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.

Thanks Sadik, I'm not sure I'm strong enough right now but I'm keeping a note of that title. Great to hear about an interesting book that I hadn't come across before.
My recent reads...
49. The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Fikry is an independent book shop owner, grieving after losing his wife, when a publishing rep crosses his path and a small child comes into his life. Picked this up because I liked another novel by this author, Young Jane Young, and while I liked Zevin's writing in this book too, it kind of came along at a bad time when I was only managing to read in very short bursts and it took me weeks. I think it was a good book that I would have enjoyed more if I'd been able to spend a weekend on the sofa curled up with it.
50. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Which everyone has heard of and many of you have read. I went in with quite low expectations and it was probably a little better than I thought it would be! Can see why it became a big hit during the pandemic.
51. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Much praised on here, I listened on audio and was absolutely gripped...listened from start to finish within 24 hours.
Currently reading At Home by Bill Bryson quite slowly as it is long and full of lots of detail as he goes off on expansive tangents with All The Lonely People by Mike Gayle as a diversion into fiction during my mostly non-fiction November.

58. Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke andDuchess of Windsorby Andrew Lownie

If there were a genre of biography called 'slasher gossip' this would be right there. This is a compilation of almost everything negative ever said about the Windsor. It's skilled work, very readable, well researched. I find it convincing on their complete triviality and dumbness as people, less so on their huge intriguing on behalf of the Nazis. The reality feels more tawdry; that they moved in circles in which their antisemitism, tax evasion and preference for right-wing authoritarians over left wing dictatorships was entirely normal. Their separate enthusiasms for bridge, golf and cocktails and joint obsession with a royal title for the Duchess seem more authentic than any genuine interest in politics of any type. That doesn't of course mean they weren't used by some deeply worrying people.

Trouble is after gulping it down I feel a bit dirty. The Windsor never made anybody feel better.

109. No Honour by Awais Khan

I've been getting the Reposed book subscription service for nearly a year but I am undecided on continuing as I have found everything including this a bit 3 star, an average but middle of the road read. I know a couple of other posters get Reposed. Thoughts?

Abida narrowly escapes an honour killing in her village, but her hope filled new life in Lahore immediately turns sour.

It is well written enough and engaging and the father/daughter relationship is moving.

But the ending is so overblown and silly as to completely lack credulity.

Also, the relentless sequence of horrors that befall Abida are just grim upon grim enough to call it misery porn.

Like a discount Khaled Hosseni

Hope you are ok CluelessMama.

Thanks Tarahumara. Nothing major, but it's not the time for books that will make me cry buckets!

64. Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers

I don't think I've read this one before and I enjoyed re-immersing myself in the world of Peter Wimsey. He's a good character even if I don't adore him in quite the same way as his many ardent fans. A nice twisty plot in this one. Interesting from a sociological point of view as it contains a sympathetic portrayal of a black character (albeit with many uses of the "n" word) and a rather less sympathetic portrayal of female homosexuality. It is interesting, in this respect, to contrast Sayers with Christie, who never put same sex relationships front and centre but the few possible examples contained in her books (I am thinking particularly of Miss Hinchcliffe and Miss Murgatroyd in A Murder is Announced) are portrayed sympathetically and positively.

89 The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

Read and (I think) recommended on here? This was a novel I really wanted to love, and in a different frame of mind I can see that I would have loved it. It's the story of three lighthouse men who vanish from a lighthouse in the early 1970s, and through a series of different narrative perspectives follows them in the lead up to their disappearance and the stories of the women they leave behind.

The highlights for me were the wives' voices and stories, and the depiction of the sea which is a character in its own right. The overall story and reveal left me slightly underwhelmed. I never quite engaged with the men on the lighthouse, though the descriptions of their day to day lives were intriguing. But they all felt slightly two dimensional and somewhat unlikely. Perhaps if I had paid more or closer attention at the start I'd have picked up on more of the clues that would have made it all hang together.

90 The Weil Conjectures by Karen Olsson

French siblings Andre and Simone Weil were fascinating individuals, both brilliant in their own way though they pursued very different paths. Simone was a philosopher and political activist who died very young in what seems to have been some kind of self-starvation, while her brother Andre became a celebrated mathematician, famous for his work in number theory. Their stories are both bound up closely with the war - Andre was arrested for spying in Finland and imprisoned by the French before leaving for the US in 1941, and Simone spent much of the war trying without success to be sent back to France to join the Resistance.

This book is part biography, part memoir (Olsson studied maths at Harvard and tried to return to it later in life) and part reflection on the philosophy of maths. There was a lot here that I really enjoyed, not least Olsson's writing. I'm inclined to seek out more about Simone who was unquestionably the more interesting of the two siblings, and an extraordinarily complex and fascinating character.

I’ve been having a hard time focusing on reading books recently (despite the mountain of unread books all over my home) and have been spending far too much time falling down fanfiction rabbit holes on my phone.

But I have managed to get through a few actual books since the last time I posted:

105. Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

Shortish book about Matt Haig’s experience of depression. Ultimately quite a hopeful book and a good read.

