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?

29 A Spool of Blue Thread - Anne Tyler
This has been languishing on my kindle for a good few years now, I had no idea what I wanted to read so decided to start actually trying to read some of the stuff that just sits there endlessly. (As an aside, I think I might try that random number generator system that I’ve seen at least one poster mention - I have such bad choice paralysis these days.)

Its a portrait of a Baltimore family over a few generations. I spent the first half of the book thinking they were all tedious and unlikeable, but the second half was more enjoyable. The story of Linnie and Junior’s marriage was interesting and well drawn, and came to life in a way that Abby, Red and their various children never did. Without wanting to spoil anything though, there’s an aspect of that story that is pretty problematic and jarring -the way one of the relationships is portrayed we see a young girl being the instigator or seducing an older man, with an implication she knew what she was doing, was up for it etc. That’s mainly from the POV of the man in question though, I don’t know how much we are supposed to believe that, and his view of her as quite worldly and manipulative certainly isn’t shared by other characters, so it’s suitably ambiguous I guess.

This sums up my experience of lockdown!

I thought I would do jigsaws. Turns out that will never happen. How can something be both so dull and so infuriating?

I also thought I would write. One day I would be able to give up the office grind and delight the world with my intelligent, emotionally acute yet wryly witty little essays. The world may be ready but it turns out that I am far too lazy.

Thank you for the new thread southeastdweller.

29. Summerwater by Sarah Moss
I think this has been previously reviewed on here, with mixed opinions, but I liked it. Although it was a short read, I almost felt like I wanted to read it like a short story collection (read a chapter and give it time to sink in before returning to the book) than a short novel to gulp down quick. The style of the writing reminded me of some of Jon McGregor's novels - there is not a driving plot but a lot of descriptions of setting, the minutiae of character's lives and their inner monologues. I had this in print from the library (no speech marks) but also got the audio on BorrowBox and Morven Christie felt like a perfect narrator for this.

30. The Sixth Wedding by Elin Hilderbrand
A 70ish page sequel to 28 Summers which I read last week and really enjoyed. Following the events at the end of that novel, we meet up with all the main characters for Labor Day 2023 to see how their lives are continuing. I wouldn't recommend this as a stand alone read but it worked for me as a kind of final chapter or epilogue to the main novel, taking me back into that world which I had grown fond of.

Currently reading a social justice title centred around the experiences of black sportspeople written following George Floyd's death. I have also been dipping into My Family and Other Animals on audio over the last few weeks - books set in warm climates work well for me in summer, couldn't read this in winter when it is hard to remember what warm weather feels like!

Very jealous you all had more time during lockdown. DH and I were mainly exhausted trying to balance work (I work in pharma and as you might imagine things went mad busy at the start of the pandemic) and homeschooling 3DC. I did less exercise and ate and drank more. Just glad mine were actually school age, my colleagues with preschoolers said getting any work done was a nightmare. So glad things are back to normal again.

@AliasGrape I read A Spool of Blue Thread a few years ago and liked it (I do enjoy all of Anne Tyler's largely plot-free novels though), my takeaway was you were supposed to be shocked by the grandparents' relationship - that there was actually this very dark core to what had been passed down through the family as a great love story.

Oh yes absolutely, I know we were meant to be shocked, I just didn’t like the implication that it was the 13 year old driving it and that ‘she’d known what she wanted all along’ kind of thing. Though to be fair, we only get that sense when we’re ‘in’ Junior’s perspective so I do wonder if there’s an element of defending himself, even to himself.
I definitely ‘enjoyed’ that story more - that’s probably the wrong word for something so dark, but I felt it was far more vivid than the younger generation’s stories that I found it quite hard to care about.

54. To the River by Olivia Laing
    After breaking up with her partner Laing spent a week walking the length of the Ouse from the source to the sea. There's lots of interesting facts about things like the Battle of Lewes, the discovery of iguanadon bones and Piltdown man, and a lot about Virginia Woolf, but there's little sense of Laing's journey. Most of the book feels like it was written by someone in an office with a load of reference books rather than by someone who was actually by the river. I learnt a few things from this book but was left with the feeling that walking by the Ouse is probably a bit of a dull experience.

