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?

I read 37. Again, Rachel - Marian Keyes in a couple of days. I enjoyed spending time with Rachel and the other characters again, and am still a huge Keyes fan even though I do always find it a bit grating the way absolutely everyone is gorgeous and clad in designer gear.

Ive also finished listening to 38 Troy by Stephen Fry on audible. I’ve enjoyed his three books on the Greek myths very much, and they’ve sparked an interest in reading more about the subject over the past few years. I have mixed feelings about Fry these days, but these books are accessible and entertaining and they work well in audiobook format.

For the past couple of days I’ve been trying to get into A Gentleman in Moscow which has been so well reviewed and I was sure I’d love it too, but for some reason I just haven’t been able to get going with it. It’s maybe just that I’m not feeling 100% and maybe I was a bit too much still in Rachel
world after finishing the Keyes book and not quite ready to start something new.

My condolences @Piggywaspushed do you need help coming to terms with it ? 😉

I'm enjoying a book and am feeling less unwell tonight.

I have self medicated by buying 6 new books...

Glad you are feeling a bit better.

@MaryasBible I'm reading them in the chronological order but I started reading the series many years ago before a lot of the books were written, so now it's an odd mixture of re-reads and new and slotting new books in between ones I'd previously read. I do like the chronological order though

Good news that you’re feeling perkier, bett.

62: The Library Book - Susan Orlean

I loved this. In 1986 the Los Angeles Central Library - built in 1926 - suffered a horrific fire that destroyed 400,000 books, at a cost of $14m, and severely damaged 700,000 more. Priceless collections of unique historical artefacts were lost forever. Suspicion fell on a charming but flaky compulsive liar and aspiring actor called Harry Peak, who was arrested but never convicted. Eventually, after many years and huge fund-raising efforts, not to mention heroic book conservation (the water-logged surviving books had to be frozen) the library re-opened.

Orlean tells this fascinating story but also acts as a reporter, spending time in the present-day library and talking to and about people who just love books, including a security guard who's doing his own personal 100-book challenge. She also investigates the past history of the library and the (very) colourful characters who ran it. She even experiments with burning a book herself - Fahrenheit 451 , inevitably - to see how fast it combusts (answer: scarily quickly).

I seem to recall this book being discussed on here when it came out, and a few people being keen to buy it - it’s definitely right up the street of anyone who loves books and reading, and very engagingly written. One of those books I just wanted to keep reading.

That sounds really interesting @Terpsichore ! I’ve requested it on BorrowBox
(I’m a slave to my BorrowBox reservations at the moment, wondering when I’ll get chance to read anything I actually own!)

Hello everyone! My holiday reads (and happily, they were all good):

43. Summerwater – Sarah Moss

My first Sarah Moss. Someone on here said that this book made them sure they would want to read everything she had ever written, and I feel the same. I think many of you have already read it – it’s a clever, looping stream of consciousness-ish novel, telling the story of a single day amongst a group of rain-drenched Scottish chalets. There are (I think) 12 accounts; the second six from a family member/partner of one of the first six. Moss is utterly convincing in getting inside the heads of each of her protagonists, and the final denouement is sudden and shocking. Really good.

44. Offshore – Penelope Fitzgerald

This was Fitzgerald’s Booker prizewinner, set amongst a disparate community living on boats moored at Battersea Reach. I really liked the setting and the descriptions of it; I was less engaged by the characters by those in the two other Fitzgerald novels I’ve read (The Bookshop and The Beginning of Spring). I also found the ending abrupt and a bit unsatisfactory. So good, but not as good as the other two (read The Beginning of Spring. It’s brilliant).

45. Old Filth – Jane Gardam
46. The Man in the Wooden Hat – Jane Gardam
47. Last Friends – Jane Gardam

Speaking of brilliant…I have been meaning to read Old Filth for years, and it finally came up in the Kindle Deals for 99p which I took as a sign. I think it’s still 99p and if you haven’t bought and read it already, please, please do. For my money a pretty much perfect novel, telling the story of the titular barrister (Filth stands for Failed in London, try Hong Kong – his real name is Edward Feathers). His contemporaries and juniors think Filth has lived an uneventful, fortunate life, but in a series of flashbacks alternated with present-day chapters, we learn about his tragic childhood in the Raj, his rescue by an eccentric schoolmaster, his work and rivalry with another construction barrister, Terence Veneering, and most of all, his long marriage to his wife Betty. Gardam’s writing is luminous; she has a gift for conjuring not just pictures but feelings (including genuine sadness) and I gulped the whole novel up in no time at all.

