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.

I really like the Dragon books at the time so think it's probably best not to revisit them as I hope I'd be more sensitive to the misogyny etc now. I do remember going to see the first film at baby cinema and being a bit concerned when DD1 woke up during an anal rape scene. I don't think I bothered with the next two!

76. Miss Benson's Beetle - Rachel Joyce. This is set just after the second world war. Miss Benson has always been interested in beetles, particularly a golden one that lives in New Caledonia that no-one has ever found. She's a school teacher and one day when the girls she teaches are passing round a drawing of her, she walks out and decides to go and find her beetle, with a rather chaotic companion who she advertises for, Enid Pretty. I thought this was well written and had quite a good story. It was funny, poignant and very sad in places.

77. The only plane in the sky - Garrett Graf. Much reviewed over the last few pages. I thought this was amazing and heartbreaking, the sort of book you press on everyone you know. I don't normally read much non fiction but I couldn't put this down. I thought I remembered it pretty well, I was in my 20s working and remember turning on the TV at home in time to see the second plane crash, but this book brings out so much more of people's stories.

I finished reading Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life by Hermione Lee yesterday, which I thought was a really excellent literary biography, though quite long. I bought on Kindle years ago but was disappointed to find that the Kindle version has no page numbers. In the end I borrowed a library paperback, which I think is better for looking at the photos and a couple of printed pictures of documents - these never display well on a Kindle screen. The paperback is nearly 500 pages but it's quite dense and in reality I think the word count is probably quite similar to the Barbara Pym bio a lot of us have read recently.

It's made me want to read 4 of her books that I own and haven't yet read, Human Voices, Innocence, The Means of Escape (short stories) and her Charlotte Mew bio,, plus the collections of her letters and of her reviews (again, I have them), get her biography of the men in her family The Knox Brothers and reread the rest of her work. I'm not sure I want to read her first novel *The Golden Child" - I like crime fiction but Lee's description makes me wonder how it's held up since it was written in the 1970s.

The Booker shortlist announcement is due at 4 pm today! And several books on the longlist have arrived at Islington Libraries and are in transit, I just had a call about Rachel Cusk and I know I have another waiting. I really must stop requesting books until I have less books out and have read some of the ones that have others wanting them so can't be renewed. They are reintroducing fines next month.

I also recommend Invisible Women, very thought provoking. It was meant to be a library reading group discussion book but the discussion was scheduled for late March 2020 (and I didn't actually get to reading it until last autumn). I think it could have been an interesting dsicussion.

@Stokey

I'm about halfway through the only plane and agree. I am finding it utterly fascinating (if that doesn't make me sound awful) I think we are so used to seeing specific images and video clips that we forget there are so many more.
I use the still photo of George Bush at the primary school when he is told of the planes in an "Iconic Images" lesson, but it was interesting to see (I keep stopping reading and going off to google things) the actual video footage and how his face changes, but he keeps sitting there with the children.
And the dreadful coincidences- people who weren't supposed to be there, or who were supposed to be there.
The horror of seeing that pilots had their throats cut- I think much of it over the years has been sanitised. I did stop and think to myself that I'd never thought how the pilots were overpowered etc.

Thanks for the new thread @southeastdweller, very belatedly bringing over my list

1. Cilka's Journey - Heather Morris
2. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood
3. The Baby Group - Caroline Corcoran
4. Who Killed Ruby - Camilla Way
5. The Angina Monologues - Samer Nashe
6. The Shelf - Helly Acton
7. Too Scared To Tell - Cathy Glass
8. I Can't Believe You Just Said That - Danny Wallace
9. No One Ever Has Sex On A Tuesday - Tracy Bloom

10. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World - Elif Shafak 11. Her Perfect Lies - Lana Newton 12. The Warning - Kathryn Croft 13. Between You And Me - Lisa Hall 14. Dead To Me - Lesley Pearce 15. Below The Big Blue Sky - Anna McPartlin 16. Unnatural Causes - Dr Richard Shepherd 17. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro 18. So....Anyway - John Cleese 19. Of Mice And Men - John Steinbeck 20. We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver 21. Night Music - JoJo Moyes 22. The Road - Cormac McCarthy 23. 29 Seconds - T M Logan 24. The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman (DNF) 25. All That Remains - Sue Black 26. The Girl With The Louding Voice 27. Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo 28. Last Night - Mhairi McFarlane 29. The Picture On The Fridge - Ian W Sainsbury 30. Thing We Never Said - Nick Alexander 31. Logging Off - Nick Spalding 32. The Generation - Holly Cave 33. My Husband The Stranger - Rebecca Done 34. Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss 35. The Silent House - Neil Pattison 36. My Better Half - M M Boulder 37. Invisible Girl - Lisa Jewel 38. I Let Him Go - Denise Fergus 39. The Fog - James Herbert 40. The One - John Marrs 41. Fighting For Your Life A Paramedic's Story - Lisa Walder 42. 1984 - George Orwell 43. When I Was Ten - Fiona Cummins 44. The Chain - Adrian McKinty 45. All The Lonely People - Mike Gayle 46. The Gift of Fear - Gavin deBecker 47. Inside Broadmoor - Jonathan Levi 48. Punk 57 - Penelope Douglas 49. A Room Made of Leaves - Kate Grenville 50. The Trouble With Rose - Anita Murray 51. Don't Lie to Me - Willow Rose 52. Perfect Daughter (No Greater Strength) - Amanda Prowse 53. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving 54. The Plot - Jean Hanff Korelitz 55. Playing Nice - J P Delaney 56. The Moment I Met You - Debbie Johnson 57. And Now You're Back - Jill Mansell 58. Silver Bay - JoJo Moyes 59. Surrounded by Psychopaths : Or how to stop being exploited by Others - Thomas Erikson 60. All Her Fault - Andrea Mara 61. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine 62. Unwind - Neal Shusterman

I seem to have fallen behind with my reviews and dropped off the thread.

Pleased to see Sadik that you enjoyed Acts and Omissions as I have read three of these now after the recommendations on this thread and am thoroughly immersed in life in Lindchester!

Thanks yoshiblue for the tip off about the 99p deal on Steve Cavanagh which I have added to my TBR pile.

Adding my latest books:

66. Leave the World Behind - Rumaan Alam

The story opens with a NY family (parents and two teenagers) driving to an isolated holiday rental house in the Hamptons. The family are only a day into the holiday and barely settled into the luxurious house when on their second evening there is a knock at the door. It’s a couple who say it’s their house and they need to take refuge in the house because something awful has happened in NY. It’s impossible to confirm they are who they say they are or their story as the TV channels are all dead and there is no longer any service on their mobile phones. Reluctantly, the family admits the couple and the story unfolds. This was good - the sense of menace, fear, panic and helplessness was portrayed well (even if some of the characters were a little annoying!). It made me wonder what I would do in those circumstances.

67. A Year at the Circus - Jon Sopel

This covers the first couple of years of Trump’s presidency looking at the various scandals, investigations and untruths which emerged. It’s a very easy read but I wasn’t that keen on the structure which wasn’t linear but focussed on different aspects/offices of the administration.

68. Hope for the Best - Jodi Taylor

The tenth book in The Chronicles of St Mary’s. Max is on secondment to the Time Police in the hope that their joint efforts can track down Clive Ronan and finally put a stop to his destructive trail through time. Interesting to see more of the Time Police HQ but I would like to have seen more of familiar characters such as Leon, Tim etc. Still time for some jumping around the timeline so we see Queen Mary and are back with the dinosaurs. The dodos also make a re-appearance.

@TimeforaGandT your review of Leave the World Behind is already terrifying! Think ill have to give it a miss even though it's intriguing.

@Stokey and @SOLINVICTUS

Also currently reading The Only Plane in the Sky I thought I knew a lot from various documentaries etc (I would have only been 10 when it happened) but this adds such depth to it when hearing from so many people!

As you say the things that strikes me most is the people who avoided it /ended up there just by chance. Air hostess switching shifts and the man who went to get new glasses! Just makes me think of that was always their destiny.

Never mind this thread, I fell off the previous thread! Too much going on. Hello everyone, nice to read the reviews and lists. Here's my list with the ones I haven't reviewed yet at the bottom.

