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?

Nooooooooooo!

Deepest sympathies @Remus

Sorry Remus. Killed mine last year by dropping it in a bowl of water.

Oh no, Remus, that’s traumatic. All my sympathies. I would be bereft without mine. I do read real books but the vast majority of my reading is on my Kindle.

Remus 💐 🕯

25. Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
Many thanks @Sadik for spotting that this was on the deals- feels almost illegal to have read this for 99p. What a towering piece of work. I enjoyed the first part, the story of the original Sackler brothers and their years as teenagers and young adults, and Arthur Sackler's 'pioneering' work in creating entire new markets for pharmaceuticals we never knew we needed, and in owning both the manufacturers, the media and suborning the FDA. But as you might expect, it really takes off when the story of OxyContin and the US opioid crisis kicks in. I do love the solid research and writing that the still-huge American journalism/publishing market can fund, or at least does fund - the British equivalents these days are thin and rushed.

26. Sue Barton: Neighbourhood Nurse by Helen Dore Boylston
27. Carol on Tour by Helen Dore Boylston
Sorting out my attic and ended up stopping to read these again. I loved everything HDB wrote as a young teen. Sue Barton threw an interesting light this time round having read Empire of Pain - this book was written in the 40s when doctors could do no wrong and it made me think about the Sacklers' desire for the status of medicine. It's also a bit shocking now to read the confident sexism of these books. HDB herself had a far from conventional life but publishing for young people has always been subject to heavy constraints so I'm not sure whether she believed any of it. They have great charm for me still.

Thank you for the kind wishes. I fell asleep when reading in the bath and drowned it. 😢

I'm so sorry 😞

I'd be devastated too.

Thank you for the kind wishes. I fell asleep when reading in the bath and drowned it.
I'm sure it died doing what it loved, being read by Remus in the bath. RIP Remus' Kindle.

Oh Remus - I read my kindle in the bath too and have nightmares about doing that!

Seriously though Remus, the Paperwhite is waterproof now so if you get a recent model you should be okay from here on. I love reading in the bath and I used to worry so much about dropping my old Kindle in the water.

Sympathy, Remus. One year at the start of a holiday I asked DD to bring me my kindle. She picked it up from the sun lounger and threw it to me across the pool. It did not make it. I had to borrow books from other people. Worst holiday ever.

🕯Your Kindle is with the angles now, hun.

38 Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
Nothing to add to your excellent review Permanent - except that if anyone would like to follow up with another piece of impressive and serious journalism featuring a secretive family of billionaires, can I recommend Dark Money by Jane Meyer, largely featuring the Koch brothers.

Thoughts and prayers, Remus; thoughts and prayers….

Permanent, I loved the Sue Barton books back in my youth! Thanks to her I will never forget that newsprint is sterile and a sheet of newspaper spread over a table is a handy way to ensure your surgical instruments remain clean actually I just googled this and apparently it’s not necessarily quite true, but I believed it at the time because Sue was very convincing

29. Permission to Feel - Marc Brackett

Insightful guide to emotional intelligence, relevant particularly to parenting and education. Explains why taking a moment, checking in and labelling your emotions works - it snaps you out of the heat of the moment and gives you a chance to reflect and engage your higher cognitive faculties. Not a pageturner but useful content if you've realised managing your child's behaviour starts with regulating your own emotions.

30. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Brilliant but grim, is probably sufficient. Kind of want to revisit to see how Nabokov achieved the emotional punch of that final meeting between Humbert and Dolores. But probably not for some time.

38 The Pursuit of Happiness - Douglas Kennedy I really enjoyed this big chunk of a book, which tells the story of a young woman in 1940s and 1950s New York. It’s broadly a romance but it’s got great characterisation and period detail - I thought the storyline relating to McCarthyism was particularly interesting as I didn’t know much about that part of history.

Oh no Remus thoughts are with you. I also experienced a Kindle loss on holiday but dropping it on a stone floor, very traumatic.

27. The Twyford Code

Whoops posted too soon.
27. The Twyford Code - Janice Hallett. I thoroughly enjoyed this. It's written as a series of recorded transcripts as Steve, a newly released ex con, explores what happened to his teacher when he was on a school trip. Twyford is an author - Edith Twyford based on Enid Blyton - who's books have fallen out of favour as they're racist and misogynistic. But is there a hidden code in her work? Lots of fun and what I needed after the intensity of Rohinton Mistry.

Remus sorry to hear about the Kindle but at least you didn't drown whilst asleep in the bath! 😂

A guess the positive is you get a nice shiny new Kindle - the new Paperwhite is fab!

31. Putting the Rabbit in the Hat - Brian Cox

Brian Cox seems to have worked with most of the important actors of the last fifty years, and makes sure you know all their names in this autobiography. Great fun if you like thespian lore and gossip, and Cox is very liberal with his opinions (doesn't rate Ian McKellan's acting, but Brad Pitt puts the work in), while not shying away from his own faults and being refreshingly open about following the money. He was offered the part of Robert Baratheon in GoT, but he'd have been killed off in the first season and they weren't going to pay him enough!

A moment of silence for Remus' departed kindle.

Permanent, I also loved Sue Barton, especially the Student Nurse book. Those books and the Lucilla Andrews books made me consider nursing, although I don't think it would have played to my strengths. I did law because of the Rumpole books instead. (I was an easily-influenced teenager).

I'm ruthlessly cutting down my tbr pile by taking five unread books back to the library. They're not engaging me right now, and I can always give them another whirl in future. I want to pick up books because they appeal, not because I'm grimly bound to work through them.

If it’s any consolation Remus, the new one is waterproof. I suspect many Kindles have met a watery end.

I'm doing VERY BADLY this year on the reading front, latest reads are:

Billy Summers by Stephen King A little overlong but an enjoyable crime thriller.

I Know This Much Is True by Miriam Margolyes on Audible. Potty mouthed actress recounts her life. Good fun, lots of 'sucking off' involved! Not very PC as you would expect, I didn't agree with all her views but I did enjoy her company.

And Away by Bob Mortimer Another enjoyable memoir, Bob M is very endearing and seems to have a very grounded view of himself and the luck involved in his fame & fortune. It's difficult to believe but he considers one of his defining characteristics to be shyness, a personality trait he's had to work hard to overcome.

Like AliasGrape I'm also reading, and enjoying, Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrell. It is a brick of a book and it's taking me an age to get through, but I am enjoying it. The author is brilliant at building her alternative history, it's quite an immersive experience when I can put aside a decent amount of reading time.

10) Wish your were here - Jodi Picoult

I love Jodi Picoult books so was really looking forward to this. I did enjoy it but not as good as some of her other books. Generally a good read.

Thank you for the kind wishes, and deep sympathy to those who have experience similar losses. My Kindle is not yet, "With the angles, hun" because I haven't yet buried/chucked it. Perhaps I should have a cremation?

Thanks for the Paperwhite recs.