The two "sequels" (really companion volumes as they cover the same time period), which I bought straight after reading the first at nearly full price, tell (loosely) the stories, respectively, of Betty and Veneering, but also of several of the supporting characters. They’re not as good, but I was so happy to be able to read more about all the wonderful characters that they still get bolds. And there are enough twists and turns to keep the interest rattling along, together with that gorgeous, gorgeous writing.

A real holiday treat.

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It was my birthday last week and a kind friend bought me six months' membership of the Shelter book club, so I'm looking forward to seeing what that will bring. It is a proper indulgence as I do still have 399 unread books on my Kindle (no, that's not a typo. Although some of them are my husband's). The shame.

@Welshwabbit Filth sounds right up my street, I'm ordering it now. I'm not quite as bad as you but do have over 100 unread books on my Kindle. Some of them I am resigned to never reading, and a few are DD's YA ones. One of these days I will have a clear. Am very jealous of @Piggywaspushed but just don't have the discipline. @Boiledeggandtoast I think I recommended Moon Tiger, I'm glad it was a hit.

I've just finished another Mary Lawson book The Other Side of The Bridge. This is set in smalltown Canada during and just after the war. It has alternate story lines with Arthur a solid farmer and his charismatic brother Jake when they're growing up. This is juxtaposed with the son of the local doctor, Ian, in the 1950s who goes to work on Arthur's farm. The story is deceptively simple, but really draws you in with amazing descriptions of the time, place and people. Recommended for those who like character driven, Anne Tyler type novels.

Sorry Old Filth, don't want to end up with the Irvine Welsh book which I actively disliked!

Also thanks @FortunaMajor for the early Booker reviews. It sounds like The Colony is a good starting point.

I read A Passage North last year and didn't think the pacing worked at all. Far too much time reminiscing about his student life in Delhi and not really anything to get your teeth into. I'm interested in the other Sri Lanka offering.

Stokey I think I could very easily have given up on A Passage North many times over. I stalled with the print version, but found it went easier with audio. The other is a very different feel. No pretentions or navel gazing so far.

Cassandre I was delighted to see you also had a high opinion of The Colony. It's definitely got something about it.

DuPain I have encyclopaedic knowledge of ski resorts and bizarrely roundabouts after someone bought me Les Ronds Points de Savoie as a comedy present. I will say if you have a branch of Noz near you (there's one in Chambéry) then it's well worth the visit when passing for being the most hilariously random shop on the planet.

Bookwise, last but one of my lightweight holidays reads for book club. The Party Crasher - Sophie Kinsella. Estranged daughter tries to attend a farewell party Incognito at her family home after it is sold off by her evil stepmother. Comedy ensues (apparently). Mildly amusing chick lit that passes the time, but I couldn't read a lot of it.

The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry that Forged the Medieval World - Shelley Puhak
Brunhild and Fredegund, sisters-in-law in the 6th Century Merovingian Empire, vye for power in a world that fails to recognise women. Each proves to be the backbone and brains behind the politics and power of the time.
The author gives a lively narrative of each of their lives and discusses the effect they have had on culture through the ages from being the fat lady of opera, to battle strategy in Macbeth and the inspiration for Cersei in Game of Thrones. If you have a soft spot for either Empress Matilda or Eleanor of Aquitaine, them these two will definitely be of interest.

47 Paper Cuts: How I Destroyed The British Music Press And Other Misadventures - Ted Kessler

I grew up obsessed with NME alongside Melody Maker, Select, Q etc - and later worked in the music press for a few years - so this account from the frontlines of the 90s and 00s from a fine NME writer (and later editor of Q) is about as far up my street as you could get without actually being in my house. Funny and honest, with some cracking encounters with the likes of Mark E Smith and the Happy Mondays, as well as a poignant account of the slow death of the inkies. Highly recommended.

@FortunaMajor Dark Queens sounds right up my street. I studied the Merovingians, Carolingians and Capetians for A Level History and found it an absolutely fascinating period of history. I'm off to add to my wish list now!

Dark Queens is free on Kindle Unlimited - yay!

37. Panchinko by Min Jin Lee

This is a family saga about Koreans who love In Japan throughout the 1900s. It was eye opening for me who had no idea that Koreans were looked down on, and not given jobs or able to rent good homes for a lot of this time period.

It's a fast paced book, and part of me enjoyed that as I think some authors get really bogged down in descriptions that don't add anything. On the flip side we didn't get into any character enough for me to care about them, so big, awful stuff happens but turn the page and two years has passed and the family is over it!

