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?

@Plantsandpuddlesuits I love hearing about peoples reading routines. I don’t really have one though, except last year I bought the most beautiful lamp that I read under in really comfy pyjamas as often as possible.

@bibliomania

I enjoyed the review, satellite.

Never heard of "read along with me" video, plants, but will take a look.

Excellent classification system, Fangs!

The ones I like are by Jen Campbell on YouTube she's done a few. I like the storm one @bibliomania

[quote Palegreenstars]@Plantsandpuddlesuits I love hearing about peoples reading routines. I don’t really have one though, except last year I bought the most beautiful lamp that I read under in really comfy pyjamas as often as possible.[/quote]
This sounds so cosy @Palegreenstars

Sorry they are actually titled"read with me" by Jen Campbell @bibliomania

As I said, he doesn't know much about Afghanistan

You said he is an American who knows little about Afghanistan or the people in it. Since he's Afghan born and bred your statement was misleading. Can't comment on the accuracy of his knowledge of the Taliban since I have not been to Afghanistan under the Taliban.

My ranking scale would be something like:

1. Outstanding with some sort of special personal meaning to me
2. Really good
3. Enjoyed it, with some flaws
4. Didn’t like it much
5. Dire - would usually be a DNF, except if it was for a book club or I wanted the pleasure of writing a ranty review after dragging myself to the bitter end.

My reading me-times are in my lunch break, in the bath (DP works weekday evenings so I often have a long bath after the life admin is done), and then I usually read myself to sleep on the kindle.

Thanks, Plants. I experimented - a whole new world! I liked the ones in an old library with a crackling fire and the sound of rain. Not sure I'd do it while reading as I found it impacted on my concentration, but I'd give it a go if I was having trouble getting to sleep. Very soothing!

Another one here who loved Jean Plaidy as a teenager never got into Georgette Heyer at the time but am actually currently reading Frederica!

2022's list so far:

1. Murder in Midwinter - various

Collection of short stories from classic detective writers - easy enough read (and atmospheric).

1. Murder Dancing - Lesley Cookman

One of the later books in the Libby Sarjeant murder mysteries series, set in rural Kent. Not massively challenging (file under 'cosy crime'!) but enjoyable for me having read all the others, I like to see the character development.

1. Saving Time - Jodi Taylor

Latest in the Time Police series, a spin off from the St Marys time travel books. I think there are a few JT fans on here (@ChessieFL possibly?) - I really like the Time Police series now after a slow start in the first book. Actually went back and re-read Hard Time (the second book in the series) as well as I'd forgotten how much I liked them

1. The Toast of Time - Jodi Taylor

A St Marys short story and great fun, if you're into history.

1. A Murderous Relation - Deanna Raybourn

Been waiting for aaaaages for this to be affordable on the Kindle as my library still doesn't have a copy it's the 5th in a series of really fun 'detective' style books set in the Victorian era. I found this one less engaging than the first four but still, kept me happy for a while. The only vaguely irritating thing is that the writer is American and occasionally there's a jarringly American word/ spelling which makes me think "doesn't anyone check this for you?!"

[quote noodlezoodle]**@AliasGrape* my two favourite comfort reads are 84, Charing Cross Road and I Capture The Castle*.[/quote]
Both delightful and worthy of a reread thank you for reminding me of them!

FWIW my normal comfort read is Cold Comfort Farm or funnily enough one of the Georgette Heyer regency romances. Never read any Jean Plaidy though!

1. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families - Philip Gourevitch

Grim, fascinating and heartbreaking in equal measure, this is an unflinching account of the devastating Rwandan genocide of 1994 and its aftermath. Gourevitch is particularly contemptuous of the United Nations and international community who failed to prevent, and in some cases enabled the killings. I don't know enough about the conflict to know if there is more nuance to the history - this is an unapologetically partisan account. But it's unarguably a damning indictment of the long-term damage caused by colonialism.

Another DNF audiobook! My TBR list is too long to waste time on books that don't spark joy within the first quarter. I'm adapting Marie Kondo to my book consumption this year . I'm good at telling if i'm just not in the mood for it (in which case, it remains on my TBR list for another time) or if it's something that will never, ever suck me in.

