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?

7. Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Already well reviewed on here so I don't have much to add apart from how much I enjoyed it. As science fiction its suitably scary/creepy about how close to real life this might be in twenty or thirty years time (or closer?). I also loved one or two of the characters and was surprised to have a tear in my eye on more than one occasion.

I've also told DH he needs to read it asap so we can talk about. He has read others by Adrian Tchaikovsky so I am confident we have found our second crossover book. The first was First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August and it's been a few years since we read that!

Five star read for me. I'll be looking out others by this author.

DuPain I was pleasantly surprised by Girl With A Pearl Earring too, I picked it up in a holiday home thinking it would be a bit dull but without many other options, like you I was sent down a Vermeer rabbit hole and really enjoyed the story. It made me want to visit a Vermeer exhibition and see some of those paintings in real life.

10. Watch Her Fall by Erin Kelly
11. The Turnout by Megan Abbott

I read these back to back as overwrought books/films set in the ballet world are one of my guilty pleasures! Luckily they were very different.

Watch Her Fall is set in the fictional London Russian Ballet where the founder's daughter Ava is poised to take over the company after dancing her greatest performance in Swan Lake. The lead up to the opening night uncovers deadly rivalries and a series of injuries sets the plot in motion as things spiral out of control. I like Erin Kelly's books and this was pretty standard fare for her - twist after twist, loads of characters living under false identities. It has a major sub-plot about undocumented migrants living and working in London which was interesting. Unfortunately the book covered every possible ballet cliche: Swan Lake and split personalities, delicate dancers destroying their ballet shoes, stereotypical Russian ballet masters. I'd have liked something a bit more original but it was enjoyable if you like this kind of thing.

In The Turnout, sisters Marie and Dara, and Dara's husband Charlie, run the dilapidated ballet school they inherited after their parents' death. After a fire destroys part of the building, they hire a contractor to renovate the school. He starts a relationship with Marie and upsets the strange relationship between the three main characters. This was definitely more original but a bit light on actual plot. There was page after page of cloying, sexual imagery and the two sisters becoming ever more anxious and scared, but the actual reveals and flashbacks from their past were dealt with very quickly. Ultimately quite unsatisfying as I never really understood anyone's motivations or why they were reacting to events in the way they did.

Both ok books - probably avoid unless you have a high tolerance for dance themed thrillers, but both good reads if you're into this micro genre!

For anyone interested in Vermeer, I've signed up for this from the Guildhall Library:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/online-johannes-vermeers-perfect-painting-tickets-217001596617?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

No idea what it will be like, but it's free!

That looks great Boiledegg, sadly Tuesday is the only day I can't do that time. I've signed up in case it's repeated.

Ooh that looks interesting @Boiledeggandtoast!

I really liked The Turnout. I enjoyed the overwrought Gothic feel. The most satisfying and interesting elements for me were the painful and unpleasant physicality of being a dancer and what it does to your body, and the deconstructing of The Nutcracker and the insight into its psychodynamics.
I think I'll try Watch Her Fall. I'm fascinated by dance/ballet, and I'm happy to read ballet cliches

@IntermittentParps

I really liked The Turnout. I enjoyed the overwrought Gothic feel. The most satisfying and interesting elements for me were the painful and unpleasant physicality of being a dancer and what it does to your body, and the deconstructing of The Nutcracker and the insight into its psychodynamics. I think I'll try Watch Her Fall. I'm fascinated by dance/ballet, and I'm happy to read ballet cliches

Intermittent have you read Maggie Shipstead's ballet novel Astonish Me? It’s on my tbr pile and I keep meaning to get round to it - I might try and bump it up to the top now this thread has reminded me of it!

@IntermittentParps I'm glad you liked it! Agree the discussion of The Nutcracker was interesting and nice to have a ballet analysed that wasn't Swan Lake for a change.

@Terpsichore I've read Astonish Me and liked it, though not as much as her other books. Definitely more of a ballet romance than a ballet gothic thriller!

Terpsichore (love the name, BTW, don't know why I've not said that before!) no, I hadn't heard of Astonish Me. I liked but didn't love Great Circle. But I suppose I shouldn't let that put me off! I'll add it to the unending list.