I'm just about to start Pachinko so thanks for that review razorstorm. For some odd reason I had it in my mind that the story was based in Malaysia. Glad you put me straight before I started!!

Piggy, I'm using a random number generator to try to get through my ridiculous backlog of both paper books and kindle titles. I'm not as strict as you though and have been known to do a 'best of three' if the first title it throws up doesn't immediately take my fancy!

MamaNewt Yay! Hope you enjoy it, I absolutely rattled through it. I'm next at the library for Long Live the Queens: Mighty, Magnificent and Bloody Marvellous Monarchs We’ve Forgotten which I have high hopes for, but the title is a bit in your face. I did Conquest to Magna Carta for my history A-level. It was British history in lower sixth and European with a lot of Crusading thrown in the upper. I've recently read the first of Alison Weir's Medieval Queens series with Queens of the Conquest. I've got of the Crusades in my tbr. There's also one of the Age of Chivalry due out December with two on the Plantagenet queens to follow.
I must spend some time working backwards from where I started, so would be interested to hear if there are any gems that aren't too dry and textbooky for earlier than 1042.

Thanks just to the last page or so of the thread I’ve now bought Old Filth for kindle,
got The Library Book which just came available on Borrow Box and used this month’s audible credit to get Moon Tiger

I reckon I have at least 100 books waiting on my kindle now, plus around 30 actual physical books. My buying books habit has returned to pre- pregnancy / toddler levels but my reading speed has not caught up. I don’t suppose I’ll ever clear my tbr pile. I do like the idea of a random number generator
though as I struggle with choice paralysis.

I’m still trying to fall in love with A Gentleman in Moscow - I don’t dislike it but I expected to absolutely love and fly through it somehow and actually I’m finding it hard work for some reason I can’t put my finger on.

I was thinking of reading A Gentleman in Moscow, Alias, so I'm interested to know what you think of it.

Interesting, AliasGrape. I've tried a couple of times to read A Gentleman in Moscow but just can't seem to engage with it.

I hope you enjoy Moon Tiger (and belated personal thanks to Stokey for the recommendation).

@FortunaMajor that sounds really similar to my History A level. We did British history from Edward the Confessor to Henry I. European history was the fall of Rome, then the barbarian tribes and the Franks from Clovis to Philip Augustus and then the early Crusades. I definitely preferred it to more modern history as I liked having only a few sources and having to deduce things from snippets of info.

36. Idol - Louise O'Neill
**
I only finished this book because I'm making myself finish rather than DNF at the moment.

Sam is a social media influencer and apparently also a sociopath. I normally don't mind reading about unpleasant characters, but this book has reams and reams of interior monologue, all variations on, "It's not faaaaiiir, no-one cares about meee". This would be fine if there was something, perhaps some childhood trauma, to explain it, but that doesn't seem to be the reason for it. Instead Sam has an implausibly unreliable memory, for example berating her mother for taking her to a doctor who gave her diet pills, when in fact the doctor was an eating disorder specialist. She does this so often she wonders at one point if she has early onset dementia, and it honestly seems like a plausible explanation.

The plot centres on an allegation of sexual assault made against Sam by her childhood best friend Lisa. This comes to light at the height of Sam's fame and she makes repeated trips to Lisa's home to try to blackmail her into withdrawing the accusation, which she insists isn't true. Throughout Sam displays a stalkerish obsession with Lisa which seems to have started when they were in high school. They are now 40, and again, Sam's fixation on her relationship with Lisa, who she hasn't seen for 20 years, just seems implausible.

Sorry for the rant. I'm not recommending this one, as you will have gathered.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I am glad it wasn't just me who disliked Standard Deviation. I found it utterly infuriating.

19 (I think 19? The inability to advance search my own posts since the MN reboot is driving me up the wall)
Ordinary People by Diana Evans
The story of mid-life, mid-marriage (or LTR) malaise in two South London couples. Peppered with reflections on the challenges and often drudgery of modern parenting, this is familiar ground, but sufficiently well done so as not to feel hackneyed. I'm quite familiar with the neighbourhoods in which this is set, and which are so well evoked, so there was nice blast of nostalgia for me as well. The final, full unravelling of one of the main characters felt a bit rushed, but otherwise I liked this. I could really see it as a BBC2 four-parter as well.

I read it @AliasGrape but didn't love it as so many seem to. I found it a bit too episodic. It was fine but not one I'd revisit or press on others.

Can I join late? I've read 25 books so far this year.

Do we need to identify the 50 at the start? Or just update as we go.