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?

I'm not a big Dickens fan @MegBusset but Bleak House is written partly from the POV of Esther Summerson who is quite a strong female. More obviously Estella from Great Ex is quite a complex female character.

I've got covid and am feeling a bit sorry for myself so spent today reaching for my comfort read, Agatha Christie.
15. Death on the Nile - this is classic Christie. We have the gorgeous heiress, handsome but simple husband, spurned hot tempered ex, snobby old lady, poor relation, unhappy daughter and various other typical Christie characters. It's unusual as the murder doesn't happen until halfway through the book so there's lots of building of atmosphere along the Nile. I did vaguely remember the plot, but still just what I needed.

Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans

I was in need of a comfort read and this delivered. Noel is an evacuee who helps his foster mother with her money making schemes. The characters are flawed and human and I cared about them all. I can see why Lissa Evans wrote the prequel 'Old Baggage' after this though, Mattie is such a vivid character even though she is only in the beginning of this novel. She needed a novel of her own.

Hope you feel better soon @Stokey

@Cornishblues

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett Had been looking forward to this after really enjoying The Appeal last year and found this just as good. It is similar in format in that you’re reading a dossier of evidence, here voice message transcripts, as presented to an expert reader. I preferred this scenario - coded messages buried in Enid Blyton-type books - to the cancer fundraiser one in the Appeal. The sad consequences of the tragic life history of a particular character are very moving - the phrase ‘he gets it from me’ has surely never before carried such a punch.

I admit I got a bit bogged down in the code investigation and looked forward to the expert reader input - you read all the evidence before hearing from them, without the intermittent commentary you get in The Appeal - and a couple of card tricks played here were also played in the previous book. But this is more than made up for by witty writing, the ex-con character’s off-beat perspective and sometimes spiky authorial social commentary.

I enjoyed The Appeal very much last year. I had been a little uncertain about The Twyford Code because I saw a review of it saying it wasn't as good as The Appeal, but I like the sound of it. Glad it's getting positive reviews too.

18. Einstein’s Secret by Irving Belateche

Time travel nonsense. Not even fun nonsense, just nonsense. The best that can be said about it is it was short.

19.* Becoming Unbecoming by Una*

My husband bought me this graphic novel for Christmas and it is amazing.

Beautiful, stark, heartbreaking, hopeful and poignant. The author sets their own experience of sex-based violence against the backdrop of being a teenager in Yorkshire, during the Yorkshire Ripper murders. Using stark illustrations, alongside text, Una explores misogyny, the narrow corridor in which women can exist without being “sluts” and the shame, that is mercilessly used by predators to target and silence women and children.

The sections on Una’s own life were incredibly sad but it is the final pages of the book that have stayed with me. Thirteen portraits of middle aged women, doing normal things, cuddling a grandchild, watching TV, working in an office. The things that the women killed by Peter Sutcliffe might have been doing had he not crossed their paths and taken their lives. I keep going back to look at them. They are beautiful.

Adds Becoming Unbecoming to TBR pile.

@JaninaDuszejko

Adds Becoming Unbecoming to TBR pile.

It's one of those that's not an easy read, but what you get out of it is worth it. Well it was for me.

19: The BBC: A People's History - David Hendy

It’s taken me a while to finish this as it’s a big, chunky book - over 1,000 pages - but the BBC is worthy of an in-depth history in its centenary year. David Hendy's clearly a supporter (he previously wrote a history of Radio 4) but he's even-handed here, setting out the big, unforgivable fails - Savile, Bashir - as well as the many triumphs.

The early history's fascinating, especially that the idea of broadcasting radio to an audience was exactly what Marconi, the inventor of the technology, thought it shouldn't be used for - it took three visionary men, including the first Director General, John Reith, to come up with the concept for what became the BBC (British Broadcasting Company, to start with, not a Corporation until a bit later).

The book also makes it very clear that there’s never been a time when the BBC hasn’t been under attack from whichever government happens to be in power, and from its listeners and viewers, who have an enduring love-hate relationship with it (Churchill loathed it, so did Thatcher, crises have arisen time and again, Directors-General have regularly fallen on their swords - it’s not quite up to date enough to include the latest rantings of Dorries).

