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 loved A Very English Scandal
The TV version with Hugh Grant was great too.

O’ Caledonia, Elspeth Barker

Set just after the Second World War the blurb situates this as a Scottish I Capture the Castle. There were some very witty bits in this, about Janet, who we are told in the opening pages is dead in her mother’s lace dress at the bottom of the stairs, about her childhood and adolescence as the black sheep in her family. Some of it is very funny and clever, but overall I don’t think I will remember much this time next week, which is a similar way that I feel about I Capture the Castle.

96 This Other London: Adventures In The Overlooked City by John Rogers

The author does a series of walks around lesser known parts of London. I liked this.

97 The Long Darkness by Timothy Egan

Recommended upthread but I can’t remember who by, sorry! Another non fiction, this is about those living in the Dust Bowl area of America in the 1930s. This was fascinating as I had no idea about how bad the dust storms could really be. It all sounds utterly miserable. Definitely recommended for anyone interested in that period of history.

@bibliomania I'd recommend The Spy and the Traitor, read it a couple of years ago and I have had Operation Mincemeat on my shelf for some months now.

Never seen The Man Who Never Was but fun fact: apparently Peter Sellers played the voice of Churchill.

I finally finished To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara. I don't know if anyone had reviewed this yet on here. I know A Little Life was pretty divisive but while I'm not normally a misery memoir fan, I found it pretty unputdownable. Not so this which is another massive tome, this woman needs serious* *editing! It dragged for me and I actually stopped 40% of the way through as didn't want to spoil my holiday by reading something that I was bored by. I read 3 other books in between and then went back to this. The book is split into 3 parts, set in alternate universes in 1893, 1993 and 2093. Each part has some connection to a house in Washington Square and characters with the same names - Charles Griffiths, David Bingham and Edward Bishop, as well as some minor characters. I guess there are recurring motifs but also you could read each as a stand alone without missing much. The earliest one in 1893 is the most conventional, although in this 1893 gay marriage is the norm, and the main character, shallow wealthy David Bingam is in love with a penniless teacher but being wooed by a rich older man. I didn't mind this one, some of the language jarred and it ends very abruptly - and you never discover what happened. The second book was the one that really dragged. This time David Bingham is a young Hawaian lawyer the lover to an older rich Charles Griffiths in a slightly uncomfortable relationship. Most of this second book is written by his father, another David Bingham, in Hawaii where he and his friend Edward are trying to re-establish a Hawaian utopia of sorts. This was the one that dragged most for me. The 3 part is by far the longest, and is set in a future dystopia where pandemics are the norm and a fascist state has banned pretty much all freedoms - literature, TV, Internet and travel. This is narrated by a young woman and interspersed with letters from her scientist Grandfather charting the gradual erosion of freedoms. Its all just really long winded. Each point in this last bit is driven home again and again, and the letters don't read like letters at all.

I can't really say I'm glad I read this, I found it a real chore to get through and am not convinced there was a good book hiding within the depths of waffle. Apologies for the long review but it's hard to condense.

22. How To Walk Away - Katherine Center

After a plane crash the protagonist's life changes forever but she finds a purpose and love in her new life. Could spot the romance coming from the start. An easy read.

@StColumbofNavron

Thanks for the O Caledonia review. I'd never heard of Elspeth Barker but am going to read this purely on the basis of it being like 'I Capture The Castle', which I loved.

Weirdly (because often details from books don't stick) I can remember a lot of odd details about 'Capture' and of the narrator living in the rundown old place, dying cloth green for new dresses, getting Bluebell perfume and that beautiful description of Midsummer Eve. I tried to get DD (16) to read it but absolutely not her thing.

Currently reading Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. I've read the first part, where Mungo is on some dystopian trip to the country with two choice characters. If you liked Shuggie Bain (I did) you'll like this.
Stuart has a knack of getting you to care about characters quickly.

@Stokey i felt similar about A Little Life but your review has completely put me off this one. Not enough time!

