50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Seven

[southeastdweller]

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

100. Traces by Patricia Wiltshire

Memoir of a forensic ecologist, so a specialist in such things as soil, grass, plants and fungi, and the areas in which they are useful for identifying the perpetrator of a crime.

I have to say I preferred Richard Shephard's last year, Unnatural Causes, this is good but as someone who is not and never has been very green fingered, I did find myself glazing over, particularly on the funghi.

44. The Matrix by Lauren Groff
I bet this will sell shedloads and be lauded but it left me cold.

Using the name of poetess from the 12th century that we know virtually nothing about Lauren Groff has created a fiction that Marie De France was a tall, ungainly, lesbian, illegitimate half sister to Eleanor of Acquitane who banishes Marie at age 17 to an improvished English convent as Prioress. Shocked at the poverty, hunger and mismanagement at the Nunnery, Marie soon puts her education and societal connections to good use, attracting postulants from rich families, retired upper class widows and wealthysponsors and puts the Abbey lands to profitable use. The Abbey becomes wealthy and powerful and eventually Marie organises a wall to built around it and its land sealing it off from the outside with men banished from its precincts.

I really wanted to love this book. The story intrigued me but it just didn't click with me. I found the writing a bit flat and didatic. It didn't go to places that were unexpected or enthrall me. Marie's character took up so much space that the other nuns who she was often intimately involved with were unknown in their characters. I didn't believe in the world building - it was imbued with too many modern values. It all just felt dull and too long. To be honest, I was glad to reach the end.

Oh gosh SapatSea. I love the lais (short story poems) of Marie de France -- or more accurately, the lais attributed to Marie de France, since as you say we know almost nothing about her. ('Her' lais appear anonymously in other manuscript collections of Breton lais, and there is only one manuscript, Harley 978 at the British Library, which names her as their author.) They are such fabulous tales about women, love and the supernatural. So I don't think I could read Matrix, it sounds a bit clumsy and would probably wind me up no end. I wonder what other medievalists would think of it though!

94. Realms of Glory by Catherine Fox
    The third Lindchester novel, set in 2016 over the period of the Brexit referendum. There were loads of things I loved about this - it really did make me laugh out loud and make me cry a little at other points. The weaknesses only really struck me later after having read

95. Tales from Lindford by Catherine Fox
    Returning to her characters four years later, as they see in 2020 at New Years' parties. There's some charming bits of plot here, but I think it would be fair to say that they are quite heavily socially distanced amongst authorial musings on Covid, Brexit et al.

What I really missed - and realised in retrospect was missing from novel no. 3 - was any genuine differing points of view. The first two books centred around the gay marriage debate in the Anglican church, and while the author's stance was quite obvious, there were still sympathetic, convincing characters with differing opinions. In book 3 the referendum / brexit is a central theme, but absolutely no sense of why her fictional town voted leave. Similarly, not only are there are no Covid deniers / lockdown sceptics amongst the cast of book 4, there's no real emotional sense of anyone doing anything except safely working from home. Ironically given that supposedly some of the characters are taking Covid funerals - it's mentioned but really doesn't come across. Basically, it does feel as if the author is only able to make emotionally engaging characters where she can enter into their feelings herself.

Having said all that, they are charming, entertaining reads as far as they go, and I'm sure I'll revisit them in the future.

I felt that Realms of Glory was somewhat uneven compared to thr previous two, with a bit too much repetition- I then read that they were written "in real time" so so speak and published during the year on her blog, which makes more sense that the overall plot was weak- I liked it though, but I think it needed a bit of editing or revising to make it flow better as a novel.

94. It's All in your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan. The first book by this neurologist, this again focuses on psychosomatic disorders, and is really good in its descriptions of how the mind can take over the body, and how different these conditions are from malingering. Worth a read.

95. Midsummer Mysteries by Agatha Christie. Short stories, quite a pleasant way to pass the time. Was a bit confused when one seemed really really similar to another I had recently listened to on an audiobook, and was worried I hadn't listened properly and had made a lot of stuff up, but turns out she had rewritten the story at a later date, and my listening skills are OK!

