50 Book Challenge 2022 Part Two

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second 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, it’s not too late to join, 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 the 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.

The first thread of the year is here.

What are you reading?

4. Restoration by Rose Tremain Much reviewed on here but I finally got around to it. Well-written account of Robert Merivel, the son of a glove maker, but now an aspiring physician. He doesn't really know where he is going in life, but an opportunity put him close to the newly restored Charles II and they develop a friendship of sorts, which comes to define Merivel's life. The king then commands Merivel to marry his favorite mistress, to give her respectability. He rewards Merivel with a country manor, and he looks set up for life. However, as often with the way of kings, Merivel falls out of favour and finds himself trying to make his own way in the world again, and finds himself working in a hospital for the mentally ill, as a working physician. The king is a constant presence in his life though and always hopes to be recalled to court. I will read the sequel Merivel at some point It was an interesting read, very enjoyable.

Kindle Daily Deal tip - 1979 by Val McDermid is one of today's 99p books. It's the first in a new series and features a Scottish journalist called Allie Burns.

1. Rachel’s Holiday - Marian Keyes A re-read ahead of the new book. Agree with others up thread about certain aspects and I didn’t like the coercion scene either but it is still a good read and Keyes is writing very much from experience about addiction so it has an honest ring to it.

1. Possession - AS Byatt I enjoyed this as much as the first time I read it, in fact probably more now that I’m so much more mature (back then it was hard to imagine being as old as the protagonist, who is 29 😂). It’s a literary romance - very literary, with lots of Victorian poetry and academic musings - and moves quite slowly but in a good way. I love this book and am so glad I re-read it!

1. London Orbital by Iain Sinclair. Recommended in one of the "50 books in 2021" threads. The writer, essayist and psychogeographer walks the route of the M25 in 1999 with a variety of companions along the way. Interesting in parts with diversions (both historic and geographic) - recurring themes such as the destruction of Victorian hospitals, the criminal underworld just off the motorway, and the impending millennium, among others. A different view of a landscape we mostly ignore.

Library book: still not bought any new books this year.

Thanks for the 1979 tip-off, @elkiedee, I've been waiting for a deal on that!

6. Material Girls by Kathleen Stock

Much-reviewed on here already, and of course dealing with a Mumsnet hot topic, I'm not sure there's much I can add to what has already been said about this. Stock's main concern in this book is to look at the meaning of "sex" and "gender identity", and to understand why the differences between these concepts are important. If you've spent any time reading about trans issues you will know that Stock is not keen on "gender identity theory" and she explains why in some detail. Her writing is very clear and (in my opinion) easy to read; I don't think I learned much that was new to me but she did help to crystallise the philosophical underpinnings of some parts of the gender critical position. I don't agree with her about everything, but this is a good book to read if you are grappling with the question of why these concepts are important in day to day life.

I’ve also bought 1979 although I vowed years ago not to read another Val McDermid after reading a particularly graphic one. However I may have softened a bit after her excellent book on forensics.

@RomanMum Iain Sinclair is one of my favourite authors - I found Lights Out For The Territory (walking along the Thames) particularly enjoyable and I loved his book about the poet John Clare's escape on foot from an asylum in Epping Forest to Cambridgeshire.

Forgot to add the book name! The John Clare book is Edge Of The Orison.

1. This Is Not Fame: A "From What I Re-Memoir" - Doug Stanhope

The comedian's second book and highly enjoyable if you're a fan of his work (I am), though definitely not for the easily offended. Less of a clear narrative thread than his first book Digging Up Mother, this is a collection of eyebrow-raising, genital-warts-and-all tales from a career as a touring not-quite-famous comedian.

[quote WellThatsMeScrewed]@SarahJessicaParker3 I’m impressed you got as far as you did! I think I might have thrown that book across the room at ‘hottie’.[/quote]
yes, it did cross my mind to throw it / burn the book in a fury. But I didn't 😌

@MegBusset Lights out for the territory looks good- might add it to my TBR. I don't know central London Thames well, whether that is an advantage I don't know, sometimes it helps to have the image of the journey in your mind which is why I enjoyed London Orbital.

