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.

I mean, can also be used by anxious parents to tackle their own worries.

Anyway, I got to 50!

102. The Boy At The Back Of The Class by Onjali Q Rauf

A children’s book about a Syrian refugee boy joining a London primary school, and the efforts of some of his classmates to befriend and help him.
A lovely heartwarming story.

103. Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi

7 short crime stories set within a larger story.
The idea is that a maths professor worked out a set of rules governing murder mysteries, wrote some stories to demonstrate his rules, and then vanished. And now a publisher has tracked him down and wants to talk about his stories with a view to republishing.
Overall a good read, I enjoyed most of the short stories.

104. Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes

Haynes takes a look at some of the women featured in Greek mythology.
I found this a very interesting and enjoyable read.

30. Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck. I’m one of the few who hasn’t read this - I didn’t know anything going into it. Gripping. What a punch for such a short novel. I liked knowing it was a school text and trying to work out the themes.

BoiledeggandToast that's really interesting about how much the German people were aware of the Death Camps. The Seventh Cross sounds like a more tightly written book than Transit (which I read recently).

61. The Untouchable by John Banville

A re-read of one of my favourite books (actually only my second read ever) prompted by someone mentioning Banville on this thread, I think. I loved this book when I first read it, which must have been 15 years ago, and happily, I still loved it on a second reading. As always with Banville, it is beautifully written (I am not normally a fan of 17 adjectives when one, or none, would do, but he does it so well), but more unusually for him, it actually has a plot that works. That is at least in part because it is based on a real-life story; it's a roman a clef about the Cambridge spy ring and is written from the point of view of an ageing, lightly fictionalised Anthony Blunt (in the novel, Victor Maskell).

Maskell is, of course, a fantastically unreliable narrator in terms of actual events, and in what he chooses to tell us about his own actions, motivations and feelings. The genius of this book is that in his obfuscations and grandiosity (I've never read another Banville where his natural style so suits his subject), Maskell in fact reveals so much. I don't think I have ever read a better portrayal of the slow crumbling of everything a person holds dear. That makes it sound horribly depressing - but it's not, it's often funny - Banville is very good on the incompetence and shoddiness of much of the espionage on both sides of the iron curtain. Also, Maskell is a fascinating character who, just when you had written him off as a dilettante shows surprising moments of steely determination. You end up somehow rooting for him. The portrayal of queer life in London in the 30s, 40s and 50s is wonderful, and I like art, so I also enjoyed the passages on Poussin and others, and the sly asides about Maskell's role at the Palace (including his thoughts on "Mrs W."). The whole world is just so beautifully created. I also think the last few pages are fantastic - sad, farcical in places, they loop right back to the beginning and there's a perfect ending.

So. I like it.

94. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

The Bone Clocks is an epic, sprawling book, both in terms of the time line and the geography, which tells of the war between Horologists and Anchorites - two groups with very different approaches to keeping death at bay. Although the story is told the from the viewpoint of a number of characters, the central thread of the story is the life of Holly Sykes who we follow from a 1980s teen to an old woman, living in a world with limited resources and technology.

There were times when I was reading this book that I thought it was one of the best books I'd ever read, it hooked me from the moment Holly meets a woman fishing and asks her for a drink, but there were times when it all felt that bit too epic and there were definitely a few things that either weren't explained or that I just missed. That said I couldn't stop reading it and although my initial reaction, that it was going to be one of the best books I'd ever read, wasn't quite on the mark, it was definitely one of the best books I have read this year.

95. Saving Time by Jodi Taylor

The latest Time Police book which I listed to on Audible. I enjoyed this book which included a trip to Ancient Greece and the unveiling of the shadowy Mr P (and I have to say I did not see that one coming) but the constant, "oh they've died", swiftly followed by "oh no wait, no they haven't" is getting a bit boring now - there's no real sense of jeopardy. I found the romance elements kind of sweet but the book as a whole felt a bit disjointed and while I love the St Mary's lot I think it is time for the Time Police to stand on their own.

96. A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane

Kenzie and Gennaro are PIs tasked with retrieving some documents from a cleaning lady who has gone missing. When they catch up with her they realise all is not what it seems and become embroiled in a gang war.

