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Original poster

50 Book Challenge 2022 Part Two

999 replies

southeastdweller · 19/01/2022 16:54

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?

OP posts:

SarahJessicaParker3 · 27/01/2022 18:45

@IntermittentParps, that MP wife book sounds unbearable! Do not blame you for not finishing.

I had another false start; The Land Where Lemons Grow - Helena Attlee. I'm not going to declare it a DNF, because I'd like to go back to it. I just wasn't in the mood and I'm too tired ATM to plough on. It was recommended on the 50 Books thread a lot last year and I can see why as it is a lovely book, but as I said, I just wasn't in the mood.

I'm moving on to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid.

ChannelLightVessel · 27/01/2022 19:03

Thank you AliasGrape. Definitely feeling a bit better today. Bit annoyed that I had to do a recorded job interview yesterday; not at my best.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 27/01/2022 19:32

I find myself wilting in boredom whenever I see Sally Rooney's name mentioned.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 27/01/2022 19:33

Glad you're feeling a bit better @ChannelLightVessel

Midnightstar76 · 27/01/2022 20:03

4) Please Sir! by Jack SheffieldAudiobook borrowbox. It is read by Jack Sheffield and it is very well told. I really enjoyed this. A definite stand out story for me. It had me welling up at the end and I must read the next in the series. I was also laughing out loud at some moments too. It is set in 1981 and is about Jack Sheffield the head teacher of a primary school in Yorkshire . It tells the story of school life and the village snd it’s residents where the school is set. A recommended read.

5) The Hotel, Ghost Stories with a feminist twist by Daisy Johnson Audiobook borrowbox. This was a series of different ghost stories but all set around the hotel. I found them all to be a bit the same to be honest. One positive though is I liked the descriptive writing but other than that it was an okay listen. It helped me fall asleep at night , don’t think I would recommend this though folks just not interesting enough.

FortunaMajor · 27/01/2022 21:41

The Power of Women: A Doctor's Journey of Hope and Healing - Denis Mukwege
Congolese surgeon who trained in maternity care in the 80s found himself treating more and more women who had been violently raped as a result of conflict requiring complex repair surgery. He soon realised that surgery was not enough and set up clinics to look after the mental health and ongoing wellbeing of the women affected. He became a campaigner for women's rights and was awarded the Nobel Prize among other accolades for his work. He is fully aware he steps on the toes of women when he speaks, but is uniquely placed to be able to do so in situations where women are refused a seat at the table. He also looks to the reasons women are raped in conflict and general society and potential solutions in local and global settings. While quite a harrowing read in places it's also uplifting to see how vital his work is to his patients. When he fled Congo after death threats from his own government an army of women offered to be his bodyguards if he were to return.
He now lives in his hospital grounds under constant guard of UN peacekeepers. He also refuses to be silent.

MamaNewtNewt · 27/01/2022 21:59

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

I find myself wilting in boredom whenever I see Sally Rooney's name mentioned.

I feel exactly the same. I do an inward sigh.

ChessieFL · 28/01/2022 05:06

I’m also not a Sally Rooney fan. I hate the lack of speech marks and found her characters uninteresting. I read her first two which both followed this pattern so I won’t be bothering with her latest or any more by her.

LittleDiaries · 28/01/2022 06:00

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

I find myself wilting in boredom whenever I see Sally Rooney's name mentioned.

Same here. I read Conversations With Friends and was underwhelmed by it.

Normal People was just tedious. That couple (can't even remember their names now) bored me to distraction about their on-off on, off relationship. I won't read another of her books.

Boiledeggandtoast · 28/01/2022 07:45

I also find Sally Rooney quite tedious. And at the risk of sealing my reputation as a curmudgeon (especially after my post about Lissa Evans, above), I'm currently struggling with Still Life by Sarah Winman, which is a shame as I enjoyed Tin Man when I read it a few years ago. I'll post a final review if when I finish it.

Terpsichore · 28/01/2022 08:20

10: The Snowman - Jo Nesbø

Scandi crime. I read quite a few of these years back when Jo N was the new big thing in crime fiction. His detective, Harry Hole, has all the requisite tropes - an alcoholic maverick with a failed relationship - but after a while I just lost interest in this kind of book so I haven't read any for ages.

This one was kicking around, a big hardback destined for the charity shop pile, so I read it more for the sake of completeness before it goes. And it was...OK. Nothing special. Massively too long, a ridiculously improbable plot, and despite its being a cut above many a similar book in this genre, it didn't persuade me to start reading any more Jo Nesbø.

AliasGrape · 28/01/2022 08:32

I’ve only read Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney, I found that characters/ events really uninteresting but also felt I was very much not the target audience. I quite like the tv series of Normal People though am sure I’d not have enjoyed it in book form either.

