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?

@Tarahumara I sometimes refer to commercial fiction about middle aged women, and novels by writers whose characters have grown up a bit with them and me (see Marian Keyes and many others) as "henlit".

I've not read Dracula and wasn't aware that it is an epistolary novel (told in the form of letters) but this was already a very established literary device before the 19th century - one of Jane Austen's juvenile works Lady Susan is in this form, and several of her novels make use of letters to tell important bits of the story. And there's the infamous 18th century novel Clarissa, which makes War and Peace look concise, all about seduction/rape and betrayal. There are also lots of 18th and 19th century novels in diary form.

Another of my favourite childhood authors has died aged 90, on 12 July. The Twelfth Day of July is about two Belfast children who meet across the divide between Catholics and Protestants in their city. In the first sequel, Protestant Sadie and Catholic Kevin meet again and fall in love. This became a series of 5 books

I also enjoyed her books about a Scottish girl called Maggie - I understand these were adapted for TV and my copies probably had cover pictures from the TV series but I think I might have been a bit young when it was broadcast - online info suggests that this was in the mid 1970s - even at my old age of 53, I would have only been about 7!

I have quite a few of her books, by no means all, and have read two of her last 3 books, What About Holly about a child in the care system, and Trouble in Cable Street (a young woman growing up in a working class Jewish family in East London during the Depression, how to respond to the aggression of the Blackshirts).

Ah Joan Lingard died? I liked the Maggie books in my early teens.

Oh that's a shame. I loved Across the Barricades when I was about twelve. Vividly remember reading that and being told to get my head out of that book and look at the scenery in Switzerland.

@elkiedee "henlit" - I love that!

Yes, you are absolutely right, now that I think about it I can come up with a few examples of this device. But somehow it was still a surprise to me to find that Dracula falls into this category.

16. The Mind of a Murderer by Richard Taylor

Taylor is a consultant forensic psychiatrist. This book was an odd mix of case vignettes that he's worked on, plus some commentary on other high-profile cases with a mental health dimension. Taylor has a habit of letting you know what jazz record he was listing to, or what wine he was drinking when news of a particular case broke, which gives the book a slightly comedic Simon Serrailler-esque air. I found this erred too much on the side of salacious detail about the crimes, and not enough on the mental health aspect. There was only a short section on treatment, rehab and release, which felt unbalanced. I guess some of the limitations may have been due to consent and confidentiality issues, but I still wouldn't recommend this.

Thank you to whoever recommended The Great Believers, really enjoyed it, although it isn't the cheeriest of subjects. Tells the story of the Aids Pandemic in 1980s Chicago, well written with well drawn characters and I learned a lot about a period and issue I only had a vague understanding of. Tragic how many young men lost their lives to the disease.

My Sister, the Serial Killer Oyinkan Braithwaite

I am always behind the times when everyone else is reading a book and so I have only just read this. Started this morning. I really loved the little chapters and enjoyed the story, the characters and the real sense of place. I enjoyed the peppering of Nigerian words for different clothes and food, even if I had to stop to google them. Just a nice lounging about on a Saturday read.

All if my other current reads are heavy or giant tones or non-fiction which takes me ages to read so it was nice to have a little break.

Daffodils: A Memoir - Louise Beech
Beautifully written gut wrenching and at times darkly funny memoir of a family with a neglectful and alcoholic mother with mental health problems and the fallout from a serious suicide attempt when the mother jumps from the Humber bridge.

I haven't read any of her fiction, but she has a very distinct voice in this and I would be interested to read more of her work. This explores the different family members reactions to a very difficult situation. It's not a misery memoir by a long shot, but a compassionate look at difficult relationships.

Queens of the Conquest - Alison Weir
First in the series that looks at the lives of the queens of England throughout the ages. It's meticulously researched, but is not meant as an academic text. She really brings the women to life in an easy to read style. I did medieval history for A-level so am very familiar with the major events and players in this volume, but there was a lot of new to me information that was captivating. These were formidable women with fascinating lives. I'm close in the queue for the next one from the library Queens of the Crusades which is another period I am familiar with. If you like history these are very accessible.

I've been imagining the Mumsnet posts of Eleanor of Aquitaine complaining about her mother in law, the Empress Matilda.

Thanks to the many 50-bookers who have recommended Foster by Claire Keegan. I would never have picked this up otherwise. Not a wasted word. Beautiful.

@Tarahumara i loved the audible of Dracula - definitely felt it had a slightly modern vibe

Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

Our narrator Morvern is a 21yo orphan who lives in a small Scottish port (presumably Oban but never named). One day before Christmas she discovers her boyfriend has committed suicide. What she does next is unexpected and immoral.

The prose is in English but in the cadence of Scots and is scattered with dialect. Morvern tells us everything she does in detail, whether that is packing shelves at the supermarket where she works or the playlists she listens to constantly on her Walkman but we never learn how she feels about any of the things that happen to her. Her detachment is part of her charm and having gone to school in a small Scottish port and being the same age as her much of her life felt very familiar, I went to school with girls who had a lot in common with Morvern.

80. The End of the Road: A Journey around Britain in Search of the Dead, by Jack Cooke

Non-fiction - man drives hearse around the country visiting various graves. Some memorable moments, including his night bedded down beside Burton's tomb. I like the whole traveling-around-Britain genre (see below!), and it was a reasonable example, although the death theme felt a bit stuntish rather than necessary and coherent.

81. The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, by Steve Brusette
The follow-up to his dinosaur book, and similar in tone: agreeably nerdy, occasionally a little more detail than I need, made me long to go on a field trip and dig up fossils.