@IntermittentParps I recently read another Maggie Shipstead Seating Arrangements which was very different to Great Circle, so I wouldn't be put off. Although personally I preferred Great Circle

[quote Stokey]**@IntermittentParps* I recently read another Maggie Shipstead Seating Arrangements* which was very different to Great Circle, so I wouldn't be put off. Although personally I preferred Great Circle[/quote]
Yeah, I need to approach them without prejudice
I didn't not like Great Circle, just found it a bit underwhelming. But quite possibly I'd bought into the hype and the amazing reviews etc etc. It was a bit long and a bit heavy on giving you a history lesson, I thought, but not a bad book at all.

Hi everyone, I'm not on here much these days as I'm in the last throes of my studies. But I do read the posts and it's great to see so many new people here. Aside from reading a ton of journals and extracts from textbooks, I've read these two:

Wrong Rooms - Mark Sanderson. Non-fiction book about the author's relationship with his partner. Not as moving as I expected - I think he could have explored the relationship a bit more - but the twist took me by surprise and I enjoyed the early 90s nostalgia.

Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life - Alan Cumming. I loved this, the second memoir from the actor (his other book - Not My Father's Son - is also terrific). A must for everyone who loves intelligently written celebrity memoirs with the right blend of gossip and insight.

We need a new thread @southeastdweller!

Latest one ticked off the never-ending tbr list :

16: Parson's Nine - Noel Streatfeild

One of her adult books, and I suspect more than a touch coloured by her own upbringing, as one daughter in the large family of a clergyman. The nine children of the title are the offspring of an infuriatingly saintly and unworldly vicar, David Churston, and his much more practical wife Catherine, who gives birth to her enormous brood at virtually yearly intervals at around the dawn of the 1900s, and is obliged by said saintly husband to name them after the books of the Apocrypha - hence Tobit, Esdras, Sirach, Manasses, Maccabeus and Baruch for the boys, and the thankfully more everyday Judith, Esther and Susanna for the girls.

The first part of the book is a rather cosy affair, full of nursery reminiscences and bordering on the over-cutesy (lots of infant lisping), but the second half takes a much darker turn as WW1 descends and the family experiences its share of tragedy - one of the children in particular.

I’m still not totally sure what I thought about this, tbh. It’s not like any of Streatfeild's other adult books I’ve read either, I guess because she was drawing much more on personal experience, which makes it less 'shaped' and a bit unsettling. An oddity, really.

16. Mrs March - Virginia Feto
Mrs March, we don't get to know her name until the end of the book, has a husband called George who has just published a book. A casual remark made by an acquaintance that the main character, a prostitute, is based on her sends Mrs March on a path of paranoia and a decline in her mental health. We've no idea of the time it was set in but I'm guessing the 60's. Mrs March is a housewife whose day seems to revolve around avoiding her housekeeper.

I enjoyed this, at times I wasn't quite what was reality and what wasn't. I would like to have more depth in some parts of the book but those parts did make you draw your own conclusions. Elizabeth Moss' production company are developing this into a film.

@Boiledeggandtoast thanks for the heads-up about the Vermeer event. I've just signed up. He was my dad's favourite artist and we had prints up around the house, including the one featured in the link, so I'm looking forward to finding out a bit more.

I've also had Girl with a Pearl Earring sitting in the house for ages and never felt compelled to pick it up for some reason .. however I will now. I did really enjoy A Single Thread recently. It probably helps if you have a passing interest in tapestry/sewing, but not essential.

@southeastdweller I have Not My Father's Son on audible but haven't listened to it yet. I can't remember if Alan Cummings reads it himself - I'm hoping so.

Not My Father's Son was one of the best memoirs I've read/listened to. Iirc Alan Cumming does narrate it himself. Very moving.

8. Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch

I really like to expand my knowledge with nonfiction books but sometimes they take a bit.of reading and are easy to put down compared to a really great story.

It's taken a long time of on and off reading to get through this book about idenity, and about what life is like if you don't feel African but don't feel British either.

It was really thought provoking and although I was familiar with some of the ideas for instance that one should be a Good Immigrant, this book explored these thoughts in more depth.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4484238-50-Book-Challenge-2022-Part-Three?watched=1

@highlandcoo
A Single Thread was recommended at my book club last year. The subject didn't interest me much but I thought I'd give it a go and was pleasantly surprised. I ended up really caring about the main character and wanted things to work out for her.

As often with Tracy Chevalier, I thought the historical setting/subject in A Single Thread was much more interesting and better than the actual writing...
I tend to read her books for the history but always wish she was a better writer. Sorry Tracy.

8) The Choice by Edith Eger Sixteen year old ballerina Edith Eger is sent to Aushwitz. Edith is a survivor of hell. This tells her unforgettable story and her life story. Such a very powerful book.