One of Them by Musa Okwonga A personal and very honest account of a young black man writing about his five years at Eton, how his experiences affected him and, more widely, how Eton impacts on society. His writing is deceptively simple and in short chapters he covers a broad range of social and political issues such as privilege, racism, class and how Britain likes to present itself. This was excellent and I really recommend it.

87: The Weather Experiment - Peter Moore

Really enjoyable non-fiction exploration of the history of weather science, focusing mainly on a few 19thc heavyweights. Fans of TTOD may be interested to know that Robert Fitzroy is one of the main heroes of this book, and Moore sympathetically charts his chequered career, giving full credit to all his achievements as well as his less-successful ventures (and his tragic death, of course).

I was also happy to be reunited with several of the characters who pop up in Richard Holmes's excellent books Age of Wonder and Falling Upwards, including the scientist and balloonist James Glaister.

There are lots of fascinating anecdotes and plenty of information about weather that I didn't know, conveyed in a very engaging and easy-to-grasp way. My only slight cavil is over the often-odd and poor punctuation, which became seriously distracting and seemed strange in such a literate and otherwise well-written book - better editing needed. Otherwise though, a great read.

It's a bit rich that after complaining about sloppy editing, I didn't notice the autocorrect of FitzRoy.....

cassandre the lais sound really interesting. Near the start of The Matrix, Marie transcribes/translates them and sends them to Eleanor to try to curry favour and get back to court. However the content of them isn't really explored beyond how much Marie loves them.

48 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante. Translated by Ann Goldstein

At the start of the novel Giovanna is 12, growing up in middle class Naples in the 90s with teacher parents. She overhears her beloved father saying she is getting ugly and looks like her estranged Aunt Vittoria who lives in a working class area of Naples. Giovanna begs to meet her aunt and so begins her exploration of herself as she grows to adulthood (the book ends not long after her 16th birthday). The writing style feels slightly mid 20th century, the first person narrative is a bit detached but I don't know if that is due to the narrative is being written much later (so Giovanna is looking back on her adolescence as an adult) or that kind of middle class suppression of emotions (in comparison to the romanticism of Giovanna's aunt) that gives an analytical quality to it. Vittoria dominates the early part of the novel, she is so different from anyone Giovanna has met up to that point. Later Giovanna develops a crush on a young charismatic professor studying religion. All the adults lie, both to Giovanna and themselves and Giovanna's growing awareness of this is the main story arch. This was very good on what it feels like to go through adolescence, the detachment from your body and its changes and the effect it has on men and the growing awareness of the faults and weaknesses of your parents. This was good and well written but didn't blow me away.

I keep falling off the threads. This really has been a hectic start to "term" in 2021. I know it was a while back but @Tanaqui I was so sorry to read about your son. I hope you are doing OK.

My pathetic haul of "recent" reads (I can't concentrate on anything remotely complex at the moment):

52. The Appeal by Janice Hallett

Much reviewed this year, this one seems to be a bit of a Marmite book. You probably all know the set up: young lawyers try to work out "whodunnit" from a series of emails and text messages amongst a community putting on an amateur dramatic production to raise money for a child with cancer. I thoroughly enjoyed this; zipped through it, got some of the questions right but not others, and I thought the characterisation of Issy was spot on.

53. The Shadows in the Street by Susan Hill

Simon Serrailler comfort reading. Remember virtually nothing about the crime; enjoyed the family relationships as ever.

