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?

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage @AliasGrape Alias Grace is my favourite of her books too. I think she should have won the Booker for it rather than the Blind Assassin (and definitely rather than The Testaments!) My view is she was probably guilty - I can't imagine Atwood being convinced by the spiritual arguments.

I like Kate Atkinson very much but I can see why her style would annoy people. Behind the Scenes definitely feels like a debut, you can see how she develops the tone and themes in later books.

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage

I'm of the opinion that it doesn't really matter if she was guilty, I think it's the ambiguity I like so much. In one sense I'd like to think she was a cold and calculating manipulator as it gives her a bit more agency somehow, and I find it the more interesting interpretation. I think realistically she WAS guilty, but also a victim in many ways too.

I'd totally forgotten about Jeremiah! I've said often on these threads how useless I am at retaining much detail from what I read, even my favourites it seems. Perhaps I should schedule a reread this year.

I've read one Pratchett - I was doing a reading challenge and it fit one of the prompts. I can't actually remember which one it was now, I liked it okay but it didn't make me want to read any more.

[quote GrannieMainland]**@DuPainDuVinDuFromage* @AliasGrape* Alias Grace is my favourite of her books too. I think she should have won the Booker for it rather than the Blind Assassin (and definitely rather than The Testaments!) My view is she was probably guilty - I can't imagine Atwood being convinced by the spiritual arguments.

I like Kate Atkinson very much but I can see why her style would annoy people. Behind the Scenes definitely feels like a debut, you can see how she develops the tone and themes in later books.[/quote]
I think Alias Grace is her masterpiece and yes, it deserved the Booker much more than The Blind Assassin or The Testaments.

I also like Kate Atkinson (although haven't read he Brodie books), and Behind the Scenes is one of my favourites.

*her Brodie books

@GrannieMainland and @AliasGrape I think I agree with you both - she probably had more involvement in it all than she admitted to, and was perhaps more willing to use her feminine charms to survive in a man’s world, but it’s more likely that she was compelled/controlled by various men than that she was an evil mastermind. Interesting that you both prefer this to the Blind Assassin - maybe I should re-read that and see if it’s as good as I remember it!

And I agree the Testaments didn’t deserve a Booker prize - it was like fanfic 😞

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage I mean I liked The Testaments - I was never not going to as a fan of Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale book and TV series - but not Booker worthy. It also took a way from Bernadine Evaristo's achievement a bit which was a shame.

Fanfic is a perfect way to describe it @DuPainDuVinDuFromage. I feel like the judges felt that The Handmaid's Tale should have won in retrospect so awarded it to The Testaments. It was also an injustice to Bernadine Evaristo IMO.

I've had Alias Grace by my bed for over a year. It's a massive hardback so have been putting off reading it but you lot have motivated me.

Yes - it was good to have the story turn out the way we wanted it to but it just wasn’t in the same league as the Handmaid’s Tale!

I quite liked The Testaments – I liked hearing more from Aunt Lydia – but it felt to me like it was written in response to requests.

Alias Grace is my favourite Atwood as well, agree the ambiguity is part of what makes it so good.

15: A Year with Swollen Appendices - Brian Eno's Diary

Weirdest title of the year (so far). I’m old enough to remember Eno as the synth player with Roxy Music, gorgeously decked out in feathers and 70s finery, but art has always been as big a part of his life as music (he was an art-school graduate), and this published diary covers a year in his life - 1995 - when he was making and staging exhibitions as well as working on music, both for himself and as a producer with the likes of U2 and his old friend Bowie ('Dave').

I actually stumbled across this book totally by accident while googling for something and found that someone had uploaded the whole text - I love diaries anyway and an extract was interesting enough for me to carry on, despite the fact that a lot of it was pretty incomprehensible to me. Eno's a deep thinker and very engaged with abstruse topics (his involvement with 'generative music' took some unravelling) and there are only a very few explanatory footnotes: the 'swollen appendices' are a series of essays, short stories and other texts that are tacked on after the diary section and explain some of the more baffling parts of the preceding bits.

What is endearing is Eno's absolute delight in his two young daughters, Irial and Darla, as he takes them to and from school, plays with them and cooks for them (he’s a very hands-on parent) - though he acknowledges how lucky he is that his wife Anthea is his manager, looks after his business affairs and he never has to worry about much of the petty hassle of day-to-day life in practical terms. Which doesn’t stop him moaning sometimes - though he’s amusingly honest about acknowledging it.
A sidelight on an interesting and complex person.

