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?

4.homestretch
By Graham Norton
I enjoyed this and it was easy reading. A little slow in places and jumped ahead at one point quite a bit and I kind of wanted to know what had happened in between the times and I felt some of the storylines felt a bit rushed and could have been developed more. It's a story about the repercussions of an accident involving a group of teenagers in the 80s and how this impacts on the rest of their lives .

Great review ChannelLightVessel.

6. Such A Fun Age - Kiley Reid

Thank you to @Stokey and @bibliomania for prompting me to have another crack at this. It doesn't live up to the hype, for me, but it was pretty good.

I liked Briar, because I think it's rare to capture toddler-speak and I think she did this very well. The relationship between Emira and Briar was very touching but perhaps a bit overdone. Was Emira really so attached to her that it almost stopped her moving on? I also thought the last chapter turnaround was a bit abrupt and could have been fleshed out a bit more.

Minor point, but the business about the pronunciation of Alix's name was needlessly distracting.

Overall it was an enjoyable and thought-provoking read without being in any way challenging.

I intensely disliked The Children's Book and thought it was weak and repetitive. There is probably a review from a few years ago, I should try and find it!

6. Murder in Steeple Martin by Lesley Cookman. This was recommended upthread and sounded like my type of thing- cosy crime in Kent, with an Oast Theatre I suspect I have been to the real life analogue of. BUT, I am afraid I thought it was terrible- badly written, particularly in regards to the gay couple, a narrator who never came to life, and an unbalanced plot. Maybe the series improves, but I don't think I am brave enough to try!

6. The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie

I read this for the Agatha Christie challenge and very much agree with the earlier review by BestisWest. It seemed overly long and convoluted - not sure if it’s any longer than her other books but it certainly felt like it! There seemed to be an excess of characters and by the end I was even beginning to tire of Anne Beddingfield (the amateur sleuth and only redeeming feature of the book). Not sure why the challenge picked such a poor book particularly as the first one - there are plenty of less well known Agatha Christie books that are much better than this one.

1. Me - Elton John

I have spent a wonderful 12-or-so hours listening to the life, loves, lyrics and lurid adventures of Elton. I'm still relatively new to audible but this is the first time I've actually looked up the narrator to see if there's any more of his work I'd like to listen to. Sadly not. I felt his excellent narrating really added to the enjoyment of this autobiography. Recommended.

@Tarahumara

IntermittentParps Of the two I've read, I would say The Children's Book is a lot more accessible, although still a bit of a doorstop!

Thanks!

I liked Posession better but skipped all the poetry.

5 Three Twins at the Crater School by Chaz Brenchley
This was unmitigated joy. I thoroughly enjoyed the wholesale relocation of the Chalet School with all its tropes, idiosyncrasies and traditions to a crater on Mars, and it was a far more accomplished pastiche of Elinor Brent-Dyer's style than I expected. It had all the hallmarks of her without any of the irritations (the weird over-reactions of people to seemingly innocuous statements being a particular bugbear of mine). And I liked the fact that all was not revealed about Mars. Really fun, and completely absorbing. I've got the next one ready to go, and can't wait. Thanks Sadik, who I think put this on my radar initially, though I know a lot of you have read and enjoyed it.

6 The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
This took me a long time to meander through, considering it's a short enough novel. Edna is a somewhat bored wife and mother, with artistic tendencies, living a privileged but not particularly exciting life in turn of the century New Orleans. She is holidaying with her family on a nearby island, where she meets and becomes infatuated with Robert, the son of the owner.

This was considered shocking when published in 1899. Its treatment of female sexuality, infidelity and independence didn't go down well with readers at the time. It feels tame enough to us now, and also very contemporary - although the setting and cultural backdrop are very much rooted in the period it was written the language and psychological treatment of Edna's journey feel very modern. And it is beautiful; for me the best passages were the elegant and descriptive depiction of the Louisiana environment which I wanted to read and re-read.

I think this is excellent. I'd strongly recommend it as a short, provoking and well crafted novel. I can see why it often appears on lists along the lines of "20 short novels you should read before next Saturday".

@StColumbofNavron I read Theatre of Dreamers last year and quite enjoyed it but I am a big Leonard Cohen fan so was fascinated by all the bits about Marianne. I didn't think the main story was as interesting but the descriptions of Hydra did make me want to be there.

@MaudOfTheMarches glad you got back into it.

@IntermittentParps There's also the Fredrica quartet. IIRC Virgin in the Garden is very readable, and The Babel Tower is too. I think I agree with @Tarahumara with The Children's Book being her best. She is very heavy in symbolism and literary references generally so you need to be in the right mood for her. We tried to read her retelling of Ragnorak for book club which was awful.

Thanks Stokey. I think I just need to bite the bullet!

Another big Leonard Cohen fan here, and also a lover of the Greek islands. I briefly stopped at Hydra when island-hopping as a student, so Theatre for Dreamers sounds like a must-read, even if only for the atmosphere.

@LethargeMarg

4.homestretch By Graham Norton I enjoyed this and it was easy reading. A little slow in places and jumped ahead at one point quite a bit and I kind of wanted to know what had happened in between the times and I felt some of the storylines felt a bit rushed and could have been developed more. It's a story about the repercussions of an accident involving a group of teenagers in the 80s and how this impacts on the rest of their lives .