Stayed up really late last night finishing 8. Moonflower Murders - Anthony Horowitz , though not because I was particularly gripped, more out of irritation and wanting to be done with it.

Both this one and Magpie Murders feature Susan Ryeland, the editor who works on the detective novels of Alan Conway - these novels are a sort of homage to golden age detective fiction. In both books Susan is involved in serving a ‘real life’ murder (in the first it is Conway himself who has died) and the mystery is tied up with an Alan Conway book, which also contains clues to the eventual solution.

In both cases I preferred the Conway novel embedded within the framing story. I’d probably read a stand-alone Atticus Pund novel to be fair. In the first book, Magpie
Murders, it was just about credible that Susan would get dragged into looking into the circumstances around her biggest author’s death as she tried to find a missing chapter of his work. In this second outing, the way she becomes involved seems so completely contrived and it actually made me cringe every time she explained her presence to another character, ‘oh I’m an editor and I’ve been asked to look into the disappearance of a young woman, as well as a murder case from 8 years ago, because there might be a link to a book I edited, which I’m not going to get round to rereading for absolutely ages yet anyway’. I really don’t like or warm to Susan as a character either, and got very bored of hearing about every meal she did/ didn’t eat and every cigarette she smoked whilst she wandered around not achieving anything until it all suddenly just appears to her as some kind of epiphany. The denouement was quite ridiculous (and I found it impossible to see how she’d have got to the conclusions she did from what she did find out) and there was far too much chunky ‘so I was on my way to see X character so I reminded myself of everything I knew so far which is as follows ….’. The letter at the end, which the killer not only took the time to write but also apparently stopped to purchase paper to do so, whilst on the run having escaped arrest, nearly killing a police officer in the process, just to tidily tie up any loose ends, was probably the worst part for me - just so clunky.

And now I’m absolutely shattered today with a toddler to look after and only myself to blame!

IsFuzzyBeagMise · 28/01/2022 08:39

AliasGrape

Purpleavocado · 28/01/2022 09:05

Normal People was so annoying! I hate the miss-communication trope anyway, and to have it dragged out for a whole book was incredibly boring.

Covetthee · 28/01/2022 10:49

@Purpleavocado one of the worst books i’ve read. I think alot of the hype comes from younger people or people who don’t really read and jumped onto the bandwagon and then praised it.

ChannelLightVessel · 28/01/2022 10:56

20. Lean Fall Stand - Jon McGregor
Managed to read something more serious. Robert, an old hand, is assisting two young geographers in Antarctica when a sudden storm comes in, he has a stroke and all three are fighting for survival. The focus then shifts to Robert’s wife, Anna, who becomes his somewhat reluctant carer as he begins his recovery, particularly focusing on his aphasia. McGregor’s starting point was his inability to write about Antarctica, and Robert is by no means the only character who struggles to communicate/find the right language. McGregor is a fine writer, and this is a very good and at times very moving novel, but not his best. I found the contrast between the two sections a bit awkward, although I can see that McGregor is contrasting the heroism of battling the elements in remote places with the quieter, often unsung heroism of caring for someone you love, however tiring, frustrating and painful it is. And I’m afraid it’s sometimes a bit frustrating to read about the frustrations of aphasia. (And surely a couple employed by Cambridge for decades would have savings, insurance money etc. to pay for private speech therapy, a cleaner or at least a taxi or two.) However, well worth a read, as are all his books.

DuPainDuVinDuFromage · 28/01/2022 11:23

Officers and Gentlemen - Evelyn Waugh This has been on my TBR pile for several years, since my mum passed it on to me after getting it from a charity shop. I didn’t realise until after I’d started it that it’s the second in a trilogy - it would probably have been better to start with the first but it still worked as a standalone book. It is an odd book as the tone changes so significantly partway through - the first part is really funny and lightweight, sort of PG Wodehouse in the context of the second world war, and then it gets really bleak as the main character’s experiences change from fun to the grim reality of military defeat. The two styles are completely appropriate for the circumstances they are describing, and I think it’s based on Waugh’s own experience in the war, but it did almost feel like reading two different novels. Having read Vile Bodies and Brideshead Revisited, I probably shouldn’t be surprised at the second part as (from distant memory) the dark side showed through in both those novels too.

Overall, a good book and I’m glad I read it - not sure I’ll seek out the others in the trilogy though.

autienotnaughty · 28/01/2022 12:30

@Purpleavocado

Normal People was so annoying! I hate the miss-communication trope anyway, and to have it dragged out for a whole book was incredibly boring.

I quite liked it it was a very easy read. I liked the way the power passed between them. Disappointed by the end though.

autienotnaughty · 28/01/2022 12:42