This book was God awful and just plain nasty. There was nothing I liked about it, but plenty I hated - the racism (I get he was trying to show racial conflict but it was done so very, very badly - and I think I could have got this without the 'N' word being used every 5 mins), the sexism, all the isms really.

This is why I need to read more physical books, rather than kindle books, deleting the download doesn’t bring the same satisfaction that I suspect would come from throwing this book out of the window.

@MamaNewtNewt

YAY!!!!

Gosh we are similar in what we love aren't we?

(Bone Clocks)

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit Definitely! I'd just gone back to the start of the thread to look at the lists to get inspiration for my next read and noticed you'd bolded it.

Best fiction this year without a doubt

Non Fiction Only Plane and I think you feel the same.

That is definitely my non fiction book of the year. It seems fitting to have read it this year as well.

38. The Guide, by Peter Heller. Jack (who appeared in Heller's previous book, The River) is spending the summer as a fishing guide at a luxury lodge in Colorado. His client, Alison, is a famous singer who grew up fishing and is visiting the lodge for a quiet trip where she won't be bothered by the press. This starts slowly, with a LOT of fishing and nature writing, and then picks up speed into a helter skelter thriller, as Jack and Alison realise there's something very wrong at the lodge and its neighbouring estates. Loved this even though it's not quite as good as his book Celine - but then, nothing is!

31. Miracles Of Life - JG Ballard
32. Conundrum - Jan Morris

A fascinating pair of autobiographies that I've been reading simultaneously - Morris on Kindle, and Ballard in the last week of my free Audible trial.

Both born between the wars into a certain milieu of stiff-upper-lip middle-class Englishness, both Jameses (as Jan was at that time) had a childhood alienated from the norm - Ballard in glamorous but filthy and violent Shanghai and subsequently as an internee following the Japanese invasion; Morris in the inner turmoil of realising from an early age that he was in fact transsexual. Both found freedom in the writer's life and by throwing themselves into family life with their own adored children. Morris' account as a pioneer of sex change surgery and Ballard's of his years as a single father following the death of his wife are both extremely moving.

With thanks to @CoteDAzur who recommended the Ballard biog further down the thread.

32. A Narrow Door by Joanne Harris
We're back at St. Oswald's which is under a new headteacher, although long in the tooth Latin Master Roy Straitley is resisting all attempts to modernise. A body is uncovered during a building project, and Straitley discovers that yet again there is likely to be a serious violent criminal in the staff room.

In the same vein as the Gentlemen and Players and Different Class, the narrative is split between Straitley and a ne'er do well with a dodgy past. Utterly preposterous, but gripping nonetheless

92: The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer

In 1974, shy teen Julie Jacobson (soon to be reborn as 'Jules') spends a summer at bohemian Spirit-in-the-Woods camp and feels her humdrum life is transformed when she's accepted by a group of far more glamorous and exotic New Yorkers - siblings Ash and Goodman; aspiring dancer Cathy; musician Jonah, whose mother is a famous folk-singer, and homely Ethan, already absorbed in creating the imaginary cartoon planet - Figland - which will eventually make him rich and famous. They dub themselves 'the Interestings', and we follow their lives from that moment through to their middle age.

I'm a fan of Wolitzer's writing and also mighty partial to this kind of quotidian American fiction, but there were times in this veeeeery long book when I wondered just how interesting the characters really were......I can't say my attention was riveted throughout. A worthy novel but somehow slightly missing the humour of some of her other writing, I thought.

TheTurnofTheScrew, ooh, I have the whole St Oswald's trilogy in my Kindle TBR, and need to look at them, though I may as well start with no 1.

The Last House on Needless Street
This was an odd one. Currently 99p on kindle, this involves a missing child, a talking cat, an odd man who may or may not be a killer and a whole lot of oddness. I wouldn't say I liked it, as such, but it did hold my interest and I finished it in pretty much one sitting.

50 The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky. Translated by Tim Mohr

A good one for my 50th book (woo hoo). The novel opens in 1970s USSR with Rosa trying to get her teenage daughter Sulfia to miscarry. She doesn't and has a daughter, Aminat, and the rest of the novel follows the three generations of women through the next 30 odd years. Rosa is a gloriously horrendous character, she is single minded and manipulative and has no self awareness at all but the novel is oddly touching.

That's an excellent title, Janina.