The Fell This is my second Sarah Moss and I enjoyed it even more than Summerwater, I think. Like in Summerwater, you enter into the thoughts of the characters, but here, there are only 4 and you revisit them, which I liked. Also the whole book is perhaps more cohesive as it involves a situation in which all 4 are involved. A woman, who should be self-isolating in the pingdemic, can take it no longer and goes for a walk in the Fells, but falls and injures herself. Her teenage son waits at home. Their neighbour, a clinically vulnerable woman living alone, has struggled with the isolation and the enforced dependency. A mountain rescue volunteer gets a call - and is perhaps the least judgemental, as he can empathise with not being able to cope with staying home.

I'd wondered if it would feel too soon for a pandemic novel, but I didn't find it so at all - I just found it so relatable and interesting, delving into different experiences and attitudes.

I'm really glad to have discovered Sarah Moss as I've loved both this and Summerwater. I just love the way she captures the characters' trains of thought and through that the characters and their relationships and histories. Will go back for more, any recommendations as to where to go next?

@Cornishblues
Have you tried Ali Smith?
I find her similar (current, relationships etc)
She has a new one out - Companion Pieces.

Thanks Gingerwarthog, and spot on - I liked Ali Smith’s Seasons quartet so much I have actually bought Companion Piece so it’s my next read!

@Cornishblues
Ha ha!
I loved her 'How to be both' too - it's my favourite- but you've probably read it!

Thanks Ginger, I haven’t, will make it my next of hers after Companion Piece.

34 Cogs and Monsters What Economics is, and what it should be, by Diane Coyle
Coyle is a public policy economist, and sets out here to both dispel some illusions / what she considers to be unfounded criticisms of current economics, and then to address the areas in which she believes the discipline is failing to address the problems of the contemporary world.
Although it's billed as for economists and non-economists alike, you probably do need at the least a reasonably informed interest in the subject. (I'd recommend 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism as an easier reading / less technical alternative built on the same basic premises that (a) economics really cannot be divorced from politics, and anyone who tells you it can is lying, and (b) it's vitally important not to ignore economic history.)
Otherwise, this is a really interesting book that covers a lot of ground in a relatively short text - to the extent that I regretted having it on audio rather than Kindle as I really wanted to be able to highlight / return to sections. Inevitably I disagreed with some parts, but all of it was interesting. My only slight criticism is that different sections are clearly based on various lectures / articles the author has written, and as a result it did feel that there was a certain lack of joining the dots between those sections.

I thought it was a particular shame that she identifies the very non-diverse nature of the profession (middle class / white / male as well as less pro-social, more individualistic etc) and the problems that flow from it (given that economists have a strong influence on public policy), but then doesn't at any point return to this or explore how it could be addressed. But that's a minor point given how much is included in the book. The sections I thought were particularly interesting were around the nature of the digital economy, and the ways in which economics needs to change to deal with those.

Thanks Sadik I’ve ordered 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism.

Cornishblues I love Sarah Moss. My favourites are Night Waking and Bodies of Light. In terms of other, similar authors, I would suggest Ann Patchett?

Just bought Cogs and Monsters - thanks Sadik!

27. Put a Wet Paper Towel On It - Lee Parkinson and Adam Parkinson

I'm not a teacher and I haven't listened to their podcast, but I found this audiobook on 'the weird and wonderful world of primary schools' very amusing and just what I needed to lift my mood without much mental effort.

My favourite bit was Adam's boyhood ditty about his headmaster:
^Mr Tyrell is a squirrel
And he's got no nuts.^
(Apparently I have the sense of humour of a ten-year-old boy.)

33: The Facts of Life - Patrick Gale

I read this so you don’t have to. Apparently Patrick Gale was persuaded by Carmen Callil that he needed to write an epic family saga, and this was the result. Unfortunately it ended up being a 547 page slog with DNF an ever-increasing possibility.

Aspiring composer Edward Pepper, né Eli Pfefferberg, meets doctor Sally Banks as he recuperates from TB just after the war. He escaped the Holocaust because his parents sent him to school in England just as things went bad, but (almost) his entire family has perished. Edward and Sally marry, settle down together in an extraordinary round house left to her by her mentor, famed sexologist Dr Alice Pertwee (a sort of latter-day Marie Stopes) and produce baby Miriam. The narrative then comes to a sudden halt with a massive clunk as Gale kills off one of his main characters, and resumes with a new storyline set some 40 years later, based around Edward and Sally's grandchildren, dutiful Alison and pleasure-seeking Jamie, both of whom become emotionally and sexually involved with the mysterious Sam.

