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.

Coincidentally reading The Owl Service at the moment. Last read it aged about 11 - remember very little. I don’t remember reading anything else by Alan Garner, might give the new one a go.

Morning all. Trying to catch up and reach 50 in the midst of work/dd uni application/Christmas prep mayhem. Hmm. I also wrote a lovely, long and interesting post the other day which I see now never posted. Humph.

Anyway- quick update:

43. A Child's Christmas in Wales (have resolutely started my Christmas/winter reads as shall become evident) Dylan Thomas. After reading the 80s essay version, I thought I'd better read the real thing. Sublime.

44. Raven Black Ann Cleeves. No idea why the first in the Shetland series is the one I hadn't read- probably because Kindle 99ps like to tantalise you by not giving you the first in a series, first. This was good, solid, crime fic as expected from AC. Ending a bit rushed, and I feel uncomfortable with the old trope of prime suspect being quirky old man probably with LDs who lives alone. It's lazy, and it probably both contributes to, and is born of, society's view of normal.

Am now reading Winter an anthology of bits and pieces curated by Melissa Harrison, which is rather lovely, though I confess to skipping past the modern poetry.

23) It Ends With Us by Coleen Hoover
This was a recommendation from my daughter so wanted to see what it was all about. I thought it would be a regular romance type love triangle type of story. I must admit I could not get into it at all to begin with as not really what I like to read. However this ended up being a very worthy read and well told. Not going to add any spoilers. I thought it quite shallow at first and could not be bothered with the characters but as ever when I am told to give a book a read I stick it out to see what was so good about a book. It is about a girl Lily, who meets a man called Ryle and also a man called Atlas. Atlas is Lily’s first teenage love and you guessed it she bumps into him again. A big but this book is much more than a love story and I applaud the author for this book.

Not going to get to 50 books at all this year but it was fun trying.

Next up it is my choice of book The Ghost Tree by Barbara Erskine It’s a mammoth book for me 576 pages so really don’t think I will get this done anytime soon so will probably be my last book of the year. Lol Will give the challenge a go again though. Have enjoyed pushing myself to read and reading this thread.

33. Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor by Andrew Lownie
Commencing with the abdication of Edward VIII, this follows the Duke and Duchess's lives after they leave the UK. There doesn't seem to be tonnes of new material here, but it's all put together in a gossipy and readable way. And there's plenty that makes interesting reading - close Nazi associations, promiscuity, and ridiculous extravagance, usually at others' expense.

@Midnightstar76
Interesting about It Ends With Us. I started reading it this summer, got about 50 pages in and left it, thinking it was going nowhere I hadn't been a million times before. I may give it another go.

I remember finding the Weirdstone Of Brisingamen quite a slog as a child. Probably spoilt by Blyton & CS Lewis. I wonder whether I would appreciate it more now.

96. The Plot - Jean Hanff Korelitz. This has been quite reviewed on here. A teacher steals the plot of his dead student's novel. It kept me turning the pages but the main twist was clear from the quote early on. I did find the concept of the guaranteed bestseller fun though, the plot no-one has thought of.

Too many typos, sorry am very tired!

52. The Book of Science and Antiquities - Thomas Keneally

Documentary filmmaker Shelby Apple looks back as he approaches the end of his life, focusing particularly on his coverage of the discovery of 42,000-year old human remains. A parallel thread covers the life of that prehistoric man, Shade, an elder and upholder of law. The section on Shade was much more gripping and immediate to me, and I was fascinated by the snippets of Australian Aboriginal custom that form the basis of his way of life (although I’m aware of the controversy as to whether Keneally, as a white man, should be telling this story at all).

I think I should go for something lighter and more page-turnery now. I’m full of cold and DD is really struggling with her transition to school (we’re chasing after an assessment as it seems likely there’s something underlying her behaviour).

96: The Less Dead - Denise Mina

I'm a big fan of Mina's writing but her last few books have been a disappointment - it feels to me as though she's somehow mislaid the terrific form of the Gartnethill series and some of her other, earlier works.

This novel centres on Margo, a GP in Glasgow who's been prompted by the recent death of her adoptive mother to seek out her birth family. It quickly emerges that her mother, Susan, was a prostitute who met a horribly violent death and whose murder is still unsolved. Margo meets Nikki, Susan's sister, who inhabited the same dark world and has spent the intervening years on a mission to find Susan's killer. Inevitably, Margo too is drawn into the quest.

