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?

Can I join? I’m trying to read more books instead of constantly scrolling through MN, Twitter and the news…

I’ve read 4 so far since the start of the year:

1. Snow (John Banville). I liked this until the twist/reveal - it got horribly and unnecessarily graphic, to the point where I feel certain I won’t want to read it again (and as it was a Christmas present which I had asked for, I’m currently begrudging it the space on the bookshelf until I can give it away without seeming ungrateful!).

1. First Class Murder (Robin Stevens). DD (age 9) is currently reading the Murder Most Unladylike series, and this is the third one. I’m reading each book after she finishes it as they are really well written and fun - clearly children’s books but enjoyable to read! This one was my favourite so far.

1. Jolly Foul Play (Robin Stevens). The next in the series; also very good!

1. The Betrayals (Bridget Collins). My other Christmas present. I absolutely loved this - really unusual and compelling. It took me a while to get into it but ended up staying up late to finish it as I couldn’t guess how it would end for the characters and I really wanted everything to work out well! Would definitely recommend.

For number 5 I’m going to re-read Possession (AS Byatt) as it’s the current book for an online reading group I’m in. It’s been years (decades??) since I read it so I’m looking forward to rediscovering it.

@CoteDAzur

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.

You may well be correct about the audible overload @CoteDAzur, especially as I listened to all 14-15 hours over the course of 3 days with few breaks. It probably did not allow sufficient digestion time. Like you, I loved lots of those interesting details - the section about the use of mathematics was fascinating (the adoption of algorithmic tables / including the etymology of the word; the development of negative numbers; the standardisation of mathematical notation etc).

@LadybirdDaphne

3. Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD - Eli R. Lebowitz

Evidence-based guide from a psychology professor at Yale, recommended by DD’s paediatrician (we don’t know at the moment whether DD is ‘just’ anxious or may be neurodiverse, but separation anxiety is definitely a part of it). Lebowitz’s approach is based around the idea that parents can increase their child’s ability to tolerate their own anxiety simply by changing their own behaviour. Parental ‘accommodations’ (e.g. staying with an anxious child while they fall asleep or checking things repeatedly for a child with OCD) can inadvertently reinforce the child’s belief that the scary thing is not something they can cope with by themselves. Lebowitz outlines a very clear path for identifying accommodations and choosing which ones to reduce or stop entirely. I have only just started following the suggestions (I’m no longer standing right outside the bathroom while DD uses it ) so can’t report on whether it works, but I would recommend for the very clear, research-based, non-judgemental approach.

Thanks for this review. I've been looking for something similar to help me with my DD and this sounds like it might be just the thing.

@highlandcoo

I think she should revert to her previous style and drop the rather gimmicky multiple POV/stream-of-consciousness stuff

Totally agree @IntermittentParps. Plus - and lots of people may not agree - paying the price of a novel for what is effectively a long short story grates with me a bit. Although I did think Ghost Wall was a powerful piece of writing.

I don't actually mind (admittedly I got mine from the library!), although I do know what you mean on principle.

I have finally managed to finish my first three reads for 2022! January is super busy for work, so I knew I would be off to a slow start, but here goes!

1. The Rotters Club by Jonathan Coe
   My first book for 2022 was this nostalgic coming-of-age account of a group of teenagers in Birmingham in the 1970s. I was really looking forward to it due to the really good reviews.
   It centers around a group of boys in a school and their extended relationships with friends and family.
   It was well written and at times very funny, such as the account of the debating society and the forgotten swimming trunks.
   I did find it quite unsatisfying as some of the storylines just didn't develop properly, such as one of the dads having a sleazy affair with a teenage girl who then disappears, and one of the mum's having an affair with one of the teachers. That said, I suppose it could be argued that it is being narrated by a teenage boy, so he probably is more interested in his own sexual exploits than the potentially more interesting storyline developing around him. But maybe that is kind of the point and I missed it.
   Anyway, not terrible, but I won't rush to read the next one in the series.