54. Perfect by Rachel Joyce

An unusual novel set in the early 1970s, but also whizzing forward to something like the present day. 11 year old Byron is fascinated by the idea that scientists are going to add two seconds to the clock because time has gone out of sync. When he thinks he sees it happening and wants to tell his mother, she has a car accident and events spiral out of control. Alongside the story of Byron and his mother, Diana, we learn about Jim, a former psychiatric inpatient, now living in the community and paralysed by his need to carry out rituals in everything he does. Whilst Byron tries to deal with his mother's life slowly unravelling, Jim meets a woman, Eileen, who has a profound effect on him. The stories eventually converge (although not in the way I expected them to) and although some of the events are gruelling, there's a hopeful note at the end. I enjoyed Joyce's writing - I thought at times that it was a bit overdone and arch, but Byron's voice is funny and well done; there are some lovely asides and also some beautifully written passages. I haven't read any of Joyce's other books, including the more famous "Harold Fry" but would definitely be up for giving another a go.

I'll try to come back a bit more quickly next time!

Speaking of TTOD, my county library have been putting unwanted stock up for sale via the library online service.

After a happy hour or two browsing the library surplus stock last night, I’ve splashed out on an ex-library copy of TTOD for the princely sum of 50p. I’m guessing it’ll be delivered to my local library branch sometime this week or next.

So I’ve no excuse at all for moving it higher up my to-read list now

JaninaDuszejko great review of The Lying Life of Adults (love that title). I had the book on my must buy list but cancelled when I caught the Radio 4 abridged version read (appallingly IMHO)by Juliet Aubrey on the BBC Sounds App last year. It seemed to tread already familiar Elena Ferrante ground. I'm not sure if it was Juliet Aubrey's "voices" for the characters but it felt repellent to me.

Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

An elderly dying woman looks back on the summer of 1969 when she was sent to provide a report on a bridge at an old stately home, and met the bohemian couple Cara and Peter. I enjoyed this, it did a great job of setting the scene.

Coots In The North and other stories by Arthur Ransome

The main point of this book is the unfinished 13th Swallows and Amazons book, of which Ransome wrote about 4 chapters. It was great and a shame he never got to write more. I also enjoyed the other stories in the book.

Wait for Me by Deborah Devonshire

The memoirs of the youngest Mitford sister who later became Duchess of Devonshire living at Chatsworth. I liked the parts about her childhood as it’s interesting to hear about the family from different perspectives, and also interesting to hear about life at Chatsworth. There is a lot of name dropping and assumptions that you will know who they all are - most of the time I did but sometimes I didn’t! However, it’s strangely unemotional - I never got any real sense of what she felt about things or people although that itself may be a product of her upbringing. I would also have liked photos - my copy didn’t have any although her acknowledgements did mention credit for photos so that might just be my copy at fault! Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in the Mitford family.

101. The Sandman : Act II by Neil Gaiman

A second audiobook dramatisation of the graphic novel series about Morpheus, the Lord Of Dreams.

This particular offering, in terms of the mix of stories, didn't really do it for me, I didn't feel they 'hung together' particularly well.

In spite of this, if there is a third installment I will absolutely read it and I am really looking forward to the forthcoming Netflix TV adaptation

A couple to add from me:

81. The Dinner Guest : B P Walter A thriller about a gay couple and their adopted son who invite a woman to dinner. During the dinner one of the couple is murdered and the woman confesses. The story then back tracks to what has been going on. This was readable in a page turner way, which was what I wanted after The Passage North. I wasn't entirely convinced by the ending and motivations.

82 & 83. Foundation, Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov. Old SF classics written in the 40s and 50s. I had read these as a teenager but picked them up to reread in a Kindle deal. The concept is still interesting but the writing is very much of it's time with very little character development. I did read in Wiki that they'd been originally published as short stories and later compiled as a novel which makes more sense as it doesn't really hold together as a novel. The second book works a bit better with the mysterious character of the Mule. Apparently Apple TV have just made a series of it which will be interesting.

Back into the very present next as I need to read Sally Rooney for book club.

The Lamplighters
Unfortunately, this didn't live up to its early promise. I thought the ending was really quite stupid.