DNF #3 - Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama (audiobook)

A best selling Japanese crime novel. A press/media person linked to a police station uncovers strange anomalies in a botched investigation into a missing 7-year-old girl many years ago.

Sounded like my cup of tea and gave it an hour but I just found it tedious. So much exposition and it didn't seem like a thriller at all. Just boring workplace chat and they never seemed to leave the office. Very slow pace. Gave up after an hour when still nothing had happened.

5 - Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Okay, so this one has been on my reading list for years but I've never felt drawn to it, namely as there didn't seem to be much plot from the blurb. I understand that literary novels are less plot- and more character-driven but usually there is some story arc that is evident.

Jean Louise returns to her home town to visit her dad. She goes on an emotional rollercoaster as she reunites with the relatives and friends she grew up with and realises what racist scumbags they are.

Disclaimer, I haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird yet either so not sure if I'd have enjoyed this one more had I real TKaM first.

I can appreciate there is some great writing talent here (excluding the lack of scene setting, character development other than Jean Louise, exposition, unnaturally long monologues in conversations), but there is no plot at all. Nothing happened. It reminded me a lot of Donna Tartt's The Little Friend except Tartt's had at least some sort of plotline.

Like other books with similar time and place settings, I was uncomfortable with the racist terms used so frequently throughout the book (especially hearing lovely Reese Witherspoon say this as the narrator!) and the 'white saviour' trope character.

Just utterly dull. Only finished it because it had a decent narrator. Likely would have been DNF if it was the actual book.

@BookBanter

Another DNF audiobook! My TBR list is too long to waste time on books that don't spark joy within the first quarter. I'm adapting Marie Kondo to my book consumption this year . I'm good at telling if i'm just not in the mood for it (in which case, it remains on my TBR list for another time) or if it's something that will never, ever suck me in.

DNF #3 - Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama (audiobook)

A best selling Japanese crime novel. A press/media person linked to a police station uncovers strange anomalies in a botched investigation into a missing 7-year-old girl many years ago.

Sounded like my cup of tea and gave it an hour but I just found it tedious. So much exposition and it didn't seem like a thriller at all. Just boring workplace chat and they never seemed to leave the office. Very slow pace. Gave up after an hour when still nothing had happened.

5 - Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Okay, so this one has been on my reading list for years but I've never felt drawn to it, namely as there didn't seem to be much plot from the blurb. I understand that literary novels are less plot- and more character-driven but usually there is some story arc that is evident.

Jean Louise returns to her home town to visit her dad. She goes on an emotional rollercoaster as she reunites with the relatives and friends she grew up with and realises what racist scumbags they are.

Disclaimer, I haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird yet either so not sure if I'd have enjoyed this one more had I real TKaM first.

I can appreciate there is some great writing talent here (excluding the lack of scene setting, character development other than Jean Louise, exposition, unnaturally long monologues in conversations), but there is no plot at all. Nothing happened. It reminded me a lot of Donna Tartt's The Little Friend except Tartt's had at least some sort of plotline.

Like other books with similar time and place settings, I was uncomfortable with the racist terms used so frequently throughout the book (especially hearing lovely Reese Witherspoon say this as the narrator!) and the 'white saviour' trope character.

Just utterly dull. Only finished it because it had a decent narrator. Likely would have been DNF if it was the actual book.

5 - Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee - forgot to include (audiobook) here. I am working my way through a real life book too! Trainspotting. Due back at the library next week and determined to have it read by then.

How are you finding Trainspotting Bookbanter? I liked the film but whenever I’ve looked at the book the Scottish dialect really puts me off!

First week, first book finished! I had to put aside Klara and the Sun. Can’t get on with it.

So picked up no one is talking about this

Beautifully awkward.

Cried a lot and read in a day. Rating of 4 as I don’t know if it’s everyone’s cup of tea. Reminds me of Lemn Sissay and works of other poet turned authors.

@ChessieFL

How are you finding Trainspotting Bookbanter? I liked the film but whenever I’ve looked at the book the Scottish dialect really puts me off!

