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.

Funnily enough I have just been reading some Jilly- and that is her on thr cover isn't it?
98) Maybe, in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Sliding Doors style romance, sweet but forgettable.
99) Between the Covers by Jilly Cooper - selection of her newspaper columns, would have enjoyed more!
100) 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard. Interesting thriller set in Ireland during the lockdown, bit self consciously twisty, but I found it interesting how she set the crime in such recent specific circumstances.
101) Jump by Jilly Cooper. Not her best, but this long romantic saga has charm, appropriate happy endings, and lots of puns. I enjoyed, but I was in the right mood. If you haven't read her before, don't start with this!

Stokey - re "I think Hyperion is Keats @CoteDAzur"

Yes, it is I shouldn't be allowed on the internet before my morning coffee.

Lady - "Would you say Hyperion is good for people who don’t usually read SF, Cote? DP has got it knocking about on our bookshelves"

Yes, I would definitely recommend it. It's not hard SF, but rather quite sentimental in the personal stories of its six characters à la The Canterbury Tales. The overarching story is fascinating and novel, too.

Give it a chance

Ah great noodle. That book introduced me to so many writers. Alongside poetry it has passages from books and letters, Nancy Mitford for example.

I have just completed The Haunting of Alma Fielding,Kate Summerscale's book about the psychic community and mediums in pre War Britain. It is interesting how interested people were in the supernatural and mediums in the 1930s. I knew the Victorians were, but 1938 seems comparatively modern. Summerscale's style is factual and a bit unadorned but the book becomes more interesting as it progresses, I think. The discussion of trauma is fascinating as is the effect of WW! and the coming of WW2 on the nation's and also individual's psyches. The connection between deaths of children and women who were believed to be mediums is also intriguing. A lot of the work done by some of the main players did lead, ultimately, to more sympathetic understanding on neuroses. There is an almost bizarre level of skill in the 'fraudsters' (if that is what they are) and some uncomfortably sexualised overtones in their cross examinations. Summerscale hints strongly at this without wandering into prurience.

Spritualism and religious sects continued to have huge followings until the end of WW2 - DS volunteers at the Panacea Museum , which seems equally odd to modern sensibilities. Although the supernatural continued as theme in many literary and cinematic works, it seemed that the earnest belief in seances and so on really dwindled. It also seems to be something that gave women a form of power and allowed them to articulate-and do- things they could not in the 'real world'.

Worth a read if the social context of the 1930s, and/or the supernatural interests you.

Just to say that The Unknown Ajax, quite a decent Geogette Heyer, is a kindle deal today 99p.

I've just had a look at the Panacea Museum website, thank you Piggy. As you say, interesting that women had such a prominent role in the movement.

104. Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym I'm not quite sure why I've not read any Barbara Pym before, but following all the love on here I picked this one up on daily deal, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Any recommendations for which of hers to read next gratefully received :)

Some Tame Gazelle is a good follow-on, Sadik

Excellent Women seems to pretty well liked.

39. The Paper Palace, by Miranda Cowley Heller. Possibly my book of the year so far, it's hard to believe this is a first novel. Elle's family have been spending the summer in the Back Woods every year since she was a child. This shuttles back and forth between past and present as the family returns to the house. This is a rambling family saga (my favourite kind!) with some beautifully lush nature writing (also my favourite kind!). Heartbreaking in places with some difficult topics, but I love, love, loved this.

88 Pandora by Jilly Cooper
A well timed read given the Jilly chat here. Not sure how I managed to miss this first time round; I thought from the name that it was one of her earlier stand alone novels and didn't realise it was part of the longer series where the same characters reappear (perils of buying e-books). This was a riot, with an implausible plot, tonnes of sex and lots of dastardly deeds, people looking bleak and breaking into random lines of song and poetry. Set in the art world, the plot is (kind of) about a looted Raphael and the attempts to retrieve it. But really it's about horses and the English countryside and ravishingly beautiful women and darkly handsome men doing things that don't make a lot of sense but don't really need to. This was just what I needed after a tough week.

