50 Books Challenge 2022 Part Five

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth 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, the third one here and the fourth one here.

What are you reading?

Lots of us on this thread have enjoyed Miss Pettigrew. I also listened to it fairly recently and agree that the narrator’s American accent is really jarring. I’m sure they could have found someone with an English accent to narrate a book so clearly set in London. Still a fab book though - I just won’t listen to it again!

Oh wow I've completely fallen off this thread due to moving house and returning to work after maternity leave all at the same time!

Interesting discussion on past Booker winners. I've read 28, for a while in the mid-00s I made a point of reading the winner every year but I think it was a bit of a weak period so I didn't keep that up. My favourites, not very originally, are Alias Grace, Girl Woman Other, the Mantels, Line of Beauty and the Luminaries.

I haven't picked up a book in a couple of weeks now, due to aforementioned life changes, but these are the last things I read:

36. Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. I haven't read Shuggie Bain but I know this covers very similar ground. Beautiful writing and an incredibly evocative sense of place in how he talks about Glasgow in the 80s/90s. The central romance between the two boys is particularly well captured. Be prepared for some very distressing violence though.

37. The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones. Sort of a ghost story as written by Nancy Mitford. A wealthy family are gathered to start celebrating their eldest daughter's birthday when a group of people arrive at the door claiming to be survivors of a train wreck and seeking help. But all is not as it seems. This was fine, enjoyable but not memorable.

38. Companion Piece by Ali Smith. I loved the Seasons quartet but to be honest this felt like Ali Smith by numbers! Two stories intertwined, an artist caring for her father during the pandemic and reconnecting with an old university acquaintance, and a medieval teenage locksmith. All the witty wordplay and political satire you'd expect, but this is really just for the Ali Smith superfans.

I forgot one!

39. The Trio by Joanna Hedman. A recent Swedish novel, 3 young people form an intense relationship over a series of summers in Stockholm, with ramifications later in their lives. I went on holiday to Stockholm this year so really enjoyed the setting. I liked this, kind of Sally Rooneyish in that there was a lot of students sitting in cafes talking about class and sex. There were times when I couldn't quite follow the characters' motivations, but I really liked it overall.

24 Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

• *Klara is an AI companion in a futuristic dystopia where genetically-enhanced teenagers live isolated existences learning from online tutors and enduring occasional organised socialisation exercises with other teens. Klara's owner, Josie, medically damaged by the enhancement process is aware of the possibility of her imminent death, but not the plans her mother has in place for that eventuality. Klara, being solar-powered herself, launches her own mission to save Josie's life, guided by her misplaced assumptions regarding the nature of the sun.

It's an interesting premise, and I quite enjoyed reading it but it's never going to be a favourite for me.

Hope things are going well with your return to work and move GrannieMainland. I was interested to see your review of Companion Piece - I was enthused by the Seasons Quartet and have How to be Both on the tbr pile on the strength of it, but CP reminded me of why I’d struggled with a couple of her early books and I’ve hesitated to start HtbB.

I can’t remember who recommended it from this thread, but I noted it down and was able to find on BorrowBox, Pandora’s Jar: Women In Greek Myth - Natalie Haynes

I really enjoyed this, very interesting and I love the mix of cultural references from current pop culture to more scholarly stuff.

I’m (slowly) listening to Troy on Audible too after having previously enjoyed Mythos and Heroes. Loved the Madeleine Miller books a few years back and Atwood’s The Penelopiad too.

Both the Stephen Fry and the Haynes book above take the view that we all grew up with picture book versions of these stories, or watching Jason and the Argonauts every bank holiday on tv or whatever, but honestly I really didn’t. I’m really fascinated by them now though, the stories themselves and now they’ve influenced/ shaped later stories and culture. I see Haynes has written any number of other books which I will look out for, but any other recommendations for good reads in this area - fiction or non-fiction, gratefully received!

1. The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza

On a stormy night, a man lets two women in to his home, one is a former lover, and the other a writer in need of shelter. The protagonist then spirals into a crisis of paranoia and disassociation in his oddly constrained world.

I don't know what to make of this, I heard it reviewed so warmly but it was a bit lost on me.

For one, the author takes another writer who was living at the time and makes her fictional, so its all very meta in that way, it's also really short.

I am very torn with this on whether it is "a brilliant study on sex/gender and the suppression of womens voices" or "total Emperors New Clothes, pseudo-intellectual garbage"

I veer towards the latter, but given the year I've had, I'd love someone else on here to read it and either affirm or challenge my view

65. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
    In 1952 a little girl is left to grow up in the marsh alone. In 1969 a young man from the nearby town is found dead in the marsh. The story is told in two timelines that eventually come together. I really liked the marsh setting but feel a bit lukewarm towards the characters.

66. The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly
    In 1997 student Karen meets glamorous aspiring actress Biba. Ten years later the consequences of the summer she spent with Biba, her brother and their friends still echo.
    Not exactly a psychological thriller (not thrilling enough) but it's well written and absorbing, though I have mixed feelings about the denouement.

@AliasGrape I have just started The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes so will report back. I have previously read A Thousand Ships by her which was interesting as the female perspective on Troy/Achilles as it’s normally the male viewpoint which is portrayed.

@TimeforaGandT both of those are on BorrowBox too! Be interested to hear how you get on with The Children of Jocasta, I shall place a reserve - just had 3 of my reserves come up at once so might leave it a bit until I’ve made some headway with those.

It was me that spoke about Pandora's Jar recently. I also really liked The Children of Jocasta, but hated A Thousand Ships.

