’m slightly too young for this - I was a child in the 1980s - but I still recognised some things in here. My only criticism is that it tends towards middle/upper class recollections without much of a working class voice, but I still found it interesting to read about all the different ways of spending the summer.

@southeastdweller thank you for the new thread. I am surprised at the amount of books read so far which is good for me.

1. The Face of Trespass by Ruth Rendell
2. The Five by Hallie Rubenhold
3. My Darling by Amanda Robson
4. The adventure of the three students by Arthur Conan Doyle
5. The End of her by Shari Lapena
6. The Dead Harlequin by Agatha Christie
7. Sing a Song of Sixpence by Agatha Christie
8. Farewell to the EastEnd by Jennifer Worth
9. Confessions of a Forty-Something F##k up by Alexandra Potter
10. The Familiars by Stacey Hall’s
11. The Saturday Morning Park Run by Jules Wake
12. Life’s journey to the top of Everest by Ben Fogle and Marina Fogle
13. The Other Daughter by Caroline Bishop 14 )Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell 15 )Where Rainbow’s End by Cecelia Ahern 16 )Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
14. Trafficked Girl by Zoe Patterson
15. Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver

Just finished Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver
This is a gothic thriller. It is about a young girl Maud who lives in an Edwardian Suffolk manor. Maud is a lonely child growing up without a mother and ruled by a strict repressive father. Maud has to survive a world of witchcraft and legends.
Okay so this was a charity book shop find and was also recommended. I found it really dull right up to virtually the end and then I found it slightly more interesting. Not for me which was a shame. Although I do think the end of the story was pulled together nicely but a 2/5 for me. Note to self to quit a book I don’t enjoy but if I had done that with The house on needless street I would have missed out as that was a great read.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

73. The Noise Of Time by Julian Barnes

A short fiction novel depicting the life of the composer Shostakovich and his struggle to survive in the USSR, from fear of arrest to oppressed forced conformity.

Shades of The Trial but overall a bit repetitive and dry.

I really liked The Noise of Time but I'm a big fan of Shostakovich's music, I don't know if that makes a difference.

I know I've enjoyed some Shostakovich but I can't really NAME works by different composers, its a real flaw in my general knowledge.

I think it gave the fear and paranoia of the USSR really well but less a full picture of a mans life.

@elkiedee
@FortunaMajor, I think you should count The Worst Witch in your 86 reads. I've always thought that Rowling ripped off both this series (or possibly this book, as I think there were only a couple of sequels published, and others. Particularly the earlier Diana Wynne Jones books, and more specifically Charmed Life. I think JKR is a couple of years older than me

I agree. I have thought JKR must have read Eva Ibbotson books too, especially The Secret of Platform 13 which predated HP by a few years and Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones (a later Chrestomanci book). Fabulous writers who deserve a lot more fame.

Fortunamajor totally agree with your review of Anna Karenina. What could match Vanity Fair?

I read Adults by Emma Jane Unsworth last year and had mixed feelings. It was very try hard and overblown, right down to Jenny having a "larger than life" medium for a mother. Poor Jenny - owning a house in London and needing to rent out rooms (boo hoo). I really didn't like anyone for several chapters but got on with the narrative in the end and ultimately sort of enjoyed it. I tried to watch the film Animals based on the book by the same author but that defeated me.

I'm also a Shostakovich fan, so have put The Noise of Time on the list. I'd be interested to hear about the writing of symphony no. 5 (if that's in the book), because it's fun to listen to it and try to decide whether Shostakovich was trying his best to curry favour with Stalin, or whether it was secretly intended as ironic (as was later claimed) .

Yes it definitely is discussed!