43. The Killings at Kingfisher Hill -Sophie Hannah

Latest Poirot outing from Sophie Hannah. Poirot and Inspector Catchpool have been invited to luxury estate Kingfisher Hill to solve a murder, but even on the coach journey there the plot thickens with confessions and death threats… Sophie Hannah has become a sort of comfort reading for me, the writing is so smooth and clear you can just settle back and relax, and even though the endings are always daft, this one was more satisfying and less convoluted than usual.

88: In The Heat of the Moment - Viveca Sten (trans Marlaine Delargy)

No 5 in the Sandhamn Swedish crime series, which has become my go-to undemanding comfort read of late. To be honest, I did struggle a bit to connect with this one, as my empathy with a group of well-to-do Swedish teens celebrating Midsummer was a bit on the muted side. But I whizzed through it nevertheless (and, despite Sandhamn being the equivalent of Midsummer in terms of idyllic locations with terrifying crime-rates, I still wouldn't say no to a lovely summer home there).

56. You could do something amazing with your life You are Raoul Moat by Andrew Hankinson
    I am not a reader of true crime at all so I can’t compare how this fits into that general area. The book is about the last days of Raoul Moat and tries to write from the perspective of Moat himself. However it doesn’t sympathise with Moat or make excuses, he comes across as a completely unhinged person who should not have been out in society as he posed a real danger and was completely deluded. The fact that he was out is also partly a failure of various nets (for example he stated in prison he was going to kill his girlfriend but this information was not passed on and he was released)

57. Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
    Sally Rooney like book about an Irish girl living in Hong Kong as she kind of drifts along. She ends up with a boyfriend who she lives with and while he is away for a few months she begins an affair with a woman. I didn’t like this at all, there is a lot of talking and conversations throughout which I normally like but these were so so boring. I didn't care basically

58. The Margot Affair by Sanae Lemoine
    A young girl living in Paris with her actress mother must keep the identity of her father a secret as she is the product of an affair between her mother and a prominent politician. One day she decides that she is tired of living with the secret and decides to speak to the press. I enjoyed this one, the main character was believable as a teenager and so were the actions of the other characters. This is more of a quiet book than the plot line suggests and focuses more on the life with her mother rather than the wider news scandal.

59. Crimes strangest cases by Peter Seddon
    Does what the title suggests, I picked this up on a whim from the library and it was a fun read.

60. The count of Monte Cristo
    This moves at a breakneck speed and is full of plot on top of more plot. Enjoyable for a 900 page classic

61. The Long Take by Robin Robertson
    About a man who returns to the states after being involved in D-Day, he travels from New York to LA reflecting on how much the war has changed him. There is a moody noir atmosphere to this and was just my kind of thing. However I would hesitate to recommend it because it is 200 pages of Prose writing which is not appeal to all.

Like Sadik, I have just read:

72. Tales of Glory - Catherine Fox

The fourth book in the Lindchester Chronicles which is set in 2020 and all about Covid. I found this far less enjoyable than the previous three books and it took me much longer to get through. I think that’s probably because so much of it was focusing on Covid, isolating and social distancing - which is not very cheerful and meant less time on the characters and storylines. I would also have liked to have spent more time with some characters who seemed to have been reduced to walk on roles only in comparison to previous books (both Bishops, the Dean etc). Disappointing.

94. Walking the Invisible, Michael Stewart
It's a bit hard to classify this one - it's partly a guidebook to some Bronte-themed walks around West Yorkshire, partly an account of walking in the area, a lot of musing on the author's project to install four stones with poems by living authors as a memorial to the Brontes, and an account of various conversations with other people about the Brontes. I'm not sure it coheres into a satisfying whole, but it would be worth having to hand if you're visiting the area.

95. Hard Time, by Jodi Taylor
I think broadening the story beyond St Mary's has freshened things up a bit. If you're a fan, you'll like it and if you're not, it won't convert you.

27. Chernobyl Prayer - Svetlana Alexeivich

A collection of monologues from people affected by the Chernobyl disaster, which was used as one of the source materials for the recent drama series. Utterly heartbreaking and in no way an easy read, but an important one.

BadSpella I loved The Long Take too.