50 Books Challenge 2022 Part Four

[southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth thread of the 50 Books 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.

The first thread of the year is here, the second one here and the third one here.

What are you reading?

Ghost Wall and The Tidal Zone are possibly the most like these two, in terms of being set in the present and in the first person.
Personally though, I think Signs for Lost Children is her very best (and have wanged on about it on these threads before... sorry all). It's a sequel to Bodies of Light, which is also very good. They're quite different, being set in Victorian times.
Night Waking is also good; set in the present but not first-person narrated.

What a pity; I tend to like him. Although I do have trouble remembering which I've read /which are which, perhaps suggesting that they're sometimes quite similar to one another...

DameHelena, DH likes Patrick Gale's books too and he was surprised to hear me moaning and groaning about this. It was an early novel, I believe, written at a rather difficult time in his life, and he also intended to make it a trilogy but never quite managed that. It might have worked better that way.

Couple more reviews to add - slightly dreading the update!

23 The Heron's Cry by Ann Cleeves

The second in the Matthew Venn series, I enjoyed this but didn't feel it had the same zing as the first. Elaborate murders in an artists' community; the central motive of the perpetrator made sense but all the fancy set ups of the various murders didn't really. However, I continue to enjoy Venn and Rafferty, although I find Venn's husband Jonathan a bit of a cipher and a bit too good to be true at the same time. Wondering if that will be picked up in later novels. Definitely in the market for more.

24 The Women in Black by Madeleine St John

This short novel was a delight from beginning to end. Set amongst the women who work in an upmarket department store in Sydney, selling dresses to the rich, it flits in and out of the lives of a few characters - Patty, whose husband is deeply unsatisfactory; Fay, who is looking for love but seemingly always in the wrong places; Magda, a happily-coupled "continental" (Slovene) and Lisa, actually called Lesley, who is just starting a part-time job amongst them after finishing her Leaving Cert. Nothing much happens, but by the end you know and are rooting for all these women. The minutiae of their lives, their relationships, their thoughts are beautifully drawn. Reminded me of Muriel Spark, which is the highest praise I can give.

Oh and thank you @PepeLePew for the South Riding review, and to whoever alerted me to the 99p deal - I am reading it now and very much enjoying thus far.

.18. Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
In 1830, Agnes Magnusdottir was the last person to be executed in Iceland having been convicted of the murder of her employer and his guest. This is a fictional account of the time she spent placed with a family at their farm in Northern Iceland while awaiting execution.

I enjoyed this. According to the author's notes at the end of the book, all contemporary accounts of the murders and subsequent trial portray Agnes as a wicked woman with evil intent, the author has envisioned an alternative to this and imagined Agnes as a woman with human flaws and passions. The sense of foreboding and doom is well portrayed, as is the harshness of the life of ordinary Icelanders in a 19th Century Winter.

The House with the Stained Glass Window by Żanna Słoniowska. Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

This is set in the city we now call Lviv but over the 20th century it was called Lemberg (as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Lwów (when it was returned to Poland at the end of WW1), Lvov (when it became part of the USSR after WW2) and finally Lviv (when Ukraine became independent). The nameless narrator tells us the story of four generations of women in her family and the city they live in in a series of short chapters that flit backwards and forwards in time. It's not magic realism but is full of sentences that feel like they belong in a novel by Garcia Marquez:

The next day we met in the cloistered courtyard where an Afghan war veteran, playing the part of Romeo, had once jumped from the second floor without a safety rope straight into the arms of his Juliet and where, long before that, King Jan Sobieski's wife Marysieńka had taken walks.

By the end of the book I had spent a lot of time googling images of Lviv because the city is as much of a character as the four women. You get such a sense of place reading this, the writing is so evocative. A fabulous first novel.

Thank you DameHelena! Would you recommend reading Bodies of Light before Signs for Lost Children?

I love John Wyndham and I love time travel so I'm definitely getting my paws on this one!

Thanks to everyone who recommended Hungry by Grace Dent on this year and last year's threads. I really enjoyed this. It helped that we're about the same age, both went to Scottish universities and I have much less successfully dabbled in the media world so it felt like a very nostalgic read, despite my far more middle class background.

