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?

@LittleDiaries it would be great to know how Rachel's Holiday compares on re-reading - I thought bits of it had inevitably dated a little but still very funny. If you have the new kindle edition it has the first chapter of the sequel at the end too.

I read Sorrow and Bliss late last year. Agree with most of what has been said here, really smart and witty writing (especially the sister) but not a lot of reflection by the main character on her behaviour. On second thoughts I'm not sure how hopeful I was meant to feel at the end.

1. The Survivors by Jane Harper

The fourth of this Australian author's crime/mystery books.

She focuses less on the police investigation and more on the background to the crime, the family relationships and friendships, and the effect the crime and the suspicions arising from it have on those affected.

Set in a small seaside town in Tasmania, a recent murder throws up memories and links to a dreadful storm ten years earlier, when two young local men were drowned and a fourteen year old girl went missing. As the investigation continues, secrets start to come out and the mystery of what really happened years ago may finally be solved.

After completing The Barchester Chronicles I needed a quick absorbing easy read and this did the job. It also had one of the most convincing and satisfying resolutions of the many crime books I've read.

I've enjoyed all of JH's books and will be buying the next one too.

GrannieMainland, it took me a while to figure out where I knew your user name from, and then I remembered. I had forgotten all about those books; I've just ordered some for my god-daughter's upcoming birthday on the strength of the prompt. I think she will love them!

@StColumbofNavron

I took a hiatus of 8 years after reading Tess because I was totally blind to what was coming. Angel needed a good kick in the balls. I loved it but was just totally thrown. I read The Return of the Native last year and really enjoyed that too.

I'd happily kick him in the bollocks myself - stupid cabbage leaf wearing twat.

@weebarra

I who have never known men is on kindle daily deals today.

I bought that this morning - I read a very good review of it somewhere recently, but can't remember where!

Oh dear - I hated The Survivors.

This was my review:
"Just read The Survivors by Jane Harper so.you don't have to. Utter dross."

[quote Boiledeggandtoast]Intermittentparps: I really like Hardy's poetry actually.

Radio 4's In Our Time discussed Hardy's poetry yesterday. Link here if you'd like to listen: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00139nw[/quote]
Ooh, thank you!

Thank you for the info on the Agatha Christie reading challenge and I have signed up, I bought a huge pile of them a couple of years ago and they have been languishing on my shelves ever since, I read loads in my teens.

For Hardy fans, Tess’s grave is in the Abbey ruins next to my mothers house.

4 Moon over Soho -Ben Aaronovitch
This was reviewed up thread and I don’t have anything to add, Peter was definitely led by his dick on this one. This was an audiobook read and I generally find audiobooks difficult as I drift off but the narrator was very good and engaging and it kept me company on my wet dog walking stomps around the countryside.

@PepeLePew

GrannieMainland, it took me a while to figure out where I knew your user name from, and then I remembered. I had forgotten all about those books; I've just ordered some for my god-daughter's upcoming birthday on the strength of the prompt. I think she will love them!

Katie Morag are my favourite children's stories. Although my sister laughed at me for giving Grannie Island a northern isles accent rather than a western isles accent.

4. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

I've seen bits of the Miyazaki film but wasn't sure if I was going to like the book, as it felt like the kind of thing you might need to have read as a child to appreciate as an adult. I was totally wrong about that, I totally adored this magical book, particularly feisty, grumpy old Sophie! I couldn't put it down and now I'm sorely tempted to read the next two.

9. East West Street - Philippe Sands
I feel sure this will be one of my books of the year, an absorbing and moving memoir of the tragedies of 20th century Europe and a gripping account of the development of international justice. Sands, a human rights lawyer, entwines the stories of three Jewish men who lived in what is now Lviv in Ukraine, one his own grandfather, the other two lawyers who respectively developed the legal concepts of ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘genocide’, first used at the Nuremberg trials. Also highlighted is Otto Frank, himself a lawyer, Nazi governor of occupied Poland, who was responsible for the murders of numerous relatives of all three men, and one of the defendants convicted at Nuremberg. Will stay with me for a long time.

For anyone looking forward to Rachel, Again, there's a recording of Marian Keyes reading the first chapter on her Amazon page. Apparently there will be another chapter each week until the book is released.

Argh, sorry - this is the correct link: www.amazon.co.uk/stores/page/48CB387A-2A7C-421E-97B0-BF5E7DDC425D?ingress=3&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

4. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid LOVED this one; I did work out what was coming, but that almost made it more enjoyable when I was right!

Unfortunately have had my first DNF - Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham. It’s rare that I abandon a book, but this one, oh my goodness. Billed as a memoir, I was interested to read about his life, but it’s more a series of tales from his childhood, with the timeline jumping around which was confusing, and I could not get on with his writing style at all. Having looked at reviews after giving up, someone described it as being written by someone who has just learned about adjectives and alliteration and is determined to use several in every sentence. It felt like wading though word porridge to get to the actual content. Not for me.

SirSidney - " Genghis Khan and the Making of a Modern World An audible listen and a pretty epic one too... I actually felt this was overly epic and tried to cover too much ground, leaving the reader overwhelmed with information."

I loved that book. It was definitely epic and had loads of fascinating information in it - who knew that it was Genghis Khan started the tradition of diplomatic immunity and made torture unacceptable?

What went wrong for you might be the audio format which doesn't facilitate total immersion into such information-rich tomes, I think.

I didn't enjoy Fingers In The Sparkle Jar either. Whilst I like Chris Packham as a presenter on Springwatch etc, I was disappointed by this, and didn't get on with his writing style. I love a good nature-based memoir, like The Outrun by Amy Liptrot.