Gale seems to love this character but he's a complete cipher - a devastatingly handsome yet inarticulate builder, ex-con and muscular sex god everyone falls in love with, who insists he’s not gay but allows Jamie to woo him (there's a lot of very graphic sex in this book, of all varieties) before finally settling down in blissful coupledom. No happy endings, though, as Jamie succumbs horribly to AIDS while Alison, heroically determined not to reveal that Sam is the father of the baby she’s carrying, conceived after a single encounter with the irresistible sex-god ('he just took over. I didn’t have any will any more'), throws herself selflessly into the AIDS helpline she co-runs. But then, Alison isn’t allowed any real backstory or role other than as supporting character to her more interesting/glamorous/tragic brother.

Halfway through I very nearly binned the whole thing, but I'm always reluctant to give up unless something's utterly dire, and this wasn’t badly written, just increasingly unbelievable and, I'm afraid, shot through with the sort of important solemnity that just makes you want to snort with laughter. Plus, the pedant in me couldn’t work out how Edward's daughter, Miriam, could have been born in - I assume - say, 1950-ish (all the dates are very vague) but have children of 27 and 25 by the beginning of the 90s.

Let's just say there are better family sagas out there.

Reporting another DNF. The Last Widow by Karin Slaughter Honestly don’t know why but I am not choosing the right books that are grabbing me at the moment. I got 20 odd pages in on this one and thought naaah . Then read some reviews of the bad reviews for this book on goodreads and that decided it for me. Just not my kind of book. Any how DM visited and dropped off Mrs England by Stacey Halls so going to start on this today. I enjoyed The Familiars but not her second book The Foundling so will see.

I hope you enjoy them Best and Tarahumana :)

Can't get to grips with this new format and can't find my most recent post = no idea when I last updated! So full list and I've guessed I got to book 12 in my last post:

1. Songbirds by Christy Lefteri
2. The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
3. Come Hell or High Water by JD Kirk
4. Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzu
5. Spinning Plates by Sophie Ellis Bextor
6. Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
7. We Don't Know Ourselves by Fintan O'Toole
8. The Visit by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
9. Hungry by Grace Dent
10. Three Sisters by Heather Morris
11. 1979 by Val McDermid
12. The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
13. Putting the Rabbit in the Hat by Brian Cox An engaging and entertaining read. He's had an interesting life with some great stories.
14. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes - not really for me. Got it because of the rave reviews and just didn't find it a good story nor particularly well told
15. Who do I think I am by Mark Steel - okay. Passed the time. Think this was an audiobook
16. Things I didn't want to know by Deborah Levy - again rave reviews and don't regret reading it but was looking forward to my next read.
17. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason - this was a good read. Challenging topic about mental health issues - with good insight into the difficulties in living with someone with mental health issues. Absorbing writing.
18. *The Fell by Sarah Moss - One of these books that just holds your attention. Takes you right back to the first lockdown when life was so restricted. So well written - I could feel that I was right there.
19. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka - Okish read.
20. Plainsong by Kent Haruf - Got a Mr B's Emporium subscription for Christmas and this was the April book. Thoroughly enjoyable. Good story, great characters.
21. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead* Book of the year so far! Completely captured me and really didn't want it to end.

Currently reading Sally Magnusson's The Sealwomen's Gift.

35 Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins
Eight year old Felicity, daughter of the Master of an Oxford college, has vanished, & police are interviewing her nanny, Dee. Late to the party on this one, but I enjoyed it overall (& read it in a day) though the ending was a bit of a damp squib.

Or a discord books server.

Thanks for all the Operation Mincemeat comments. I'm clearly not the only fan - for anyone who doesn't read much non-fiction but wants to dip a toe in the waters, this might be a good one to try. I finished it over the weekend.

42. Kill My Darling, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
I dip in and out of this crime fiction series - competent police procedurals. I read crime fiction as a palate cleanser between more substantial non-fiction, and this fitted the bill. It doesn't take itself too seriously. I ordered another four of the series from the library. Just when I was making inroads into my existing tbr too.