1. In the Shadow of Power – Viveca Sten
2. Our Endless Numbered Days - Claire Fuller
3. The Truants - Kate Weinberg
4. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
5. Olive, Again – Elizabeth Strout
6. The Winter Book – Tove Jansson
7. Waiting for Sunrise – William Boyd
8. The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art – Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney
9. Lanny – Max Porter
10. Murder on Safari – Elspeth Huxley
11. The Magpie Murders – Anthony Horowitz
12. In Black and White: A Young Barrister’s Story of Race and Class in a Broken Justice System – Alexandra Wilson
13. Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of Isis - Azadeh Moaveni
14. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup – John Carreyrou
15. Rules of Civility – Amor Towles
16. In Your Defence – Sarah Langford
17. Reflections in a Golden Eye - Carson McCullers
18. Platform Seven – Louise Doughty
19. If Morning Ever Comes – Anne Tyler
20. Rubyfruit Jungle – Rita Mae Brown
21. The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History - Kassia St Clair
22. The Thursday Murder Club – Richard Osman
23. The Dutch House – Ann Patchett
24. Sudden Death – Rita Mae Brown
25. Blood Orange – Harriet Tyce
26. In Bad Company – Viveca Sten
27. Regeneration - Pat Barker
28. Olivia – Dorothy Strachey
29. The Eye in the Door – Pat Barker
30. The Ghost Road – Pat Barker
31. Red at the Bone – Jacqueline Woodson
32. My Name is Leon – Kit de Waal
33. Troubled Blood – Robert Galbraith
34. The Darkest Evening – Ann Cleeves
35. When I Hit You – Meena Kandasamy
36. The Falconer – Dana Czapnik
37. The Reckoning – Yrsa Sigurdardottir
38. My Former Heart – Cressida Connolly
39. The World I Fell Out Of - Melanie Reid
40. Blind Goddess – Anne Holt
41. The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
42. Cotillion – Georgette Heyer
43. Stay With Me – Ayobami Adebayo
44. Van Gogh: A Power Seething – Julian Bell
45. The Prime Ministers: Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to Johnson – Steve Richards
46. Report for Murder – Val McDermid
47. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

48. The Honjin Murders – Seishi Yokomizo

Japanese locked room mystery. Written in a much drier tone than most European/US murder mysteries. Interesting although far-fetched.

49. Grown Ups – Marian Keyes

Undemanding and enjoyable Keyes-lite. Not as good or as funny as the Walsh novels, but still a pleasant way to pass the time.

50. My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante

Late to this and found it rather more of a slog than I was expecting to (possibly because I was reading it when very busy). There were some great bits in it, which I will remember, and the Lila character and the friendship are beautifully evoked in places. I will read the others (but not right now).

51. You Left Early – Louisa Young

Memoir of the author's life with Robert Lockhart, who was a hugely talented musician and an alcoholic, and died aged 52. Parts of this were both brilliant and unbearable to read, especially if you have any experience of alcoholism. It was too long overall and I felt there were parts that could have been dealt with much more briefly. But very hard-hitting and moving in the bits that worked.

Has anyone read anything on the Booker shortlist, I wonder? The titles are:

The Fortune Men, Nadifa Mohamed
Bewilderment, Richard Powers
Great Circle: A Novel, Maggie Shipstead
A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam
The Promise, Damon Galgut
No One Is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood

The only one I've read is No One Is Talking About This (which was on the Women's Prize shortlist as well) and admired it; the style is very inventive. I don't usually read the Booker shortlist but I loved last year's winner, Shuggie Bain.

I've read the Lockwood too. I can understand why it was shortlisted, it's very innovative and experimental. But for me the style lacked heart and just felt too detached.

I also read Great Circle which I really liked and would recommend. It's about a female aviator in the pre second world war era, and a subplot set in the modern day about an actress making a film of the aviator's life. It touches on loads of themes but most importantly is a great story.

59. Surrounded by Psychopaths: Or How to Stop Being Exploited by Others - Thomas Erikson

It's so fascinating to read about how we as a species 'tick', and it made me realise why people in my life act the way they do. The groups people fit into (colour/colours), explain a lot! Such an insight into people and why they behave the way they do.