I think I must be the one user who isn't having problems with the upgrade! I don't love it but hasn't made me want to throw my mobile out the window (yet).

20. Dead To The World and 21. Dead As A Doornail both Charlaine Harris
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I reluctantly admit I am hooked. It's no classic series but I can't put them down.

It doesn't help that I am trawling through some non fiction at the moment which isn't grabbing me. I really need to get better at spending 5 minutes researching a book and looking at reviews before I start it. I seem to have spent a lot of the last couple of years dragging myself through books .

I've got two holidays coming up at the end of May, and I really need to make better selections!

I've just finished Matt haig's the midnight library as an audio book. Dear god it's the most depressing thing I've ever read

I've just finished Matt haig's the midnight library as an audio book. Dear god it's the most depressing thing I've ever read

Oh dear I've just started that on audible. Not sure I'm up for anything depressing at the moment so might switch. Thanks for the warning!

I think ideally, yes; although Signs for Lost Children would probably still make sense on its own, you'd get more out of it reading them that way. They're both very good novels anyway 🙂

Squeezing in at the last minute with my final Women's Prize read before the shortlist is announced tomorrow.

Build Your House around My Body - Violet Kupersmith
This one is really difficult to describe. It covers the past 100 years of Vietnamese culture and history through the eyes of two women who go missing, one in the 80s and the other in 2011 and the two men both of them have interactions with. It's very surreal, with ghosts, body swapping spirits and a lot of general supernatural cultural superstitions thrown in.

This was really compelling, incredibly well drawn characters and a slightly off the wall plot that keeps you hooked in despite all being a bit odd. The writing carries the oddness. It's very evocative of time and place. Generally very well done. But odd, very odd, in a good way.
I feel it could be a very marmite book and I think you have to allow a lot of leeway and just go with it.

Other books I've read not on the list

The Outrun - Amy Liptrot
Memoir with nature writing. A recovering alcoholic returns to her native Orkney to escape her life and failed relationship in London. The change of pace and different environment aid her recovery as she explores what pushed her to alcoholism and what she has to endure to get over it.
I loved this. It was a really interesting exploration of the self, family and environment.

Filled immediately by The Instant by the same author. I hated it. It smacked of cashing in without the goods to back it up. The author now finds herself drifting around Berlin as an aimless arty type looking to 'find herself'. This one was self indulgent navel gazing as a cash cow.

Desperate Undertaking (Flavia Albia #10) - Lindsey Davis
Ancient Rome, private investigators. Old villains from Falco's past pop up and cause mayhem with a series of murders in Rome. With Falco out of the city on holiday it falls to Albia to investigate.

I still miss Falco and while these are good mindless entertainment with a cast of familiar and well loved characters, they do get a bit samey and pedestrian.

Fireworks - Angela Carter
Nine short stories set in Japan. She has a way with words which delights, but ultimately these did nothing for me. It feels like sacrilege to say it. I'm not a fan of short stories and I know better than to read any, no matter the author.

Back shortly with my Women's Prize deliberations and list.

Piranesi is on the Kindle daily deal today.

Women's Prize List according to a cantankerous grump.

These are listed in my order of perceived quality/merit, not necessarily my order of enjoyment. There are some in the list lower down that I enjoyed more, but I feel those above had more to be admired in them. In one case I didn't particularly like the book, but there was something about it that stood out. Obviously all opinions are my own and I have no qualifications to justify my list.

I have changed my mind several times in the last few minutes and reserve the right to change it again. I will have OPINIONS on the official short list tomorrow and expect to be cross about it.

My shortlist

1. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
2. Salt Lick by Lulu Allison
3. Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey
4. The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
5. Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith
6. The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini

The rest in order of preference

1. Flaminygo by Rachel Elliott
2. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
3. The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

10. Careless by Kirsty Capes 11. This One Sky Day by Leone Ross 12. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak 13. Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé 14. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason 15. The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller 16. The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson

What I think the official shortlist will be

1. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
2. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
3. Careless by Kirsty Capes
4. This One Sky Day by Leone Ross
5. The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
6. Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé

Overall, I'd like to see Salt Lick win.
If it makes the official shortlist, I think Careless will win.
I'd give a shout out to the Final Revival of Opal & Nev for being one of the most enjoyable in terms of pure entertainment.