I read it some time ago. I thought it was good at the time. I'm a bit hazy on the details, but agree with you.

Love Leonard Cohen, disliked Theatre of Dreams, thoroughly recommend the documentary Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love for any LC fans.

Glad you thought Such a Fun Age was worth the read in the end, Maud. I tend to agree that it was over-hyped, but generally, I don't see a strong link between a book's prominence and its quality. Not intended quite as snobbily as it sounds - perhaps I'm never quite tuned into the zeitgeist.

biblio I agree. Too much hype absolutely puts me off. The author and the marketing department can be working against each other sometimes and I have to make a conscious effort to look at the book in isolation from everything that goes on around it. I will read Kiley Read's next book as I think there were a lot of good things about the first one.

@MaudOfTheMarches

biblio I agree. Too much hype absolutely puts me off. The author and the marketing department can be working against each other sometimes and I have to make a conscious effort to look at the book in isolation from everything that goes on around it. I will read Kiley Read's next book as I think there were a lot of good things about the first one.

I've been disappointed by a few things recently (Hamnet, Great Circle, Lily) and think it's at least partly because of the huge amount of hype.

Possession is probably the most acessible AS Byatt, it's basically a well done version of everyone's favourite a literary romance in two time periods.

@JaninaDuszejko

Possession is probably the most acessible AS Byatt, it's basically a well done version of everyone's favourite a literary romance in two time periods.

Thanks!

I've been disappointed by a few things recently (Hamnet, Great Circle, Lily) and think it's at least partly because of the huge amount of hype.

That's interesting. I'm reading Hamnet at the moment and loving it, and Great Circle is on my list. I very much look for reviews on the 50 books threads - you're my trusted reviewers.

A friend of a friend had a house on Hydra and a group of us had a holiday there every year for about 8 years up till Covid. Just women, house is pretty basic and up a very steep hill but it is my version of heaven - we’d read all day, try a different taverna every night and drink far too much wine. I was pregnant anyway when lockdown happened so it wasn’t and still isn’t on the cards for me for quite a while. Part of me wants to read the book set there and part of me couldn’t take the sadness of not being there!

@MaudOfTheMarches

I've been disappointed by a few things recently (Hamnet, Great Circle, Lily) and think it's at least partly because of the huge amount of hype.

That's interesting. I'm reading Hamnet at the moment and loving it, and Great Circle is on my list. I very much look for reviews on the 50 books threads - you're my trusted reviewers.

Really don't want to put anyone off! I don't mean I hated any of them (am actually reading Lily now, so will reserve further judgement until I'm done – and will report on here). Just I was SO looking forward to them, and felt just that little bit underwhelmed, after all the hype and awards and pieces-in-the-weekend-broadsheets, etc etc.

That's on my TBR pile @StColumbofNavron. I like the idea of writers, and islands.
If I remember correctly Hydra is where Jane of The L Shaped Room went to find her lover's son.

@nowanearlyNicemum

2. Me - Elton John I have spent a wonderful 12-or-so hours listening to the life, loves, lyrics and lurid adventures of Elton. I'm still relatively new to audible but this is the first time I've actually looked up the narrator to see if there's any more of his work I'd like to listen to. Sadly not. I felt his excellent narrating really added to the enjoyment of this autobiography. Recommended.

Wasn't it narrated by Tarron Edgerton who played Elton John in the Rocket Man Biopic? Maybe that's why there's no other audio books by him, because he's quite a big star these days.

And Marianne (the song) reminds me of au-pairing in Spain in the mid-80s. The parents of the kids were really cool (and beautiful, and made 19 year old me feel like a heffalump that lived in a cardboard box) They had LC and Joan Baez LPs everywhere and relatively famous authors used to come for dinner. (now I sound like Susan Hill )

17. Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree. 80 year old Amma is newly widowed, and bedridden with grief. Her son and daughter take it in turns to care for her, often through gritted teeth, but it is a hijra person, Rosie Bau, who connects most with Amma and eventually breaks through the wall of grief. Once out of bed Amma has a new lease of life, and seeks to reconnect with people and places from her youth.

This packs a lot into its 800-odd pages. The prose here is incredibly rich and descriptive. This was mostly a joy, although you can have too much of a good thing, and at points in the first two thirds of the book I got a bit irritated by the Wind in The Willows style lists when describing food, nature etc. That being said, just at the point when I thought this was all very nice but needed to go somewhere, the plot picked up pace.

There are elements of anthropomorphism/magic realism, with the crows in the community taking a view on events. There's commentary on the many problems of Partition, and references to writers from Indian and Pakistan who've tackled them. I'm not well versed in India culture, and so I had to strike a balance between googling some of the more significant references and letting a few things fly over my head in the interests of keeping a rhythm with my reading. There is a wider theme of borders and walls between people that pervades, and much reflection on the roles of mothers and daughters. Despite this sounding a bit heavy, Shree has a deft comic touch and retains lightness and humour even in the saddest parts of the story. Recommended.