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?

@webarra Netflix have just released a film of The Lost Daughter I thought it was very good.

11: Letters from Hollywood - ed. Rocky Lang & Barbara Hall

Before Christmas I was listening to 'Broadcasting House' on Radio 4 one Sunday morning when they had the now-late Barry Cryer on talking about the books he was reading.This was one he mentioned, and it piqued my interest...give me anything to do with the history of film and I'm in - a quick google later and I'd found a secondhand copy weirdly cheaply.

Well, this a wonderful book - basically it prints facsimiles of private letters from the 1920s onwards from actors, writers, directors, agents and Hollywood insiders, giving fascinating insights into the secret world of film-making. Lots are funny; many deeply thoughtful; plenty deal with very famous films and stars, and it's beautifully produced and laid out. It would make a brilliant present for anyone with a serious interest in film history. The only drawback is that it's a big heavy coffee-table book that's a bit difficult to read in bed, but I didn't let that stop me.

Catching up with you all, despite having nothing to add from first thread. Am still dipping in and out of Howard's End Is On The Landing and have thankfully got two more "oh, when I met darling and he said to me> Such a shame as the actual observations about books and readings are quite lovely. I get the feeling as well, that despite her obviously, through her work and writing, genuinely knowing well some of the people she shoehorns in, some of her "connections" to them are tenuous. I can't remember who it was now, but it seemed more of an awe-inspired young writer (as she was at the time) bumping into someone at a conference or in a lift or something and introducing herself as a fan than the kind of lifelong friendship she likes to describe it as being.

Am about halfway through 22/11/63 and wanting to shout "would you fucking get on with it". Nuff said. I can see where he's going (obvs) and can imagine what's actually going to happen at the end, and it does seem almost as though it was written with a gleeful hand-rubbing of "here comes a TV series!" element to it. Funny dat.

@JaninaDuszejko, thank you for the Wreath review. I ordered it immediately, and it arrives tomorrow.

@Piggywaspushed- love the Boris not Boris description.

@highlandcoo I read The Long Petal of the Sea last year (probably around the same time as Stokey)and skim read it in the end. It was my first Allende and sadly, will be my last. I was hugely disappointed as I remember studying the coup in Chile with my "get yer socialist worker" teacher in the early 80s and the period and the place have fascinated me since. It just reminded me of those Edward Rutherford sprawling docu-bio-histo-socio doorstoppers. Too much looking down from above in order to talk about everything. Sometimes too much ends up giving too little. Maybe I started with the wrong one, but I doubt I'll go back. (no magic realism though, thank Christ and all the angels and saints)

@Gingerwarthog, love love love Kathleen Jamie- one of my top reads last year was Findings and I have Sightlines on my ever-growing tbr pile. And welcome to the nicest thread on MN.

@ladybuggoldfinch, I love the Shellseekers and its kind of sequel September. I've read both lots of times, comfort food reading. Love the descriptions in both.

Re: Marian Keyes, as I've said for too many years now -she makes me happy, she makes me laugh, she infuriates me, she makes me want to say "stop right there!" My first ever MK was in 1997 and it was Lucy Sullivan, read in one go on an airport stopover, and I loved it. Every single word. It helped that I was in my early 30s at the time and still getting pissed and having sex with undesirables I'd not be telling my mother about. I continued to devour her others as they came out to a certain point.

I've never felt the love for Rachel that many others do, if, IMO, her best books started with Lucy and ended with Sushi, I'd personally put Rachel at the end of that "best" list. Since Sushi I've read most of them, but loved none, and some I've found almost embarrassingly badly written and feeling like they've been churned out on the "aren't the Oirish so unintentionally hilarious, here's another for the Mammy Walsh/Walsh sister blockbuster" bandwagon.

It's interesting to read Irish posters' perceptions of the use of language as well- it sounds like the lazy characterisation of anyone north of Leicester saying "oop" (which not even my Derbyshire grandfather, who did say /bu:k/ instead of book, and /ku:k/ instead of cook, ever, once said.

I'm not Irish, I've never been (though dd has applied to Irish universities so that may change this year!) but I can definitely understand why her writing may be more contentious than she envisaged it being on that front. I'll read the sequel to Rachel no doubt, at some point. But I won't be counting the days till it's published. (MK also irritates me because she seems to review every single book ever published and pronounce it as the best thing she's read this year. Which, frankly, I don't believe, and also because when the TV adaptation of Watermelon came out, she had allowed a complete hatchet job of the original to the point that the only thing left standing was the names and the pregnancy)

That sounds more negative than it should. Lucy Sullivan, Last Chance Saloon and Sushi are among my most reread comfort food books. None of them are Walsh books, which may, or may not be a coincidence thinking about it!

