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?

3. The Minimalist Home - Joshua Becker

A sort of how-to guide about minimising your home.

I found parts of it a little irrelevant. The author is American, so there was lots of "how to minimise your play room, laundry, mud room, home office, living room, family room...". Basically written for people with A LOT of space. Minimising my laundry was especially amusing as I have a washing machine in my kitchen. That is my laundry 😂.

But, towards the end when he spoke more about living with less and what you can achieve by minimising your possessions, I actually found it quite moving. Also really made me interested in downsizing property. I can definitely see the appeal and we do nit of a big house as it is.

Worth a read if you're interested in the subject and can get past the churchiness, (which I didn't mind, but I know a lot of people would), and the slightly irrelevant parts.

*we do not have a big house as it is

Don't know what happened to that sentence!

Very glad to find this thread, though it may be deadly for my tbr list. Hello!

I have started the year quite strong, finishing And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini and Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Both recommended.

Now reading The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak,** which I'm also enjoying.

I am going to try this year not to be quite so hooked on the "Kindle books for 99p" Facebook group which cost me quite a lot in 2021!

I absolutely loved all of Diane Setterfield's novels when I read them a few years ago. Once Upon a river was my favourite and I also loved Bellman and Black.

Yes, I very much need to leave the kindle deals of the day ALONE

I have a lovely dilemma today as I have no work, not a lot on at home and two books I can't choose between. Might flip a coin to decide which one to start - I can't do two at once!

I don't know if i could possibly leave kindle deals of the day alone.
I don't always buy one, though.

I'm very coviddy so currently listening to Candide by Voltaire on audible.
I like Andrew Sachs' narration

2.Merivel by Rose Tremain
A sequel to the brilliant Restoration. Merivel is now in his fifties, his daughter Margaret a young woman. Still seeking to improve his position, Merivel asks King Charles II for an introduction to the court at Versailles, and accordingly heads to France. Naturally he encounters difficulties, including an unwelcoming French king, a bloodthirsty husband, and a caged bear seeking a new guardian.

This doesn't quite live up to the heights of Restoration, with some of the plot lines around Merivel's love life feeling a bit too familiar to the original, and others quite inconsequential. However, Merivel is such a brilliant character - flawed yet self-aware, clever but often totally idiotic, always full of life - that it's a joy to spend more time with him. The final part of the book is more serious in tone, although this being Merival, never quite properly dignified.

3. Daddy by Emma Cline
I'm not typically a fan of short stories as I get a bit frustrated not having more information and details of the characters and they always end on a bit of a cliff hanger.
I have been waiting for ages for Emma Cline to write something after her amazing debut the girls but I didn't love these short stories as much. It was very readable - Emma cline is a very talented writer and the descriptions were vivid and detailed and I was pretty gripped to each of the short stories but I didn't love it as (this is an important theme for me) all the characters were pretty unlikeable(possibly the point of the book) and all the stories were a bit bleak and pessimistic.

Just realised didn't really give any details of what the short stories in 'daddy' are about:
Very contemporary, each story set in a different place in the states and each features somewhere a father figure or (once) powerful man. All flawed or failed characters.

1. Foster by Claire Keegan

Having loved Small Things like These by the same author, I found this very similar in tone and equally excellent. Thanks to the PP (sorry can't recall who it was) who recommended it.

A young girl is taken to stay on a farm with a couple she's never met while her mother is having her latest baby. Life is very different there; she is warmly welcomed and becomes part of the family. The love that grows between the three people, and the calm, healing routine of their lives, is beautifully depicted. CK doesn't use dialect - which I often struggle with in books - but her turns of phrase and the rhythm of the language are poetic and work really well.

It's a perfect gem of a little book, so it seems churlish to point out that at less than 90 pages of large print, this is really a short story and to question the price of £7.99 for an hour's reading? Small Things Like These is similar in length, and I notice Sarah Moss has started producing novellas rather than full length novels too.

On one level I think I'm wrong; after all. in painting you wouldn't measure the worth of a piece of art by its size, however perhaps combining two of these long short stories/novellas in one volume would be fairer to the reader? Does this make me a total Philistine? I really enjoyed the book and it will stay with me, and the same goes for the first book of Claire Keegan's I read. And the short length wouldn't put me off buying another of hers. So I guess I'm not that unhappy with the price! Interested to hear what others think.

@TheTurn0fTheScrew I am about to start Merivel - I have it next lined up on Audible. Does Restoration come first? I thought it was the other way around - but I am easily confused!

Restoration is first. Rose Tremain fans waited for ages for Merivel to come along. Best to read Restoration first, definitely.

I absolutely loved Restoration - I must dig out Merivel, it's on the tbr pile. But I'm a bit apprehensive that it might take the shine off Restoration for me....

I've read both, and reread Restoration before reading Merivel not that long ago.
I don't remember Merivel being bad (damned with faint praise ..) but it's Restoration that's remained with me.

Oh me please joining in. Like a lot of you I used to be a huge reader and I have just got lazier and lazier. I started off with a page turner 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard. Set during the pandemic in a part of Dublin I know very well. Very enjoyable very easy read with a twist in the tail. I am now reading Cloud atlas by David Mitchell. I am a bit behind the times as it was shortlisted for the booker in 2004 but better late than never.

I enjoyed 56 Days too, BasicMadeira. It was short, snappy and engaging and I enjoyed the twist in the tale.

1. Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr

The story of the loss and survival of anancient Greek text, written from the viewpoints of a Greek Christian girl in 16th Century Constantinople and a boy conscripted into the Sultan's army on the other side of the wall, an American orphan and his experiences in the Korean war, a disaffected teenager in 21st Century Idaho and a girl on a spaceship from Earth on its way to colonise a new planet following the climate disaster of our future.

I loved this, Doerr is a fabulous writer. It is as much about the joy of books and libraries as it is about the human characters which makes it very much to my taste!

1. Dust up at the Crater School by Chaz Brenchley

I'd forgotten there was a Crater School sequel coming out until ChannelLIghtVessel reviewed the first one up thread. More twins, new gals, fun and steampunk hi-jinks at the Crater School on Mars. Just delightful :)

Thanks for the clarification on Merivel/Restoration
I'll download Restoration now

Common people by Alison Light is 99p today. Light is an exceptional social historian and this book is a look at British history via her own family story.

I still haven't actually finished anything but am loving the juxtaposition of Elton John's (hedonistic) rise to fame in Me with the orthodox upbringing of Deborah Feldman in Unorthodox. Add to that the occasional chapter of Little Dorrit thrown in for good measure and NANNM is a happy reader!!

Thanks @StColumbofNavron. I've bought that!

So much for staying away from kindle deals 😂

I'm another who read loads of Jean Plaidy and Victoria Holt in my teens. I re-read the Ferdinand and Isabella trilogy last year for old times' sake. Not great literature and definitely not based on much other than the bare historical bones, but more of a Historical Period for Dummies pleasant enough read. In fairness to Jean (and Victoria) one of my DNF from 2020 was my one and only Philippa Gregory which after 20 pages of heaving bosoms and ridiculous dialogue had me returning it to Kindle for my 99p back.

@nowanearlyNicemum

I still haven't actually finished anything but am loving the juxtaposition of Elton John's (hedonistic) rise to fame in Me with the orthodox upbringing of Deborah Feldman in Unorthodox. Add to that the occasional chapter of Little Dorrit thrown in for good measure and NANNM is a happy reader!!

I've been wondering for years whether you are Now An Early or Now A Nearly

Viking - now you know!