I ended up feeling that this was a strangely apposite time to be reading this, after a couple of years in which many of us were glued to the BBC over Covid, and are again now over Ukraine - in an eerie echo of what happened in WW2, they’ve just started broadcasting to Russia and Ukraine on shortwave, to get news through when it’s being suppressed by Putin. Obviously this won’t be a book that pleases the 'defund the BBC' brigade but for those of us who value what it’s done and is still doing, warts and all, this is an excellent read.

A latecomer to the thread but it's been a fantastic resource for recommendations over the years.

I've finished book 10

10. Mrs England - Stacey Halls - Gothic, feminist mystery set in Edwardian Yorkshire I loved this, thought it was very satisfying and it''s all tightly woven with an unsettling feeling throughout. I've read her two other novels The Familiars and The Foundling and this is the best one so far.

I've got Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Long View to read next. The Cazalet Chronicles enthralled me earlier on in the year and I read all four books consecutively.

I'm running out of books though so hoping for some inspiration.

I'm quite taken to reading Death on the Nile. I won't bother with the film but with all the events going on in the world just now I could do with a bit of escapism to another time.

@ChessieFL

Delicacy: A Memoir About Cake and Death by Katy Wix

I didn’t know Katy Wix had written a book, so when I saw this in the daily deals I bought it because I like Katy Wix and I like cake! I was therefore expecting to really enjoy this - but I didn’t. It’s 21 memories from her life, all linked to cake. Some are linger where others are little more than a paragraph. It’s all quite disjointed and sometimes I would read an anecdote and be none the wiser about what I was expected to conclude from it. There were some funny bits (I did like the imagined email exchange with her personal trainer) but it wasn’t as funny as I was expecting (the blurb describes it as darkly funny). Sadly not for me.

I couldn't finish this either. I bought it on audible as well as I often prefer autobiographies this way but it didn't hold my interest enough.

58. Take Your Breath Away by Linwood Barclay

Six years ago Andrew’s wife Brie disappeared. The police suspected he killed her but didn’t have any evidence to prove it. Now, a woman who looks exactly like Brie has appeared - is it really her and what happened six years ago? I enjoyed this, Barclay writes good twisty thrillers and it was a quick fairly undemanding read.

59. Or Else by Joe Hart

This was my March first reads choice from Amazon. Andy has moved back to the town he grew up in to look after his dad, and has been having an affair with a childhood friend. One day he receives an anonymous note telling him to stop seeing Rachel. Then, Rachel’s husband is killed and she’s vanished. This was fine, it was a short read and I didn’t guess the outcome. Not sure I would bother looking out more by this author though.

No where near the pace of lots of you but I have hit the number of books I read the whole of last year so am pretty pleased. Might hit my 25 target this year.

1. Prisoners of Geography Tim Marshall.

A good introduction into the world of geopolitics an area I must admit that my knowledge is terrible so with things going on with Ukraine atm this gave an insight into Russia. Warning it is fairly pro American so be aware of that bias.

Now starting a reread as somebody here reminded me it had been a few years since I read it and wanted a lighter read to help ponder previous book. No 1 Ladies Detective Agency Alexander Mccall Smith.

13. Mrs Osmond: John Banville

I read 'Snow' by this author recently and when I looked up his other books I came across this one. I reread 'Portrait of a Lady' by Henry James last summer and Banville undertook this book as a sequel to that classic.

I like 'Portrait' a lot and I was very curious as to how Banville would approach the continuation of Isabel's story. I was not disappointed. I think it works very well. Banville has an excellent grasp of the characters, down to the smallest details. He writes very convincingly in James' style. The story continues from where it ended in 'Portrait'; it is seamless.

The pace in part one of the story is slow as Isabel decides on her next move after disobeying her husband and travels to England to her cousin's funeral. It picks up pace in part two when Isabel becomes more sure of her course of action. I thought that Banville's description of a the stifling heat of an Italian summer was excellent and it mirrored Isabel's state of mind, trapped in a suffocating marriage.

