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?

I would definitely recommend The Diamond Age to be read immediately I think it is Neal Stephenson's best and it is not as brainhurty as Anathem and Cryptonomicon.

Those two as well as Seveneves are also excellent books, of course. Having said that, I wasn't terribly happy with its last 1/3 but that is the subject of another post.

2: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Stella and Desiree are identical twins who live in an all black community in a backwater town in Louisiana. The town is obsessed with being ‘light’ and each generation prays that their children are lighter than they are. The twins run away and eventually separate. Stella ‘passes’ as white and leads a charmed life, never telling anyone about her origins. Desiree rebels by marring the darkest man she can find, but ends up returning to her hometown with her dark daughter and submits to her fate. By chance, their daughters meet and the two families are briefly reunited.

It is similar to Nella Larsen’s ‘Passing’ albeit a lot more detailed and with a lot more backstory. It was an enjoyable read but I was disappointed with the reunion which seemed very anti climatic. I could have also done without the backstories of some of the lesser characters, such as Early and Reese. I don’t think they were really needed and took the focus away from the more interesting main characters

1. The Appeal by Janice Hallett

A murder mystery written in the format of documents, emails and text messages for two law students to run through to help acquit an innocent person and find the real culprit.

I was a little put off by the format at first but once I got into it I couldn’t put it down. It was really fast paced and gripping. I loved we didn’t even know who had been murdered until half way through the book (although it was quite obvious who it was). I probably solved about half of the mysteries by myself and I’m not a great crime solver. The ending was satisfying but I figured out who the murderer was around the time of twins’ birth (I didn’t get the motive though). My biggest complaint was the amount of minor characters involved started to get confusing and I had to keep referring back to the characters page to remember who was who and who was connected to who. But otherwise I found it a real page turner and I ended up binging it within a day. The less than conventional writing style won’t be for everyone though.

1. Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-awareness - Rachel Pollack I started this last summer (along with buying a tarot pack) when I was feeling a bit mystical after reading Kate Mosse’s Sepulchre. I had left it about half-finished and have got through the rest in the last couple of days, in a much more cynical frame of mind! 😄 I find it interesting from a historical and cultural point of view, and could see the potential use of the cards and the ideology behind them as an aide to meditation, but I definitely don’t believe they can tell the future. However, for anyone who is interested in learning about tarot, this was a thorough analysis of each of the cards and I understand it is the go-to book for tarot beginners.

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage. I’m not sure what it was I didn’t like. Maybe the feeling that I didn’t know what was going on. I know I tried Guards!Guards! as it’s still on my kindle. I like detective fiction and classics generally.

[quote BestIsWest]@DuPainDuVinDuFromage. I’m not sure what it was I didn’t like. Maybe the feeling that I didn’t know what was going on. I know I tried Guards!Guards! as it’s still on my kindle. I like detective fiction and classics generally.[/quote]

Best maybe try Equal Rites or Witches Abroad. I find Pratchett a bit hit and miss. I tried reading them in the order they were written, but decided some simply don't work for me.

Another fan of Lissa Evans here - I read the Crooked Heart trilogy last year off the back of recommendations on this thread and really enjoyed them. Great characters.

8. A Springtime Affair - Katie Fforde

One of my guilty pleasures - I have been reading them since the 1990s. Unchallenging and a world of lovely houses and happy endings. Just what I needed.

The Childhood of Jesus - JM Coetzee
A refugee to a Spanish speaking country across the sea, assumes custody of a small lost boy on the way. On arrival they are given new names and ages plus all the basics they need to get by. He aims to find the child's mother and deposits him with a woman who assumes the role. The school decides the boy is too subversive and send him to a distant reformatory. The refugee and the new mother flee with the boy to a new area.
On the surface a very simple tale of relocation, but can be read on a deeper level as a biblical allegory. Lots of philosophical musings about what it is to be human and the role of society.

The Light Years - Elizabeth Jane Howard
Interwar multi-generational saga of the sprawling Cazalet family.
I didn't fancy this when it was all the rage on here a few years ago as I had abandoned the Forsyth Saga and assumed it to be similar fare. Part one left me wondering what the fuss was about, but I soon fell down the rabbit hole. Waiting for the next one at the library and I'm aware of the dangers of reading #5.

