50 Book Challenge 2021 Part Eight

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the eighth (and probably final) 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, it’s not too late to and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.The lurkers among you are also very welcome to come out of the woodwork and share with us what you've read!

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here, the third one here, the fourth one here, the fifth one here, the sixth one here and the seventh one here.

How have you got on this year?

104: Greenwitch - Susan Cooper

Book 3 in the sequence of The Dark is Rising, which brings the Drew children together with Will Stanton for the first time, as the original trio realise fully the extent of great-Uncle Merry's involvement in a world beyond their imagining.

To an extent a bit of a necessary bridging book, and Will doesn't really play much of a role in this beyond the occasional appearance, but I enjoyed the Cornish setting and the accumulating sense of the cycle building and deepening.

I also listened to the Backlisted podcast which someone upthread mentioned (sorry, I can't remember who, but thank you!) and really enjoyed hearing Susan Cooper talking about the cycle in archive interviews. I didn't realise she's lived in the US for many years and indeed was when she wrote the books. Oh, and if anyone's interested, there's an annual Twitter readalong which starts tomorrow under the hashtag #thedarkisreading, apparently

@Sadik, I can see that your current reads, or DNFs, seem a bit too much just now! I think I have the Claire North book, and I'll probably wishlist the other as it sounds interesting, but not for reading right now. I have read a couple of books this year that have made me check the publication dates.

My idea of escapism tends to be a really good crime novel.

I loved Malibu Rising as well, I think I described it as 'delightful fluff'.

Thanks for flagging #thedarkisreading, @Terpsichore - I wasn't sure if I was going to reread it this year but this has pushed me over the edge

joining in on the 'Perfume' debate. Such a disappointment, such a dreadful book, absolutely no subtlety in it, obvious from the first few chapters were it was going to end. Plotting poor, characterisations weak / non-existent, writing amateurish ....

Finished my first Christmassy read - A Scandinavian Christmas , a Vintage collection in a pretty and dinky little books of 16 short stories by writers for Scandinavia.

Most of them are either religious or dark, or both.

Have to say the three Hans Christian Andersen's still stand head and shoulders above the rest.

I read Perfume back in the late 1980's(?) I think (wow, so, so long ago)and I do remember it somewhat - so it is one of those books that makes an impression - good or bad. I thought the ending was terrible and it was a book I felt sullied by reading (like Lolita) and wished I hadn't.

Perhaps Malibu Rising is what I need to get me out of my reading funk.

91 Vida by Marge Piercy
This was terrific. I am sure it was a recommendation on here - my 2022 resolution is to be better at keeping track so I can thank people properly. Vida is on the run in 80s America from the authorities as one of the few of her anti-Vietnam, anti-capitalist illegal group not in custody. The novel goes back and forth between her years as an activist and her time on the run, as she struggles with personal and political challenges. I loved this; particularly the sexual politics which I thought were incredibly well done.

92 There Are Crocodiles in the Sea by Fabio Geda
This is the story of an Afghan child making his way overground to Italy and the challenges he and other refugees face. It's a lightly fictionalised account of an actual refugee's journey. It's not an easy read though the ending is sweet - particularly hard knowing his story isn't unusual or even particularly harrowing in comparison.

93 The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
Rightly lauded for its portrayal of the inhumanity of the US prison system, but the wrong book at the wrong time for me. I can absolutely see it is accomplished and gripping but I needed fluff and it definitely wasn't that.

94 And Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris
I read this years ago when it first came out and remembered it as an entertaining and quirky account of office life. It is, and cleverly done, but I forgot about the long sad interlude in the middle. So again, it wasn't the book, it was definitely me, but not one for the top ten.

95 The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood
An exploration of English country house life between the wars, this looks at many different dimensions from the architecture and interior design through to the life of servants, the economic challenges and the role of Americans in keeping many of the houses from demolition and disrepair. Interesting, though I'd have liked more photos.

Olive Again - Elizabeth Strout
Interwoven stories of small town life. I preferred this to the first. I think the character and the style had grown on me this time round.

The Nanny State Made Me: A Story About Britain and How to Save It - Stuart Maconie
Maconie explores the welfare state through the lens of his own 60s/70s upbringing in a northern town. He poses questions about the past and future of British society and politics.
Very readable and very recognisable. We are from roughly the same area, so I know his old stomping ground well. It's a bit rose tinted glasses in places, but raises some interesting questions.

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
I read a Dickens by choice, all by myself and it wasn't terrible. This didn't feel like Dickens at all and I quite liked it.