Val McDiarmed- love Tony Hill, love the standalones, thought the pre Tony Hills were dreadful, haven't bothered with the others, though having been a student in Manchester in the 80s and staying on into the 90s maybe I should give KB a go. If anyone hasn't read A Place of Execution as recommended by @Welshwabbit- it's a very superior crime novel, easily her best IMO. I've bought 1979 because it was 99p (If you don't do graphic violence then also give Mo Hayder a very wide swerve- I stopped reading hers after enjoying in a hiding-behind-the-sofa way the first ones set in the UK (never got into the Japanese set ones) as the violence just seemed too graphic, and bordering on lascivious hatred towards the female body)

@LadybirdDaphne The Rough Guide to Pregnancy was the ONLY pregnancy book I read long long ago (dd is 18) and thank the lord. I was 38, in a furrin land and had kind of not really thought about doing anything like having a baby at any point. Kaz's sensible and humorous take on it all got me through many an Italian uber-religious MIL (though not married) rant about being unwed and pregnant and a prod foreigner to boot. (small example- she thought I should move in with her so she could teach me how to keep house in the correct approved manner and wanted to speak to my parents- I was 38, with a master's, holding down a job in education management and hadn't told my parents about my sex life since I was 18 and went to university) Kaz holds a place in my heart if only for that.

@ChannelLightVessel hope you're feeling better!

Re; Grace Dent- there's a lovely nostalgic "what we were watching Christmas" thingy on iplayer presented by her. Early 90s iirc. I really like her.

Lordy me, I've written my own novella catching up with you all. Must try and catch up more often!

In other news, I finished Line of Duty (all 6 series) yesterday and in need of something different have started Middlemarch (so I feel discussing telly is relevant which I started watching in early 94 but never finished. Never let it be said I don't get there in the end. Feck me but Juliet Aubrey is beautiful.

I'll shuddurp now.

Well, I've now read the same number of books in 2022 as I did in each of the previous 3 years - ie one.

Some of you may remember my brief joining of last year's thread, when I posted a hugely ambitious TBR list and read nothing but The Handmaid's Tale...

1. Go Set A Watchman, by Harper Lee

Oh my.

It was a good book But.

Beautiful writing which flows so well you don't realise you're reading. I loved the showing of the town's life: a sort of knowing affection, rendered amusingly. Especially loved the bit in church, probably because it's the bit that was closest to my own experience. The flashbacks were great.

Jean Louise's inner journey (setting aside for the moment the mechanics of it) was... satisfying?

If Harper Lee had written The Handmaid's Tale it would have been much better.

It is of course impossible to set aside entirely "the mechanics of it". Segregation, prejudice and the NAACP. The subject is intrinsic to the book yet is somehow skirted over - this is possibly exactly how life was at the time.

There's a lot of one particular word.

Was blackly amused to note how furious I was at the "we think this way because we're basically English" idea.

I'm glad I read it, but I wouldn't recommend it to a teenager.

@MamaNewtNewt The ones you still have left have some amazing scenes, and some bits that I feel drag and are unnecessary. My total favourite is the second, but you're in for a hell of a ride still.

Oh, I love Anne Fine. Bill's New Frock, Crummy Mummy and Me, The Book of the Banshee, and Flour Babies are all great.

Missed out from the above review: loved Uncle Jack. The only man who can paraphrase three authors in one sentence and make it work

I tried to read the Rough Guide to Pregnancy (having thrown What to Expect after it said if you get pregnant while breastfeeding you should immediately stop) but got so pissed off at her insistence that 40 weeks is ten months that I couldn't.

Might read the Octopus book now.

Esther's Notebooks 1. Tales from my ten-year-old life by Riad Sattouf. Translated by Sam Taylor

Graphic novel which started as a newspaper strip based on conversations between the author and the daughter of his friends. The books are best sellers in France and the first three have now been published in English. Esther is growing up in Paris, goes to a private school and visits her grandmother in rural France in her holidays. The book covers a year of Esther's life and captures the voice of a child this age really well. It doesn't shy away from the sexism and racism that happens in the playground but also has charm in some of the misunderstandings of childhood (e.g. Esther is very confused about the dolphin Charles who wanted to be king). It'll be interesting to see how the series develops as Esther gets older.

@RomanMum

6. Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell.

Comfort read, bought some years ago after remembering the name from childhood and buying on eBay.

Based on a true story, it tells the tale of a young American Indian girl abandoned on an island off the coast of California for many years after her tribe leaves without her. Beautifully written, packed with historical detail about daily life on the island.

