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?

I've just realised I've read a twelth as well :
the time inbeteeen :a memoir of hope and hunger' by Nancy tucker

Not sure about this one, I loved her novel 'the last day of spring ' this was autobiographical about her anorexia . I do think it's very hard to write about anorexia without it being enormously triggering and I did feel it could potentially be damaging to a reader with a history of eating disorders . It was quite interesting but very sad and as is the case with anorexia or other mental health illnesses or books about addiction it's pretty bleak and tragically repetitive which makes for a challenging read. I also don't know if I agree that the way her ED was handled by her parents was better than what the health services were suggesting which she was very sure of .

104 Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

Brilliant, but very dark and depressing. Mungo is 15, lives in the Glasgow tenements with an alcoholic mum who is missing often, and is discovering he’s gay. This is told from two timelines; firstly the events of a fishing trip Mungo is sent on, then going back a year or so looking at the events leading up to the trip. I can’t say I enjoyed this, but it is very good. If you liked Shuggie Bain you will like this too.

Pepe, the Japanese actually have a word for it! www.bbc.com/news/world-44981013

I've put the Fox book on my wish list too.

44. General Impressions, E M Delafield
I'm fond of the Provincial Lady, so read this book of short sketches by the same author. The voice is there, but these are very slight pieces - snatches of dialogue, a few domestic scenes, a take-down of stereotypes of then-contemporary literature (published in 1933). Mildly engaging as a period piece, but no match for the Provincial Lady books.

I'm impressed by readers who remain sanguine in the face of tbr piles (more akin to threatening towers in my case). I'm like poor Tantalus, reaching longingly for what I cannot attain.

@Midnightstar76 interesting to read your review of Mrs England and to see that your thoughts are similar to mine! I did wonder if the issue was that I had read it electronically (it’s the first time I have read a novel electronically, I much prefer to have an actual book in my hand) but it seems that it really was just a slightly disappointing book!

Wrote a long post and then did something fat-fingered and lost it. Gaaah!
In brief instead:

Finished Louise Erdrich The Night Watchman and really liked it. Fascinating/shocking real history basis, wonderful, funny, vivid characters and dialogue, some beautiful writing about the surrounds, odd flights off into the mystical/supernatural that were nonetheless totally convincing because the whole thing was so solidly and clearly brought to life.
Have read and heard mixed things about The Sentence and it sounds quite different from this, but I still want to read more of her.
Also finished Foster, which was beautiful. So delicately written and so skilful about lightly showing the undercurrents between people.

Now on Florilegia by Annabel Dover, The Past, Tessa Hadley and Wild Girls, Diana Souhami.

Thanks @stokey I'm enjoying it so far.

Totally agree about Mrs England - decent enough idea, poorly executed especially in the ending.

Thanks for the Richard Holmes review, Terpsichore. I've read a couple of his and loved them so have (inevitably) added This Long Pursuit to my wish list.

12. Blue shoes and Happiness - book number 7 of ladies detective agency. Another lovely trip to Botswana, must admit I enjoy the escapism and happy ending these books have.

New book is Humble Pi which someone recommended on here.

31 Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain

Hard to overstate just how much I enjoyed this, his warts-and-all account of a career in New York's restaurant scene. I'm not much of a foodie (and, even worse, a vegetarian) but was totally won over by his passion for food and the punishing culinary life. Even better, he brilliantly narrated the Audible version so you can hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

So sad that he's no longer with us - I'm definitely going to look up some of his TV shows if I can find them online.

@MegBusset kitchen confidential was one of my highlights of last year. His enthusiasm was infectious. A whole chapter on whether to use German or Japanese knives - loved it (whilst still enjoying my naff rainbow knives in reality).

some of his show No Reservations is on Prime including an episode we rewatched recently where he went to Ukraine which was fascinating.

Morning all, has anyone read Kane and Abel? I noticed it is in the Kindle deals this month and gets promising reviews on Amazon.

@yoshiblue I read Kane and Abel as a teen about 25 years ago. I don't remember enjoying it or understanding much but I slogged through it. My favourite is Not A Penny More Not A Penny Less which helpfully is about a quarter of the pages of most of his others!

24. All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris
**
Distinct lack of sex in this one. Also, I guessed the big bad event about one third into the book and it took everyone else much longer to figure it out!