55. The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa trans. Louise Heal Kawai
    After the death of his grandfather reclusive high school student Rintaro is having to sell his bookshop but a talking cat appears in the shop and takes him on a mission to save books from maltreatment.
    A short, sweet fantasy about the importance of books, and also of living life fully. I'm not sure if it's aimed at adults or children, but it's a nice, easy to read whimsical fantasy.

56. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
    I'm very late to the party with this, and only read it because it was rather forcibly lent to me. It's a light read and a bit silly but I started to get bored about halfway through.

@Welshwabbit heartily agree with everything you've said. I have read the first two Manon books and have been saving the third. I was very sad to read of Susie Steiner's death.

I just finished The Only Plane In The Sky which I know many of have read.

I have personal connections to all of it. Not only was 9/11 my birthday but my DM lives in Manhattan so I spent most of that birthday trying to call her. She was well uptown then but she still got grit in her eyes. My claim to fame always was that my Uncle did all the interior carpentry of the lobbies at the WTC. A plaque was found in the debris and given to him. I went up the top to the restaurant in about 1998. It was truly stunning. I do sometimes wonder how the employees I met fared that day.

So I found the book gripping and moving. A bit jingoistic in places but you can't alter people's memories and perspectives.

Parts are moving and genuinely life affirming.
I haven't been back to NYC since 98 so not been to any memorials I intend to one day.

15) How to Survive Family Holidays - Jack Whitehall with Hilary and Michael Whitehall

I like Jack Whitehall and have watched all episodes of Travels with my Father, so chose this for an easy read. I did find a lot of the content was a repeat of stories from the show, some was from actual family holidays. Overall it was okay for a quick and easy read.

Jane Fairfax by Joan Aiken

I really enjoyed this. It re-imagines the events of Emma through Jane Fairfax's perspective. Pretty much what it says on the tin and a perfect comfort read.

Ooh this sounds right up my street, thank you!

1. Religio Medici, and Urne-Buriall - Sir Thomas Browne
2. Lost Children Archive - Valeria Luiselli
3. Space Boy Vol. 6 - Stephen McCranie
4. Space Boy Vol. 7 - Stephen McCranie
5. Three Twins at the Crater School - Chaz Brenchley
6. A Bit of a Stretch - Chris Atkins
7. The Etymologicon - Mark Forsyth
8. Moon Over Soho - Ben Aaronovitch
9. East West Street - Philippe Sands
10. Uncommon Danger - Eric Ambler
11. The Man Without Qualities - Robert Musil
12. Space Boy Vol. 8 - Stephen McCranie
13. Space Boy Vol. 9 - Stephen McCranie
14. Space Boy Vol. 10 - Stephen McCranie
15. Space Boy Vol. 11 - Stephen McCranie
16. Austria Hungary - G.E. Mitton
17. The Only Plane in the Sky - Garrett M. Graff
18. Maniac: the Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer - Harold Schechter
19. Something Fabulous - Alexis Hall
20. Lean Fall Stand - John McGregor
21. The Fateful Year - Mark Bostridge
22. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
23. Journey into the Past - Stefan Zweig
24. The Word Hord: Daily Life in Old English - Hana Videen
25. The Dance of the Happy Shades - Alice Munro
26. The Haunting of Alma Fielding - Kate Summerscale
27. The Wicked Boy - Kate Summerscale
28. The Passenger - Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
29. Apeirogon - Colum McCann
30. Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell - John Preston
31. Whispers Under Ground - Ben Aaronovitch
32. Broken Homes - Ben Aaronovitch
33. The Foxglove Summer - Ben Aaronovitch
34. Becoming Unbecoming - Una
35. Dinosaurs in a Haystack - Stephen Jay Gould
36. Candide - Voltaire
37. Alive, Alive Oh! - Diana Athill
38. The Seventh Raven - Peter Dickinson
39. The Beat Goes On - Ian Rankin
40. The Complaints - Ian Rankin
41. Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts - Christopher de Hamel
42. Jeffry, The Poet’s Cat - Oliver Soden
43. Out of Character - Annabeth Albert
44. A Book of Book Lists - Alex Johnson
45. The Inverts - Crystal Jeans
46. Thy Will Be Done: The 2021 Lent Book - Stephen Cherry
47. The Spider’s Web - Joseph Roth
48. A Patchwork Planet - Ann Tyler
49. The Heart’s Time: A poem a day for Lent and Easter - Janet Morley
50. The World of Stonehenge - Duncan Garrow and Neil Wilkin
51. The Western Wind - Samantha Harvey
52. The Haunting - Margaret Mahy
53. The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin
54. The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer
55. The Shadow King - Maaza Mengiste
56. Tramps and Vagabonds - Aster Glenn Gray
57. Unreliable Memoirs - Clive James
58. Women, Men and the Great War - ed. Trudi Tate
59. If This Gets Out - Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich
60. Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art - Rebecca Wragg Sykes
61. Innocence - Penelope Fitzgerald
62. Bullies: A Friendship - Alex Abramovitch
63. Awfully Ambrose - Lisa Henry and Sarah Honey
64. The Break - Katherena Vermette
65. Coastlines - Patrick Barkham
66. Gentleman Jim - Raymond Briggs
67. Go Went Gone - Jenny Erpenbeck

