50 Book Challenge 2022 Part Three

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 and the second one here.

What are you reading?

More Discworld

16. Soul Music
    A craze for Music with Rocks in sweeps through Ankh Morpork, Death goes AWOL and schoolgirl Susan makes a surprising discovery about her heritage. A fun book about the power of music.

17. Interesting Times
    When I realised that Rincewind was the protagonist I prepared myself for a lacklustre read. It was better than I expected though, it really shows how much Pratchett's style improved when compared to the early Rincewind books. Still one of the lesser Discworld books, but I did like how it was framed as a game between Fate and Luck.

18. Maskerade
    Teenager Agnes has moved to Ankh Morpork to be a singer where she becomes involved in a Phantom of the Opera style situation. Meanwhile witches Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg travel to the city on business. Very enjoyable read, though I miss the third witch Magrat.

19. Feet of Clay
    The Watch investigate murder cases and an apparent attempt on the Patrician's life, and something strange is going on with the golems in the city. A solid mystery story that looks at prejudice, class and humanity.

20. Hogfather
    If I had thought about it I would have timed my Discworld readathon so this coincided with Christmas. Death stands in for the Disc's equivalent of Father Christmas, the Hogfather, Susan, now working as a governess, is forced to get involved and a gang of thugs led by an assassin work on an unusual job. One of the best Discworld books, looking at the power of belief and the importance of it to humans.

@bibliomania

I thought she did a good job of suggesting the personalities. Not suggesting it's great literature, just a playful twist on the genre.

I've just started it, 50 pages in and yes it's definitely not great literature but a fun quick read 😂

Noodle I haven't read many Maeve Binchys but I feel just in the mood for a bloody good story which tugs on my heartstrings. I remember there was a copy of Echoes in a holiday cottage we once stayed in which both my mum and I were completely gripped by (the book, not the cottage!)

Satellite I knew about the film but haven't seen it. The book is very cinematic in the way that it records without comment or judgement.

10. A Year in the Life: Adventures in British Subcultures, Lucy Leonelli

Lightweight but surprisingly interesting. The author decides, over the course of a year, to introduce herself to 26 subcultures, one for each letter of the alphabet, from Aristocrats to the Zeitgeist Movement. Some of these subcultures are spiritual (yogis, Kabbalah), some are geeky (LARP-ing, trainspotting), some are part of traditional British culture (fox hunting, greyhound racing, Morris dancing) and a few are just plain strange.

This is essentially a jokey book with short chapters, but Leonelli has done a good job. She really has gone out there and attempted to embed herself into each of these groups, at least for a short while, doing what they do (naked yoga class with the naturists anyone?!) and asking open and non-judgemental questions giving her subjects space to talk about their passions. She writes about her nerves in meeting new groups of people and about how the experiences make her feel (not always what she expects). As the book progresses, she starts to compare the different communities, finding interesting points of comparison between, say, the drag queens and the historic re-enactors (in both subcultures, people talk about how putting on the character gives them a freedom to explore areas of themselves which they don't feel brave enough to enter into when they are being "themselves"). It's also just interesting reading about some of the quirky way that us Brits pass our weekends.

@virginqueen, I remember first reading about the Cottingley Fairies when I was about 8, in one of my gran's weekly magazines (would have been early 70s so before it was revealed as a fake) and I was fascinated and terrified in equal measure. There was some "analyst" claiming that upon studying the negatives of the photos it could be seen that the fairies had moved during the developing process. All very Weeping Angels.
Shame it was a scam really.

Maeve Binchey is one of my go to comfort reads.

Hello! Thanks for the new thread @southeastdweller

1. Good Vibes, Good Life - Vex King
2. The Minimalist Home - Joshua Becker
3. This Tender Land - William Kent Krueger
4. Song of Achillles - Madeline Miller
5. Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes
6. A Thousand Ships - Natalie Haynes
7. Lamentation - C J Samson
8. Hungry - Grace Dent
9. The Sober Girl Society Handbook - Millie Gooch

10. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid 11. Alcohol Explained - William Porter

This was OK. I'd read a lot of good things about it, but I personally didn't think it was that amazing. I've read a good few quit lit books and this was one of the good ones though. It explains how alcohol is so addictive and it does that really well. I'd have liked a bit more info on reasons not to drink, ie some of the physical stuff as well as how it affects mood (which he does mention).

The Leonelli book sounds good, Viking.