A bit of a tip for Borrowbox if all of your reserves come through at once. If you move the downloaded file on your phone to a different folder then it doesn't expire/auto delete on return so you can listen at your leisure and delete when you are done. It's cheeky, but sometimes needs must.

If you download the book from the Borrowbox website (usually borrowbox.com/yourlibraryname) then it goes into your download folder.

If you use the app on Android then the file can be found in android>data>com.bolinda.borrowboxlibrary>files>audiobooks or ebooks

You can get to all of these using a File manager app of you don't already have one.

You can then use an alternative app to listen to your books. Pocketbook is free, but if you can spare the £2 Smart AudioBook Player is well worth the money. It gives you complete control on speed (I like x1.65). It also factors the speed change into the time left counter.

@AliasGrape Both library ebook/eaudio books apps that I've been using also have wishlists and history features so you can save books to those and go back to them when you've read a couple of titles and are thinking, what was that I wanted and that I can't remember? Also a useful reminder of it being in that collection.

@AliasGrape the Pat Barker Trojan books are worth reading too, although not as much about the women as they claim to be.

@Cornishblues CP felt very much like a cross between the Seasons books and HTBB. If you were a bit bemused when the teenage locksmith turned up (like I was) then you might not love HTBB either.

Thanks for the Greek/ Trojan recs everyone.

And for the borrowbox tips too - currently have 5 all available at once (that were meant to be spread through the next few months) so probably going to have to return and re-reserve some later, but will look into the wish list option @elkiedee or the file manager @FortunaMajor - and thank you again for the Natalie Haynes recommendation!

That’s good to know GrannieMainland thank you.

For those who enjoy Natalie Haynes, she does a podcast (stands up for the classics) which a friend who is a fan of hers really enjoys.

Will look out for Pat Barker too thanks Grannie.
Podcast sounds interesting too Cornish - I was looking for another podcast to get into.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. Translated by Jamie Chang

I whizzed through this short novella about an everywoman who has a breakdown after giving birth to her daughter. The spartan narrative is interspersed with references to documents that list the sexual inequalities of South Korean society. This international best seller is short and rage inducing as it describes experiences we have all had.

Way way way behind: have started A Job so suddenly have much less free time. Almost certainly not going to make it to fifty . Is it too late to thank south for the thread?

15 The Madman's Library by Edward Brooke-Hitching
Subtitled "the strangest books, manuscripts and other literary curiosities from history" and obviously written by a total bibliophile. Was not at all surprised to discover that EBH writes for QI. Wide-ranging and beautifully illustrated, one to keep on the shelf. Left with a desire to follow several different strands and to read his earlier works.

I have just caught up on the rest of you and got round to reading Piranesi . What a funny little confection. I liked it on the whole, and certainly fell for the narrative voice. I think I saw what was coming almost from the off.

I suspect it's all very deep philosophy. The power of the imagination versus rational thought, or something? But I was left a little ' is that it?'. Guess I knew I would not get any real explanation though!

34 No One is Talking About This - Patricia Lockwood
I have read this is in a day (on my phone on the borrow box app, in between scrolling and looking up some of the references I didn’t get which all felt very meta) and I don’t quite know what I think about it. Part of me thinks it was completely brilliant but part of me really quite disliked it. Going to have a search to see if I can find some previous reviews and see if anyone more eloquent than me can help me make sense of what I feel about it.

@AliasGrape

I read it last year, and said something like 'I could see what it was trying to do, but didn't think it achieved it"

I agree with you both. I thought it it was two very separate ideas mashed together in a way that didn't translate to one coherent novel. I loved some parts but overall it didn't work.

Yes I agree with both of you,

At times I thought it was really clever and saying something insightful about internet culture and lives lived online, other times it felt a bit smoke and mirrors. I found her quite unconvincing as someone who ‘all she was was funny’ and I didn’t find the book funny at all really. I was unconvinced by the parallels she seemed to be trying to draw with her niece’s story and condition, and felt like the format made it harder for me to fully engage with that story properly.

Still glad I read it though.

fell off the threads a couple back but tried to keep up reading when I can. Can’t remember where I was up to on lists I posted so going from about here….

12. Everything I never told you. Celeste Ng
    this was ok. Tells the story of a family in which a girl has died of possible suicide. It jumps from the POV of each family member in the present dealing with the death and the past leading up to the death.

13. Jews Don’t Count. David Baddiel

14. Rosemary’s Baby. Ira Levin
    Enjoyed this. May have read it years ago but couldn’t remember it.

15. The Boy at the Back of the Class. Onjali Q. Raúf
    Enjoyed this

16. Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Jeff Lindsay
    Meh, it was ok.

17. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. L. Frank Baum

18. Sweet Virginia. Caroline Kepnes

19. Meg 2. Trench. Steve Alten.
    Not as good as the first.

20. The Duke and I. Julia Quinn

21. The Viscount who loved me. Julia Quinn

22. An Offer from a Gentleman. Julia Quinn

23. In Sheep’s Clothing. Understanding and dealing with manipulative people. George a Simon Jr.
    Interesting read about different types of covert aggressive manipulative people and read out of interest to help me understand certain people in my life and how to react to them or at least not let myself be manipulated into thinking I’m the guilty party. Not life changing but interesting.

24. The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes. Suzanne Collins
    Set 64 years before the ‘Hunger Games’ trilogy, this is the story of the young Snow and explaining perhaps how he became so ruthless. He was likeable in parts but not so on others.

36. Walking The America's By Levinson Wood

Agree with Remus review that if you like adventure travel you'll like this.

Good bit of history of where he's walking, enough danger to put me off wanting to do similar. Still wondering what my own adventure will be. Probably something shorter and with less giant spiders, crocodiles, snakes and definitely less risk of trench foot.
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