I don’t really know how I’m choosing which ones to highlight; I think I do it differently each time. I’m currently reading War and Peace and The Balkans by Misha Glenny. I need to find something more lightweight - both literally and literarily - for my holiday next week.

This sounds good. Thanks Remus.

1 The Dutch House - Ann Patchett
2 Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr
3 Life at the Top - John Braine
4 The Mermaid of Black Conch - Monique Roffey
5 Ducks, Newburyport - Lucy Ellman
6 A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson
7 The Watchers on the Shore - Stan Barstow
8 A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz
9 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
10 Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
11 Mr Foreigner - Matthew Kneale
12 A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian - Monica Lewycka
13 My Mate Shofiq - Jan Needle
14 Red Shift - Alan Garner
15 Dogs of War - Adrian Tchaikovsky
16 To Calais, in Ordinary Time - James Meek
17 Never Let me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
18 Burial Rites - Hannah Kent
19 The Garden of Evening Mists - Tan Twang Eng
20 Arthur & George - Julian Barnes
21 Life Isn't all Ha Ha Hee Hee - Meera Syall

As I finished two books this week (the first since April) I’ve decided to post my list after all.

1. Action Park - Andy Mulvihill & Jake Rossen 2. The Moth and The Mountain - Ed Caesar

1. Cook, Eat, Repeat - Nigella Lawson
2. On Hampstead Heath - Marika Cobbold
3. Raising The Barre - Lauren Kessler
4. Such A Fun Age - Kiley Reid
5. The Mitford Scandal - Jessica Fellowes

8. Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell

1. Labels - Evelyn Waugh

10. Head Over Heels (Geek Girl 5) - Holly Smale 11. St David of Dewisland - Nona Rees 12. We Are Bellingcat - Eliot Higgins 13. Nine Coaches Waiting - Mary Stewart 14. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 15. The Way We Eat Now - Bee Wilson 16. Hot Mess - Lucy Vine 17. Magpie Lane - Lucy Atkins 18. The Mission House - Carys Davies 19. The Fun of It - ed Lillian Ross 20. The Fine Art of Invisible Detection - Robert Goddard 21. Fall - John Preston 22. Mr Wilder and Me - Jonathan Coe 23. Young Jane Young - Gabrielle Zevin 24. High Rising - Angela Thirkell 25. Breathless - Amy McCulloch 26. Recovery - Gavin Francis 27. Things I Don't Want to Know - Deborah Levy 28. Moonfleet - J Meade Falkner 29. On The Road Again: Granta 94 ed Ian Jack 30. Wham! George and Me - Andrew Ridgeley

31. The Young Clementina - DE Stevenson
This was a nice gentle read, if you ignore the shocking racial attitudes (I can normally put them aside as the attitudes of different times, but in this case the language is especially problematic) and the fact that a character has decided he wants to marry a 13 year old girl – once she’s 17, but all the same.

