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?

@bibliomania just saying that I absolutely loved your review of The Maidens, it made me laugh so much. Love a really bad review!

I flatter myself that I ask the important literary questions, Perm.

111 and 112) A Murder Is Announced and Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie. Two Miss Marples (in the first Miss M visits the daughter of the narrating Vicar from the second, something I only realised today). Have read these often- Announced I reckon has a claim on being Christie's best novel, even if Orient Express usually gets that accolade. Nice plot, good cast of characters, well paced. And Miss Marple, who I like better than Poirot! Excellent detective fiction.

I laughed too. Two of the books I've liked the least this year have been university/elite school "thrillers" (I was not thrilled) with literary pretensions. Donna Tartt has a lot to answer for.

War and Peace readalong intro thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4418935-War-and-Peace-Readalong-thread-2022

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

Will save my final thoughts on this for the readalong thread, but really enjoyed it. I didn’t know anything about it before starting the readalong and have been pleasantly surprised.

Thanks StColumbo

113. There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz This follows the life of two children, Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers, living in a public housing project (the Henry Horner Homes) in Chicago. The boys are aged 11 & 9 at the start of the book in 1987 and it follows them for two years through the mundane (school, spelling bees, birthday parties) but also through events including the killing of one of their friends in an accidental shooting by police and the arrest & imprisonment of one of their older brothers. The author also spends a lot of time with LaJoe, the boys' mother, and she also features heavily (the title comes from one of her comments 'there are no children here, they've seen too much'). Although this was a very hard listen at times (I got it from the free Audible plus catalogue), I thought it was excellent. Following two young boys over a longer period gives a much more rounded picture of their lives compared, for example, to Gang Leader for a Day (also about life in a Chicago project) and shows the impact of gun violence on a day to day level (retreating under a table in case of shots coming through the wall, for example) more immediately than eg Another Day in the Death of America.

@bibliomania I also absolutely hated The Maidens. My review started with the sentence An absolute stinker; possibly the worst book I've ever finished and ended with A goodreads one star review (not mine, sadly) just says, "Are you fucking kidding me" which are my thoughts in a nutshell.

The Dark Is Rising is so great for this time of year, although like @YolandiFuckinVisser I love the 'ordinary' parts of the book more than the mythical. I also grew up in Buckinghamshire so I loved a lot of the descriptions of the landscape. Looking forward to hearing the thoughts of those embarking on it now.

My latest is 44. Monogamy, by Sue Miller. Achingly slow burning portrait of a marriage, and how a wife responds when her husband dies and she finds out that he was unfaithful to her. This isn't just about marriage and families but also about grief, memory, and the stories we tell ourselves. Despite finding this really immersive, I was slightly distracted by thoughts throughout of how this would have been even better if it was written by Tessa Hadley! You also need a high tolerance for artsy middle class Americans who have a suspiciously high standard of living given that one of them owns a bookshop and another is a photographer.

Oh yes @noodlezoodle I loved yours too but didn't realise it was the same book...

@PermanentTemporary it's absolutely bloody awful!

I'm also cracking up because I'm trying to keep a reading notebook at the moment, and looking back at my increasingly infuriated scribbles, I found myself fully aligned with biblio: Fred keeps popping up, eating an apple. Crap motif? But the apple is never mentioned when he drops his bike and papers and is scrabbling around to pick them up. Perhaps he has 3 hands?

I was also apparently enraged by Julian's repeated winking, with some agitated all caps scrawl that it was SOMETIMES TWICE IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH. Having read the ending this was far from the book's greatest crimes. Genuinely one of the worst things I've ever read.

I should have been warned off by your review, noodle! As it is, the cover bristles with ecstatic puff quotes, and it was named in a round-up of good thrillers in one of the newspapers. The publicist did an amazing job at any rate.

Sadik Thanks for the review of There are no Children Here. I've not come across it before (I've read the other 2 books you mention) and have added it to my wish list.

Started This Thing of Darkness. After a lifetime of ignoring naval terms in the hope they’d give up and go away, I’m going to need a picture of a ship with parts labelled, aren’t I?

60. Animal Farm - George Orwell An allegory for the Russian revolution. The animals stage a rebellion against their tyrannical master and claim their farm as their own. The utopian idyll anticipated by the animals fails to materialise as the pigs take over running the farm until they become indistinguishable from the humans they worked to overthrow in the early stages of the rebellion.

A nice, short, comforting re-read.