I honestly really struggled with it for the first few chapters despite living in Scotland myself! I kept stumbling over words and it has made me slow my reading down a lot which is why it’s taking so long to make progress with it. I wonder if this is one that I’d find easier as an audiobook? This accent is one I listen to daily but don’t necessarily read words written this way.

I’m finding the lack of quotation marks more of a challenge though! I’ve never been keen on this writing choice to completely omit them so speech merges with narration.

I honestly really like it though. The characters are believable and likeable and distinct from each other. Really enjoying the different POVs. I’ve seen the film so I’m interested to see how true it is to the book.

@BookBanter I find Go Set A Watchman interesting from an editorial POV. I think she wrote it before TKAM and her editor told her to extract the TKAM story and rewrite. Harper Lee never wanted it released. I do love TKAM and was very tempted to call DD2 Scout, but now I'm more aware of the white saviour trope.

I was at uni in Edinburgh when Trainspotting the book was released and was blown away by it at the time. I found some of his other novels almost unreadable though, Filth in particular springs to mind. The film's brilliant. I love that opening sequence when they're running down Prince's Street and the steps by Pure to Lust For Life.

First book finished. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

A good gothic winter yarn by the same author as Once Upon a River, (which I’ve also read and enjoyed). Academic and biographer Margaret lLea is asked to write the biography of a famous novelist, Miss Vida Winter, whose background is obscure. As we are narrated the strange tale of Vida’s childhood, Margaret struggles to discern fantasy from fact and so goes about investigating the true history of Miss Winters’ aristocratic family, the ghosts of her ancestral home and the disturbing truth.
Recommend if you like suspensy mid winter stories.

2. Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

A children's book written in the 1960s and so a little dated in content. It reads like a Famous Five but for the slightly older child who may have been looking for something with a little more depth than an Enid Blyton. As I said before, DS wasn't keen on it but I was invested enough in the story to want to finish it. It was good, but it didn't really feel like it was part of the same series as The Dark Is Rising, which is superb.

I did still enjoy it though. It belongs to that increasingly rare thing now - the children's novel that doesn't patronise children, and assumes they can follow a more complex story, without the need for incessant slapstick and "fart jokes" (hard stare at David Walliams et al).

I shall try to persuade DS to give it another go.

A book for grown ups next

[4] State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny (Audiobook). I tend to listen to ‘airport’ style books on audio as my mind drifts so I need either a really engaging story (biographies can work) or something I can figure out/ catch up easily if my mind drifts. This worked well in that niche. It’s not a bad thriller. A bit heavy handed in certain areas, but (as I think a previous poster said) this was made up for by the insights from Hillary Clinton into modern diplomacy.

I also read a LOT of Jean Plaidy! And some Georgette Heyer. I like a Joanne Harris Chocolate series book for cozy comfort and I bought R L Delderfield, To Serve Them All My Days (another throw back to my teens) on impulse mid-pandemic as that seemed a safe reread, but I haven’t got round to it yet.

I finally finished my first book of 2022.

*1. Needful Things by Stephen King
*
This was never my favourite King novel and this re-read hasn't changed my opinion. Man trucks up to Castle Rock, opens a shop, sells a load of tut to the good citizens, in exchange for them playing a prank on someone, then sits back to watch the fireworks.

What I love about Stephen King is the way he taps into every day fears and blows them up, as well as the way he can create such vivid characters and communities so quickly and make you care about the evil they are facing.

For me, there are two main weak points with Needful Things (as well as the ending, which is a frequent issue and which I normally forgive King as I've had so much fun getting there). The first is the characters just weren't up to his usual standard, especially the main ones you are meant to be rooting for - Alan and Polly. The second is the big baddy, who I really didn't find that scary at all. However, on reflection the real scariness of Needful Things isn't really Leland Gaunt, it is the lengths people are willing to go to to obtain their heart's desires, and what they are prepared to do to others to keep them. ^
^
This was King's first book after he dealt with his alcohol and cocaine addictions and you can see him exorcising some demons on the page. The consequences of addiction writ large in Castle Rock.

My read of all Stephen King books in order continues...