Loved it as a child and again in rereading it, and am passing it onto DD in the hope that she will too.

Thank you for this Roman. I loved this book at primary school and was trying to explain it to my DD a few days ago but had forgotten the title and author. I remembered the beautiful details and the way the girl was so resourceful. We also read 'The Cay' by Theodore Taylor. Think that my teacher's taste gave me a lifelong interest in books about nature and resilient characters. I found 'Among the Russians' by Colin Thubron on my shelves and have started to re-read it. Densely descriptive writing (which I like) and published in 1983 so it describes a past way of life and system. I always enjoy Thubron so this was like meeting up with an old friend.

@Cornishblues

highland - that is, start the 4 seasons with Autumn. I’d love to know which of her other books others might recommend? As I’m now keen to go back to her earlier books though not the very early ones among which were the 2 I didn’t get on with.

'How to be both' (Ali Smith). Stunning.

@SOLINVICTUS you’re not from Nottingham are you? I did a book about the coup in Chile at secondary school; a different English teacher showed us the film ‘Missing’. The first 9/11. I read some Isabel Allende then; I think The House of Spirits, her first, is her best.

[quote ChannelLightVessel]**@SOLINVICTUS you’re not from Nottingham are you? I did a book about the coup in Chile at secondary school; a different English teacher showed us the film ‘Missing’. The first 9/11. I read some Isabel Allende then; I think The House of Spirits, her first, is her best.[/quote]
Not quite, but near enough. S-in-A.

1. The Little Bach Book by David Gordon

This was a wonderful gem, written by an accomplished tenor and published just recently. At 144 pages, it wasn't as short as the title suggests, and although it was by no means the most literary work I have ever read, it was still an interesting and worthy read.

I loved this book because it brought together all the notably events taking place around the world, and it was also full of fascinating details about life in 18th Century Saxony. In fact, 3/4 of the book was about different kinds of candles, street lights, recipes, coffee houses, garments, what passed for personal hygiene, and everything else that made up this era.

Very much recommended to those of you interested in J S Bach or life in 18th Century Germany.

I haven't been on for a while, these are my first 10 of the year, not bad for January but don't think I will be able to keep up the pace all year, I usually manage 50-60.

I enjoyed the MW Craven ones, was delighted to discover a new series and am bereft as there is not a new one into the summer. Also enjoyed Silverview, my first Le Carre

1. A corruption of blood by Ambrose Parry 2. Wintering by Katherine May 3. Rizzio by Denise Mina 4. The curator by M.W. Craven 5. The Puppet Show by M.W. Craven 6. Black Summer by MW Craven 7. Dead* ground* by MW Craven 8. 56 days by Catherine Ryan Howard 9. You, me and the sea by Elizabeth Haynes 10. Silverview by John le Carre

28. Disgrace by J M Coetzee

This won the Booker Prize in 1999. It’s set in South Africa, and the main character is a white 52 year old male university professor. Without giving too much away about the plot, this focuses on his various sexual relationships and his relationship with his daughter Lucy. I didn’t dislike this but didn’t love it either. The race aspects are interesting, but what I didn’t like is that we only ever hear about the sexual relationships from David’s point of view, and we don’t get anything of the women’s points of view, so it’s basically middle aged white man feeling sorry for himself. It is quite short though so didn’t take long to read.

@ChessieFL I totally agree with you about Such a Fun Age .I found it very underwhelming and also did not get the hype with this. It was an almost DNF for sure. I persevered I think because it was an audio listen, if it was the physical book it would have been on my DNF pile never to be picked up again. Meh of a book

it’s basically middle aged white man feeling sorry for himself.

It's a bit of a theme for Booker Prize winners isn't it!

So I’ve already managed to fall behind on the threads this year! They move so fast at the start. Thank you for the new thread @southeastdweller!

1. His Bloody Project - Graeme Macrae Burnet
2. Mad Girl - Bryony Gordon
3. The Couple at No.9 - Claire Douglas
4. Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher
5. A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara
6. The Undomestic Goddess - Sophie Kinsella

Trying to clear out my backlog of books that have been sitting for years and so I have discovered a few great books I should have read a long time ago - His Bloody Project and A Little Life especially. A Little Life has definitely been the stand out so far. I was so anxious for Jude while reading and one of the characters is one of the most hated characters I’ve ever read! Glad I finally took the time to read this.

Currently reading Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult which is set during the pandemic and I’m hoping to finish it by February stating when I can do a month of kindle TBR books!

Just catching up after a busy weekend. Some great interesting discussions on this thread!

