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.

Test post as I just lost a long post despite trying to copy the text so I could trying again.

@Bibliomania

I've also read Ann Cleeves, The Heron's Cry recently and finihsed Lucy Mangan, Are We Having Fun Yet? a few days ago. Both via Netgalley for review, and I've even written my second Netgalley review this year for the Mangan.

I haven't yet read The Diary of a Provincial Lady though I've had a copy ever since I can remember and I even know where it is . I also have her daughter's book Provincial Daughter on my shelves and several other Delafield novels on Kindle. I'm thinking I need to make reading some books from my lovely reprint collections a plan for 2022.

But I think trying to claim a rewrite of that book is asking for trouble. I quite enjoyed it as henlit (chicklit about women approaching or in middle age). I did mention a couple of other fictional diariests in my review, I confess - ^Bridget Jones and Adrian Mole*,

I thoroughly recommend a read of Provincial Lady, elkie. I enjoyed Provincial Daughter too - it's derivative of her mother's style, but interesting to see the differences within a single generation.

Far to Go by Noel Streatfeild
More adventures of Margaret Thursday. It was okay. Not one I'd come across before.

I've finished two library books and another Netgalley in 3 days, and have 78 pages to go of another book, all of which I've really enjoyed. Though for different reasons I think these books won't be to all tastes.

edited Sinead Gleeson, The Glass Shore is a collection of short stories by Northern Irish women writers across several centuries (19th, 20th and 21st) with contemporary and historical settings. One of my favourites was about the poet and writer Alice Milligan in old age, but I enjoyed a lot of them. Library book.

Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You, yes, it's very like some of her previous work - I recently listened on audio to two short stories and I wonder if the story Colour and Light was part of an early draft of this novel worked up into a separate short story with different character names.

Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through is a short novel about a woman who has been asked to keep a friend who is terminally (or fatally, as she prefers to say) ill and preparing for death It's a lot wittier than I might have expected during the subject matter, and it helped me somehow as I've been thinking about the anniversary of my mum's death after 6.7 years living with cancer (diagnosed Feb 2010, diagnosed as terminal Sept 2012, died Oct 2016),

Currently top of my huge reading pile

Have just started Harriet Evans, The Beloved Girls (Netgalley), have 78 pages of A Town Called Solace (Kindle, Booker longlist) and then will be focusing on The Fortune Men (shiny new library book, due back yesterday, can't renew because lots of reservations, Booker Prize shortlist, announcement on Wednesday).

I haven't decided yet whether my next library outing will be Tuesday, Wednesday or possibly Friday - I will probably return the hardback of The Fortune Men as an ebook reservation from another library has come through and I am confident I can finish it before that expires. I really don't want an in demand book to be auto-returned when I'm half way or more through and really absorbed in it and not be able to get hold of it for ages, for obvious reasons!)

When I get to the library, I have a copy of Elly Grifffiths' new novel The Midnight Hour which is #6 set in 1960s Brighton waiting for me,

97. Four Past Midnight by Stephen King

This is a collection of 4 novellas which I've read before, but could only really remember The Langoliers and Secret Window, Secret Garden.

I enjoyed The Langoliers, which is about a flight where the majority of passengers disappear mid-flight, and I think King definitely could have got away with explanding this one into a full novel, I would have loved a bit more back story on some of the characters.

I wasn't keen on Secret Window, Secret Garden, which was yet another tale of an alcoholic writer who is accused of plagiarism. It felt very similar to The Dark Half which same out just before this and again drew on King's own problems with alcohol.

The Library Policeman was really good, and again could have been a full novel with a bit more work, I would have loved to have seen the main characters digging into the background of Ardelia some more and getting to the nature of the beast, so to speak. The Sun Dog was ok, it was interesting to return to Castle Rock and to catch up with some already known characters, but i found the main story, that of camera that takes pictures only of a dog that isn't there, a bit dull. All in all a pretty good collection.

97. Four Past Midnight by Stephen King

This is a collection of 4 novellas and even though I have read it before I could only really remember The Langoliers and Secret Window, Secret Garden.

I enjoyed The Langoliers, which is about a flight where the majority of passengers disappear mid-flight, and I think King definitely could have got away with expanding this one into a full novel, I would have loved a bit more back story on some of the characters.

I wasn't keen on Secret Window, Secret Garden, which was yet another tale of an alcoholic writer who is accused of plagiarism. It felt very similar to The Dark Half, which was published just before this and again drew on King's own problems with alcohol.