62. The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald

There seems to have been a bit of a Russian slant to my recent reading. This is ostensibly about a few weeks in the life of Frank, an Englishman whose family have for years run a printing business in Moscow. Frank's wife, Nellie, leaves him, but that is merely the trigger for a economical, constantly entertaining but quietly devastating exploration of humanity. The events Fitzgerald narrates are compelling and you want to keep reading, but the plot isn't the point. The characters (so deftly drawn in a few short sentences) and their reactions to the events are. Frank is a sort of everyman, but still endearing; his children are needle-sharp and precocious, yet convincing; the nanny, Lisa at once tantalising, mysterious and somehow prosaic. The Russian merchant Kuriatin is a brilliant comic creation, but not quite a caricature. It's very hard to explain why this book is so good, because it doesn't seem to fit any particular template, but I loved it. You feel as though you are in the hands of a master.

Evening all. Been AWOL hunting my mojo, helping DD with university applications, and diving head-first into Christmas preparation.

Like @PermanentTemporary, I keep starting things and abandoning them and might not make 50 at this rate. Gah.

Loving the poetry discussion, and the pilgrim soul quote is one of my favourites too. DD is in her final year of high school here so getting on to my favourite poets. Not that she agrees obvs.

Anyway....

41. Last Rituals, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.

Scandi noir. Started off well enough, gory crime scene, witchy legends etc. Then it lost itself half way through and never really got it back. It was the writer's first novel and it shows, way too much show and tell of the Icelandic legends, poorly developed characters and embarrassingly awful dialogue. It felt a bit like Robert Galbraith when JK gets all meandery and goes on a bit. The ta-da moment wasn't even that either. Hey ho.
I have others by this writer and will read at some point when I want a Scandi homicide.

I think my next book was recommended by you @SOLINVICTUS

90. A Fatal Inversion - Barbara Vine. This was written in the mid 80s. A body of a woman and child are discovered in a pet graveyard at a country house from about 1976. But who are they and what happened? 5 young people were staying in the house that summer, 3 men Adam, Rufus and Shiva, and 2 women Vivian and Zosie. The story is told from the 3 men's POVs and skips between the hot summer of 1976 and the present day once the bodies have been discovered, and how they've coped with memories of the crime. It was quite atmospheric and slow moving. I did find myself wondering if a book like this would get published now.

91. Winter - Ali Smith. I was inspired to read this by a few reviews on this thread. I read Autumn when it first came out but don't remember it very well, and didn't love it. Well I much preferred this volume about Art, his mother Sophia, Aunt Iris and Lux who is pretending to be his girlfriend. All the characters were brilliantly drawn as was the winter landscape. This has motivated me to read the others, but I may wait and do them seasonally. Also I don't really get the head so would love to understand what that is about if anyone can tell me!

@Welshwabbit I think The Beginning of Spring was the first Penelope Fitzgerald I read, after hearing a bit of it on the radio, and I loved it too. I studied a little bit of Russian history at school and university, and particularly the period up to 1917, and Russia before and after the 1917 Revolution are definitely among my favoufrite periods for historical fiction.

51. The Devil You Know - Gwen Adshead

Gwen Adshead presents case studies drawn from her work in forensic psychiatry, many from her time providing therapy to inmates in Broadmoor. I’m sympathetic to her position that all offenders can be approached with compassionate understanding, given that they are all suffering humans like us - although she doesn’t explicitly say so, she seems influenced by Buddhism and perhaps other philosophical positions.

However, this compassionate approach is particularly hard to stomach in the case of convicted child sex offenders, and bizarrely she seems more sympathetic to ‘Ian’, who abused his own children, than to ‘Lydia’, who was convicted of stalking a doctor but clearly had been irreparably damaged by her own abusive father. It felt like Adshead’s impatience with Lydia was due to the fact she couldn’t ‘fix’ her, which didn’t really seem in the spirit of the thing. Also, these are composite, fictionalised case studies - rightly so, to preserve anonymity - but it does make you wonder how far you can take the stories at face value. Medical memoirs are generally one of my go-to genres, but this was a bit meh.

