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.

Meanwhile:
96. The Black Friend On Being a Better White Person, by Frederick Joseph
Short and straightforward book reflecting on the author's and a number of interviewees' experiences with racism, and looking at ways that white readers can behave better / confront racism. I think this is intended as a YA book, and it's also American, but well worth a read regardless, it's well written & deals with serious issues with a light touch.

97. The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik This was nearly a very expensive treat - I bought it to read on a long train journey, & almost missed my change & ended up in Cardiff instead of Aberystwyth. It's the sequel to A Deadly Education & continue's El's story through her final year of school. It's perhaps not quite up to book one, mainly because El is more settled and less snarky, but still thoroughly enjoyable & very engaging (hence not paying attention to my stop).

As a side note @ScumbagDave I'm very sympathetic to you not liking A Deadly Education, but I would point out that it isn't El, the heroine, who has the long hair, but her friend Liu.

Haven't read Absolute Beginners for years (my copy has Patsy Kensit on so that gives you an idea of how long ago I read it!), sounds like it's time for a reread.

Sorry you're having a rough time @MegBusset I love Bob Mortimer, might have to give that a try.

45. The Knife’s Edge

Second volume of memoirs from heart surgeon Stephen Westaby (I hadn’t read the first one but now have it lined up on Audible). If you’re missing Henry Marsh and want blood, guts and arrogance, you’ve come to the right place. The interesting angle here is that he gained the semi-psychopathic personality needed by cutting edge surgeons from a brain injury. He’s an old-fashioned, hard-working, shouty, no time for touchy feely business doctor - you almost certainly wouldn’t want to work with him - but it’s only by being this driven and bloody-minded that he achieved so much. Right up my street; ymmv.

Absolute Beginners was one of my very favourite books as a teenager though I've not read it for years. There's a Backlisted episode on it for the podcast fans

Suddenly stopped reading, stopped checking this thread and am now behind on everything!

So just popping in to record I have finally finished something. Hoping more time for reading all round when I go on holiday at half term.

42. Lois on the Loose by Lois Pryce

Lois chucked in her job to motorbike from Alaska to Chile and this is the story of how, why and border crossings. I like to feel like I have an adventure in me, but I'm yet to find it and know in reality I'd be terrified by a lot of what she faced.

She's gone on to explore more and write other books and I would say her writing improves as she goes on. Pretty inspiring lady all round really. Recommended if you like adventure travel books.

I loved the film of Absolute Beginners. I was a school librarian and stole the book! It is very much of its time the film : Patsy Kensit; Roland Gift; Bowie! Glorious.

I have just finished Heartstone which lots of you will have read. I enjoyed this one although I did see the twist coming. I won't say anything because spoilers.

Gosh, Rich is proper evil in this one!

It mainly centres around Portsmouth and the Mary Rose. I am of the age that I recall the raising of the ship and all the stuff on Blue Peter but knew nothing else about the war with France or why it sank so that was all interesting as are the ideas about women and girls and the way they were trapped - literally and metaphorically- and abused by men.

Looking forward to Lamentation now.

89: A Sultry Month: Scenes of London Literary Life in 1846 - Alethea Hayter

Classic study of events over the summer of 1846, centring on the suicide of the eccentric painter Benjamin Robert Haydon. He was part of a large circle of writers, artists and politicians, including Dickens, Tennyson, the actor Macready, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett - who at the time were conducting the secret romance that concluded shortly afterwards in their elopement and marriage.

Hayter weaves a brilliantly-researched narrative - an hour-by-hour account from dozens of different sources - that charts Haydon's last few days and descent into despair as his debts mounted. Strictly one for the Victorian geeks but if you like this sort of thing it's a fascinating book.

I never realised Absolute Beginners was a book, sounds interesting.