8.Revival Season, by Monica West. Miriam Horton's father is a famous Baptist Preacher in the Southern US, and every summer the family travels and he heals people in the revival tent. One summer Miriam discovers shocking truths about her father and her own healing abilities, and begins to reckon with the dark side of her church. The book adopts the position that faith healing is possible, which I struggled with, but that is not really the point of the story. Despite being an atheist I really loved this - it transported me into a culture I know nothing about, and unfurled the family relationships and dynamics absolutely beautifully. The writing is stunning and it's hard to believe this is the writer's first novel.

1. The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie Mentioned in previous threads by loads who are doing the Agatha Christie challenge. Despite being aware of Poirot and Marple just from their place in the twentieth century zeitgeist, I’d never read a Christie novel. It was okay, Anne Beddingfield is a great character. It feels fairly clunky the way certain information is not just withheld, but signposted as being withheld. Enjoyable enough though, and I may look up the challenge website and read some more

12 The Only Plane In The Sky by Garrett Graff

Well. Thanks to all who recommended this book. Heart wrenching as it was I feel it was important to read.

I was only 19 when the towers fell, young enough that I hardly understood and many of the details escaped me. I think I backed away from watching news that was hard. These days I read and watch and want to try and understand even if I sometimes cry.

Incredibly moving book that I found hard to put down, I got really swept up in it.

@SOLINVICTUS - I adored Just Kids, it’s such a poignant love letter to Robert Mapplethorpe and their friendship. I honestly think Patti Smith could write a shopping list and somehow make it beautiful and poetic. I might have to re-read this year.

@TimeforaGandT - Thanks for your review of In a Good Light, one of my favourite books so far this year was Small Pleasures so will definitely have to check this out.

@MamaNewtNewt, In a Good Light has a different tone to Small Pleasures but the characters really drew me in. As I said, having had high expectations of certain books this year I have been left slightly disappointed so this is, to date, my book of the year! Hope you enjoy it

I adore Just Kids. It's one of the few books that I re-read regularly. Agree that Patti Smith is a wonderful writer. She's on my fantasy dinner party guest list.

Just Kids has been on my TBR list forever - I'm going to put in a library reservation on the back of this thread :)

15. Shadow Man by Cody McFadyen
16. The Face of Death by Cody McFadyen

Serial killers vs the FBI. Too gruesome for my current tastes and I wanted to vomit when one of the agents, when describing herself, mentioned "bite-sized boobs". That said I didn't guess who the killer was, but not going to bother with the next in the series.

17. Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher

I wanted to love this book, like I loved Carrie Fisher but it was just ok. This is the semi-autobiographical tale of Suzanne Vale, who take a trip to rehab after she has to get her stomach pumped. The early scenes in rehab were interesting, especially after reading Rachel's Holiday earlier this year and I think I'd have liked this to be a bigger part of the book. There was just way too much LA-style pretension and navel gazing for me. I found that the characters didn't so much have conversations as talk at each other. Also I found the main character really wet and self-pitying, with none of Carrie's self-deprecating wit to offset this.

16. The Changing Mind by Daniel Levitin The subtitle to this is 'A Neuroscientist's Guide to Ageing Well'. Like the previous book I read recently by the same author this is long, discursive and not particularly well structured. Even so I enjoyed it, and I thought it was a good reminder of the simple basic things that we can all do to keep our 'healthy lives' as long a proportion of our actual lives as possible given fate/circumstances and our genetic makeup. Nothing groundbreaking - exercising, spending time outdoors, staying socially engaged, volunteering after retirement to keep new challenges etc - but actually maybe that is the key message that these are as important as new medical advances.

MamaNewtNewt - I remember enjoying the film of Postcards from the Edge when it came out, I think one of the cases where the film is better than the book?

Postcards from the Edge was a DNF for me, despite having invested a lot of time on it. I was hating it, so finally decided to give up!

17. Murder Most Fab by Julian Clary

I looked for Murder Most Unladylike on the online library, and it offered me this instead. (For anyone wondering, this is most definitely not a YA novel.) Johnny Debonair, fallen TV personality does a 'kiss and tell' on his career as an ex-rent boy and accidental serial killer.

Although it's light in tone, the content is pretty dark, and Johnny Debonair a rather tragic figure in the end. It definitely kept me reading, and I'll look out for JC's other books for holiday / train fare.

I really do need to update more regularly.

46. Things We Never Said - Nick Alexander
    Terminally ill wife makes a series of photos and dictaphone tapes for her husband. Once she's died, he listens to one each week and discovers things about her and their marriage that he never realised at the time. It's a decent concept, but was a bit formulaic and boring by the end. I've recently watched After Life which didn't do this any favours. It was a book club choice that I doubt I'd have read otherwise.

