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?

Thank you for the new thread!
I've already lost track what number book I'm on but have just gobbled up in 24hrs Love is Blind by William Boyd. A really good read about Scottish piano tuner Brodie who ends up travelling all over the world. It vividly relates life in Scotland, Paris, Russia and laterally the Andaman Islands and Nicobar from the last years of the 19C to 1906.
Loved it :)

I managed a magnificent number last year Fortuna but it definitely won’t be repeated this year! I’m going to try and be more discerning about what I read in future - I’m a sucker for a 99p psychological thriller which generally are not that good, so I’m trying to move away from them and read more decent stuff, which will inevitably take me longer to read as I can’t zip through like I can with the psych thrillers. I do have a backlog of them on my kindle though so will be trying to clear those for a while yet!

Sounds good EmGee, I like William Boyd's novels.

Thank you for the new thread.
List so far

1. A Single Thread by Tracey Chevalier And just finished listening to number 2 today

2) The Family Holiday by Elizabeth Noble Audio book from borrowbox.
This is about Charlie an eighty year old and how he wants to bring his family together for a family holiday. We get to know about his children Laura, Nick and Scott and where they are up to in their lives after their mum Daphne has died. This had all the promise of being a really good story but I was bored with it. It did not grab me and I am surprised I finished it. Scott’s other half Heather is American and the accent on the audio really grated me. The best bit was the ending because it ended but it was tied up nicely if only the rest of the book was as interesting. A 2 star from me.

In complete contrast I have just started listening to Please Sir by Jack Sheffield I think this is an absolute delight. It is told by Jack Sheffield himself and is so well told. It is set in 1981 and Jack Sheffield is the head teacher of Ragley on the new forest school. Love it so far and can see it definitely being in my top books of the year. I have read another one of the series previously called Happiest Days which was set in 1986 and remember really enjoying that as well so might as well read the lot. It has a feeling of definite nostalgia for me as I went to primary school in those times and there are some truly funny moments.

I forgot about Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce! This was also a lovely read. Fascinating places (New Caledonia) and a moving friendship between two very different women. Possibly too 'twee' for some tastes but I recommend it if you are looking for something 'wholesome' but not too taxing.

Thanks EmGee I'm a fan of William Boyd so will look out for that one. Midnightstar I just searched for Please sir and came up with a lot of erotic female submission shit before it suggested the Jack Sheffield option. Terrifying!!

1. A court of mist and fury by Sarah J Maas - can't remember who replied when I read book 1 in this series, but they do seem to be getting more interesting in terms of the fantasy plot

Wow that was quick.
So my first list

1. The casual Vacancy - JK Rowling
2. No one is Talking About This -Patricia Lockwood
3. Hillsborough The Truth- Phil Scraton
4. How to Kill Your Family

I’m really picking up and putting down books at the moment and finding it hard to focus. Had a load of DNFs last year, so trying to persevere through.

The Birthday Boys is far and away my favourite Beryl Bainbridge, of the few I've read. I didn't get on so well with the Titanic one, even though it should've been right up my street. I keep meaning to try more.

I see somebody (sorry - forgotten who) has read I Who Have Never Known men so now I'm heading back into the old thread to try to find the review. My feeling is that the writer is a bit "I who have never known any really good writing to help model myself on."

Thanks Remus that is the highest rated on Goodreads, but interestingly not one of her Booker nominated ones. I'll try anything once!

Chessie I think you need some mindless books in the mix too. I think I'd be really put off reading if every single thing I read was a classic, or something worthy. It would feel like homework.

There's a new thread already? I've read one book! Wail!

Wow, second thread already. I feel like I need to up my reading game

1. The House at Riverton - Kate Morton
2. The Murder in the Tower - Jean Plaidy
3. The Baby Group - Caroline Corcoran

No stand out reads yet, one dud

Thanks for new thread @southeastdweller
Placemarking for later.

1. Meadowland by John Lewis Sempel

This follows a traditional hay meadow on the author's farm through each month of the year, the wildlife that live on and around it, and the farm animals / hay cutting. I didn't like this quite as much as The Running Hare which I read last year, but it was still a lovely read, very gentle and perfect to read at bedtime. It has also inspired me to feel like I really should pay more attention to the wildlife around me when I'm at work & I'm planning to start listening to the R4 Tweet of the Day episodes as there's always lots of birds and other than the big obvious ones I never know what they are (flora so much easier than fauna as it stays still!)

The exceptional One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is in the Kindle deals today, if anybody wants a guaranteed 5 star read before the end of January.

@nowanearlyNicemum oh heck that is awful it would never have crossed my mind for the title to throw up all sorts on Google so warning to others that Bly look this up on Goodreads or library app Please Sir! by Jack Sheffield It is a lovely series of books about a primary school and the village

Goodness, I'm having real trouble keeping up with the thread!

1. Hope Jones Saves The World by Josh Lacey: very short (only a few hours on audiobook) children's book about a girl whose new year's resolution is to save the planet. It was fine, a bit preachy perhaps and sometimes I felt the lessons she learnt weren't very good (she starts out not wanting to use any plastic which quickly becomes impossible, but never differentiates between single use/something you can keep using for a long time etc)

10. Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens, I picked this one up at the library on Monday, it is the second in the murder most unladylike series, which I forgot I had already read. Really fun, very 'young Agatha Christie whodunnit' and I quite like the characters. This one is set in a manor house (one of the main girl's family home) and someone is poisened with arsenic. I think I'll continue reading the series whenever I can pick one up from the library.