84. Beautiful World, Where Are You? - Sally Rooney. Am I the first to review this? I think if you're a fan you'll like it but it definitely won't be converting anyone. The two main characters are Alice and Eileen. Alice is a best-selling author who got a £250,000 advance for her first book and is now rich (sounds familiar?). She has written two books but has since had a breakdown and moved to the country. There's quite a lot of railing against the fame of being an author and people thinking they know her because they know her books. Eileen has a job as an editor in a small literary magazine and is just about making ends meet. The book alternates between emails to and from Alice and Eileen - although not like emails anyone I knew has ever written, these are musings on the collapse of the bronze age, climate change and Jesus - and chapters describing their lives and their respective love interests, Felix & Simon. As with all Rooney books, there is a lot of navel gazing. Her characters are very concerned with the plight of the world but seem weirdly passive and their own lives, and a bit whiny at times. The second half of the book when the 4 characters meet up moved at a better pace for me than the first half.

I haven't read any Sally Rooney. Perhaps wrongly, I've boxed them off in my head as books I would have loved in my twenties, but at 40something they just don't whet my appetite.

29. The Time-Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

Basically a Rough Guide, but for England in the 14th century. Different aspects of daily life (food, law and order, travel) are presented as they would be experienced by all strata of society from kings and lords down to villeins. The 2nd person narrative is a bit cheesy but works here, and there are enough quirky facts (from the banning of football to how best to show off your shapely, manly buttocks) to keep it light and interesting.

I think you have got here first with a review Stokey. Love the review - it does sound familiar! "musings on the collapse of the Bronze Age* .
I wonder if Sally Rooney felt under a huge pressure to "deliver" after the TV success of Normal People. I disliked NP - how Marianne was treated by Connell (and all the other men) , the abuse and her need for violent sex. I wanted her to get some help not keep chasing after men. I didn't feel it was "a love story" like the media bigged it up to be (unless you consider Wuthering Heights to be great romance).

I also think the actress who played Marianne was made up (hairstyle etc) to look rather like Sally Rooney.

Seems like real life and fiction meld in her books. "Write what you know" ??

I've got Beautiful World on reserve Stokey and so was very interested in your review. I found her first 2 very readable but narrow in focal range - I wonder if in 50 years she'll be writing books where everyone is between 75 and 80?

My latest is 41 Spring by Ali Smith: I found this easier to settle into than the previous 2 seasons, and really enjoyed the first half or two thirds. Yes, a lot of it goes over my head; but at a height that I am comfortable with. The dominant storyline in the first part of the book is a man dealing with the death of a friend he has worked with and idolised for decades. As with the previous Seasons, it is joyful and witty and playful; ideas and memories pop up and down and resurface both from earlier books and earlier in the same book - I’m intending to reread them all when I’ve finished Summer. I found the last third or so particularly gruelling though - and rightly so, it’s about the horrors of the Hostile Environment and we should have to face them, but am left feeling just as powerless but more dreadful than before.

This series remains one of my (belated) discoveries of the year but will take a break before reading Summer.

52. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery An orphan is adopted by an elderly brother & sister in Victorian Canada.

I haven't read this for years, I was rather obsessed with it as a child. I enjoyed reliving all Anne's misadventures and developing relationships with her friends and adopted family.

@TheTurn0fTheScrew I think she probably does appeal more to millennials. Not as much time for deep pondering once you have a family and actual stuff to do!
@SapatSea there isn't as much of that abusive side of things thankfully, although I did find the relationships a bit unequal. I didn't really get what Alison saw in Felix, and Eileen and Simon's relationship seemed rather uneven.

@Cornishblues, I wonder if she'll tone down the sex by then!!

Cornishblues I wondered if the Seasons quartet gets better as you go along, or if I got used to the unusual style. Summer was definitely my favourite.

Audiobook
21) Buried by Lynda La Plante Read by Alex Hasell, Annie Adlington
I actually enjoyed this bit of escapism. It is the first in a series and the main character is a young DC called Jack Warr in the metropolitan police. He has a few personal issues he is dealing with as well as trying to help crack a case. It starts with a fire in a derelict cottage, remains of a body and remains of millions of untraceable bank notes. I would recommend this and have the next one Judas Horse reserved from the library.
In the middle of reading The Book Theif by Marcus Zusak and not too sure about it, it’s not totally capturing me and I could easily add it to the DNF pile but when a book is given to me to read and is wanted back I feel that I must finish it to see what it is all about.