106. Starsight by Brandon Sanderson

Sequel to Skyward.
Spensa is one of the pilots defending a planet inhabited by the remnants of humanity, after humanity lost a space war.

An alien pilot crash lands and gives Spensa an unexpected opportunity to infiltrate the alien’s base.

It’s entertaining enough, but I enjoyed Skyward more than this sequel.

107. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes

First of The Sandman graphic novels.
In which Dream is captured and imprisoned for decades, then escapes and embarks on a quest to regain his lost items of power.
Good, if a bit gruesome in places.

108. Everless by Sara Holland

Jules lives in a land where the time from a person’s life can be removed and bound into blood iron, and consumed by others to lengthen their lives.
She goes to work at an aristocrats estate to try and save her father from using up all his time after they get into debt, but discovers all sorts of hidden dangers and secrets.

Interesting setting and an ok light read.

Pepe
The Lamplighters was a disappointment. I expected to love it, but it just wasn't as good as it should have been and I thought the ending was really poor.

I also wanted to love the Lamplighters - and did love aspects of it - but the whole thing was a bit of a disappointment - the story just didn't really work for me. I did enjoy the depictions of the sea and the women and the places they lived though, and found it very evocative. I've been on a boat trip to Bishop Rock lighthouse - which is right in the middle of the sea off the Scilly Isles - it's hard to imagine spending months there with just a couple of people for company!

48 A Theatre for Dreamers - Polly Samson A teenager grieving her mother uses her inheritance to run away with her boyfriend to Hydra and befriends the bohemian expats living there. I really enjoyed reading this - the descriptions of both place and people were fantastic and much of it was pure escapism. Then I got to the end and realised that many of the people in it were real people (it's there to be seen, not sure how I missed it, but I did!), and I felt a bit uncomfortable about it all.

49 City of Friends - Joanna Trollope Follows four lifelong friends through a series of life events, beginning with high-flying Stacey unexpectedly losing her job and becoming a carer for her mother who has rapid onset dementia. I started this a few weeks ago when I couldn't sleep on the last night in a holiday cottage and had packed all my own books away. And was drawn in enough to get it out of the library and finish it. I've never read any Joanna Trollope before, but I found it the very best sort of cosy escapism - well crafted and intelligent, but also totally undemanding.

The sea was definitely the best/best written character In it.

I liked Lamplighters well enough as a mystery but had been expecting it to be more than it was, and found the end underwhelming.

46 Pies and Prejudice by Stuart Maconie Thanks to everyone on here who recommended this affectionate portrait of the North of England. I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, which worked well as it’s a subjective tour of the region. It has dated a bit and I haven’t retained a great deal but it flowed amiably on audio and I have since reserved his other audiobooks.

47. Billy Summers by Stephen King I enjoyed this, but not as much as I expected to. I’ve never read him before as I’ve never gone in for horror, but I do like crime so was excited to try this. Billy Summers is an ex-military assassin for hire with a keen intellect, a heart of gold and a traumatic history. His last job involves a cover story as a writer which he inhabits for months, starting to put down roots as he writes his autobiography in a downtown office and meets his suburban neighbours. We get to know and feel for him as we read his memoirs in progress and we wait with him for the moment when he is to do the job and disappear. However, as we know from the back cover, this time things may not be cut and dried.

I mostly enjoyed this and was drawn along, falling for Billy and enjoying the thought experiments around right and wrong and how wrong should be paid for. I felt the ending fitted the book. Billy and his relationships with other characters are a joy. However, at 450 pages it took me a week of reading time and in some ways it outstayed its welcome. Often micro details were highlighted, like which car was in which car park or how Billy enjoys putting his hands into the coolness under his pillow - but then the plot would move on an altogether different level so rather than red herrings the details felt unnecessary. A character was parachuted in at a point that took adjusting to. I’d expected intrigue around a storyline where there wasn’t much.

I’d expected a level of shooting but there was also rape and a child murder related through memory. Near the end an already bad character who I’d have been quite happy for fictional Billy to fictionally take out was made unnecessarily more bad by giving him a history of buying underage girls which felt like an unnecessary crossing of a red line and has soured my retrospective view of the book.

I agree that Lamplighters didn't live up to its promise. It started so well and was a great idea, but it fell really flat for me and the ending was dire.

All of this nun-fiction talk prompted me to pick up Matrix by Lauren Groff. It's a very readable medieval romp about abbey life through the eyes of 'Marie de France'. It has some beautiful prose in places, but was so fantastical that I didn't find it at all credible. It feels like it's written for a younger female audience with no knowledge of the period and wouldn't have surprised me if it had been littered with #bossbitch every few pages, as that was the vibe it gave off without really conveying the difficulties of living in that period. It's very romanticised. A fun engaging read with little historical merit.

HHhH - Laurent Binet
Details a secret plot to assassinate a senior Nazi officer interspersed with the author's notes on the writing process. Very interesting, but as I read it immediately after The Ratline it is impossible not to compare the two, with The Ratline being the superior book for me.

