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.

107.The Prime Ministers by Iain Dale

This was billed as 55 essays about the men and two women who have held the office from Walpole through to Johnson and I was particularly interested in the Prime Ministers I knew little or nothing about. I was up for it.

It went south very quickly and was a total misfire. I had to dip in and out. My reading app tells me I took just over 5 hours, but I started this 4 months ago which gives you some idea.

Many of the "essays" have little right to the name and are essentially glorified "pen portraits" others are so dull, they really exceed the descriptor tedious.

I found that having little awareness of the political issues of the 1700s, the challenges of the sphere inhabited by those leaders were pretty much meaningless to me.

I thought to myself, perhaps they will become more engaging when you hit the 20th Century. Nope, didn't happen.

Every essay, every PM, has their own author. Most of these are biased towards the subject by virtue of it being a historical speciality or that the writer personally knew them; in several cases, obsequious even.

This makes the entry for David Cameron the most amusing as the closing paragraph makes clear what the author (Adam Boulton of Sky News) thought of him and its nothing good.

I was determined to finish it, but frankly I can only describe it as arduous.

I’ve worked out that the Yeats poem was Down By the Salley Gardens:
^But I, being young and foolish,
with her would not agree^

The other GCSE sex pest poem was To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.

Viking, I meant to comment on An Academic Question. It's a very atypical Pym - she couldn't get her books published as they were deemed unfashionable, so had a stab at the more fashionable campus novel. As a Pym fan, I think it's an interesting failure. As she was friends with Larkin, I very much picture it as the University of Hull. There is one very Pym moment: two women in a shed, one mourning the death of a hedgehog while the narrator broods over whether her husband is straying. The narrator decides she's in the better position - her husband might still return, but the hedgehog is definitely gone for good.

That's one of the things I love about Pym - the willingness to be consoled by the absurdity of life.

Those of you who like Yeats - Have you read Hyperion by Dan Simmons?

Cote, I haven't but it's on my Kindle. Am intrigued by the link to Yeats as can't see an obvious one...

I too studied Yeats at A-level. I haven't looked at his poems in years but remember really liking the language in some of them. I suspect a lot was wasted on 17 year old me. Maybe it's time for a re-read.

Viking at the blog post. I agree with you Sunny Prestatyn is brutal. Apparently it is included the AQA English Lit A level poetry anthology - comedy really?? The AQA notes say it is "black comedy", "edgy" and this jewel "Perhaps if it were not for the comic tone, this poem could be seen as tragic rather than comedic." I know the poem is about a defaced poster but it is so graphic and feels like a real woman has been beaten, raped and murdered to me and a reflection of how a lot of men feel about women.

Interesting that Larkin was a great friend to Pym. I don't much about him, I could imagine them being quite "bitchy" together - was he a misogynist?

I think Hyperion is Keats @CoteDAzur... But haven't read it for ages so there may be Yeats in there too!

And as I type that, am thinking how confusing English pronunciation is

I have a biography of Larkin lined up, Sap, so I'll let you know! My impression is that he would speak very differently to male friends such as Kingsley Amis, where I think they egged each other on to say some pretty awful things, than to someone like Pym. He gave her a lot of emotional support with regard to the difficulties of the publishing industry.

I don't think either side is an act - his poetry shows both this plangent, tender, wistful side and also a cruder side.

Philip Larkin was quite rude in his letters about lots of people, notoriously racist. He had 3 quite serious relationships with different women for several years in his 50s (?) - with an English lecturer called Monica, with a librarian colleague (Hull University Library), Maeve, and with his secretary, Betty. I have a book published earlier this year out of the library about Monica but I'm a bit spoiled for choice on my various TBRs - hope to get to it soon.

The Whitsun Weddings was one of my A-level books and it was one of the books we studied first - I know this because he was still alive and he died in December that year, of cancer, only in his early 60s.

I knew he was an admirer of Barbara Pym but from the bio of her that several of us read earlier this year,, they exchanged some really fascinating letters and met a couple of times in person, and he really did talk to everyone he could think of about giving her books another look, publishing her etc.

I've no doubt Larkin sometimes expressed sexist attitudes, but in his two novels, titled Jill and A Girl in Winter, and in other things I've read, documentaries etc,, he comes across as a romantic cynic with a rather odd upbringing. His father was a fascist sympathiser who worked in local government in Coventry and took youjng Larkin to Nazi Germany. He died when Larkin was still quite young I think, whereas PL's mum lived into old age and they were very close. And I don't remember where I've gleaned a lot of this from or why it's stuck in my head.

Is that the John Sutherland book about Monica Jones.elkie? I've been keeping an eye out for it but it's not in my local library so far.

bibliomania Yes, I think so.

Larkin was a very complex chap. Andrew Motion's biography is excellent.

His poems are so varied and reading half a dozen at random could take you from misogyny to misanthropy to cynicism to the most beautiful tenderness. I love his work, but he definitely wasn't very 'nice'.