Beasts of a Little Land - Juhea Kim
Starting in 1917 this tells the lives of a child sold to become a courtesan and a street urchin during the brutal Japanese occupation of Korea. They are forbidden friends and their lives remain intertwined as the independence movement gathers pace.

I have to disagree with Cote and say that Anathem is the Stephenson book that everyone should read first. I've never read Seveneaves and had it mentally categorised as one of his later / less good ones, but I'm guessing that isn't the case? I don't think I've read any of his books post about 2010 (partly in fear of disappointment).

1. Unraveled: the life and death of a garment by Maxine Bedat

I've had a run of disappointing DNF choices on Audible, but finally (with a bit of perseverence) finished this one. The premise of the book is that Bedat follows the life of a pair of jeans, from the cotton fields through fabric manufacture, sewing, wholesale, retail, and all the way on to their final demise. In practice she doesn't follow the same garment (she explains the difficulties of doing this - and how it illustrates some of the problems in the garment trade - in the book). Instead she visits illustrative sites - cotton farmers in Texas, manufacture in Bangladesh, an Amazon warehouse etc. This wasn't the most grippingly written book, and some of the things that apparantly come as a surprise to the author are I think fairly widely known to anyone who pays a bit of attention to environmental issues/politics. There's also the odd error. Most specifically and disappointingly she says several times that organic standards don't cover chemicals used in cloth manufacture and only relates to the agriculture part of the equation. This is absolutely not true, if you buy GOTS certified clothes the standard does cover the full textile supply chain. (She's also bought into the 'regenerative agriculture' spiel that they're oh-so-much-better than organic, even though theres absolutely no oversight / certification / etc) However, this doesn't negate the key message of the book - that we need to buy much, much less in the way of clothing, and think about the whole life cycle much harder.

Am I the only one who found Lissa Evans rather mediocre? I'm afraid I was somewhat underwhelmed by Old Baggage and haven't bothered with anything else by her.

@Boiledeggandtoast

Am I the only one who found Lissa Evans rather mediocre? I'm afraid I was somewhat underwhelmed by Old Baggage and haven't bothered with anything else by her.

You are not.

Thank you Remus!

@BestIsWest I agree with @FortunaMajor - if you weren’t keen on Guards! Guards! (which is one of the good starting points) I would try the Witches sub-series - either Equal Rites (although it’s very early in the series and not as good as the later ones) or Wyrd Sisters followed by Witches Abroad.

1. The Housemaid by Sarah Denzil (audiobook)

Ruby gets a job as a housemaid at highwood hall with the motive to find out what happened to her mother who worked there years before. She soon learns there is something very wrong at the house and things take a dark path.

I liked this book, an easy listen/read. A nice thriller that keeps your interest. A solid 3/5 for me.

I always read these threads, think about posting and never do so here I finally am! Quick round up so far:

1. Sanfoka - Chibundu Onuzo
Anna is the daughter of a white Welsh woman and disovers her father, who she has never met, is the president (or dictator) of a country in West Africa. She tracks him down and goes to meet him and his children. I also recommend Welcome to Lagos by the same author.

2. The Mission House - Cary Davies
Hilary Byrd, whose mental health seemed to be taking a turn for the worse, travels to India and stays in the local presbytery with the padre and his adopted daughter. He also befriends Jamshed, his rickshaw driver, and Jamshed's nephew befriends the adopted daughter.

3. Sarah Moss - Summerwater
Cast of characters spending summer in Scotland in wooden cabins. While I enioyed this I didn't feel like each character had their own voice.

4. Eyes of the Rigel - Roy Jacobsen
The third novel about Ingrid from the Island of Barroy in Norway. In this she travels to find the Russian prisoner who is the father of her daughter. I've loved this series, there is a fourth book being released in November.

5. Sisters - Daisy Johnson
Something has happened to sisters July and September so they move across the country to an old family house. The sisters are very close, their mother suffers from depression and the story is also told in flashbacks. I did guess where the book was going about half way through.

7. Weather - Jenny Offill
Lizzie is a librarian who agrees to answer emails from her friend's podcast. No real plot - just lots of paragraphs about thoughts. Weird but I like weird.

8. Open Book - Jessica Simpson
Autobiography of the pop star and business woman. I remember watching Newlyweds on MTV! Things I took from this were that she is very religious, she is all for body positivity no matter what shape we are (but then advertises Weightwatchers and has had two tummy tucks), was drinking a lot but doesn't really go very deeply into this.