@Cornishblues (and others) thanks for the Ali Smith info. If Autumn is the best one to start with in the quartet I'll have to wait till September

@Palegreenstars Grace Dent really writes well doesn't she? More amusing and less pretentious than many other restaurant critics. I couldn't be doing with AA Gill and his "Blonde" - the only author who's ever prompted me to walk out of a book festival event.

@Taswana, I've tracked down Katharine Whitehorn's autobiography on Wob for £3.49. I really enjoyed her journalism back in the day; thank you for flagging it up.

@JaninaDuszejko that makes sense re The Wreath, thank you. I imagine reading the modern translation would be a quite different experience. I have the next two volumes in the archaic version; I'm going to read something else in beween but will surely go back to them.

@SOLINVICTUS interesting to hear your opinion about The Long Petal of the Sea. I'm not the sort of reader who works their way through a series or reads all of an author's works continuously. So I won't be returning to Isabel Allende until I've had a break from her style of writing but will get to TLPOTS eventually. Having just read Eva Luna, I have Harriet Gilbert's interview with IA on World Book Club to catch up on soon.
Is your Wreath the modern or the archaic version?
By the way, I had an Italian MIL too! They can be women to contend with without a doubt

Re pregnancy books, it's a long time since I needed to consult one. In my day Hugh Jolly was the expert. Or Huge Olly as he was known in our house.

I love Val McDermid's Karen Pirie series but was put off her writing for years after trying an early book of hers, and being unable to believe how it ever got published; it was so bad. I've just found A Place of Execution in the local charity shop so looking forward to that.

@weebarra I don't like Elena Ferrante either. I love Italy and enjoy family sagas but spent the whole of the first book waiting to feel involved with the characters and it just never happened.
I know I'm in a minority here. I imagine a film could work well though.

Did you enjoy His Bloody Project Matilda? I absolutely hated the ending!

9. The Shortest Journey by Hazel Holt. I enjoyed this more than the first of hers I read- I have gotten them better placed in time now (late 80s/early90s), although it still seems weird to me that that is such a long time ago now! A gentle read.

@Tanaqui I was quite frustrated by the ending as far as I can remember! I wanted to know more about whether that was the real story especially in regards to the girl!

I've tried twice to read My Brilliant Friend. The furthest I've got is half way and then DNF'd through sheer boredom. Elena Ferrante's books are not my cup of tea I've concluded.

Finished book number 3. Am going so slowly. This was Orphans of the Storm by Celia Imrie. I didn't know she wrote books but picked this up because it is about the Titanic. I didn't realise at all until near the end that she was inspired by actual events of children picked up and sheltered, apparently orphans, by an American socialite.

I think another poster said the book wasn't quite as expected. It is so slow at first and it is over halfway through before the ship is boarded. After this , it picks up considerably and is a proper page turner. Imrie's research was meticulous and I rather think she was too pleased with her detective work in piecing together details of the poor unfortunate Marcella before April 1912 that she overdwells on it.

I wouldn't say she is an excellent writer - too much dialogue really and some jarring anachronisms but she is more proficient than many actors/ presenters /quiz show hosts turned authors. The story itself is really interesting and I can't believe I never knew of it.

Marking Time - Elizabeth Jane Howard
Second in the Cazalet Chronicles. Family saga set at the outbreak of WW2. Much enjoyed. Number 3 to follow shortly.

I set a target to read more poetry this year as I have a huge gaping hole in my knowledge. I've started with 2 small volumes to get a feel for a variety of different poets. I find it hard to sit with a book of poetry to plough through, so it has been nice to dip in and out over the course of a few weeks.

Penguin's Poems by Heart - Laura Barber
A selection of fairly well know verses.

Six Poets from Hardy to Larkin - Alan Bennett
Bennett gives a brief introduction to 6 poets and selects a few verses from each to illustrate his points. He wasn't shy to admit he doesn't always understand some poetry and gave commentary in his own inimitable style.

I've had quite a bit of startitis so I'm a bit into several books. I need to settle down to one and get on with it.

Thanks Gingerwarthog - I’ll try How to be both for my next Ali Smith.

Have just read Alison Bechdel ‘s Fun Home , thanks to Cherrypi who mentioned it, it’s the sort of find that I love this thread for as I wouldn’t otherwise have known about it. A graphic novel (only my second after Persepolis a few years ago) memoir of Bechdel’s childhood with a distant and conflicted father and of growing up and into her own gay sexuality. I found the graphic novel form really engaging throughout and particularly powerful at key moments. Fascinating both as a close-up look at the family’s dynamic and as a wider view of how much society’s attitudes have changed and how that has impacted the choices available to different generations.