With a narrative written in the continuous present - a bete noire for me anyway - this needed to be extra-good, but sadly it never really got there. Occasional flashes of Mina's old brilliance were definitely there, but not enough, and while I appreciate that her research involved a lot of personal testimony, parts of the narrative were seriously grim: if you find it hard to read about women undergoing violence and degradation, this isn't the book for you. To top it all off, it was weirdly short - I kept looking at my kindle thinking there was no way all the plot threads could be tied up in the few remaining pages - and indeed, they weren't. It just ended abruptly with a big dramatic event but zero aftermath, just a hundred questions (in this reader's mind, anyway).
A big disappointment for me, as I'd been saving this one up for a while.

Garnethill, that should say in my previous post. Oh, for the elusive edit function!

52. A Man of Honour- Barbara Taylor Bradford This is a prequel to the Woman of Substance/Emma Harte series detailing the background of Blackie and leading up to his meeting Emma. I chose this an ARC as I've had a poor run of books lately and thought this might be an easy, non challenging read. However, it was woeful. It comes in at over 400 pages of repetitive nonsense.

We are endlessly told that Blackie is tall, strong and really, really handsome, all the girls "go for him" (this despite a supposed life in Ireland of abject poverty and hunger). We are told countless times that he is "Black Irish", descended from the survivors of the Spanish Armada washed up on the Irish coast ( a myth that has been totally debunked). He asks "endless questions" and his mouth is always watering at the thought of food, dull descriptions of his meals and others food takes up a lot of narrative space. He is an absolute paragon. He doesn't seem to change at all from emigrating to Yorkshire from Ireland at age 13 through to age 17 when he "comes of age." He still speaks "Oirish", aye to be sure he does, on the heads of the Blessed saints, aye and to be sure he does, sure he does. His interactions and dialogue with other characters feels stilted and unrealistic.

A new character or a situation is introduced and I thought at last the story would get going but it never does. All threads just seem to peter out and there is an annoying side story that appears out of nowhere with no link to Blackie about Lord Robert and an illegitimate child that takes a lot of chapters. This seriously needed an editor to wield a big red pen or could have been restructured and tightly edited into a collection of linked stories to Blackie. One to avoid.

That sounds hideous, Sap.

Two more:

104. Philip Larkin: life, art, and love, by James Booth
Decent biography of the poet. He talks about Larkin's misogamy, rather than misanthropy/misogyny, which I thought was a useful distinction. I hopped around rather than reading it straight through, but I thought it was a pretty good read, and it did send me off to look up individual poems. The author clearly likes Larkin and puts the best construction on some of his less appealing traits. He seems some of his grouchier statements as a humorous pose, at least partly.

105. The Anglo-Saxons: a history of the beginnings of England, Marc Morris
Was wondering if I had bitten off more than I can chew with this history, but it's highly readable. The author does an excellent job of of making a complex period of history easily comprehensible and an enjoyable read, with a few knowing nods to the reader, but not intrusively so.

56. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke Mr Norrell, a practical magician, enforces the numerous theoretical magicians of the day to renounce their profession so he can be the only magician in England. Later on he discovers Jonathan Strange, a man gifted in magical ability but no theoretical knowledge or ambition in the magical sphere. Mr Norrell takes Mr Strange as a pupil and instructs him in the art of practical magic with emphasis on the Norrellite school of thought. Of course Strange begins to develop his own ideas and the two magician part on bad terms, only to be brought together again to fight against the wicked fairy who has enchanted Strange's wife along with some other innocent humans and who threatens the safety of the King of England.

It sounds like the sort of magic/fairy/otherworldly nonsense I don't usually have much patience with, but I did enjoy this. The language has a 19th Century flavour and I found myself interested in the fates of the various characters. It's a very fat book though, and took me a long time to finish!

57. So Long and Thanks for all the Fish - Douglas Adams Further adventures of the hapless Arthur Dent and his reluctant adventures in space, in which he meets a girl.

111. Team Of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Said to have inspired Obama, something which he refuted in his autobiography, Team Of Rivals charts how Abraham Lincoln beat his 3 greatest rivals Chase, Seward and Bates and then drew on their talents when president in order that they were then with him and not against him.