Yes- that was me @Stokey. I just love the superior quality of the writing when compared to "people going up stairs to meet mad psycho next door neighbour in suburbia" covers.

Not sure if I'm allowed to count this as n 42 but I'm going to sneak it in.

A Child's Christmas in 1980s Wales

Picked this up on 99p and mistakenly thought it was a whole novel/biography. It's not, it's an essay/short story. But it's beautiful- (you don't need to pay the 99p, I've since found it in full in various magazines online) A homage (obvs) to Dylan Thomas but transported to Christmas 1984 (Band Aid make an appearance) Something I'll return to and read every Christmas. Loved it.

Stokey enjoyed your review of Spring. I think I took the floating head at face value so to speak but the Guardian review mentions a Cornish saint who has her head chopped off, then picks it up and walks away with it www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/27/winter-by-ali-smith-review-second-part-seasonal-quartet.

Winter I mean!

Thanks for the link @Cornishblues. I was wondering whether it was meant to be a brain tumor or something but that may be too obvious for Ali! The Cornish saint theory is interesting.

66. The Passenger - Daniel Hurst

I enjoyed this book and would give it 3 and a half stars overall. The pace is quick, there is no let up (or lulls in the story if you will).

We meet Amanda, a single Mum to Louise (17), who is bored in her job and trying her best to save every penny so she can leave to do her one passion, write. Amanda is on the train home, feeling good about herself and excited for what the future holds, she has resigned now she has enough money saved to pursue being a writer. Her daughter Louise seems a spoiled, entitled brat expecting her mum to fund her travels around the world with Amanda's money she's worked so hard for.

Amanda doesn't trust banks after being ripped off previously and the bank almost blaming her, so the £20,00 she has amassed is in a safe at the bottom of her wardrobe.

A stranger on the train home approaches Amanda and seems to know everything about her, including that she has a safe full of money. He tells her that his partner is at her flat holding her daughter hostage until Amanda gives them the code for the safe, she has until the end of the line.

That is the book at first, but the more we read the more we realise it's not the whole story. It goes so much deeper, and the criminals really have no idea who they are messing with!!

98. The Gunslinger by Stephen King

This is the first book in the Dark Tower series, which is considered by many to be King's magnus opus.

It's the tale of Roland Deschain, the gunslinger of the title, and his years long search for the 'man in black' and through him, the Dark Tower. The world is similar to the Wild West, and despite some commonalities (people are singing 'Hey Jude' at one point), it is clearly not our world, at least I don't think it is. A few flashbacks give an insight into what this world was like, before it 'moved on' as well as more insight into the character of Roland, although they don't really shed much light on the reason for, and nature of, his quest.

I first read this book a couple of years ago, when I reached it in my 'Read all Stephen King Books in Chronological Order' list. Despite it having a near perfect opening sentence (“The man in black fled across the Desert, and the Gunslinger followed.”) I really didn’t like it. I found it so very, very dull and it took me a good few attempts to get through it. The 3rd book in the series is next up in my SK list and as I couldn't remember anything about the first two books I have decided to re-read them, and then plough on with the other 5 in the series - some of which are HUGE so wish me luck!

Anyway I decided to listen to this on audible and I can't believe what a difference that made. Whatever they paid the narrator it was not enough, not by a long stretch. What seemed vague, became intriguing, and long winded, meandering sentences that seemed to go nowhere became poetry. I loved this, and can't wait to read the rest of the series now.

Mama, the audiobook is excellent, isn't it? I listened to that then read all the others soon after. I fell hard for Roland, and Jake, and Oy, and Susan. And I loved the way it intersected with our world and King's universe at different points. It may be time for a re-read of the series.

Susannah. Stupid autocorrect.