You’re welcome. Sorry my reply posted twice, the app said it hadn’t posted it.

After a cracking start to the year, I'm having a rubbish time with reading. Of the 11 I've finished this year, I really enjoyed them, but recently I haven't been able to settle to anything and keep starting and abandoning books.

Most recently I discovered Ten Years in the Tub, by Nick Hornby - I've never heard of it but it's a compilation of monthly columns he wrote for Believer magazine about books he's bought and books he's read. I was enjoying it for that distinction alone, and happily settling in when I got to this part where he talks about authors on holiday watching people read (and hopefully love) one of their books around the pool:

"I was cured of this particular fantasy a couple of years ago, when I spent a week watching a woman on the other side of the pool reading my first novel, High Fidelity. Unforutnately, however, I was on holiday with my sister and brother-in-law, and my brother-in-law provided a gleeful and frankly unfraternal running commentary. "Look! Her lips are moving." "Ha! She's fallen asleep! Again!" "I talked to her in the bar last night. Not a bright woman, I'm afraid." At one point, alarmingly, she dropped the book and ran off. "She's gone to put out her eyes!" my brother-in-law yelled triumphantly. I was glad when she'd finished it and moved on to Harry Potter or Dr Seuss or whatever else it was she'd packed."

I'm now so irritated by this arseholery that I can't decide whether to carry on reading, give him the benefit of the doubt, or adopt a 'three strikes and you're out' rule. Also the brother-in-law is Robert Harris, whom I previously thought highly of, so now I'm pissed off with him too. 😡

Thanks for posting your Woman's Prize summary Fortuna, it's really helpful to have an assessment, and well done for getting through the long list. Glad you liked Build Your House Around My Body, it really is quite bonkers. I've only managed 2 so far this year, the Vietnamese one and The Bread the Devil Knead, both of which I really enjoyed. I also read and liked Great Circle and Sorrow and Bliss last year. Not sure where they'd sit as haven't read enough of the rest but will be interested to see what is revealed tomorrow.

I do find reading Nick Hornby a bit like a Loaded column from the 90s sometimes @noodlezoodle . Disappointed by Robert Harris too though.

Thanks for that Fortuna. I'm interested in how different your shortlist is compared to the ones you think they'll shortlist. Do you think they're looking for something in particular?

I have a nostalgic fondness for Nick Hornby. I loved Fever Pitch and High Fidelity back in the day.

22. Brown Baby by Nikesh Shukla

I bought this after hearing an extract on Guilty Feminist podcast.

It's a memoir, a book he wrote to his daughter to explain thorny issues they can't discuss yet as she's five. He writes about losing his mum, and seeing the similarities in his child. He talks about gender, race and identity and how to keep joyful in the face of climate emergency and activism.

It's a really interesting read with a lot of food for thought, but the extract I heard was really funny, so I thought it was a comedy 😀the book is humorous, but it's more a wry sense of humour than laugh out loud.

I'm pleased I read it.

Off to find a really good story now. I did download the South Riding book so maybe I will read that.

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I could be very, very wrong with both of my lists, but I wanted to take a punt on what I think they'll choose vs mine. This is based on experience from previous years. I think there is definitely a bit of an agenda every year.

It depends on the judges as well.
I hadn't paid that much attention to the judges this year since they were announced, but I've just spotted that Mary Ann Sieghart is the chair and I like her a lot, she's very "no nonsense". This gives me hope that their list will be less WTF for me than usual.

Her book, The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It is on my list after I went to a talk she did about it. It sounds really interesting and is full of anecdotes that I think we can all relate to from the workplace.

34 Killers of the Flower Moon - David Grann A non-fiction book researched and written by a New Yorker journalist, about the oil-rich Osage Indians in Oklahoma - specifically the many murders and attempted murders of Osage carried out by white men who wanted their money. A really fascinating book covering a part of history I knew nothing about, including the developments in criminal investigation which led to the founding of the FBI. Highly recommended.