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?

40. The Family Upstairs Lisa Jewell. A thriller about a woman who finds out she was abandoned in mysterious circumstances as a baby and her quest for the truth. I absolutely hated the other Lisa Jewell book I read, but thought I’d give her another go after some good reviews and in need of a page turner. Cracking. A lot of unresolved questions however, the stars aligned and the sequel is just out and I have an Amazon voucher hurrah!
41. Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe. Much reviewed on her this is the secret history of the family behind OxyContin. Superb. It’s clear how much work went into uncovering the detail of this very private family.

I suppose my only criticism is the lack of focus on the victims. But the author acknowledges this and that wasn’t really what the book was about.
I look forward to the Succession style tv version.

Delighted that Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These made the booker shortlist, though it's the only one of the longlist I've read so can't compare.

Remain Silent by Susie Steiner The third in the Manon Bradshaw series, which I've really enjoyed. This one features a grim case of modern slavery, and the sense of mortality and of the abyss loom large (Steiner was already battling the cancer which she sadly died of this year when she wrote this), but there is plenty of humour and joy in it too. I love Bradshaw and her colleagues who are juggling careers and families. There are some wonderful bits of wisdom too, like how a parent's mood is the weather for their children, and how a relationship with someone really good gives a guilty sense of permanently falling short. Very sad that this is the last.

That's really interesting @FortunaMajor
My old local library still holds such wonderful memories for me. Nothing like that here. When DD was little, I tagged along on a primary school outing to the municipal library- huge, fabulous building. Empty. Of both books, and people. The children's section had about 20 books in it. The lady showing us round did a big spiel on how you could borrow books if you wanted, and I was very scathing until DD's teacher said to me, I bet more than half these kids don't have a single book at home. Finding someone here who reads is quite rare. They think I'm nuts.

@MegBusset Yes, a shame. The Talisman is lovely, although I didn't get on with the books that Peter S wrote alone.

@FortunaMajor I loved The Owl Service as a child, although his others didn't really appeal.

Sol I'm quite lucky in being in a 'naice' area, our library building is stunning and we have excellent community engagement and good footfall. We offer class visits to introduce children to the library and have lots of regulars and young super-readers. I did a day in one of the less nice areas recently and it felt like a day in a care in the community drop in centre. Not a single book was borrowed or returned all day. It was all computer use or somewhere to be. I found it absolutely eye opening, I feel like I have a very sheltered life in comparison. I think libraries will be vital this winter in some areas, just for somewhere to go to stay warm.

On the plus side we've had a lot of new people signing up although it's surprising how many ask how much it costs to join. We've been doing the Summer Reading Challenge again this year which has had a massive uptake and an unusually high number of finishers. It's lovely to see so many children reading and enjoying it.

Colleen McCullough - The Thorn Birds
Family saga starting in early C20th NZ and moving to Aus on a rural sheep station. A large family go from poverty to riches in over the course of half a century.
There's much more to it that that, but it's hard to sum it up briefly. I devoured this. It would have been scandalous on publication.

The Fortune Men - Nadifa Mohamed
1950s Wales, a Somali immigrant in a mixed marriage is accused of a crime he didn't commit.
It's a exploration of immigration and racism in a time when it was rife and generally accepted
.
Recently discussed upthread. Stokey I can completely see why you abandoned it. It was very hard work most of the way through and I could easily have dropped it. The ending was really interesting. It covered some really important issues and is based on a real case, which made it particularly poignant.

Bit cross at the Booker Awards tonight. Sheer elitism. How funny that a steelworker can be a member of a book club.
How dare they. My DF was a steelworker. Better read than virtually anyone I know.

211 Behind The Scenes At The Museum by Kate Atkinson

A reread (via Audible) of an old favourite. I love Kate Atkinson and this is fab. It’s the story of Ruby Lennox’s life from her birth in the 1950s to the present day (1990s when this was written). We also get the story of Ruby’s grandmother and great-grandmother (while men do feature, this book is very much about the women).

26. The Year I Stopped to Notice, by Miranda Keeling. Short and delightful. Keeling pays close attention to what's happening around her, finds the beauty in small things, and writes it down. This is enhanced by gorgeous illustrations. As a perennially nosey person I loved these snapshots of what happens around you when you stop to notice.

27. Nora Ephron: A Biography, by Kristin Marguerite Doidge. An absolute stinker - so bad that I'm actually quite annoyed. Totally incoherent, although mercifully short. However much you love Nora Ephron, avoid at all costs.

That sounds like a crass thing to say @BestIsWest - where was this and who said it, I missed this?

It seems to have been taken down now but it was tweeted by the Booker awards themselves news.yahoo.com/fans-livid-over-patronising-sickening-162412614.html

That’s annoying @BestIsWest My late DF’s family were big readers - and library users - but he and his cousin were the first generation to get a proper secondary education and have the opportunity to go to university, where they both studied English. Being a cleaner, or a shop assistant, or a market stall holder, doesn’t mean you can’t have intelligent views on what you’ve read.

