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?

Off to look at which other Aiken's are 99p. I started, 'Hate Begins at Home' but it was totally unreadable imo.

Just read and really enjoyed this tale of disaster and death on the high seas

53: Bramton Wick - Elizabeth Fair

This was pure, unalloyed enjoyment. I bought 4 of these 1950s novels, republished by Furrowed Middlebrow, a few years ago, and have just got round to the first one. The preface compares Elizabeth Fair to Angela Thirkell, who I’ve never read, but I understand the territory’s very similar - a small English village, plenty of reduced gentlefolk struggling somewhat to adapt to life post-WW2, and all the petty intrigues of everyday existence.
It’s not remotely intellectual or highbrow but there’s a knowing wit at play which is very appealing. A bit Mills and Boonish in the denouement perhaps, but I can forgive that in exchange for being exactly the kind of soothing book I needed to recover from a stressful week.

43 All The Living And The Dead - Hayley Campbell

Really thought-provoking, personal and honest investigation into what happens to your body after you die, via interviews with people in the 'death trade' (from undertakers and gravediggers to crime scene cleaners and embalmers). Comes with a big fat content warning, obviously - it doesn't sanitise anything, and I found some sections (autopsy and bereavement midwife) a tough read. But Campbell's contention is that as a society the amount that we hide from and disguise death is to our detriment, and having read this it's hard to disagree.

Checking in... Still got The Fabled Coast and The double comfort safari club on the go but now terms ended I'm hoping to up my reading game and do at least a book a week.

Have been lurking.. so glad the second operation went OK @elkiedee and hope recovery goes well.

Anyone else annoyed by Amazon not selling things through apps on Google anymore, is probably good for my bank as I don't buy every kindle book I think is interesting but then I forget to buy the ones I want.

@MegBusset That sounds right up my street. Bought.

Congratulations on the successful eye op, elkie! What a relief that must be.

44. Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller

Captain John Lacroix returns from war and while his physical wounds begin to heal it’s clear that the trauma of war has not left him. He decides to visit some remote Scottish islands where he is embraced by a kind of proto-commune where he begins to heal. However Lacroix is being pursued by violent corporal, accompanied by a representative of the Spanish army, who is sent to enact his punishment for his involvement in an atrocity during the war in Spain.

I found this really engaging up until Lacroix actually made it to the Scottish islands. I found the sections that covered his pursuers more interesting and found the English colonel a much more interesting, albeit unsavoury, character. Overall I thought this was ok, it kept me reading, but I can’t see me going out of my way to recommend it to anyone.

45. Lie With Me by Sabine Durrant

Comfortable entitled people take their entitlement to Greece. With the backdrop of the disappearance on a young girl a decade earlier, this could have been interesting but the plot had too many holes and way too many unlikable characters for me.

46. Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I’m late to the party on this but I LOVED it. The format, the story and the characters all worked for me. The only thing that I wasn’t keen on was the ending, I feel it devalued one of the main relationships in the book. #KarenKaren4Ever

47. Odd Girl Out by Laura James

Laura James was diagnosed with autism in her 40s and this book covers the year after her diagnosis. As someone who has been considering for the past few years seeking a diagnosis I recognised a lot of myself, and my struggles, in this book. A really honest and interesting read.

48. New Poppeii by Daniel Godfrey

In the near future one company has a monopoly on time travel and they decide to rescue the citizens of Pompeii just before the eruption and install them in a replica town. This appealed to the historian in me, I mean who wouldn’t love the chance to observe people from other historical periods, but of course it is not that simple. Other people begin to disappear from the timeline and the company makes the classic error of assuming that people in the past were less intelligent than us. This had a really interesting central idea but didn’t feel like a compete book to me, the fact that there is a follow up made it clear that this book was the set-up. I liked this book enough to want to see how it all pans out.