9. Death is Hard Work - Khaled Khalifa
Bolbol promises his father that he will bury him with his beloved sister in a town a two hour drive from Damascus. The three siblings set off on their journey through the warzone and this tells the story of theirs and their father's past. Dark but some comedic moments - if you have read Frankenstein in Baghdad you would enjoy this.

10. The First - Jason Mott
Short novella to go alongside his novel The Returned where people all over the world start returning from the dead. This was the tv show Resurrection.

11. The Last Good Man - Thomas McMullan
Some time in the future Peck moves from the city (where things are bad but we don't exactly know why), to his cousin's village where, if there is any trouble, the residents can write anonymously on "the wall". Lesser crimes are punished by having large items of furniture strapped to your back, larger crimes could be having your leg broken. Those that try to escape are hunted down and there is a sense of trying to keep quiet or being happy to spread gossip.

And today I picked up Miriam Marolyes autobiography, To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara and A Discovery of Witches that had all been on order at the library.

5. The Only Plane in the Sky: The Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff

For any newcomers to the thread, this book offers, with minimal commentary from the author, personal reflections from a huge variety of people as to their experiences on 9/11. Testimony comes from firefighters, air traffic controllers, people in the buildings affected; and further afield from relatives out of town, children watching on TV, from navy craft stationed halfway around the world.

As every has noted, this was excellent. The structure is to hear from people as the day unfolds, so the voices are intertwined, and the focus moves from New York to Washington and beyond. Obviously harrowing, but there are also some amazing stories of heroism and kindness.

Welcome @emmaw1405! I thought Weather sounded intriguing and it turns out to be 99p on kindle, so I now have that in my TBR pile!

See I found Anathem a bit dull iirc. My favourite Stephenson by far is the Baroque Cycle.

Welcome @emmaw1405 :)

Hi @emma1405 I didn't realise Sanfoka was by the same author as Welcome to Lagos. I read that a few years ago and recall really enjoying it.

I'll have to read all the Stephenson books then come back and tell you which of you is right and which is wrong . I think perhaps I need a reading sabbatical - I'm well overdue one work-wise and am now thinking a three month break to do NOTHING BUT READ would be rather magnificent. Problem is I know I'd be endlessly distracted by TikTok and teenagers, but it's one to reflect on. There are just so many books, and really so very very little time.

Hi, emma1405 - great to have you here and hope you enjoy the chat!

Sadik - I loved Anathem but it was very long, intense, and brainhurty, which is why I thought Diamond Age would be better for someone who finds Cyptonomicon daunting.

Once we hook her with Diamond Age and Snow Crash, I am certain that she will come begging for Cryptonomicon and Anathem

Meg - I found Quicksilver fluffy, dull, and lacking in all that makes Neal Stephenson's books exceptional and didn't bother reading its sequels in the "Baroque Cycle". The gallant pirate and the pretty girl as protagonists made me go and frankly just wasn't why I look forward to reading his books.

@BestIsWest
I feel the same about Pratchett, that many people can't be wrong, but I just can't get into it.
I do love the Boots story though, that is great writing.

1. Luster - Raven Leilani

I know people on here haven’t really been feeling the love for this one, but I thought it was a striking debut. 23-year-old New Yorker Edie has just embarked on an affair with older married man Eric, and crashes into the lives of his wife and adopted daughter Akila. I thought this perfectly captured the precariousness of being a single girl in your 20s in the big city, with a nuanced exploration of the role of race in structuring these inequalities - Edie and Akila are black, Eric and wife Rebecca are white and affluent. Edie’s voice is sharp and poetically perceptive. I was particularly struck by this passage where Eric encounters Edie’s verminous apartment for the first time:
“…when he comes up the stairs, his face is shiny and incredulous, like what has happened to him is terrible but he is impressed enough by the novelty to persevere.”

Although, the avoidance of cliche is sometimes carried too far resulting in oblique word choice: what can “one of those early August days when the oxygen in the air is uncoupled” actually mean?

So it’s not perfect, and will be too visceral and graphic for some palates, but I’ll definitely be looking out for Leilani’s next book. (May be relevant: I love Sally Rooney books too )

For this who enjoyed Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead's first book Seating Arrangements is on the kindle deals today. It's a very different book from GC but I remember really liking it when I read it a few years back, a light comedy of manners set around a wedding.