60. All Her Fault - Andrea Mara CONTAINS SPOILERS

This book had me gripped, it’s every parents nightmare (I seem to make a habit of reading this style of book!). I liked the development of the characters and the slow - but not too slow - build to the end, I didn't see it coming, and I usually guess the outcome of this style of book,

Marissa turns up at at an address to pick her child up from a playdate. Her child isn't, and has never been there. The address is not of the child/mother that Marissa knows, she can't get hold of the mother by phone, nor more importantly, her nanny.

This has you questioning everybody and their actions, the truth when it comes is a shock, I questioned some characters who turned out to be ok, and some not. I didn't guess the truth.

I really enjoyed this!

61. Eleanor Oliphant is completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

I will be mostly a lone voice in this opinion, but I found Eleanor unlikeable, with no redeeming features. Her background doesn't give her a pass to act and say as she wishes, also, how are we supposed to believe that such an inept woman is supposed to function in society and hold down a full time job? For her to not know what things such as a mobile phone are are frankly unbelievable. She hasn't been locked away for goodness sake! It took me a while to battle through, and I nearly DNF it, I really wanted to like this book but didn't i'm afraid.

62. Unwind - Neal Shusterman

If you like NLMG you may like this, but also if you NEVER liked NLMG you may like it. It's a similar premise, but there the similarity ends. This book is ultimately about morals, ethics, beliefs, reproduction, abortion, and the age old question 'when does life begin?'.

In a world where a war has taken place and many of these issues addressed, when a child reaches the age of 13 until becoming an adult at 18, they can legally be given up by their parents to be unwound. Unwinding means that they are essentially a donor, but every single part of them is able to be used. The thinking is that because of this, they live on and don't die, some see it as a good thing.

Mostly wards of the state growing up in children's homes, troublemakers/criminals, or 'Tithes' (whose families religion means that their parents had them specifically be unwound and do a good thing) are sent to be unwound.

The result is that if you are hurt, you can have that part replaced and be as good as new, paralysed, you can simply get a new spine and hey presto you can walk again, blind can get new eyes and see, you get the gist. These parts are Harvested from unwinds and hospitals carry a stock of body parts, hearts to be transplanted for instance.

The book is about Risa (a previous ward of the state), Connor (a troublemaker and bad kid), and Lev (due to his Religion, a Tithe and always destined to be unwound), who find themselves on the way to a Harvest farm but escape. Their story is told through each ones viewpoint.

It is not an easy read, I have read all sorts of horror and the sheer blasé attitude of what was happening in NLMG and it didn't really have a massive effect, apart from an overwhelming sense of sadness. This is just a small bit in the middle, but even now has stuck with me.....the horror of it. The harvesting process is described in detail, but the bit I found the worst was that the child has to be conscious throughout - by law. They see every bit of them disappearing, that is until their eyes go, their brain functions and they are aware, until every single bit is harvested....this I found horrific!

That said, I really enjoyed the book.

Thanks Stokey, Great Circle sounds excellent!

Hushabye, I agree that Eleanor O is an utterly implausible character.

Hushabye I also completely agree about Eleanor Oliphant.

I am however looking forward to reading Great Circle and happy that I managed to grab it when it was in the daily deals recently.

I wouldnt even give Eleanor a go as I put it in "Stupid Title Corner"

@Welshwabbit I think My Brilliant Friend is the weakest of the four, so much scene setting. I think they get better as you go through the series.

I quite enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant.

I'm currently reading Great Circle on Kindle - I borrowed it from the library before the Booker longlist was published and snapped it up - I've read and enjoyed Maggie Shipstead's second novel and have her first TBR as well, and I like historical novels.

I also own the Patricia Lockwood book, and have her memoir Priestdaddy TBR. And I collected a reserved copy of The Fortune Men from the library today, along with several longlist titles, though I'm a bit overwhelmed by new and in demand (so non renewable) library books just now.

The longlisting has already made some or most of the books more easily available from the library etc for me, as they seem to have ordered 4 copies of books they didn't already stock and extras for some of the ones they did. But I'm not sure that the shortlisting will change very much which titles on the short or long lists I get round to reading and when, other than the availability issue. Usually at least half the Booker titles sound like books I'd like to read at some point and 2 or 3 titles really don't appeal at all. I'm not sure that there are any I know that I don't want to read this year.

