50 Book Challenge 2022 Part One

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2022, 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.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

Who's in for this year?

2. The Manningtree Witches - A K Blakemore

Based on fact and set in the 1640s it follows the story of Rebecca West, a poor nineteen year old seamstress, who lives with her widowed laundrywoman mother in Essex. Manningtree becomes the home of Matthew Hopkins, a young Puritan, who gains a reputation as the Witchfinder. Frankly, it seems that if you were widowed and poor your chances of not being called a witch were pretty slim. I wanted to love this but sadly didn’t but did learn a lot more about the witch-hunts of that period.

LadybirdDaphne that view is stunning.

1. Oh William! - Elizabeth Strout

Fictional author Lucy Barton reminisces about her first husband and recounts their subsequent patchy friendship as an ongoing bind of shared lives and children.

I am always at a bit of a loss with what to say about these. I think Strout is a very technically competent writer and captures the human experience and relationships very well. I could quite happily take them or leave them though. Same with the Olive books. I don't love them or hate them, I simply don't care either way.

I too would like another read of Piranesi at some point. I remember the feeling of complete discombobulation at the opening scenes. Someone at IRL book club has just read it and had some interesting ideas that I would like to ponder. I worry a reread will take away the brilliant sense of wonder/ confusion at what on earth was going on. It was such an interesting experience.

2. Mrs England by Stacey Halls
This is good going for me to have read two books already but I'm isolating so have time to fill!
This was an easy and engrossing read. It was a little clunky in places - a bit cliched with some of the industrial revolution and upstairs/ downstairs type storylines and settings and i felt it could have had more depth to it but it was an enjoyable and cosy book to read - a very soothing January book with descriptions of roaming the Yorkshire moors and the daily routines of servants.

I'm a Camilleri Montalbano fan, and have read quite a few of the series. As well as the convoluted way Montalbano solves the crimes, what I like about the books are the frequent glimpses of Italian life, the focus on food, the police hierarchy, nuns and priests wandering through the stories, the complex family relationships.
I also like the way the minor characters develop, Mimi Augello, and Catarella are amongst my favourites.

Yes, the books are formulaic, but to me that is part of their charm.

I read Small Pleasures last year and quite enjoyed it, although it is the type of "female fiction" that I tend to avoid. In a curious intersection of life and fiction, which I only realised once I had started reading it, the book briefly, but significantly, features the 1957 Lewisham rail crash. 91 people were killed, including my mum's first husband (he was only 22/23). Without that traumatic event I would not exist.

@ontana I had no idea there was a third Ambrose Parry book out there - good news! Have you read any Christopher Brookmyre writing as himself? He was a welcome discovery for me a few years ago .. very entertaining. But I'm liking the Ambrose Parry books too. I like detective fiction and Victorian fiction, and love Edinburgh so it's a combination that works very well for me.

LadybirdDaphne how fantastic to be in Queenstown! I think I might have cycled round the edge of that (sort of) island in your photo, if it's the peninsula with the botanical gardens on it? Great memories of the days when we could travel abroad easily

ladybird - so the opposite end of the country to where I imagined
Looks absolutely gorgeous!

1. Among the Mad, Jacqueline Winspear

My first Maisie Dobbs adventure, picked up in a National Trust property this year.

Christmas Eve 1931, Maisie witnesses a man killing himself.
Boxing day, the police ask her to help as they have received threatening letters and she is mentioned. Is there the link between the two events, can she find out who the man was and work out who the author of the letters is before it is too late.

Really interesting book, set in the depressed inter war years, with many ex soldiers unemployed but not considered sick enough for a war pension. Maisie is a woman of independent means and knows her worth. She also cares for her employee, Billy and there is a bit of a side story involving his wife.

4: A Cold Coming - Mary Kelly

Well, this was a strange one. I went on a bit of a mad pursuit of this book after getting slightly hooked on Mary Kelly’s 50s/60s whodunnits, some of which are still quite easily available as classic green Penguins but others not (and are correspondingly £££).

This is one of the scarcer ones, and I missed out on a cheap Amazon copy, but got lucky with an only-slightly more expensive secondhand hardback in very good condition. Not much point in explaining the complicated plot, except to say that a) it hinges on two opera-loving students spending time at a common cold research centre (geddit?) and b) I had no clue what was going on for most of the time. I still think she was a fascinating and underrated writer, though. I’ll park this on the shelf marked ‘oddball’

@Terpsichore

That was quick, Remus! Yes, a strange little book - I could see why people drew the Patrick Hamilton parallels, but it's not up to that level. I'm glad I read it too, though

I'm yet to read any Patrick H @Terpsichore Do I want to?