1. The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

It's taken me the whole first week of 2022 to read this 700 page novel, the sixth and last in the Barchester Chronicles series.

I really left too long after the fifth book ,which I read back in the early summer, so that my memory of one or two of the relationships among the huge cast of characters was a little hazy. And the Reverend Crawley's predicament about the missing cheque .. well, Trollope wrung every last drop out of that storyline! A bit of editing wouldn't have gone amiss there.

Having said that, one of the things I enjoy about Victorian novels is the way the author takes plenty of time to explore character and relationships. We really get to know and understand the individual characters' feelings, and he describes some fantastic intricate rivalries and struggles for dominance in this clerical world. The relationship between Lily Dale and John Eames is nuanced and interesting, and the monster who is Mrs Proudie is explored in detail so that we understand her motivations better, even if we don't necessarily like her better for it.

The various storylines are well wrapped up, not always as happily as the reader might want, however I liked that.

I've enjoyed immersing myself in the Barchester world, and I'll have a go at the Palliser series in the future. I won't take two years to complete it though; that was a bit too long drawn out.

Finished my third book which was Rizzio by Denise Mina. This is a departure from her usual crime as is a period piece about Mary Queen of Scot's' servant David Rizzio who was murdered in Holyrood Palace in front of Mary when she was pregnant. Very short and taut. I was familiar with the story from other novels and films about the period by it was interesting to hear it again in this focused way.

Hello, I'm a little late to the party (extended family visit meant I've only just got back the luxury of going to bed early with a book). Do you mind if I sneak in the back? Like many people, I used to be a voracious reader, but young children and too much time looking up nonsense on my phone has broken my reading habit. Am determined to get back into it this year!

I'm halfway through my first book, The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde by Eve Chase, which I acquired for free from a neighbour who was having a New Year's clearout. It's about four sisters who spend the summer of 1959 in their aunt and uncle's country manor house, five years after the mysterious disappearance of their cousin (the eponymous Audrey). A second narrative follows a woman named Jessie who moves into the dilapidated manor house fifty years later, hoping for a fresh start for herself, her husband, their young daughter and her teenaged stepdaughter, who is still grieving her mother's death and is very hostile towards Jessie.

There's a wonderfully sinister undercurrent to both narratives that I'm really enjoying so far - its my turn to sleep in tomorrow and I'm so impatient to discover the truth behind the central mystery that I can see myself pulling an all nighter as soon as the kids are in bed tonight!

[quote Stokey]**@BookBanter* I find Go Set A Watchman* interesting from an editorial POV. I think she wrote it before TKAM and her editor told her to extract the TKAM story and rewrite. Harper Lee never wanted it released. I do love TKAM and was very tempted to call DD2 Scout, but now I'm more aware of the white saviour trope.

I was at uni in Edinburgh when Trainspotting the book was released and was blown away by it at the time. I found some of his other novels almost unreadable though, Filth in particular springs to mind. The film's brilliant. I love that opening sequence when they're running down Prince's Street and the steps by Pure to Lust For Life.[/quote]
I remember reading this being reported at the time and it made me feel slightly uncomfortable reading Go Set A Watchman when it was first published, despite the curiousity value (To Kill A Mockingbird is one of my favourite books). Harper Lee was very elderly when it was published and I think - although it's possible this was an assumption bandied about by an ageist media - there was a feeling that the publisher took advantage of this? It has been a while since I read it so my recollection is a bit hazy, but I really disliked it, particularly the portrayal of Atticus, and ended up skimming large chunks. The original editor was entirely correct in suggesting she rework it!

@TheRealShedSadie

First book finished. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

A good gothic winter yarn by the same author as Once Upon a River, (which I’ve also read and enjoyed). Academic and biographer Margaret lLea is asked to write the biography of a famous novelist, Miss Vida Winter, whose background is obscure. As we are narrated the strange tale of Vida’s childhood, Margaret struggles to discern fantasy from fact and so goes about investigating the true history of Miss Winters’ aristocratic family, the ghosts of her ancestral home and the disturbing truth.
Recommend if you like suspensy mid winter stories.

I like the sound of this and will take a note of it. Thanks TheRealShedSadie.