I was very pleased with the conclusion. It was in keeping with how James finished 'Portrait', so I was happy with it. I'm thinking of buying a paperback copy to put with the original on my shelf. Overall, a very worthy 4 and a half stars.

Edit: The Portrait of a Lady...tut tut

My weekly catch up....

@Purpleavocado- Sharon Penman in my opinion was the queen of historical fiction. Big doorstopper books, the detail is phenomenal, and she doesn't go into the heaving bosoms princes and princesses territory that some others inadvertently slip into. (Or, in the case of BreastyKen, very much not inadvertently) Alison Weir and Elizabeth Chadwick are also good.

One of my desert island songs is They Shoot Horses, Don't They? By Racing Cars, which I had always assumed was from the film, but Wikipedia tells me it was from some years later and inspired by it.

I've finished:

1. The Wreath- Sigrid Undset

I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would, and indeed, as I enjoyed it to begin with. I believe I got the not-as-good translation which could be why, but towards the end it seemed as though the writer was thinking "shit, I need to finish this in the next 50 pages but I'm going to write a sequel, so what shall I do?" It had drifted along losing pace (for me) from about halfway, then suddenly (a bit like 2211fucking63) everything "oh my word!" happened within the last 40-50 pages, including a seemingly random revelation in the final pages from Kristin's parents. Presumably signposting What-we-will-discover-in-the-sequel but I probably shan't.

Still savouring Just Kids as I want to make every word matter, though it doesn't need me for that. And romping through Fatal Isles a 99p crime procedural set on the fabled Doggerland. So it's pseudo-Scandi-noir basically. Won a prize, or was nominated for....but though it's an easy enough pleasant enough crime read, I'm not yet seeing where any prizeworthy writing might be. (Thus far, it reminds me a bit of Sandham)

Someone at the start of the thread mentioned this book and so thanks to them as I've just finished and enjoyed 8. Hostage by Clare mackintosh very readable and a great ending . Very quick pace - reading on my kindle and was surprised how much happened so early and was wondering how the rest of the book would continue to keep up the action but it didn't let up and I enjoyed this book.
Definitely having a bit of a thriller phase of reading at the moment - think I need page turners rather than slow burns at the moment as reading time very limited

It was CluelessMama who mentioned hostage up thread - thanks for the recommendation

18. Sourcery - Terry Pratchett

Fifth Discworld novel, and not a standout one (I don't think any of the Wizards ones are) but still a fun read, packed with loads of jokes.

1. How to build a girl - Caitlin Moran

Flipping loved this. Listened to it on audible and the narration by Louise Brealey was superb. This the first non-fiction I've ever listened to but as it reads like an autobiography (albeit of a fictional character) it worked perfectly for me. Wolverhampton-born Johanna gives us a warts-and-all account of her teenage years; family life, leaving school, writing for a music magazine and finding her way (NOT one to listen to with young children around!).

Thanks @SOLINVICTUS I shall add them to my list! I'm not sure about breastyken though!

Dear knowledgeable 50-bookers,
I'm look for fiction (or non-fiction) books about Malaysia and, if we're being specific, Borneo.
Many thanks in advance,
nowanearly x

@nowanearlyNicemum I read The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng a few years ago and thought it was very good. It's set in Malaysia during WW2 (not Borneo though iirc).

1. A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz

Jasper is a young man with issues surrounding his identity and his place in the world. Brought up since infancy by his eccentric father after his mother's suicide, Jasper attempts to know himself by piecing together fragments of information about his family contributed by his unreliable father.

I didn't enjoy this much. I'm not the kind of reader who has to like the characters to enjoy a book, but these people are all awful and the author is constantly reiterating just how awful they all are. I got bored of Jasper's self-pitying outlook and his Dad's irritating insistence on being weird.

Excellent @ABookWyrm. That's been on my wishlist for ages - I actually thought it might be languishing on my kindle but it's not. I have to confess that I hadn't realised it was based in Malaysia but this is a great excuse to finally purchase it! Thank you.