I’ve only ever read one Terry Pratchett book, the first one, The Colour of Magic, which I think I found a bit meh, but maybe I should try a later one. I remember nothing at all about the book itself, except that it was lent to me by a blue-eyed boy with whom I had (my only) ONS, about 5,000 years ago.

I haven't read The Testaments or indeed watched the TV Series of The Handmaid's Tale .

I feel slightly pathetic admitting this but The Handmaid's Tale really traumatised me when I read it. I thought it was very, very good even then, but I was quite young, my dad had just died, I had moved to London alone and was renting this tiny room in a slightly weird set-up, my relationship was on the rocks, I'd got the coach down through driving rain and there'd been a near accident, then I couldn't sleep so sat in this strange room reading it all in one night. I know none of those things have anything to do with the actual book, but I was in a bit of a strange headspace. I think it was the first time I read anything vaguely dystopian and I had this creeping realisation that it could all come true. It really freaked me out, and I've avoided much to do with it ever since - though I do want to reread it 20 odd years later and see how right I was about it coming true.

1. (I think) just finished The ladies midnight swimming club by Faith Hogan was ok. Second half alot better than first half. I thought it would be more about swimming than it was 😂

Currently reading The sanatorium it was on my tbr then came on Kindle at 99p so I was pleased. It's a little spooky, possibly made worse by the fact I was reading it last night in bed in the dark with just the Kindle for light due to toddler in my bed. It was so quiet and dark then suddenly toddler gave a massive sigh and rolled into me. I flipping well nearly jumped off the bed in fright 🤣 hope to finish it tonight, maybe not in bed though 🤣

Finished Once There Were Wolves, Charlotte McConaghy
Liked the descriptions of wolf behaviour and the landscape. The crime/mystery elements kept me gripped and the end was satisfying.
I did feel she hammered home the conservation/environment message a bit; at times the characters sounded like they were reciting from written material when talking about this subject, rather than speaking believably. Also, the painting of the narrator's character in particular, and some of the other characters to an extent, I felt could have been better; maybe more subtle/nuanced/vivid. I just felt she was ever so slightly lacking the writing chops to really bring them all to life completely believably.
Would say read it though, if you're interested in wolf/animal behaviour and a dark but exciting story.

@ChannelLightVessel The Colour of Magic is dreadful. I'm not a huge TP fan, but that's definitely the worst of the ones I've read.

8. My sister, the serial killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite

A pretty lightweight read after Val McDermid. I actually really enjoyed this and the insight into Nigerian culture. I thought the relationship between the two sisters and their mum was well portrayed. I liked the ending, it made sense to me.

Yes the first two Discworld books are pretty rubbish. Equal Rites is pretty good, Mort onwards is where it really gets going.

Thank you to @Boiledeggandtoast and @Terpsichore for the recommendation for 12) The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig. I really enjoyed this autobiography, about the writers childhood experience of being sent from Poland to Siberia at the start of WW2 - initially pretty much in a prison camp, but later living a more typical peasant life. I was fascinated by how they survived, and devastated ny what happened to the rest of the family left in Poland. A really good read (it is a children's book though, if that is not your thing).

@Terpsichore I love diaries as well (and letters) - do you have any recommendations? I always wish there was a 'diaries' section at the library rather than them being filed by subject.

I have the Chips Channon diaries ready to go but it's enormous, I'm quite intimidated!

Jumping in to sing the praises of Derek Jarman's and Kenneth Williams' diaries. Oh and Carrie Fisher.

The Last Library by Fraya Sampson Audio listen from borrow box. This is about saving a library and a bit of romance flung in. It was okay, I finished listening to it anyway. However I wouldn’t recommend and give it 2.5 out of 5.
Have tried to listen to several today and just not feeling it with any of them. One of which was Still Life by Sarah Winman recommended on here but just could not get into it, I think that’s been my mood generally today to be honest hard to please. Another I returned The Gosling Girl by Jacqueline Roy which is about a girl that committed murder as a child, did her time, is released and then suspected of a similar crime. Will give this another chance at some point but just not wanting to read about that just now.

I have a lot of catching up with the thread to do but thank you @EmGee for your review of Le Bal des Folles it looks exactly my cup of tea and will definitely be adding this to my TBR pile if I can find the English translation.

Michael Palin has published his diaries and I've read the first volume (of three). They are interesting although rather long!

Esther's Notebooks 2. Tales from my eleven-year-old life by Riad Sattouf. Translated by Sam Taylor

Further adventures of Esther. Still joyous, very accurate on the voice of a child that age while also quite scary on how early some kids are sexualised. This also touches on the terror attacks in Belgium and Nice in 2016 which Esther's parents attempt to protect her from.