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?

Thanks for the February kindle deals link.

I've just had my attention brought to this Ulysses readalong initiated by the Hay Festival in collaboration with Shakespeare & Co bookshop in Paris. Readers include Stephen Fry, Margaret Atwood, Will Self, Jeanette Winterson and even Eddie Izzard. I'm going to give it a go!
www.hayfestival.com/book-of-the-month-february-2022?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Hay%20Festival%20monthly%20newsletter%20February%202022&utm_content=Hay%20Festival%20monthly%20newsletter%20February%202022+CID_1308f60658b57738f074fa6ffb6cdfce&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=here

@minsmum sorry to hear about your wrist - you need one of these! www.amazon.co.uk/Holder-Reading-Accessories-Gifts-Birthdays/dp/B07P6QSRHR/ref=sr_1_9?tag=mumsnetforu03-21
(Less silly options also available).

Somewhat slim pickings in the deals but I'm considering Plain Bad Heroines, Claire Tomalin's Pepys biography, and Keith Richards' autobiography. Frenchman's Creek is on there as well, which I think was recently a bit divisive on the thread?!

I can’t find the deals somehow, and the link isn’t working for me. I’ve got a shocking sore throat and headache and think I must be being very dense indeed.

10. Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett

Third Discworld novel, and the one where Pratchett started to get into his stride with the introduction of the indomitable Granny Weatherwax. Good fun although he was still using a few non-Discworld references (Steven Spielberg??) which tend to break the spell a bit.

I would recommend these books in the monthly Kindle deals:

Daughter of Eden - Chris Beckett (a sequel to the author's outstanding book Dark Eden)

Cage of Souls - Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue - Frederick Forsyth's fantastic autobiography

The Claire Tomalin Pepys biog is good. I can't get the link to work though?

@DelightfulDinosaurs Strong Poison is the first HV one, yes.

Anyone remember the 1986 tv series?

1. Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates

I enjoyed this. A very good portrayal of a toxic marriage, looking perfect on the surface but really a suffocating nightmare. I felt sorry for them both, at different times. Neither character was particularly likeable: Frank was at times insufferable and at other times completely pathetic. April was self centred and well, cold.

Just a couple of unhappy, mismatched people, making each other even more unhappy. But it made for compelling reading.

This is the link I use: www.amazon.co.uk/s?ref=lp_3017941031_sar&rh=n%3A3017941031&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&fs=true
Does that work Meg?

5. Weird Things Customers Say In Bookshops, by Jen Campbell. Not sure if this really counts as a book, as it's a compilation put together (I think) from twitter and her blog and only took about an hour to read. However, as a former bookseller and librarian it made me laugh and wince at the same time.

@highlandcoo I bought the first one and quite liked it. The second I got from the library, they are well written but not the sort of book I'd read again and again.

Book 15. Just finished I let you in by Lucy Clarke. Not a bad book a bit drawn out but lots of twists and definitely a page turner. Now onto The House Share by Katie Helm.

Sorry about your wrist, minsmum , that sounds really painful.

9. Labels - Evelyn Waugh

Surprised I even finished this. It's Waugh's account of a trip by sea from the UK to Egypt and back, stopping to make unpleasant observations along the way. There were some things of interest as I've been to a few of the places mentioned, but overall it reads like a book written purely for the money, as he says himself. He would have loved Instagram - he writes to two hotels in Malta telling them he will give them a fabulous write-up in return for a free stay, then ditches his second choice on arrival at the harbour. He has a very low opinion of both Islamic art and the Arts & Crafts movement, and generally comes across as the Giles Coren of the 1930s.

Still reading Vanity Fair.

Posted too soon. I've tried the Simon Serailler books and I find them really dull, which surprises me as Susan Hill's ghost stories are one of my go-to comfort reads - atmospheric but not too spooky (except for The Woman in Black, which scared the bejeezus out of me).

Sorry about your wrist @minsmum I agree that the kindle app on a phone is the way to go. It's how most of my reading is being done at the moment as I can't juggle a proper book and a wriggly 12 week old baby!

5. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum I'm not really into espionage type books, I'm more of a murder mystery girl, but I like the films (although I knew beforehand the story was changed a lot for the film). I stuck it on my Amazon wish list in a "I might buy this one day" way and Amazon offered me a 60% discount so I bought it. Man, it was long. Not just page number wise but it felt like a real slog to get through. There were too many people to keep track of, almost none of them came with a physical description so they were hard to picture which meant I couldn't remember who anyone was. In the end I gave up trying to work out who everyone was. I felt the main body of the story really dragged and then the ending seemed very rushed and wasn't properly explained. Also, Bourne's ability to survive multiple life-threatening injuries seemed beyond ridiculous. I also hasn't realised how long ago it was set. I was confused by constant references to telegrams until they mentioned the "Vietnam war, 10 years ago"

Overall it was ok if you like this type of book and have 8 hours to commit to a book, but I probably won't be reading any others in the series

Interesting to read about the Simon Serailler books. I knew nothing about them and bought The Various Haunts of Men in a charity shop on a whim. The mix of family/domestic material and detective story is quite odd, but I think I enjoyed it. ('think' being operative )
I kind of want to read more but simultaneously have a slight sense of 'life's too short'...
It sounds like you lot feel quite similarly.
Maybe I should just read her ghost stories instead!

11. The Poems of T.S. Eliot, read by Jeremy Irons (Audible)

To be honest, Jeremy Irons could read pretty much anything to me and I’d be fairly content. I may have wound back to The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock several times to hear the growl on ‘Do I DARE to eat a peach?’ I studied The Wasteland and Other Poems at A-level so through a twenty-year confused blur I could even make a little sense of some of the poems . I could do without the hectoring mystical Christianity of Burnt Norton and Little Gidding, although I’d forgotten how much I’m drawn to the feminine / Marian imagery of Ash Wednesday. Anyway, once you get through all that there’s an hour of Cats to enjoy.

Tarahumara, thanks for the recommendation. This Much Is True by MM has been added to my Audible library, I look forward to getting round to it.
I'm looking forward to the dirt being dished! I've heard before that John Cleese is a nasty piece of work.

I like the sound of Matrix - would this fit into our genre of nun-fiction?

IntermittentParps I enjoyed The Small Hand, but would recommend The Woman in Black as well.

I have Matrix on my Kindle - thank you for the good review, looks good.

1. Pies and prejudice - Stuart Maconie

I was a little disappointed with this to begin with as I was honestly expecting more pies and other northern delicacies - there were some but not enough for my liking. Ultimately though, I thoroughly enjoyed this trip around The North (of England) in the company of Stuart himself who narrates the audio book brilliantly.

@MaudOfTheMarches

IntermittentParps I enjoyed The Small Hand, but would recommend The Woman in Black as well.

I have Matrix on my Kindle - thank you for the good review, looks good.

Thank you. I suppose I really should read The Woman in Black; it's canonical!

TimeforaGandT, Matrix definitely fits the nun-fiction genre.

Oh, as would Learwife, J.R. Thorp. I read it last year so won't review it, but it's excellent.

I've read a few of Susan Hill's ghost stories as well as her Simon Serrailler novels. The Woman In Black terrified me (I'm easily scared ) and gave me a sleepless night but the others that I've read haven't had that effect on me. DH loves a good ghost story and TWIB is one of his favourites.