The Library Policeman was really good, and again could have been a full novel with a bit more work, I would have loved to have seen the main characters digging into the background of Ardelia some more and getting to the nature of the beast, so to speak.

The Sun Dog was just ok. It was interesting to return to Castle Rock and to catch glimpses of some already known characters, but I found the main story, that of camera that takes pictures only of a dog that isn't there, a bit dull. Although I did enjoy the character of 'Pop' Merrill. All in all a pretty good collection.

Finished 102. Are We Having Fun Yet? by Lucy Mangan.

Mildly amusing but I feel that I've read its like many times before. A year in the life of a middle-class mummy, complete with bullying PTA and complaints about spousal domestic ineptitude, washed down with liver-destroying amounts of wine.

This Thing of Darkness is in the November deals - perhaps I should just give in and buy it now.

The Zoologists Guide to the Galaxy - an exploration of what alien life must be like on scientific principles - also looks interesting.

Wintering is on there too. And The Feminine Mystique. The only one I bought is John Mullan's book The Artful Dickens.

Fans of Patricia Highsmith, noir fiction, literary crime fiction, Virago Modern Classics etc, or if you've wanted to try her Mr Ripley antihero/villain books, or her classic lesbian novel originally published under a pseudonym, Carol, all on Daily Deal offer for 99p today. I have some already but I've bought a few more.

Monthly deals from my long Wishlist

99p
Virginia Feito, Mrs March
Sara Sheridan, The Fair Botanists
Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the sun

Lots of excellent series crime novels that I've snapped up before from Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson, the most recent Ruth Galloway novel by Elly Griffiths
Lucky by Jackie Collins in case you need some good 1980s trash
Some other good books that I've already bought

I thought it was lean pickings this month apart from the crime-series-next-ones-along. Picked up some more Scandi noir, Rebus etc.

For beautifully well-written standalone crime (and for fans of well made 1990s TV drama) Barbara Vine's A Fatal Inversion is there too. Loved the adaptation on TV, have read the book a few times.

Picked up Carl Sagan's novel based on scientific discoveries back in the day (takes me back to my fabulous 15 year olds when the school's open night was Stars and we did a 15 minute mash up of Carl Sagan, Walt Whitman, Van Gogh and David Bowie. Not quite as trippy as it sounds) and A Scandinavian Christmas.

Meg - You are very welcome

@LadybirdDaphne

Do it! Do it! Do it!

I really cant cope with the daily deals its like a fucking jumble sale, they need to go back to the old way.

I would love to know the reasoning behind Amazon making the monthly deals fairly visibly obscure compared to a while ago. I suppose it’s somehow to do with money.

For anyone who hasn't already read it, Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking is in the monthly deals. I think she writes so beautifully.

37. Love. Power. Passion. The Leipzig Baroque Opera

This was a Bach Museum publication about the fabulous opera house in Leipzig that had its days of glory shortly before J S Bach arrived there in 1720. Telemann wrote pieces to be performed here.

I enjoyed the historical detail as well the photographs of extant letters, librettos, and musical notes.

@LadybirdDaphne

This Thing of Darkness is in the November deals - perhaps I should just give in and buy it now.

The Zoologists Guide to the Galaxy - an exploration of what alien life must be like on scientific principles - also looks interesting.

You MUST!

Just trawled through 12 pages and given up. It's awful.

Alright you lot, I’ve bought it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to read it though.

105. Lord Of The Flies by William Golding

Very late to the party on this, it was not taught in my high school.

Was very surprised by how short it was, I also found the prose quite basic.

I could see how many essay titles could be wrought from it though.

Piggy

106. Living The Dream by Isabelle Dupuy

Naomi Barnes who is Colombian gravitates towards fellow private school Mum Solange, from Haiti and hopes to write her story. The end result is something and nothing.
Overall, this is a case of London Elite Naval Gazing :

Woe is me for we are so very rich and we live in Hampstead and shop in all the right shops BUT I AM SO INCREDIBLY BURDENED BY MY HUSBANDS VAST WEALTH

Ghastly.

Oh and also on Living The Dream, it was released in 2019, and there's a LOT of focus on the Brexit Referendum and my God it BADLY dates it, just 5 years later.

Excellent review of Living the Dream which I had never heard of and intend to immediately forget.

Not so excellent review of Lord of the Flies. I disagree entirely that the prose is basic. There's so much clever stuff going on in it in terms of symbolism - how on earth can you have read the Simon stuff and claimed it's basic?! Go to the back of the class immediately, and spend your break time re-reading that passage.