Now reading a book I feel I should have an opinion on for these threads...

I remember really enjoying Kane and Abel and indeed most Jeffrey Archer books when I read them as a teenager. I feel like it was a bit like a less sexy Jackie Collins or Danielle Steel IIRC. Very much in the airport thriller mide but a page turner. I can't bring myself to read him now but DM really loves his new series.

28. Bitch: a revolutionary guide to sex, evolution and the female animal - Lucy Cooke

Thorough debunking of persistent myths about female animals' allegedly innate passivity, subordination, maternal instincts, and lack of aggression and competitive mate-seeking urges. She also explores (quite sensibly on the whole, goes a bit overboard in the last chapter) how sex is not always a binary in the animal world. In clownfish (Nemo) they all start as male, then after the death of a dominant female some will transform gradually into females, with their brain and behaviour switching over much faster than their gonads. Made me want to read more of the original research, especially Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's work on primates and human evolution.

Remus Beartown revolves around an ice hockey club in a small Swedish town. A week before a big final, a very big thing happens involving two young people who are connected to the club and the whole town takes sides during the massive fall out. Trying not to give spoilers, but does that ring any bells?!
noodlezoodle The plot of Hostage revolves around the first non-stop passenger flight from London to Sydney and I saw on the news this week that Qantas is planning to start these scheduled flights in the next couple of years. Very topical. Hope you enjoy it.

18. The High House by Jessie Greengrass
Followed closely behind The Last Migration, this is another novel in which climate change is central to the plot. From the Waterstones website:

"'Crisis slid from distant threat to imminent probability and we tuned it out like static.'
Francesca is Caro's stepmother, and Pauly's mother. A scientist, she can see what is going to happen.
The high house was once her holiday home; now looked after by locals Grandy and Sally, she has turned it into an ark, for when the time comes. The mill powers the generator; the orchard is carefully pruned; the greenhouse has all its glass intact. Almost a family, but not quite, they plant, store seed, and watch the weather carefully.
A stunning novel of the extraordinary and the everyday, The High House explores how we get used to change that once seemed unthinkable, how we place the needs of our families against the needs of others - and it asks us who, if we had to, we would save."

This doesn't have a gripping plot but I was always interested in where it was going. The author lives in my part of the world and I enjoyed thinking about how this area might have inspired elements of this novel! I listened on audio - I believe it has a bit of an unconventional structure on the page. Grandy (Sally's grandfather) was my favourite character, bringing bittersweet memories of my own grandparents and my relationships with them and all the wisdom they had. I think this novel will stay with me - the way that life is portrayed, both life now and in the future, really made me think and seemed realistic and believable and frightening.

25 South Riding by Winifred Holtby

I can add very little to @PepeLePew 's excellent review upthread. A big sweeping epic which doesn't neglect the details. Holtby uses the minutiae of local government to explore the characters' personalities and motivations, so it was a very timely read with the local elections coming up tomorrow. And the scene towards the end between the headmistress, Sarah Burton and Alderman Mrs Beddows is for my money one of the great set-pieces between two women in any piece of literature anywhere (wouldn't pass the Bechdel test, but there we are). Two fantastic characters whose relationship ebbs and flows throughout the book, but as far as I'm concerned, ends up in the right place. Definitely recommended. And an excellent way to reach my quarter-century for this year!

I've not read this. In what way would it not pass the Bechdel test? Is it a conversation about men? (sorry if you can't say without spoilers. I will read it at some point...)

@DameHelena yes, exactly that! But about themselves too, which is why it is good.

Right, I must read it!
I liked the TV adaptation a lot.

Thanks @CluelessMama It rings no bells at all! I'm wondering if DP might have read it, rather than me, and therefore it's marked as read as we share an Amazon account?!

Despite my 80 odd books in my real TBR shelves (plus additional 100 odd in my wish list) I spent lunchtime reading the free Kindle sample of South Riding and want to go and buy it now. Damn you all.

Jeffrey archer's Kane and Abel. I loved it back in the day but I wonder how well it has aged,

I also enjoyed Kane and Abel when I read it as a teenager, but my favourite of Archer's doorstops was First Among Equals. Don't laugh, but it formed a significant part of my early political education! I must re-read it.