Catching up with you all after first week back at Plague Central (school in Italy)
I've finished:

1. Enigma- Robert Harries

I enjoyed this, as an easy-ish thriller, though not nearly as much as Conclave and I think that I can see now what he does. Takes the two main characters (one must be male, and one female- there must be frisson but no actual steaming gazes like Dan or fondling of melon-esque breasts like Ken) and shove them into an interesting and potentially excitingly thrilling historical event. With essential "ta-da" the baddie wasn't the prime suspect and was hidden in plain sight all along. Which is fine. It does what it says on the tin. It's not Literature. It's not a classic. I didn't learn anything about the Enigma machines because that bit went way over my head, (which probably accounted for me not loving it as much as Conclave) I'll still read more of Robert though.

@Wowcherarestalkingme, I loved Bookworm to the point of buying the paperback after having it on Kindle. That said, I remain unconvinced she really has read all of the books she says she has (and I know we discussed it on here at length) There are glaring and obvious wtf moments (Lucy and the wardrobe) as well as anachronistic bits- LM, unless she was a very odd young woman indeed, just won't have read the books the claims to have read as a small child AND some of the ones she says she read as an older child, pre-teen. Unless time expanded somehow and she spent 15 years between the ages of 6 and 15. I am more or less the same age as she is, and up to a point my childhood reading tracked hers. I still love what she says, and how she says it. I just think she veered off into "everyone's read that so I'd better stick it in" territory.

@SnottyLottie, I read Chavs some years ago, and agree. I can't deal with him now due to his stance on women and trans issues but I comfort myself that Chavs came before all that nonsense. I do want to shake his little face and remind him he doesn't have to support everything that's not mainstream. Women need supporting too.

Other catch-ups- love Christie, love Hardy. Have NLMG on tbr real-book pile. (been there for bleeding years)

Am now dipping in and out of Howard's End Is on The Landing Beautiful writing, irritating name-dropping.

1. Christmas Carols from village green to Church Choir. This is a very nerdy look at the history of christmas carols in general, and a handful of specific ones. The book is a very interesting and much less dense offshoot of O Sing Unto The Lord, which is the history of church music in England in general. I liked it a lot, but then I rather love church music and cathedral choirs and christmas.

11. Set In Stone by Robert Goddard

Reread by one of my favourite authors. I hadn’t read this for years so didn’t remember the ending, so I enjoyed revisiting. Here, Tony goes to stay with his best friend and sister in law following the death of his wife, but their house is very unusual and strange events start to happen, linked to a murder there years ago. Enjoyed this (again).

12. Miss-Adventures: A Tale Of Ignoring Life Advice While Backpacking Around South America by Amy Baker

I didn’t enjoy this. I do like travel writing but here the author just talked about all her negative experiences and how she could have avoided them if she had followed advice. There was nothing in this that would encourage me to go to the countries mentioned! The author was also very irritating. Several times she put herself in very dangerous situations through her own stupidity. In another case, she signs up to climb a mountain, ignores all the training she’s given and then complains it’s hard work. Not recommended.

15. Beauty Is A Wound - Eka Kurniawan Sweeping epic literary allegory that covers the history of Indonesia from the Dutch colonial past, through the second world war/ Japanese occupation and later Communist revolution. Dealing with the political and social changes that came with each. It's heavy with magical realism and gets comparisons to Marquez and Dostoevsky for the style and content. I would say both of these are fair. It is an important book worthy of study. However, every single female character exists as a mere flesh hole for a man. I don't think there is a single woman who isn't raped in it. This is fine in the context of female POW being used as comfort women for soldiers, some of the characters are whores, but after a while it became predictable and gratuitous. He has written another which is just as lauded, but I'm not sure I would want to read it off the back of this, despite this being an excellent piece of writing.

4. Put a wet paper towel on it - Lee and Adam Parkinson

Read this after seeing the review of @eitak22. I enjoyed a lot of it, particularly the last chapter but I did find the ‘banter’ between the brothers a bit wearing by the second half of the book. Still, an easy and enjoyable read. Made me reflect on some of the schools I have worked in (not always positively!)

@SOLINVICTUS I think you are right. You could tell the ones she had read as she gave wonderful descriptions of how she felt and what she was doing at the time. Then others felt a bit like a copy and paste from a review she had read online. Interrupted the flow a bit.

@Wowcherarestalkingme I know exactly what you mean about the banter. Must admit the descriptions of staffroom inhabitants was on point lol

@eitak22 yes I spotted myself in there a few times!

9 - Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (audiobook)

Hilariously awful. So bad, it was actually quite entertaining so I finished it instead of DNF.

Premise sounded great- YA high fantasy. A captured rebel assassin is given the opportunity to leave her life of captivity as a slave in a salt mine to participate in a competition to win the honour of becoming a cruel King's assassin/champion. She hates this king - as he is the one who originally captured her - but working for him is a better life than remaining at the salt mines. Then the other competitors start getting killed off and she tries to solve the mystery. Along the way, she falls in love with the king's son and the captain of the guard.

Oh, it was just so ridiculous. The 18yo main character is supposed to be the most dangerous criminal in the world yet she is portrayed like a spoilt. bratty tween who spends 3/4 of the book whinging about her dresses or taking walks or thinking about past memories. Nothing happens in the present time. The championship she is participating in is treated as a very weak subplot instead of the main driver for the novel. Instead of it building tension, it is written almost passively and just floated over.

The writing itself honestly reads like bad fan fiction.

There was just no substance. The plot was weak, the characters were 2D.

I have no idea at all how this was a bestseller nor why it has so many high reviews.