Why mention it. They’d never have said ‘ I believe your book club contains a barrister and an accountant’ so why patronise the steelworker and cook?
Sorry. Will get off my high horse now and go and do some reading.

Best that is so frustrating. I hate the assumption that someone must be 'thick' because they haven't had an elite education/do manual work/have a strong regional accent.

I once had a staff member who was a student on his gap year awaiting to go to Durham tell me that he didn't realise that universities like Durham let people like me in. He got quite an education that day.

The fact that they have deleted it shows they know how crass it is.

Says more about the class origins and assumptions of those doing the Booker PR rather than anything else, Best.

103. Tourists: How the British Went Abroad to Find Themselves, by Lucy Lethbridge
I'm always up for an account of Victorian groups trotting briskly around the Continent on a Cook's Tour, clutching their Murray's Handbook. The author has read widely and dug up some enjoyable comments by early tourists. The narrative around it is a bit thin - I know some people prefer a self-effacing author, but I like to have them present. For that reason, I prefer another book which covers some of the same ground, The End of Elsewhere, by Taras Grescoe. We get his own journey interspersed with the historical sections.

On libraries, I could rhapsodize at length about mine. I work nearby, so go several times a week and borrow around 150 books a year, guidebooks and cookbooks as well as the books I discuss on here. The vast majority of my everyday reading is from the library, with my kindle being used for lunch-breaks and travel. It easily saves me £1000 a year and it's where I'll be hiding out come the zombie apocalypse.

Both my parents left school at 14 and didn’t ever have the chance to go to university. They were highly intelligent people and great readers. If Booker Prize judges are making those comments it’s a sad reflection on their ignorance.

Right, well…on we go.

70: And In the End: The Last Days of the Beatles - Ken McNab

I feel sure you’d like this one, Best, if you haven’t read it! Perhaps not quite as hyper-forensically detailed as the Lewisohn epic, but it traces, month by month, events of 1969 - the last year of The Beatles - and chronicles their descent from toppermost of the poppermost to four aggrieved (Harrison), angry (McCartney and Lennon), heroin-addicted (Lennon again) hurt and bewildered (Starr) individuals. Ever-present in the background, like a small dark immovable cloud, often writhing and screeching inside a large white bag, was Yoko Ono, while brash and incompetent American lawyer Allen Klein proceeded to mess up pretty much every Apple business deal he touched, losing the erstwhile Fab Four untold millions. A great read.

71: French Braid - Anne Tyler

Another trademark family tale from Tyler, following the fortunes of the Drew family from the late 50s to the present (and just edging into the Covid era). I do like her books but I feel they can be a bit variable - for me, this was a tad on the dull side. It slipped down very easily, as always, but won’t be one I’ll remember for a long time. She always does children very well, though.

Ah, it was a Booker judge rather than just a PR thing. Stupid comment.

This is one I really want to reread, it was my first Kate Atkinson and I loved it. Going to try and get round to that in between the millions of new books waiting for me!

@Terpsichore Amazon keeps recommending that one to me! It’s going on my list. Have you watched Get Back? Fascinating stuff.

@BestIsWest no, I desperately want to see it but I don’t have Disney+!

The book goes into a lot of detail about the making of Get Back, and why it never got off the ground at the time. They were basically just falling apart at that stage, and the Yoko and money stuff was the final nail in the coffin. It’s fascinating that Lennon, the supposed hard man, comes across as incredibly naive and gullible, Apple was a disaster business-wise and he was an absolute magnet for any old grifter and conman who realised they just needed to spin him an implausible line and he’d fall for it. So sad, really.

It’s worth the subscription for the first 20 minutes alone!

Snap! Well, stepfather.

Another one here with working class parents who didn't have a chance to go to university but both read all the time. In fact the reason I love libraries so much is because they were treated as such a privilege, and my parents used to take us every week. I think my dad still thinks it's a bit questionable to actually BUY books!

@bibliomania I will be joining you at the library come the apocalypse, although I will only last as long as my contact lenses or glasses, so am probably not much help.

@Terpsichore that Beatles review is one of the funniest I've read, am going to have to add the book to the (immense) TBR.

Oh! In The End is currently £2.19 on kindle, so definitely snapping that up. Sharing in case anyone else is similarly enthused 😀

We'll hold out for a bit, noodle, and have something to read during the siege. It's all I ask.

Ooh, definitely snap that one up, noodle, and Best as well! Meanwhile, I’ve discovered that Disney+ have a special offer on at the moment of £1.99 for a month’s subscription, so my cunning plan is to spend the weekend watching ’Get Back’ and then cancel it ☺️