101. The Heron's Cry, by Ann Cleeves
I liked The Long Call and I thought it introduced summer fresh new elements into the author's crime fiction. This outing feels more standard issue. It's perfectly fine, but nothing more.

Currently on Are We Having Fun Yet? by Lucy Mangan. It was originally billed as an update of Diary of a Provincial Lady, which I was excited about, but do far it is bog standard mumlit, more akin to the Why Mummy Drinks series than anything E M Delafield ever wrote. Maybe I've had it too easy as a single parent, but is life in a two-parent two-child dual income family really that difficult? So much of angst feels self-inflicted.

Sorry for typos. Fat fingers and mislaid reading glasses are a risky combination.

Been away for half term, so managed to get more reading done than usual, including:

45. Apples Never Fall - Liane Moriarty I really enjoyed this. I'm a fan of hers generally, but really didn't like her last book (Nine Perfect Strangers), so I was very happy to find her back on form with this one. It's easy reading, but the characters are very well-drawn (especially Joy), and the family dynamics (which were on my mind as I was away with my extended family) are done brilliantly.
Plot: Recently retired Joy argues with her husband and disappears from the family home. Police and their four children try to solve the mystery. Could Stan really have murdered his wife? And if not, what has happened to her?

46. Wintering - Katherine May I came to this because it's been much recommended on here. It's well-written and wise and I'm glad I read it, but I was never desperate to pick it up and start reading again. I spent a summer on bed-rest during a complicated pregnancy years ago, and that period of enforced withdrawal was interesting to think about while reading this. I'm also a recent convert to year-round sea-swimming, so I enjoyed that passage particularly.

47. Leave the World Behind - Rumaan Alam
Has anyone else read this yet? Don't think I've seen any other reviews of it. A middle-class NY family hire a holiday home near the ocean on the East coast. A couple of days into their holiday there's a late night knock on the door. A (Black) couple have arrived who say they own the house and have come to it for safety as there's a blackout in New York. (I've bracketed the 'black' because the race issues this raises and the additional suspicion our (white) protagonists feel are dealt with deftly and with great subtlety in my view.) Over the next few days, though information is scarce, it becomes apparent that there is a complete change to the world order afoot, though it what way it is never made fully clear. The first family and the owner-couple begin to trust and rely on each other.
I liked this a lot. I enjoyed the minutiae (a detailed holiday shopping list), and the depiction of shifting family life with teenage children. But the main thread of story is properly creepy and menacing and juxtaposed to great effect against the 'ordinary people living ordinary lives'.

@maudmadrigal, I read Leave the World Behind in the summer - not techie enough to link to my review - but agree that it was very good and the sense of menace and fear was done very well.

@TimeforaGandT That must have been when I fell off the thread for a bit. The jury is still out on if I will remember it positively - I think I will but I am also a bit haunted by Archie's teeth!

99. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdin
    Warts-and-all memoir of life as a chef in New York. Very entertaining, and I particularly liked the fact that after all his stories of chaos and high-octane cheffing he acknowledges that other restaurants / chefs achieve excellent results in a more calm and reasonable manner.

100. Ambush or Adore by Gail Carriger
     Gentle romance set in the same world as the author's Finishing School series, following two of the characters from their school days through to old age. Definitely one for fans, the plot really needs the background from previous books, but I liked it a lot.

Talking of food, have just finished Scoff which took some reading as it is very detailed, but it was enormously interesting and fascinating. it has a great tie in with books and particularly for fans of Lark rise to Candleford, Austen and Dickens.

Pen Vogler examines the links between food and social class (although never really resolves tea and dinner for me as I live in permanent cultural confusion with my upbringing!) and there are many fascinating chapters on eg picnics, Christmas turkey, bread, cake etc etc.

She is very knowledgeable about sociology, food, history and literature and all this helps. Her bit on fruit is really eye opening.

I was a bit disappointed she doesn't seem to be a Hardy fan. Food is very important in his works. But she will help me not to skim past bits about food in Austen or any other novel but to understand what the authors are saying. The passage on the picnic in Emma is a case in point.

Directly helpful for me is her explanation of the turkey in A Christmas Carol which I shall be boring regaling my colleagues with tomorrow.

I've got Scoff waiting for me. I'm half way through 5 different non-fiction books though!