82. Riding Out, Simon Parker
The trip in book 80 was presumably completed before lockdown - a national tour in a hearse would have been in rather bad taste at the time - but this bike tour around the coast is very much a lockdown artefact. There's a lot about his mental and physical health (more on anal fissures than cycling memoirs normally disclose). Because I've read a few similar books recently, they do get a bit samey, but I clearly have itchy feet and find them satisfying.

83. Keep her Sweet, Helen FitzGerald. An Australian family call on a therapist to help them deal with tensions. The help she's called on to provide is - not what she would normally expect. I like this author, who has a very mordant sense of humour, but this was too dark for me.

84. Coasting: Running around the coast of Britain - Life, Love and (Very) Loose Plans, by Elise Downing
Recommended by Razor and I enjoyed it for the same reasons. The day of the stoic adventurer is good. The author was only 23 when she set off and is honest about how inadequate she felt and all the times she sobbed her way to through it. As with book 82, it does seem to lower the bar for going on an adventure and makes me feel I could do something too. Although ideally avoiding any anal fissures.

*The day of the stoic adventurer is GONE

I didn't really take to A Net for Small Fishes, a historical novel by Lucy Jago. It is based on an apparently ( probably is , am aware of one of the women)famous poisoning scandal in the court of King James. It does make a change to read something not about the Tudors. However, I found Jago's style a bit tortuous and one of the main characters, Frankie, ( really??) very unlikeable. There is an occasional grating shift from past to present tense. The reason for this does become clear , but when first encountered, it just seems like bad writing.

Satisfying enough, but too much smut at the beginning for no real purpose. And then that just disappears. The victim was confusing to me and I was never sure of the motive. In fact the whole court was .I know that's part of the point but it didn't help me to care about anyone.

I can think of a far better ending but spoilers forbid me.

85. The Shadow of Death, by Alison Joseph
I can't find who recommended this crime fiction series featuring Sister Joseph, but I enjoyed this and promptly downloaded the rest of the series. I worked for a Catholic organization for a few years and have spent a bit of time in convents (work rather than vocation) and the human irritations are convincing.

13. Stolen Focus by Johann Hari
    A book looking into why our concentration is reducing. It was good the argument went beyond mobile phone use. I found some interesting ideas particularly at the beginning. The parts about ADHD made me a bit uncomfortable.

14. Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
    A really unusual book about a woman who gives birth to an owl baby and how it effects her job as a cellist and her relationship with her husband. Lots of magical realism in this allegory about bringing up a child with additional needs. Very powerful.

15. The summer seaside kitchen by Jenny Colgan
    A paralegal has to return to her fictional Scottish island of Mute to help a wealthy client. She has been hiding in London since her mother's death and her attractive cold boss also visits.
    Enjoyable once it got going. I preferred the other Scottish village one with the bookbus.

50. The Evening and the Morning - Ken Follett

This is the prequel to the Pillars of the Earth trilogy and is set in the reign of Ethelred. It’s based around the same fictional area of Shiring as the other books. The key characters are Edgar (a young boatbuilder), Dagna (a young Norman nobleman), Aldred (a monk) and three brothers: Wilf (the Earl (or equivalent) of Shiring), Wynstan (bishop of Shiring) and Wigelm (a thane/landowner). As with the other books, there is good mix of local politics and corruption, love and some of the minutiae of daily life. Not too many heaving bosoms surprisingly or perhaps I am immune to them. The perfect sun lounger read - an easy page turner.

Latest reads:

152 The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

I think others on the thread enjoyed this but it wasn’t for me. I didn’t like the writing style and there were too many things mentioned that didn’t go anywhere.

153 Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

A ‘sliding doors’ book featuring two alternative lives for the main character. I liked this, but I listened to it rather than reading it and I found the narrator really annoying. It’s also in present tense, which I don’t like anyway, and this seemed more annoying on Audible. I stuck with it though as I really liked the story, and how some things happened anyway just at slightly different times/in different ways.

154 One Of The Girls by Lucy Clarke

A group of women go to Greece for a hen weekend, but they all have secrets and someone ends up dead. I enjoyed this, although I did think that everyone in the group having a secret from everyone else and all those secrets coming out on the same weekend was rather unbelievable!

155 Stolen Children by Michael Wood

Detective story featuring the kidnapping of children. Not the nicest subject to read about but I enjoyed it.

156 The Blackbird by Tim Weaver

Latest in the series featuring missing persons investigator David Raker. This was really gripping and I’m looking forward to the next in the series.

157 Note to Self by Anna Bell

Chicklit about a woman who receives an email from her 18 year old self leading her to question of her life is really what she wants. Easy read.

158 Life or Death by Michael Robotham

A man escapes from prison and goes on the run the day before he’s due to be released - but why? We gradually find out what really happened when he was arrested. Good although a bit too long.

I thought The Lamplighters was ridiculous by the end, although I liked the beginning. Amazed it was published tbh.

The Alison Joseph I reviewed above book featured Sister Agnes, not Sister Joseph.

Yes! Started very promisingly and then just went fully off piste. So frustrating.

@bibliomania, snort laughing at your review of your book 84. I wish you many adventures, free of any... um, bodily discomforts.

57. A Wood of One's Own by Ruth Pavey
    In 1999 Pavey bought a plot of land in Somerset to fulfil her long held dream of growing and cultivating a wood. It's mostly a nice, gentle read, although with a rather jarring anecdote near the end where Pavey imagines a school girl she was teaching was excited at the sight of Kenwood House in London because of her Caribbean heritage and folk memories of plantation houses.

58. Another Country by James Baldwin
    Race relations and relationships are explored in this novel about a small group of friends in 1950s New York. It's quite bleak and mostly consists of unhappy people making themselves and each other unhappier. There are some shreds of hope and brighter moments though, and the quality of the writing carried me through it despite the bleakness.

Thank you, noodle. It is a most sincere hope.