2. The Woman Reader by Belinda Jacks
   This was a Christmas present from my daughter. We have the same taste in books (broadly) though we are somewhat divided over Pride and Prejudice.
   As the title suggests it is a history of reading and literacy in general and women in particular.
   As with all historical non-fiction like this, I found some chapters much more interesting than others, but generally an interesting read. The links between reading and general education levels among women were interesting, and especially the accounts of women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who were denied the high levels of education provided for their brothers and therefore taught themselves by reading through their father's libraries, and in many cases surpassing them.
   I was also very interested in how novel reading was seen as a vice (and possibly an indication of mental illness), and while many societies, while accepting that women were going to read, tried to restrict women's reading to "worthy" books instructing them how to live a moral life.
   An interesting read.

3. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
   This was by the same author who wrote The Alice Network and The Huntress, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed and this one was very much in the same genre. Written on two timelines, during WW2 and shortly after the end of the war in the run-up to the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Phillip Mountbatten, it tells the story of three women from very different backgrounds, Beth, Mab and Osla, who find themselves billeted together when they begin to work at the top-secret Bletchley Park in 1940, working to crack the codes on German communications.
   It is a page-turner as the women's lives become intertwined with the ever-growing numbers of men and women working at Bletchley Park, fall in love and become immersed in their work that they can't talk about.
   Very enjoyable. The only (very minor thing that grated a bit was the occasional Americanism creeping in-I'm sure young women from London in the 1940s didn't refer to their fringe as "bangs"- but I could be wrong and I'll let it go for the good yarn)

I've now started First Lady by Sonia Purnell about the life of Clemetine Churchill and I know @FortunaMajor was interested in that one so I will report back. I've also got Restoration by Rose Tremaine on the go on Audible.

Currently reading Not a Happy Family by Shari Lapena struggling to put it down!

1. A court of thorns and roses by Sarah J Mars

If you didn't get on with Throne of Glass, it isnt massively different.
Strands of Beauty and the Beast and Persephone.

Boo to autocorrect

Sarah J Maas

10. Uncommon Danger - Eric Ambler
Published in 1937, this classic thriller concerns a penniless journalist who inadvertently gets mixed up in international espionage, as big business connives with Fascism. Ripping fun.

Finally finished number 3, The Baby Group by Caroline Corcoran

This book follows Scarlett, part-time mummy blogger who is about to return to work after maternity leave. On the eve of her return a sex tape she made 12 years previously is sent to everyone in her life; family, friends, work colleagues and clients. The only people who don't receive a copy are her new mum friends who she met at NCT. Who is trying to ruin Scarlett's life and why? And are her mum friends as far removed from the situation as she believes?

I picked this book up because, as a mum of two preschool aged children whose "mum friends" are my lifeline, I liked the premise of the book. It was ok. I worked out who was to blame quite quickly but there was an unexpected twist at the end.

My big issue with it is the way the nct mums are characterised. I don't know anything about Cheshire or if it's a particularly posh and pretentious area, but I live in a "naice" rural part of the South East and did nct classes myself and the women I met there were all very normal, down to earth women. The women from Scarlett's nct group all seem to personify all the biggest criticisms levelled against nct which in my experience mostly come from people who have never done an nct class. Also there were too few of them to be believable but I imagine that was to keep the story simple with a smaller cast.

Also, one more frustrating detail, Scarlett lives her life on social media and yet doesn't appear to know the surnames of her nct friends. As if she isn't connected to them on Facebook or Insta, utterly unbelievable.

Overall it was fairly well-written but the women all seemed a bit same-y and didn't really stand out as individual characters. I won't go out of my way to read another book by this author. Incidentally I have another very similar book (The Antenatal Group) in my TBR so it will be interesting to see how that compares when I get to it

@IntermittentParps @highlandcoo I haven't read The Fell yet but vaguely enjoyed Summerwater and agree Ghost Wall was really powerful and memorable. I picked up Bodies of Light at a charity shop last year though and was surprised it was the same author - a much more detailed and dense style of writing. A great book and I'm not sure why it's not better known.

I think Sarah Hall, who I always get mixed up with Sarah Moss, has a pandemic novel out too.