The novels are definitely worth a look too, albeit flawed (like him).

Glad I am not the only one who got her introduction to Yeats via Jilly Cooper’s Declan O’Hara!

75. Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I think a few people on the thread have read this recently and I feel I am fairly late to the party on reading it. It tells the story of Ifemulu from her time in secondary school in Lagos, through university, after she emigrates to the US and ultimately her return to Nigeria. The story of Obinze, the boyfriend she met at school, also continues throughout the book but Ifemulu is very much the focus of the book. She is strong-minded and principled and is a great character. I loved this book and will be reading more by this author.

76. Decider - Dick Francis

Continuing my Dick Francis reads - this book, like Hot Money, centres around a rich but unpleasant family. The patriarch of the Stratton family has died and the shares in the family owned racecourse are now held by numerous family members and they have very differing views on the future and most of them will stop at nothing to get their own way. Minority shareholder and non-family member, Lee, is the voice of sanity but his reasoned approach inflames some members of the Stratton family and puts both the racecourse and Lee’s children at risk. Enjoyed this - unusual for Dick Francis to have a family man as his protagonist.

Would you say Hyperion is good for people who don’t usually read SF, Cote? DP has got it knocking about on our bookshelves, and I absolutely loved The Terror by the same author, but that was well within my usual comfort zone of historical / historical-fantasy / folk horror.

@elkiedee , I read To His Coy Mistress at school in the mid 60's.

I've not yet read any Jilly Cooper - I say yet because I've actually got a few of her books on Kindle (they were bargains, of course). But I have been prompted to read some literary works because of references to them in more popular/commercial fiction.

The example I remember first was reading Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall because of I'd read another novel in which the main characters became involved after meeting on a film set of the Bronte novel. I think but am not sure that the book was by the late Sally Beauman. Anyway, whatever the reason I read it, I was very glad I had and very grateful to SB. I grew up with an interest in the Brontes and their work - and I'm from Leeds so we used to go quite often ot the Bronte Parsonage which got turned into a museum some time in the 20th century - in 1928 according to a novel I read recently - but I only liked Jane Eyre up to the end of the dreadful boarding school scenes and a childhood tragedy. I think Anne is the underrated Bronte.

108. Don't Laugh, You'll Only Encourage Her by Daisy May Cooper (Audible)

I like Daisy May Cooper. I liked This Country and her stint on Taskmaster and if you want to know what I look like it's really similar to Daisy.

But, I struggled to find this funny, Daisy faced insurmountable challenges getting This Country made and was basically pretty ill used.

Her upbringing was extremely deprived and, as a young woman she is trying to make it as an actress attending auditions, whilst her mum rings her constantly tearfully begging her to drop everything to go and get a Pay Day Loan.

I found it sad not funny, she has done very well to succeed.

Ultimately the funniest thing about this book is that Daisy May is currently locked in a public battle of wills with Penguin for the final installment of her fee, which they won't give her because she has apparently been challenging to work with and hasn't met terms.

It does scream half arsed, and it stops after This Country is greenlit, carefully sidestepping any risk to her career by describing her experience when she finally broke into the industry.

Meh.

This the one noodlezoodle? I apologise for the condition of the cover but it’s been well read over the years.

I have a feeling we studied To his Coy Mistress when doing A levels in the late 80s, we definitely read Donne's The Flea (yes John, my 'honour' may not be 'wasted' but I'd rather not get pregnant nor catch something nasty).

I do like Wendy Cope's take on the genre though

Well, wouldn't it be nice to consummate
Our friendship while we've still got teeth and hair?
Just bear in mind that you are forty-eight
And dial my number. There's no time to spare.

Take Six Girls: The Lives Of The Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson

I first tried to read this a few years ago and gave up on it before getting very far in, because at that time I knew virtually nothing about the family and this book assumes a certain level of knowledge about them, particularly the introduction which jumps about all over the place and is impossible to follow if you don’t know the vague story of their lives. Anyway, this time round I enjoyed it. They really are a fascinating family, although I’m not sure I would say any of them are particularly likeable - some are better than others but they all had their moments.

The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis

A crime/mystery story featuring the Brontë sisters as amateur detectives. Loved the premise, the book was OK. The author did a good job of showing the sisters’ different personalities, especially Emily, but some of the dialogue is very suspect and some of the things she has them doing aren’t things I could imagine the real Brontë’s doing. But it’s quite good fun if you don’t take it seriously.

@ChessieFL

It's easily the worst Mitford book I have read, and I don't think there are many left I haven't, nothing shall be said against Debo, ever.

Debo is definitely the sanest of them all!

Or was, I should say.

@BestIsWest

This the one noodlezoodle? I apologise for the condition of the cover but it’s been well read over the years.

Best, yes I think so! I had a reissued paperback with a red cover that must have been from the late 80s or early 90s?

Just managed to track down one with the same cover as you on t'internet and placed an order, am very excited!