@ontana Do you think the 3rd Parry would work without having read the others? It's really cheap on Kindle.

Yes would work fine as a stand alone but I enjoyed the first two and nice to see characters and relationships develop

Hmmm, not sure whether you would, @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie, but he has a lot of fans on here, me included. Try a Kindle sample, maybe? I love The Slaves of Solitude particularly. But he's not the go-to writer if you want to be cheered up....

That's an amazing story @SirSidneyRuffDiamond!

I read Small Pleasures last year and it was OK. I couldn't warm to the main character though and thought it shouldn't really have been classed as Lesbian Romance! It really wasn't. But that was Amazon's fault, not the book's

Thanks, both. Will get samples of the first Parry and a PH.

@LethargeMarg

2. Mrs England by Stacey Halls This is good going for me to have read two books already but I'm isolating so have time to fill! This was an easy and engrossing read. It was a little clunky in places - a bit cliched with some of the industrial revolution and upstairs/ downstairs type storylines and settings and i felt it could have had more depth to it but it was an enjoyable and cosy book to read - a very soothing January book with descriptions of roaming the Yorkshire moors and the daily routines of servants.

I also loved Mrs England @LethargeMarg have you read any of Stacey halls other books? I've read them all. I think the familiars was my favourite.

Hope she writes more!

Yes I loved the familiars - borrowed it off a friend and left it at my mums before I'd finished it and had to buy on my kindle as I was so desperate to keep reading it !

I really enjoyed Small Pleasures, I am a sucker for a heartwarming bit of* wartime era fiction though! See also: Dear Mrs Bird*

Good Housekeeping magazine in conjunction with The Women's Prize for Fiction are running a prize for the most promising female UK author under 35.

www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/lifestyle/editors-choice-book-reviews/a38262257/womens-prize-futures/

Stacey Halls is one of the 10 finalists. You can vote via the link. There are a few I haven't heard of/read, so will be looking into their work. Those I have read from the list I've enjoyed and would rate highly.

The list for the lazy...
Jessica Andrews
Natasha Brown
Candice Carty-Williams
Eliza Clark
Abigail Dean
Naoise Dolan
Stacey Halls
Sairish Hussain
Daisy Johnson
Chibundu Onuzo

Something to keep me out of mischief until the long list is revealed in March.

I haven't heard of any of those Fortuna , although a couple of the titles sound familiar. I add them to my list and aim to get some from the library before I vote.

I am only reading female authors this year anyway.

Will you (or someone else) perhaps post the link again in future months as the poll doesn't close until October and it's a really good initiative?

That's an amazing personal connection to Small Pleasures, SirSidney.

Taswama I haven't read 4 of them. My top one from those I have would be Daisy Johnson followed by Jessica Andrews.

I haven't been disappointed by any of them, but I have a few reservations about Girl A by Abigail Dean that I think were shared on here.

Remus, I think you may really like Hamilton. I'd start with Slaves of Solitude, or Hangover Square. Then move on to Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky or the Gorse Trilogy. I'd leave it there - the rest are patchy at best and some are downright terrible.

They are very much period pieces in terms of language and slang but they are universal in terms of emotion and longing.
And incredibly wistful and sad. If George Harvey Bone doesn't break you heart, nothing well.

That is the kind of story you don't know whether to be sad or happy about @SirSidneyRuffDiamond, but I am happy you are here!
3) Gone Away by Hazel Holt. Detective story (cosy variety), recommended by @BestIsWest and @bibliomania iirc. At first I was a bit discombobulated by this- it seemed both current and dated, but then I remembered that we did indeed have Boots and M and S in the 80s, but not mobile phones, and I settled into it! It had a bit of a feel of "England for Americans" about it (I did actually look to see if the author was American , but she wasn't), but I will definitely read the next in the series, so thank you very much!

@SarahJessicaParker1

That's an amazing story *@SirSidneyRuffDiamond*!

I read Small Pleasures last year and it was OK. I couldn't warm to the main character though and thought it shouldn't really have been classed as Lesbian Romance! It really wasn't. But that was Amazon's fault, not the book's

Books get classified under all kinds of “niche” topics on Amazon - it helps to make them “bestsellers”. (Although usually much more obscure books in much more obscure categories such as “Bestseller in window cleaning with animals”... you get my drift.) It’s easy to be a bestseller in a tiny category. As a result, I never bother much with the categories!

I liked Small Pleasures too, but there was something about it... I just think it could have been better still, if that makes sense. I foresaw the ending very early on, which perhaps didn’t help.

And yes, amazing story SirSidney