I've got one chapter left of Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus so I'm mentioning it now. A reporter decides to follow the Circus to get to the truth about one of its most enigmatic performers - is she really a wonder or a fraud?
It is a glorious riot of words. I've had to keep a dictionary to hand as it was full of gorgeous exoticisms. It's taken me weeks to read as it is quite an assault on the senses and the mind. The author described it as 'psychedelic Dickens' and I can get behind that description. It's a stark look at Victorian life and abuse of power. One to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than trying to truly make sense of. Brilliant.

Fortuna I reviewed The Magician a few threads back. Like you I found it really dull and flat. What a slog!

51. The Impossible Truths about Love by Hannah Beckerman
30 something stem cell academic Nell's father has just died and she spends a weekend at the family home helping her 2 older sisters pack up the house as her mother has dementia and needs to move to a care home. On his deathbed her father (doped up on morphine) tells Nell that " you need to know that I have always loved you even though you were never really mine to love." This starts Nell searching through boxes in the attic and questioning her dad's business partner to find out what her father meant. The story has alternate chapters between "Then" - over 30 years before exploring her mother, Annie's story and "Now" with Nell's quest.

This has pretty consistent glowing reviews on Goodreads and Amazon about how stunning and heartbreaking the story is.However, I didn't really connect with the characters, I got really bored and didn't ultimately care what the "big secret" was. Everything was related in minute detail, cups of tea, pieces of wrapping paper, shafts of sunlight etc. and there were endless similies like a piece of GCSE coursework - I felt like shouting "get a move on." I preservered but at the last lap DNF.

Fortuna i also agree with your conclusions about Matrix it felt far too modern in its sensibilities, so I just didn't believe in the world making.

Speaking of Nun fiction. I like Consequences by E.M. Delafield

@SapatSea

Fortuna i also agree with your conclusions about Matrix it felt far too modern in its sensibilities, so I just didn't believe in the world making.

Speaking of Nun fiction. I like Consequences by E.M. Delafield

I've literally just been scrolling back to find your review of The Matrix. I knew someone had read it, but I couldn't remember who. For some reason I thought you'd liked it and was wondering if I was that far off the mark. I think it works well as entertaining 'fairytale medieval', but won't sit right for a serious audience.

The Magician was such hard work. I usually like Colm Tóibín but he's on the naughty step for this one. He needs to stick to fiction.

@BestIsWest look what arrived!

Fortuna, have you read Philippe Sands' East West Street? It's more personal to him - tracing his own family history and issues around the Holocaust. It's similarly devastating.

Terpsichore I haven't, but will now hunt it down. His chat with Fry at Hay was fascinating and I would be keen to read anything else he's written. Thank you.

Mrs March by Virginia Feito

I was disappointed by this. Mrs March’s husband George is a successful writer, and one day someone makes a comment that the main character in his latest book is clearly based on Mrs March. However, the main character is a prostitute so Mrs March is not impressed with this observation. The rest of the book is how she deals with this. I can’t really say much more without spoilers but the story didn’t go in the way I expected and basically just descended into nonsense. I also didn’t really understand the author’s decision not to reveal Mrs March’s first name (she’s just referred to as Mrs March throughout). This can work well (see Rebecca) but here, while it showed the formality of the character, it made it harder to empathise with her as it sort of kept her at a distance. The other thing that annoyed me about this book is that I couldn’t work out when it was set - the descriptions of the character and her clothing suggested the 1950s but then there were television interviews and microwaves, so maybe 1980s, but no mobile phones so not current time. That took me out of the story as I was constantly wondering when it was set so I think the author could have done a better job setting the scene. I think a couple of people bought this in the monthly deals so I will be interested to hear others’ thoughts.

The Party Crasher by Sophie Kinsella

This was a return to form after several weaker books. It’s all still a bit silly, but I liked the characters and the story was good fun.

@noodlezoodle yay! Enjoy it all over again. I’ve stared reading mine again. Really enjoyed the Keith Waterhouse duck walk article My parents met on our local one.

It's a different cover from my 'original' but it's definitely the same book

32. Heartstopper Alice Oseman. Cute YA graphic novel that surfaces some important topics - homophobia, friendships. I loved the style.
33. The Defence by Steve Cavanagh. Book 1 of the Eddie Flynn novels about a Lawyer / Conman. I read 13 (book 4) first and loved it. This one had a focus on New York mafia gangs which I wasn’t particularly interested in especially compared to the Hollywood glamour of book 4. But I’m still enjoying these and on to book 2.

110. Love And Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward

Longlisted for the Booker

This is the blurb :

In Love and Other Thought Experiments, Ward proposes to alter the colour of her readers' minds . . . But the success of Ward's venture inevitably depends on the quality of the writing. This is often moving, exuberant and sensitive. We care about her characters and share their hopes and fears. Ward's investigation and practice of empathy is easily the best thing in the book

Rachel and Eliza are in love and expecting their first child yet Rachel becomes convinced their is an ant inside her head and is then diagnosed with a brain tumour. What follows are vignettes on a love theme about people connected to the couple with a scifi twist at the end.

I hated this I really did. It was so short as well but I just felt challenged to give a fuck. I found it really really try hard and pretentious, I didn't engage and I didn't care.

*there not their