My thoughts on JKR's influences/sources are that they are likely to be be books that she read as a child or in her early teens, and before HP was published. I think Witch Week was a bit late, and I wasn't aware of Eva Ibbotson's books for kids when I was a child, I first remember finding a couple of books which have since been repackaged as YA but didn't seem to be marketed as such at the time - they were with books for adults rather than for teens or kids in a larger branch of WH Smiths in Leeds, I think, and I was looking for a present for my younger sister who was between age groups of reading - 14 or 15 I think, when you want something that will appeal to a younger reader without being obviously childish.

I wish I was the sort of person who could hear a piece of Classical and go Oh Its Mahler's Fifth!

But I'm more the sort of person who will hear something and think Oh Thats Lovely and then be unable to find it ever again.

The pieces I know by name are VERY mainstream, even though I do listen to classical a fair bit.

Also, I meant that when JKR and I were kids, I thought there were only two or three Worst Witch books published and that the others m the series came later. That's not clear in what I wrote, as there are now at least 7 books in the series. plus screen adaptations.

I'm a few years younger than JK and it was my sister (who is 10 years younger) who read the Worst Witch stories but there were new books in the series coming out over years, there was a new one when the DD were small. The Enid Blyton influence is very strong in JKR but the same could be said in Jill Murphy. Both put a different spin on it though.

JKR is almost 4 years older than me, so might have read the first book as a kid but was 14 or 15 when #2 came out according to publication dates on Wikipedia (1980). It's also possible I guess that she was reading the early books to/with her oldest child when she started to write HP.. I don't know about the Enid Blyton influence because though I did read some I don't think I owned many or read and reread them in the way I did some other books.

I think that Sarah Quigley's The Conductor, published a few years ago, is also about Shostakovich and an orchestra, rehearsing during the Siege of Leningrad when they were all starving.

45. All The Lonely People - Mike Gayle

I absolutely adored this book and couldn't put it down. We meet Hubert Bird at age 84, he immigrated from Jamaica in the 50's and we learn his story from the book alternating between then and now. Hubert is faced with blatant racism, but finds love and happiness in Joyce.

When we meet Hubert 'now', we learn he speaks with his daughter in Australia once a week and regales her with the stories of his friends, their antics, and their friendship. We go on to learn that these friends are fictional, so that his daughter doesn't see his loneliness and isolation. When we find out Hubert's daughter is coming to visit him, we see Hubert frantically trying to make real life friends to make up for all the tales he's told about the fictional ones.

Hubert is lonely and for the first time acknowledges it, he meets a variety of people also combatting loneliness and even joins a community scheme set up to combat it.

I loved Hubert, he is a wonderful man at every stage of his life. This book is sad, happy, gave me hope, and broke my heart all at the same time. It tackles a huge issue at any time, but probably more poignant than ever because of the loneliness people have found themselves experiencing since the pandemic.

I couldn't help but devour the book in a day, whilst at the same time not wanting it to end.

37. No Highway by Nevil Shute
Hands down my favourite Nevil Shute. I found a school edition in a skip once and was delighted, only to find it was an abridged version with the entire automatic writing section removed.

A very odd mix of the paranormal and brutal reality, told in a story that sweeps you away from the start. Also surprisingly insightful about the positives of bureaucracy and hierarchy.

Dennis is a civil servant at Farnborough, managing pure research into aviation. At the start of the book he is new in post and has to find out what all his researchers are doing and whether it should continue. In this process he meets Theodore Honey, an ageing widower with no presence or charisma, who is carrying out research into metal fatigue. He begins to realise this has urgent implications for safety. He battles not only the forces of combined indifference to research ideas that cost money, but also Honey's resistance to applying his calculations to the real world. And Honey has a series of bizarre hobbies and ideas - can he really be trusted?

This book is sexist in a way that we have simply forgotten can exist - it's so separate from the world now that I find it ok to ignore, but you might not. It's also probably presenting some antisemitic and far right ideas, but in such a bizarre way that they sound the opposite of appealing. But worth considering.

All The Lonely People sounds great Hushabye, it also passes the over 4* test on Goodreads. On the TBR pile it goes!