48 Polo - Jilly Cooper A re-read of an old favourite. Really badly-written with horrible puns, and very misogynistic, classist and dated (especially the way teenage girls are objectified and sexualised)…but the story is nevertheless lots of fun once you get to know the main characters and it’s that which made me want to re-read it and enabled me to overlook the dodgy elements. It’s about the world of international polo in the 80s (pretty obvious from the title 😄) and runs in parallel to the stories in Riders and Rivals, with some crossover of characters. My favourite Jilly Cooper book by quite some way.

32 The Calligrapher by Edward Docx. The title may suggest a piece of historical fiction, but in fact this is set in the 21st century with a very modern protagonist, Jasper Jackson, who is a calligrapher and a womaniser. He's an arrogant and deceitful character (who has a nice relationship with his grandmother and a love of John Donne's poetry, presumably intended as redeeming features) who unexpectedly finds himself falling in love. Has he met his match? This is an easy read and the plot rattles along nicely.

33 Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Classic dystopia, re-read with DS2. As expected - great writing, rather distressing at times (especially as DS2 really liked Piggy).

Hello, its me.

Was very seriously ill over Christmas and New Year, was in hospital for two months, and I'm still really not the same person.

You all know that I usually have very high numbers.

This year? Three. All Audible.

1. My Friend Anna by Rachel Deloache Williams

This memoir covers the circumstances of a period of years in New York whereby numerous people were conned by an ordinary person pretending to be an heiress, and fleecing people for money.

The Netflix series Inventing Anna also covers this story but does not base itself on this memoir and Rachel is not kindly portrayed.

Beyond a certain point with this book Rachels faux naiveté wears very thin

She makes it clear with her own words that she picked up on the numerous red flags presented to her that Anna was an often malicious person whose origins and finances did not add up.

The truth is that she enjoyed riding the coat tails of the lifestyle until she got burnt.

And I don't know how much of an idiot you would have to be to use or even take your work expenses card on a ££££ holiday and believe you'll be paid back, when your flakey friend has been repeatedly declined in front of you.

1. The Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham

A young woman discovers a quality in lichen that can reverse the aging process.

This was absolute shit I wont lie I was so disappointed in it. Dated and Sexist. I would love to do a full Cote style rant and blast it but to explain why would just be a list of spoilers.

If you want a good book which is a dystopia of what might happen if the aging process was cured I recommend The End Specialist by Drew Magary

1. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeannette Winterson

I think a number of 50 Bookers have read this, and obviously it adds to or corrects the fictionalised version of this story in Oranges. A number of years ago, possibly when this came out even, Winterson was the subject of an Imagine episode with lots of detail about her life.
Sadly I felt I neither gained or learned anything new, I also found myself getting irritated by her narration style.

So, 3 books

You all know how fast I read so I could bounce back we'll see, but if I only even manage 10 it will be something all things considered. I have skimmed the other threads (pleased to see Endless Steppe shoutouts) but am really looking for some recs and was wondering what peoples one standout would be for the first 6 months

@MamaNewtNewt

I was baffled by Now We Shall Be Entirely Free didnt get it at all

I believe I know the exact sentence you mean from Daisy Jones and The Six it riled me no end, the only proper response being : "No, Fuck You, no one owes you anything"

40. The Heather Blazing - Colm Toibin. I'd never read anything by this author before and this is one of his earlier books. It follows an Irish judge Eamon and his marriage to Carmel. They stand every summer in Cush where the land is slowly eroding. The stories told in Kate if the present as his wife's health deteriorates and the past where as a child he was brought up alone by his father who then also became ill. The prose is sparse but beautiful, emotions are all buried and actions and observations are what we get. Interesting, gentle read, full of loss.

41.The Murder List - Jackie Kabler. A reporter gets sent a diary with a list of names and cities where a murderer will happen. Her name is 4th. This was ok, nothing special.