47. The Only Woman in the Room - Marie Benedict
    Based on the true story of Hedy Lamarr. She was an Austrian Jewish actress who married an arms dealer who supplied Hitler and Mussolini. As his wife she was often present when important decisions were made and information shared. When her marriage disintegrated she fled to the US and used this information to try to help the US military. They sadly didn't take her very seriously, but her understanding of the technicalities of some of the weaponry could have shortened the war. They didn't adopt her torpedo frequency jamming technology until the 1960s. This technology formed the basis of modern GPS and bluetooth.

This wasn't as good as some of Benedict's other works, however it was still quite interesting despite being slower moving. I like her idea of taking women who had huge influence in world affairs but who are forgotten in favour of the men they were associated with.

48. Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
    A stranger arrives in the area and wants to buy the rights to deceased peasants who are still on the Census poll tax lists. This leads to much speculation by those approached about what he is up to. It's a satirical work on Russian society in the mid 1800s. It was very readable.

49. Diary of an MP's Wife - Sasha Swire
    Gossipy look at the behind the scenes of the Conservative party from 2010-2019.
    Interesting to see some of the back story to major events, but ultimately it's about a lot of unpleasant people behaving unpleasantly.

50. Living A Feminist Life - Sara Ahmed
    Academic discusses feminist theory in relation to real life. She has some interesting ideas on diversity and intersectionality but ultimately it is a "lecture" on how the little people are doing feminism wrong. I don't have time for it. If you are of the Rad Fem /GC persuasion then I would give this a wide berth. If it hadn't been on my phone, I may have launched it out of a window. It's patronising, oddly repetitive and full of unnecessary jargon.

51. Black Swan Green - David Mitchell
    Socially awkward teen comes of age in early 80s Britain while his parents go through a divorce. It's a social commentary that really captures the feeling of the time. I really enjoyed this.

52. The Death of Vivek Oji - Akwaeke Emezi
    LGBT coming of age in present day Nigeria examining attitudes and society. When the body of a young man is delivered naked to his parents home, his parents are at a loss to know what has happened to him.
    Beautiful writing with a slow burn denouement.

I've abandoned The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain - Damian Le Bas at 50%. The author of Roma descent, recognises that more and more gypsies are becoming settled and the information on the traditional stopping places is being lost. He buys a transit van and decides to visit them.
This could have been a brilliant book and sounded right up my street, but ultimately it was quite dull. I read 150 pages and simply couldn't face any more. A shame but life is too short.

20. Again, Rachel - Marian Keyes. I really enjoyed this revisit to Rachel and Luke, 20 years on. But goodness it was so sad. Not wanting to give away any spoilers for anyone wanting to read it, but I think it ought to come with a warning for its stillbirth storyline, for anyone who may find it too upsetting. However, Marian Keyes has handled this sensitively and with lots of compassion.

It was, however, still good to revisit the Walsh family and see what they'd all been up to over the years. I listened to the audiobook and, at the end, there was an interview with Marian Keyes by Graham Norton, which was very interesting. She had apparently intended for The Break to be part of the Walsh family series, but made it a standalone novel with different characters instead.

I must try and post more frequently. I'm enjoying reading everyone else's updates. Reading is still a bit slow and haphazard whilst we're sorting out our house. We've come away for a few days' short break, which we'd booked months ago thinking we'd have moved house before Christmas. Good to be somewhere not surrounded by boxes for a few days

11. Death of a Hollow Man by Caroline Graham Number 2 in the Midsomer Murders series. This one was changed A LOT from the book to the TV series. And Troy's awfulness is really ramped up. In this one he describes men as "the superior sex" and openly attempts to cheat on his wife. I don't think I'll bother with the rest of the series, although they are well-written I find it harder to get fully into it when I already know the outcome from the TV series

Any Hard Timers, don't forget it's March 1st! Pinch punch!

I'll be along in a while Piggy!

13. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura This was a slight, curious book about a young woman working as an interpreter at the (fictionalised) international criminal court at The Hague. It explores various kinds of intimacy through her friendships and romantic relationships, and most interestingly through the strange bond that develops between a person on trial and their interpreter when they are communicating in a common language which no one else understands.

Very clear prose and enjoyable to read. It felt very heavy with themes and ideas though and I think could have benefitted from a bit more space.

On another note, any good tips in the kindle monthly deals? I haven't spotted anything I want to buy yet...