I went in to the library on Monday on my way home from work meaning to drop off some books and came away with about 10 more after an hour and a half in there!

Thanks @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie. I have a copy but thinking of downloading as then it might make our book group (just 3 people) as I can offer the hard copy. I’ve wanted to read it for so long.

The Adventures of China Iron, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (trans. Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre)

I really enjoyed this. It came as part of a diverse book sub that was a gift.

It is inspired by a famous Argentine poem Martin Fierro but is a fictionalised story of his wife, who turns up in one line of the poem. There are three main sections, her travel over the pampa with and English woman and a man they pick up along the way; some time that they spend at a fort; and then in Indian territory. She is very young, around 14 but has a sexual and life awakening along the way. The sex is quite graphic but well done I thought. It does touch on lesbianism and I guess what we would now call trans but it was matter of fact and not preachy. Things just happened. The language was absolutely wonderful, in as much as I was reading the translated words.

3.5 I think because it is better than my standard 3 stars but not quite there with my 4 stars. That might change by the end of the year if it stays with me.

2. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

and
3. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
In my reading life, I have spent the past couple of weeks in the Dust Bowl of 1930s America! I had heard that these two titles make for a good book pairing and have found it interesting and engrossing to read both alongside each other. It has almost certainly added to my experience and opinion of both books, but particularly The Four Winds.
The Worst Hard Time is a non-fiction exploration of life in the Great Plains from the early 1900s through to the late 1930s. For me who knew very, very little about the topic, it gave what seemed to be a balanced explanation of the various circumstances that combined to contribute to the Dust Bowl (agricultural practices, drought and local weather patterns but also social, economic and political factors). It went on to describe the massive effects of the Dust Bowl on communities with family stories and anecdotes which paint a vivid picture of how hard life was and the reasons why many families fled, and why others stayed. I found it all fascinating.
The Four Winds opens as we meet Elsa, a young woman living in Dalhart, Texas which is one of the communities featured prominently in The Worst Hard Time. I didn't like the opening section at all, but it sets the scene for how Elsa sees herself as an adult later in the novel and how she comes to be married and living with her husband's family when we move to a later time period in the mid-1930s with the drought and dust storms beginning to cripple the family farm and a fight to survive in terrible poverty. Once past the opening section, I enjoyed following this fictional plot in the landscape and time period that I read about in The Worst Hard Time and thought the family relationships were well explored as a key part of this novel.
I have had The Grapes of Wrath on my shelf for over three years and never really been tempted to pick it up, but as a continuation of my Dust Bowl reading theme, I feel like now's the time to give it a whirl so it's up next for me.

1. The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearce - detective Elin is on a break from work when she is invited to her estranged brother's engagement party at a luxury new hotel in an old sanatorium building in the Swiss Alps. An avalanche leaves the guests snowed in, and then people start to go missing. Elin must unravel the mystery and work out how it links to the building's dark history.

This was.... not great. It started out well and I liked the atmosphere and the Christie-esque snowy locked room. But the plot made no sense at all when it came together (there are discussion forum threads listing all the loose threads) and poor Elin had layer after layer of personal trauma to unravel. The historic family drama with her brother was never resolved. The murders were absolutely gruesome, so much that I had to skip the descriptions.

A shame as the premise was strong, there's a sequel coming this year so maybe that will be an improvement.

@StColumbofNavron I read The Adventures of China Iron in 2020 and although I also have it 3 stars at the time it has stayed with me.

@CluelessMama thanks for the reviews, I read the grapes of wraith years ago and have always been interested in that period since so have added the non fiction to my library list

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

The exceptional One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is in the Kindle deals today, if anybody wants a guaranteed 5 star read before the end of January.

Thanks for the recommendation, I've just purchased!

8: The Victorian Chaise-longue - Marghanita Laski

I listened to the Backlisted episode on this about a year ago and never got round to reading the book - silly really, as it's extremely brief, barely more than a short story, and took me a couple of hours to polish off.

Pretty, spoiled new mother Melanie, recovering from a brush with TB in the stylish little house she shares with her barrister husband Guy, is finally permitted time out of bed and allowed, as a great treat, to spend the afternoon tucked up on the Victorian chaise-longue she bought for a pittance from a junk shop just before she became ill.

She falls alsleep in the happy knowledge that she's getting better and everything's going to be right in her safe, privileged world....but when she wakes up, she's suddenly not in the 1950s any more.

I won't spoil anything for anyone who fancies reading it; I'll just say that this is a very effective little chiller, with the layers of realisation gradually built up as Melanie grasps the true horror of what's happening to her. Spooky....!

BadSpellaSpellaSpella It is such an interesting period for so many reasons.
I'm a bit intimidated by The Grapes of Wrath, feel like I might struggle with it. How did you find it?

CluelessMama, The Grapes of Wrath is one of my favourite books.

And terpsichore, thanks for the review of The Victorian Chaise-Longue. I've had a vague "should read that" note in my list for a while, and haven't ever got round to it. I didn't realise it was so short, so will seek it out.