42. The Echo Chamber - John Boyne. George Cleverley is a presenter at the BBC, well known and respected. His wife Beverly is in theory a writer but in fact has a ghost to write her novels, their adult children are messed up in various ways - Nelson only feels confident wearing a uniform, Elizabeth gets a kick out of trolling people on Twitter under an anonymous name, while Achilles pretends to be a rent boy to blackmail older men. Their lives are privileged and selfish. Then George misgenders a trans person in a tweet and their lives are all affected. This is a satirical swipe at cancel culture. I thought the humour was a bit obvious and all the characters are thoroughly unpleasant, although it's quite readable. I hadn't read anything by him before and not sure I'll bother again.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I have been wondering where you were, so sorry to hear you were ill and are still not fully recovered. When I was in hospital and recovering I found old favourites on audible were all I could mange, I got through all of the Chronicles of St Mary's. Just take it easy and if you need to listen to books for the moment then that's what to do. You haven't lost your touch with reviews that's for sure. I'm already concerned I won't like The Trouble With Lichen now despite normally enjoying John Wyndham but our tastes have been quite similar in the past. Will have to read / listen soon and compare notes.

I missed you and your reviews, so happy to have you back!

Thanks Mama

I blame Slow Horses for not having more numbers. Just couldn't buy into it.

So sorry to hear you've been so ill @EineReiseDurchDieZeit Hope you can find some lovely books for the summer.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit so sorry to hear you’ve been so I’ll. Hope you find your reading mojo soon.

EineReise Good to see you back and very sorry you've been unwell.

Very hard to pick a standout as not much has hit the spot this year, at least since January when I loved The Moth and the Mountain by Ed Caesar.

Totally agree with your summary of My Friend Anna. If you can handle another tale of fraud, I also liked The Professor and the Parson.

My real standout this year has been Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart, for pure 1950s escapism.

I also didn't feel the love for Slow Horses.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit some of the books I have really enjoyed so far this year
are:

• Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
• Howl's Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones
• Rachel's Holiday / Rachel Again by Marian Keyes
• Becoming Unbecoming by Una (this one was a graphic novel)
• This Much Is True by Miriam Margolyes (audiobook I just loved it, felt like I had a daily chat with Miriam)
• Consider Her Ways by John Wyndham (short stories if you feel like giving him another chance)
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Sorry to hear you’ve been so ill eine, hope you recover soon.

The Laura James sounds interesting mama, have reserved it.

Sorry to hear you’ve been I’ll @EineReiseDurchDieZeit . Memed,
My Hawk is my standout so far this year, but not sure how it would be as an audio book.

Three Apples Fell from the Sky Narine Abgaryan trans. by Lisa C. Hayden

This read like a folk tale with a magical realism edge. Anatolia is 58 and one day she takes to her bed as she has decided she will die that day in her small village at the foot of a mountain. We get to hear the back story of her neighbours and how they all came by their names and all the calamities that have hit the village. It was a lovely, matter of fact story and I could imagine the village and its inhabitants of older people.

Get well soon Eine💐

I second Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers.

Oh no, EineReise, sorry you've been so poorly and hope you fully recover soon.

Are you looking for fiction or nonfiction? My favorite fiction was The Sentence, by Louise Erdlich.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit so sorry to hear you've been ill. Gentle recovery vibes sent your way.

I've read a lot of good stuff this year - mostly non fiction. If I had to pick one standout I would say Nina Simone's Gum by Warren Ellis.

Welcome back Eine, sorry you've been so ill and hope you're well on the mend. I've had some great reads this year but if you're after something light but absorbing, I loved Sister Stardust by Jane Green, set in the sixties, much of it in Morocco.

Good to hear from you Eine and sorry to hear you have been unwell.

In terms of recommendations, I second (or third) Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers but would also recommend some of her other books. I have read and enjoyed both In a Good Light and A Dry Spell.

If you like historical fiction and are happy with some long reads/listens I have loved Sharon Penman’s Welsh Princes trilogy.

However, if you want something short then I rated both Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Bookshop and Graham Swift’s Mothering Sunday.

Separately, I was underwhelmed by Slow Horses but have really enjoyed the subsequent books in the series so, for me, it was worth persevering.