Started off hard work, whilst introducing all players, but I ended up really enjoying it as it went on into the administration years. I was reminded of Lincoln In The Bardo which I loved as well. I must watch the film Lincoln now as well because this was the basis for it.

I had it on paperback TBR for ages, but it was thick and hard to hold so I did it on Audible in the end. It's been years on TBR so I'm glad I've finally done it.

One for the history buffs.

My laptop dies so I lost my list but think I just finished number 52 : Wilkinson and Pickett's follow up the The Spirit Level, The Inner Level. W and P got their fingers burned with their highly objective first book which was read by various government figures, written and spoken of and approvingly and then rejected once various think tankers said it was socialist nonsense. They examine countries with high inequalities and look at the consequences. This sequel purports to be about anxiety and mental health but, actually, it also has bits about corporations, their policies, economic equalities and climate change so ahs a broad remit. Since they no longer give a stuff about winning over our government, they go for the jugular on neo liberal policies and their consequences much more overtly in this text!

Thought provoking but a brain drain. I need something a bit lighter next!

107. Reverie by Ryan La Sala. Urban fantasy, I think I would have enjoyed this more if I had been in the right mood. Teens take down an evil wizard, a little overwritten, but with some nice touches. Same territory but not as good as Margaret Mahy's The Changeover.

@Terpsichore, I liked The Less Dead more than you did, but had similar feelings about the ending. My review earlier this year said Mina's main characters are incredibly well written and feel like real, flawed, funny people. My only complaint is that it ended incredibly abruptly and I was expecting at least another chapter to bring some resolution to things.

41. Beautiful World, Where Are You, by Sally Rooney. Well. That was certainly some words written on a page.

Novelist Alice has a relationship with Felix, her friend Eileen has a relationship with another man. I normally like her but for the first quarter of this I couldn't decide if she was trolling us, writing a satire, or having a public nervous breakdown. I came to the conclusion that she really believes what she has Alice say, that famous novelists become far removed from the 'real world' and therefore need to write about their new life. I don't care about characters being likeable and the lack of speech marks doesn't bother me, but by god this was a slog. Also people just do NOT talk to each other like this, and I'm not convinced that they spend all their time writing to each other about high falutin things without ever mentioning normal life stuff as well. She is sometimes very funny and writes some beautiful paragraphs but generally this was just EXHAUSTING.

Sorry I can't remember who mentioned Simone Weil a little while back but just wanted to recommend a couple of recent articles in the LRB which I think might be free to non-subscribers to read. There's also a podcast which I haven't listened to but expect to be good based on the articles www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/the-lrb-podcast/ultimate-outsider

I've been away for too long and am going to wait for the new thread to post my paltry updates.

Just finished This Much is True, the memoir by Miriam Margolyes. This was such a fun and thoughtful book, pacey and so gloriously entertaining. Unlike so many other celebrity authors, Miriam takes no prisoners in some of her more acerbic observations of some of her peers but she is also frequently compassionate and insightful about people. She seems to be a fabulously astute judge of character, is a terrific raconteur, and this book is a must read for other memoir aficionados. I'm delighted it's selling so well at the moment.

I'll start a new thread later.

@southeastdweller her book sounds great - I saw a clip of her on This Morning doing an ‘ask. Miriam’ segment where she went all mumsnet advising put down spouses to LTB.

@southeastdweller

Yes, I really enjoyed it. Very frank.

noodle thank you! I couldn't remember who else had read it. Don't get me wrong, I really rate her as a writer but I found this such an unbalanced book. It just felt as though it should have been a third longer and then it would have worked (and maybe not written in the present tense ).

New thread: - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4408859-50-Book-Challenge-2021-Part-Eight?watched=1

Thanks for the new thread. Am heading there but was waiting to post so as not to fill this thread before the new one was started. I wanted to say I just finished reading This Much is True too, yesterday (Sunday) evening. Really enjoyed both her memoir and also the portrayal of her Oxford upbringing and her school days. My mum and her sisters were at the same school and knew her well, though none of them were in the same year. My cousins' other aunt was in her class and a close friend, and she and her family do get a few mentions.

Some of the gossip and low down on who MM liked and disliked was quite interesting too.