Trying to contain TBR list but joining this thread has just made it a whole lot longer!

@BestisWest, I've been reading Val McDermid since I borrowed one of her first two novels from my local library as a teenager just exploring crime fiction, and anything published by feminist publishers - her first series featured a Scottish lesbian journalist though I don't think they were totally autobiographical, I also devoured her Kate Brannigan series set in places I knew as a Leeds child/teenager and a student in Manchester - I think KB lives somewhere in the south Manchester area not far from where many students lived at the time (and still do). I really wasn't keen to read the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan books for some time, serial killer thrillers didn't seem like my thing. I'm also from a generation of girls and women for whom the crimes of Peter Sutcliffe and the truly appalling media reporting and police investigation really affected our outlook on stuff.

When I did read the first two books in the series I loved them and most of the others - I have at least two TBR.

But I would recommend the Karen Pirie series as being as good if not better than Hill/Jordan and being much more in the police procedural line, plus a strong woman police detective character and a well drawn supporting cast.

1979 is apparently #1 in a planned series.

7. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

An elderly Eileen looks back at a time in her life and the events which caused her to leave her home town. I can see why people will see this as depressing but I really liked the writing and the build up and I enjoyed reading the thoughts of the unlikeable but brutally honest Eileen. The ending was a tad unbelievable but this didn’t spoil the overall story for me.
I didn’t realise this is the same author as My year of rest and relaxation which I also own so I’ll look forward to reading that later in the year.

8. Frenchmans Creek by Daphne du Maurier

I found this very silly and on a par with a Mill and Boon which is a shame as this is the first du Maurier that I haven’t liked. Its historical fiction about a lady who has an affair with a French pirate and ends up being embroiled in high jinks, I should have found it fun but found it formulaic. It just wasn’t for me but as I much preferred the depressing Eileen to Frenchmans Creek prob tells you all you need to know.

@elkiedee, thanks for the Karen Pirie recommendation. I think it was one of the Hill/Jordan books that put me off. If I get on with 1979, I shall give them a try.

@BadSpellaSpellaSpella I absolutely adored Frenchman’s Creek. Yes, it’s all high jinks etc but some of the dialogue I thought was on a par with Austen and Brontes. I smiled every moment of the whole book. It made my 5 star list.

Though apparently du Maurier didn’t like it much and thought it was romantic rubbish so …

1. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes.

I'm another one who has been reading this; there have been a few of us on this thread! I hadn't read it before. It was a good read; humorous, witty, honest. It has aged well in most regards, excepting the sex scenes where it does suggest coercion. (Four stars).

I'm currently reading Jamaica Inn and enjoying it tremendously. I think I prefer it to Frenchmen's Creek although all good rollicking fun.

I think Frenchman’s Creek is a bit of an anomaly in that the rest are largely gothic/gothic inspired mystery types and quite dark.

@MegBusset I loved Jamaica inn as well, it had abit of grit to it. French man's creek is the only one I haven't gotten in with

57StColumbofNavron

I think Frenchman’s Creek is a bit of an anomaly in that the rest are largely gothic/gothic inspired mystery types and quite dark.

I think your right, I would consider myself a du murier fan (particularly her short stories) ah well at least du murier herself agrees with me

In a weird coincidence I just finished reading 1979 last night - I absolutely loved it, and it's much less graphic than the Tony Hill series which I didn't have the stomach for. Highly recommended for anyone who loves a good crime novel.

I loved Frenchman's Creek and mentally cast a young Eric Cantona as the pirate, which tells you where it was pitched in my head. I know the area a little and I loved the descriptions of the woods and the streams in summer, which were very evocative of childhood summers for me.

I've avoided Val McDiarmid because I can't do graphic violence as it tends to stay with me. 1979 sounds good, though, so I may give it a try.

@MaudOfTheMarches I have cast Assaad Bouab as the Frenchman and decided that I definitely possess the acting skill to play Dona (St Columb of Navron) and I won’t be told otherwise. It’s due a remake.