@SuperLoudPoppingAction

8. A court of thorns and roses by Sarah J Mars

If you didn't get on with Throne of Glass, it isnt massively different.
Strands of Beauty and the Beast and Persephone.

I didn’t get the hype about the first book and wanted to give up but everyone told me to stick with it and glad I did, the 2nd and 3rd book Were so good.

It’s obviously aimed at YA market so can have cheesy moments.

anyone who is reading and thinking the same during the first book, stick with it, definitely worth it for the fantas part alone

[quote GrannieMainland]**@IntermittentParps* @highlandcoo* I haven't read The Fell yet but vaguely enjoyed Summerwater and agree Ghost Wall was really powerful and memorable. I picked up Bodies of Light at a charity shop last year though and was surprised it was the same author - a much more detailed and dense style of writing. A great book and I'm not sure why it's not better known.

I think Sarah Hall, who I always get mixed up with Sarah Moss, has a pandemic novel out too.[/quote]
I agree, Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children should both be much more popular/feted IMO!
I think they're her best two works.

@IntermittentParps I've just looked up Signs for Lost Children, didn't realise there was a sequel! I'll keep an eye out for it.

I can't recommend it enough. I like Bodies of Light very much too, but I think Signs… is just wonderful. Amazing subject matter, and so lightly humorous but also emotional and true.

@YnysMonCrone We are somewhat divided over Pride and Prejudice - you can't drop this into conversation and then not tell us which of you is right and why!

4. Coming to England by Floella Benjamin

Childrens book telling the story of the author's early life in Trinidad and first few years after arrival in England age 10 or 11. Lovely descriptions of her childhood in the tropics, fresh fruit, dancing in the rain, carnivals, family celebrations. So her father and then her mother going to start a new life in England, leaving her and her siblings behind is a shock. As is her new living conditions when she joins them after a year, and the realisation that some people see a colour not a person.

I should see if she has written a full autobiography as I bet she has lots of great stories.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I like it and consider it a great novel. But I do maintain that the BBC version with Colin Firth is as good as reading the book. DD thinks it is utter frilly pap and its mere presence on lists of books that all women should read is enough to drive her into a rage. She also has an irrational hatred of Northanger Abbey, but I've not read that so she rages about it in peace.

@Taswama, Floella Benjamin's autobiography, 'What Are You Doing Here?', is coming out in June.

@YnysMonCrone You are both wrong. 😁
It is absolutely not frilly.
The Colin F production is pretty awful imo.

Having said that, the idea of a list of books which all women should read is abhorrent to me.

Intrigued that you're going to reread Possession @DuPainDuVinDuFromage. It was THE modish book when I was at university, everyone had it on their shelves (graduated 91). I remember yelping out loud when it turned up on someone's shelf in Monsoon Wedding. I really enjoyed it at the time and absolutely HATED the film adaptation. I'd be interested to know if it stands up.

DNF The Library: A Fragile History, by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen.

There's nothing really wrong with it - it's a conscientious plod and I didn't want to and it's due back at the library in a week so I will nobly hand it over to the next in line.

1. The Man in The Brown Suit - Agatha Christie

Read this for the Agatha Christie challenge and really wish I hadn’t. Just about the worst Christie I’ve ever read. It didn’t help that I’d got it into my head that it was a Poirot and I spent the first few chapters wondering when he was going to show up. A convoluted tale of life aboard ship en voyage to South Africa and some missing diamonds with a dash of casual racism thrown in. Dreadful.

Hi I’ve named changed since my first post but I promise I’m on book three!

3 Anitsocial Nick Pettigrew
A non fiction book, a year long diary of an anti social behaviour officer for a housing association. I really liked this book, I work in a similar line of work and he really captures the daily grind of such work alongside the heartache but also funny situations you can find yourself in. I would recommend it.

Also reading a Pam Ayers poetry book, will add it once finished.

As well as trying to read more I’m trying to read more non-fiction and some poetry.

Any poetry suggestions most welcome, nothing to heavy though!!!