81: Square Haunting - Francesca Wade

I really enjoyed this exploration of the intellectual lives of five women writers in the interwar years (well, a couple of them edge into WW2) - framed by the main thing they have in common: all of them lived for a time in Mecklenburgh Square in London, a tucked-away corner on the fringes of Bloomsbury that backs (or did, before extensive WW2 bombing and rebuilding) onto the grounds of the Foundling Hospital. Virginia Woolf and Dorothy L. Sayers are the well-known names of the 5; perhaps less familiar are eminent classicist Jane Harrison, poet 'H. D' (Hilda Doolittle) and economic historian Eileen Power, but I found them all very engaging, with lots of interesting sidelights that made me want to find out more about the people I didn't know so well. Also, I'm often in that part of London - or was, pre-Covid - so it had added interest for me.

A couple more for my list:

47. Small Island by Andrea Levy. I thought this was wonderful. It's set just after the war and the main theme is the Windrush generation of Jamaicans who emigrated to the UK to make their lives in the 'mother country'. But it's not a book that is overwhelmed by its 'issue' - it also has great characters and situations and dialogue. Believe the hype on this one.

48. We All Know How This Ends by Anna Lyons and Louise Winter. A few years ago, I read With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix, a palliative care nurse, and really loved it. I'm not so sure about this one. Lyons is an end-of-life doula and Winter is a progressive funeral director, and as personalities I did not warm to them as I did to Mannix. However, they do cover some really interesting and important topics - I was listening to this on Audible, and I kept finding myself pressing pause to think carefully about the subject under discussion and how it might relate to me or my family. This is more of a how-to than the Mannix book, with less focus on other people's stories and more on useful and practical advice. Overall it was definitely worth a read. But I wish they had edited out some of the endless lists...!

[quote yoshiblue]**@Welshwabbit* I think My Brilliant Friend* is the weakest of the four, so much scene setting. I think they get better as you go through the series.[/quote]
DD has had to study the series at school and we happened on the set of the latest television series adaptation when we were in Florence a fortnight ago, so if you ever watch them and there's a very hot British woman gawping as she walks across the piazza, it's me.

Have added Terp's Square to my wishlist
I do love books where place is paramount.

I didn't see it on the Daily deals but I just picked up A Passage North for 99p on Kindle. It's on the Booker shortlist by Anuk Arudpragasam set in Sri Lanka.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

I wouldnt even give Eleanor a go as I put it in "Stupid Title Corner"

Eine I was doing the same until it was chosen for Book club. I hold them responsible for some of the worst reads of my life. I've equally suggested a few stinkers though

144. Us - David Nicholls
     Man muses on his failing marriage during a last hurrah holiday with their teen son before his wife has plans to leave him. He aims to save the relationship and find some understanding with a son who hates him.
     Readable but meh. Didn't see anything in it to make it Booker nomination worthy.

145. Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - Anna Funder
     The author discusses her experience of collecting oral histories from those who were targeted by the Stasi and those who were part of it.
     This is a brilliant book that explores life in East Germany before and after the wall came down. I have an East German friend who was 9 when it happened and it is fascinating to hear of how her life changed literally overnight. She feels even now there is lingering resentment on both sides about the reunification and the aftermath of it.

146. King Rat - James Clavell
     In a POW camp in Japanese occupied territory, various allied nationals struggle to survive in terrible conditions. One man, a US Corporal manipulates both captors and captives in a bid not just to stay alive, but to thrive in the face of starvation and death.
     This lacks the beauty/power of the writing in Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard however more than makes up for it in characterisation and an exploration in human nature when people are pushed to the extreme. The author draws on his own experiences during the war. Brilliant.

I'm about 50% through the new Pat Barker - The Women of Troy. I'm not convinced by it so far. It's set between the end of The Illiad and the start of The Odyssey. Troy has fallen and the men wait for a good wind to get them home, while the women face the consequences of the war. It is starting to pick up but has been a bit flat for me so far. Interested to see what others think. I hate it when I want to love a book, but it doesn't deliver.

@Terpsichore, I thought Square Haunting was fascinating - I heard of it through several people on LibraryThing saying it's excellent.

@FortunaMajor, I'm also reading The Women of Troy - at 65% according to my Kindle - am reading a Netgalley so no frills like page numbers. I might be liking it better than you so far though.