One of the Girls - Lucy Clarke
I enjoyed this. It was a superior chick lit thriller with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. The story zipped along nicely. Having read a few very long, dull tomes lately this was a nice palate cleanser. I read The Sea Sisters by the same author about seven years ago so hoped this would be a similar very easy read and it was. The story follows six women on a hen do in a remote farmhouse above cliffs in Greece. They don't all know each other personally but are all connected through the bride and her fiance. It did take a few chapters for the characters to all gel in my mind as six is quite a few and I enjoyed how the mystery played out. I did guess most of the twists and turns in advance but that was fine. I could really easily imagine this as a BBC or ITV Monday night drama. It was nice to lose myself on a hot Greek Island for a few hours immersed in the mess of other womens lives.

I read Perfume about 20 years ago, and remember liking it then.

113. The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones

The final book by Diana Wynne Jones, completed after her death by her sister Ursula.

It’s enjoyable, but it’s not going to be one of my favourites of her. I’m a bit older than the target age for this.

114. The Emergency Poet edited by Deborah Alma

Poetry anthology. The poems are split into themes like love, grief, getting older and so on. It’s quite a nice selection.

I have now given up on Afterland by Lauren Beukes. It’s set in a near future where almost everyone with a Y chromosome has been killed by a prostate cancer pandemic. A mum’s on the run with her son, one of the few surviving boys.

The setting’s all a bit too grim for me at the moment. I might try it again later when there’s less of a real life pandemic around.

Also fallen behind like many of you, and will be unlikely to reach 50 especially thanks to bloody buggering ridiculous 250 page too long crapola Elizabeth George and The Punishment She Deserves FINALLY finished and coming in at 45.

Heavens above. I used to love Inspector Lynley books (and thought, oh lovely, this will do nicely) but this one has done it for me. The premise of the story was fine, but it could have been at least 200 pages shorter. Masses of inconsequent and irrelevant detail and the only thing the detailed and rambling minute description of Ludlow has made me vow is never to visit the place. Too many characters, each of whom had too much background stuff going on with no connection to the plot, and each one of them sporting an absurd name and several unlikeable relatives. Couldn't wait to finish it. Lynley remains recognisably himself, but Barbara appears to have turned into an oafish parody. Gah.

Am now reading Insertion by AJ Quinnell.

It may have been me recommending Vida. It's one of my favourite books of all time.

SapatatSea How many times did Lucy Clarke use the word "salt" or "salty"? I don't mind her books but her obsession with salt does my head in.

I must read more next year. I've disappointed myself this year and will have fewer stand-out books than ever before I think. Oof.

@Sadik I read 84K during the lockdown earlier this year and found it hard going as so relentlessly depressing, also long. I think I moved on to some Mary Wesley books next for some light relief!

@SOLINVICTUS your review made me laugh, I used to quite like Elizabeth George but will steer clear now. Ludlow is actually a nice town in beautiful countryside though, it was a bit of a foodie destination for a while.

I just finished The Searchers by Tana French. This is about an American cop who retires to Ireland and is doing up a rundown cottage in the rural countryside. He makes friends with a kid from a local family of troublemakers, who wants his help finding their missing older brother. I found this pretty slow moving, and almost felt like it could have been written by an Americsn s seemed to tick most stereotypes of the Irish countryside. Not really my cup of tea.

@PepeLePew I remember having a conversation on the previous thread on Vida - I was quite obsessed with that book and with reading other things about the period. I was thrilled to find someone who shared this particular obsession, and I think it might well have been you @Soliinvictus. Glad, Pepe, that you enjoyed it.

I was introduced to Elizabeth George at some point in the 1990s, and then I read one that I found really annoying and learned that she's an American and things that hadn't bothered me earlier started to jump out at me. I have bought more of her books though, and bought a couple on Kindle offer that I discarded in paperback before, as I'd quite like to go back to the series now, It's been a while!

I think it was, SOL. Thank you, if so. I'd never have stumbled across it without your recommendation
.

Another US writer who sets a crime series in the UK but does it a lot better generally then Elizabeth George is Deborah Crombie. She does have her police detective duo living in improbably appealing parts of London. One while still living as a single mum moves from Leyton to Islington, and later they move in together in Notting Hill. But maybe the thinking is that her American readership will struggle with the characters living out of walking distance from Zone 1.

64. . Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis
A lovely book, lent to me by a fellow Bronte fan. A personal but knowledgeable exploration of Anne Bronte's life and work by a writer who discovered her after her sisters, and feels she has been undeservedly out of the spotlight and misunderstood, partly because she approached life and writing in her own way - the only Bronte sister who appeared to like teaching or at least to be good at it. Certainly makes me want to reread The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and I'm intrigued that even now there are few editions that have restored the heavy cuts by Charlotte Bronte.

@PermanentTemporary

64. . Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis A lovely book, lent to me by a fellow Bronte fan. A personal but knowledgeable exploration of Anne Bronte's life and work by a writer who discovered her after her sisters, and feels she has been undeservedly out of the spotlight and misunderstood, partly because she approached life and writing in her own way - the only Bronte sister who appeared to like teaching or at least to be good at it. Certainly makes me want to reread The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and I'm intrigued that even now there are few editions that have restored the heavy cuts by Charlotte Bronte.