Sons of the Waves by Stephen Taylor Terrific account of the lives of ordinary seaman in the "Heroic Age of Sail" 1740-1840. This was a fascinating read, covering a huge range of topics - from mutinies to battles (including the Battles of the Nile and Trafalgar), life on board ship to the plight of families left behind, press gangs to punishments on board and off - and gosh, it was a difficult life for very little reward (indeed sailor's pay remained the same for nearly 150 years.) All this at a time of great political change around the world, most notably the French Revolution, American Independence and the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in Britain. I turned down the top of pages (I know, I know) that I particularly wanted to mention but found at the end there are far too many. Recommended (although I should perhaps point out that, as you might expect, it is quite a long book at 440 pages).

An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel A coming-of-age story of three girls from a Catholic school* in the north-west who all move on to the same London university and halls of residence in the autumn of 1970. Hilary Mantel has a wonderful turn of phrase, and her description of the girls' school reminded me of my own girls' grammar school in the 1970s: "Frigid courtesy was extended to us, as an example of how to conduct ourselves when we were adults. Our excesses and errors were kept in check by sarcasm....We were not told to be humble. We were made to be." The girls' time at university is told over the first winter and reflects the social issues facing young women with wit and pathos. I loved nearly all of this book, but I did find the ending slightly unsatisfactory.

• Nuns are involved but I don't think it counts as true Nun-Fiction.

What age would you recommend The Dark is Rising for? I may get it for my 12 year old. Does that sound about right? I feel like I read it at school but can't remember it at all.

@Stokey I think I first read it in primary school, there was a TV adaptation on children's BBC I think, and I borrowed it from the library off the back of that. I think at 12 I would have got more out of it. The protagonist is 11 yo if that helps?

I think 12 is perfect for The Dark is Rising. Hope he/she enjoys it!

Another The Dark is Rising fan here. Will dig it out if I make it to my parents' house this Christmas.

I've acquired a big pile of cosy old-fashioned crime novels at various second-hand bookshops over the year, so my intention is to burrow my way into those for the winter.

I have a 12yo DS, and this has prompted me to dig out the Dark is Rising series from his older sibling's bedroom and get him started on it!

Thanks @southeastdweller

Here's my list

1. Cilka's Journey - Heather Morris
2. The Testaments - Margaret Atwood

1. The Baby Group - Caroline Corcoran
2. Who Killed Ruby - Camilla Way
3. The Angina Monologues - Samer Nashe
4. The Shelf - Helly Acton
5. Too Scared To Tell - Cathy Glass
6. I Can't Believe You Just Said That - Danny Wallace
7. 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 63. The First Last Kiss - Ali Harris 64. Naomi's Room - Johnathan Wycliffe 65. PS I Love You - Cecelia Ahern 66. The Passenger ` Daniel Hurst 67. Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes

67. Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes

I enjoyed this book, and have to say that if you pick it up looking no further than the title and cover, you will be in for a hell of a shock. This book is not the lighthearted chick lit you will no doubt be expecting. I hate the term chick lit, it makes a book sound like it's all funny, sexy, romance, and giggles.

The fact books of this genre are written by women is the cause for the category title, 'chick lit', imagine books written by men, aimed mostly at men, being put in the category 'dick lit'? You could tell from the category title mostly men would be interested, and the book would still reinforce the 'grrr it's for men' view. (Oops, rant over)

Rachel's Holiday is so much more than 'chick lit' if you take that to mean rainbows, sunshine, love, and it always being a skip off into the sunset at the end, it IS funny, also sad, insightful, and shows peoples behaviours and the effect they have on others, but most importantly on themselves.

We learn Rachel's story, and in doing so, it makes you look at aspects of your own life (and how you deal with these). We meet Rachel at the start (rock bottom) of her journey, and learn, often as she herself does, issues affecting her life, job, relationships and family. I felt myself rooting for Rachel, despite the selfish, needy, troubled, woman she is, or maybe because of it. None of us live a perfect life, and even if we don't face the addiction issues she does, it doesn't mean people can't have the same sort of troubles.

I found this book quite powerful in an unexpected way.

I love Rachel’s Holiday. One of my favourite books.

114. The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan Interesting collection of essays, the first and longest of which was written as a response to the killings by self proclaimed 'incel' Elliot Rodger. I'm not sure there's a huge amount new for anyone who has read a reasonable amount of 70s/80s/etc feminist writing (quite a bit of quoting of bell hooks), and on the whole the conclusions she reaches are 'it's complicated'. But I think that's fair enough, especially when your audience is probably mostly quite young.
     It did remind me though why I like SFF so much - I can think of several novels that have explored many of the issues in this collection and brought them to life / dealt with the nuances and complications much more eloquently than an essay can reasonably be expected to do.

There’s a follow up to Rachel’s Holiday being released next year.