The Book Thief was a DNF from me too. I've tried Ali Smith's Spring but couldn't connect, it's on my to try again in the future pile. You are right TheTurnOfTheScrew they are written in an unusual style.

@YolandiFuckinVisser

52. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery An orphan is adopted by an elderly brother & sister in Victorian Canada.

I haven't read this for years, I was rather obsessed with it as a child. I enjoyed reliving all Anne's misadventures and developing relationships with her friends and adopted family.

I read all of these for the first time as an adult, I was OBSESSED

101. The Vacancy by Elisabeth Carpenter

Psychological thriller.
Rachel is running from her past, when she applies for a job as a live in assistant to author Dorothy.
But nothing is as it seems and Rachel’s secrets aren’t going to stay hidden.

One of those sorts of books that’s readable enough and keeps me turning the pages, but that I suspect I’ll have pretty much forgotten about a few months down the line.

53. Knock and Wait - Gwen Grant A sequel to Private - Keep Out, in which our heroine is sent to an open air school in Kent to cure her anaemia.

This is another re-read of a childhood favourite. The unnamed protagonist documents her experiences being sent away from her crowded home in a Nottinghamshire pit town to an isolated hospital school for the good of her health.

Meg Hope everything is ok.

I've had the plague so have hardly read a thing. I've started the latest Rooney but haven't had the concentration for it. Found it a bit boring so far, so it's been interesting to see the reviews.

In the Country of Others - Leïla Slimani
A French woman married to a Moroccan soldier in the post war era finds her life hard dealing the change of country and the challenges of bringing up children in two cultures. Works very well as a piece of historical fiction, but also has a lot to say on the politics and culture of the time and difficulties of being in an interracial marriage in a place and time where women were not well respected. I can't remember who recommended this up thread, thanks, it is a really good book.

I'm reading Kathleen Stock's Material Girls at the moment which is excellent. Prior to all of the escalating situation at Sussex, she'd agreed to Zoom with our book club about it soon, so hoping that goes ahead, but understandable if not. Well worth a read if you are GC or not.

26. Luster by Raven Leilani. A young women’s life changes dramatically when her boyfriend’s wife invites her to stay. This was a book club pick and completely divided us with some loving the uncomfortable dark humour and others hating the young vulnerable woman / older abusive partner trope. I sat somewhere in the middle. The writing is beautiful and accurate. The racial power dynamics at play fascinating. But, ultimately it was a little too sparse for me, and the frustrations of young women falling for these types of men too distracting.
27. Thirteen Steve Cavanagh. A legal thriller about a high profile murder case where the killer may or may not be on the jury. This was a combination of Runaway Jury and Criminal Minds and I loved it. Realised it’s 4th in the series so will try the others.

Yolandi and EineReise: I loved the Anne of Green Gables books though I had a bit of a gap between reading the first one and discovering that there was a whole series, most of which I read through the library. I particularly love the first 3 books taking her through school and college - I devoured the later ones as a kid but reading them as a critical adult....

Have you read the Emily trilogy as well? Though #3 is a disappointment after Emily of New Moon and #2.

I also loved the Gwen Grant books, and think I now have all 3 in paperback. More for the reread list.

Have you read Lucy Mangan, Bookworm? - a memoir of childhood reading by someone who clearly grew up with many of the same 1970s books though she's about 5 years younger than me.

Interview with Elizabeth Strout to promote her new book Oh William! (follow up to My Name is Lucy Barton)on the Guardian site today
www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/oct/17/elizabeth-strout-oh-william-interview-lucy-barton

@elkiedee

Oh they certainly go off piste after Anne and Gilbert marry, but I really didn't care