Oh @PermanentTemporary may I tell you I love you please?

1. Tenant is All Time Top 10
2. I wrote my dissertation on "Wuthering Heights and Tenant

I still have it somewhere, but cant remember the full title because I'm knackered

Buying this forthwith.

As a personal grudge that I carry I got an extremely high 2:1 for my dissertation and when I asked why I didn't get a first, it was because I forgot the page numbers.

The thing is I didn't, I simply couldn't get Microsoft Word to number them properly (several different files) and I had an appointment to get it laminated and bound

Bad times

Buying this forthwith

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favourite Bronte novel, and I have a copy of Take Courage somewhere TBR, as well as a couple of bios of Charlotte Bronte and, I think, one about all 3 sisters.

I read Charlotte Hardman's Life of Charlotte Bronte earlier this year and really liked it.

But maybe the thinking is that her American readership will struggle with the characters living out of walking distance from Zone 1.

Similarly, DD1 was looking at the illustrations from an American version of The Deathly Hallows and the picture for when Hermione apparates Harry and Ron away from the wedding to Tottenham Court Road makes London look like it's Victorian, it's all misty and romantic.

62. Nice Work - David Lodge An academic and an MD of a manufacturing firm are thrown together in 1980s Birmingham and learn about life on the other side.

Vic and Robyn are traditional cliche characters. He is the bright working-class boy who did well for himself by working hard and earning himself the position of MD at a mid-size engineering company, a depressed wife and a clutch of spoiled teenage children by the age of 46. Robyn, brought up in the studious atmosphere of an established academic home, has made a name for herself as a leading academic in the field of English literature and holds strong beliefs regarding feminism and adult education.

The unlikely pair are thrown together as a result of an industry scheme to introduce academic life to the industrial. Neither wants to do it and struggles to understand the other's perspective. The writing is nicely descriptive and frequently comical. I first read this as a student in Birmingham with a boyfriend from the industrial atmosphere of the Black Country so it had a kind of resonance then. I enjoyed re-reading it now as a kind of historical piece.

35. The Confession by Jessie Burton
Rose is 35 and unsatisfied by both her job, and her long term relationship. She has always felt the loss of her mother Elise, who disappeared when her father was a baby. Her father reveals that immediately prior to his relationship with her mother, Elise was in a relationship with Constance Holden, a critically acclaimed author. In her attempts to get in contact with Constance to find out more about her mother, Rose seizes an opportunity work for her, creating a new identity for herself to avoid suspicion. The novel moves back and forth between the present day and the early 1980s, when Constance and Elise were together.

I found the present day sections more successful, as Rose struggle to find out who she is was compelling. The 1980s sections were less interesting, I think because Elise was the least interesting person in Constance's glamorous circle, and felt like an onlooker even though this part of the story was told from her perspective.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit surely the Books board should have a thread where people link to their dissertations?? Id like to read yours.

56. We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker
Really enjoyed this novel. Duchess Day Radley is a 13 year old self proclaimed outlaw, living with her single mum and younger brother in difficult circumstances in a small town on the coast of California. They are watched over by Walk, the local cop who is dealing with the ongoing consequences of a crime that his friend was found guilty of decades earlier. There were a couple of times that I felt like the author had set us up with a few too many characters and threads to follow, but I was fully invested in what happened to the main characters and loved the ending.
Have been on a run of very short titles since then...
57. The Deal of A Lifetime by Fredrik Backman
Novella about a man who is visited by a kind of admin assistant for Death. I think this was intended to tug at the heart strings but it kind of missed the target for me.
58. Black and British: A Short Essential History by David Olusoga
This was a young readers edition, looking at the lives of black people in Britain from the time of Romans through the industrial revolution to the Windrush generation. There was a huge amount that I didn't know or had never thought of - I was certainly one of those whose school history included much about cotton manufacturing without ever mentioning where the cotton came from, who harvested it or how it got here. A starter for further reading.
59. Rizzio by Denise Mina
Also a short read, less than 120 pages, this is a kind of fictionalised account of the true story of the murder of David Rizzio in the chambers of Mary Queen of Scots in Holyrood Palace in the 1500s. I didn't love the writing in this but I think a lot of research has gone into getting the historical details right and the story is pretty extraordinary.
I'm in the latter stages of one novel, one non-fiction title and one audiobook, may well tidy up all three this week and settle into more of a one-thing-at-a-time pattern over the holidays.

I completely missed that the wonderful Katie Lumsden was doing a dickensalong on A Christmas Carol.

Link here for anyone who has read recently/has time to read :