Charlotte and Garth grow up together and eventually fall in love, but then something happens and Garth turns against Charlotte and ends up marrying her sister, Kitty. Charlotte takes herself off to London and works in a bookshop, until Garth and Kitty divorce and he asks Charlotte to step in to help raise their daughter, Clementina, while he goes off to Africa to look for a lost tribe. The best part of the book is the sweet developing relationship between Charlotte and Clementina as she grows up, and of course towards the end we learn what made Garth go cold on Charlotte and the outcome of his trip to Africa.

32. I Lost My Girlish Laughter - Jane Allen
Another 1930s vintage novel, this is a lightly fictionalised account of a secretary’s life in Hollywood working for a demanding producer (based on David O Selznick). Like the real-life author, the secretary is a wise-cracking New Yorker who is cynically amused at the antics of the studio staff and stars. Good fun and recommended if you’re interested in 1930s Hollywood.

Argh! Formatting fail! Sorry about that.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie oh, I loved Jane Fairfax! Have you read her Mansfield Revisited? I wasn't quite as convinced, for Reasons, but it was a good read.

Two very short ones from me.

30 Assembly - Natasha Brown
Description from The Guardian - ‘A sparsely written debut about a black woman preparing for a party examines the disorienting experience of assimilation’. Written in a series of vignettes and fragments. I’ve seen the style compared to Virginia Woolf and I can kind of see where that is coming from. It definitely succeeds in saying an awful lot with very little. It’s a style I find hard to engage with somehow, but this was certainly powerful.

31 Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
Very grateful to 50 bookers for recommending Keegan’s work. I know many have read/ reviewed this already. I didn’t love it as much as Foster but I did still think it was great. I love how quickly you are drawn into the narrative and how clear the characters are even in such a short work. Theoretically I knew some mother and baby homes/ laundries were still in existence in the mid 80s (and beyond) but naively sort of thought they wouldn’t have been ‘as bad’ by then, so this was quite shocking. I’m glad Furlong made the choice he did but worried about what came next!

Enjoying the recent spate of reviews from Apricots to Zippy! I feel the same about Furlong, Alias!

Full Tilt by Dervla Murphy I didn’t think I liked ‘travel’ books, but the very few I have tried have been by usually over-privileged men. How refreshing and inspiring to read a woman who set off with a bicycle from Ireland to cycle to India in 1963 - a journey she’d resolved to make when she was given an atlas at the age of 10. Not that I’d be any more capable of her exploits than those of the male writers, but I preferred the perspective. The points of comparison with Ireland whether on weather conditions near the Khyber pass, bird-life, or attitudes to Britain or to the role of women were fascinating. The book is based on her diary entries and it’s a great vicarious adventure.
She was incredibly resourceful and resilient - she carried a gun which was needed twice in the first 20 pages - and encountered extremes from glaciers to sunstroke. It’s of its time, sometimes wincingly so, but I found it a fascinating period piece.

Pleased to have tracked you all down, and just catching up on all your reviews.

And Away - Bob Mortimer. The memoir from the comedian and actor, I thought this was a generally entertaining read but he seems one of those avoidant types, not really wanting to talk much about his personal life, which felt frustrating to read.

Now reading Putting the Rabbit in the Hat, by Brian Cox. So far, so terrific.

An English Library Journey: With Detours to Wales and Northern Ireland is 99p right now

Thanks bettbburg