50 Books Challenge 2022 Part six

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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.

What are you reading?

Sadik I've added the Michael Pollan book to my wishlist, thank you. How to Change Your Mind was fascinating and as a lifelong caffeine addict I'm interested to read that section.

BestIsWest I felt the same about Watch Her Fall - the best part is the extensive dance-related bibliography at the end, which led me down a rabbit hole. I don't think I've seen anything like that in a fiction book before - full marks for research, but it did give the impression she had read a load of first-hand accounts and rehashed them into something completely implausible.

I'm on the Borrowbox waiting list for How to Change Your Mind (I borrowed This is Your mind on Plants in the interim as it was available straight away) so glad to hear it's good

Oh I missed the bibliography Maud, will go back and have a look.

I really like Erin Kelly’s books and I liked Watch Her Fall. My favourites of hers are The Poison Tree and The Burning Air.

I'm not sure I want to read Erin Kelly (think I tried one and didn't get on with it), but that bibliography sounds fabulous.

Here it is - I could have sworn it was longer but that's probably because it led me to look at other things:

Dancing on my Grave – Gelsey Kirkland
Life in Motion – Misty Copeland
A Body of Work – David Hallberg
Blood Memory – Martha Graham
Dancing Through It – Jennifer Ringer
Ballerina – Dierdre Kelly
Rudolph Nureyev: The Life – Julie Kavanagh
Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia – Christina Ezrahi
Bolshoi Confidential – Simon Morrison
Hope in a Ballet Shoe – Michaela dePrince

For all early Christmas shoppers! Mr. B's Emporium catalogue is out. I think I may get DD the book "spa" this year. I got her the subscription last year. She's in Bath at uni now, so local to Mr.B. Lots of books I think she'd like in their "best of 22" list too. I'm going over to visit in November and Jonathan Coe is doing an author talk while I'm there about his new book Bournville which I'm looking forward to (though he irritated me with the last installment of the Rotters as so much felt "shoehorned")

@noodlezoodle how funny- the Crow Road and Espedair Street have been moved to my "want to reread" pile recently!
@FortunaMajor yes, couldn't agree more re: Rebus. Though at least IR hasn't gone full blown conspiracy madster like Patricia Cornwell I suppose. I think Rebus style crime has just been superceded by "different" crime sub-genres now, so feels tired. I do love Ken Stott though and thank the lord they quickly replaced John Hannah in the series, a less likely Rebus there never was!

In other news, The Secret History has compelled me to sign up for the free OU course An Introduction to Ancient Greek. Get me!

In other news, The Secret History has compelled me to sign up for the free OU course An Introduction to Ancient Greek. Get me!

That sounds interesting - bookmarking for future reference. I'd love to do this but I know I won't get round to it for a good while. I have had How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs on my TBR since it came out. Jeez - I've just looked it up and that was 1998, and I have an actual hardback copy.

@SolInvictus

Solly, never heard of Mr B, but it looks amazing and I really want a reading spa now, unfortunately I don't drive, and it's hours away from me. Sad times.

55 Faith, Hope and Carnage - Nick Cave and Sean O'Hagan

A quite astonishing audio book which delves into the creative process, faith, and grief with an honesty and generosity of intention that brought me to tears at several points. Would definitely recommend this Audible version. I was fortunate enough to see Nick and Warren Ellis on their Carnage tour last year and it was just a stunning experience - this is a fitting accompaniment.

Place marking.

I've read a lot of Erin Kelly but I agree Watch Her Fall isn't her best. I hadn't noticed the bibliography but I listened to a podcast where she talked about doing huge amounts of research on ballet so I'm not surprised.

On the ballet theme, for fiction I highly recommend Dancer by Colum McCann, which is a fictionalised biography of Rudolph Nureyev.

I think Mr B's is my favourite bookshop in the world! Alas I don't live anywhere near Bath.

@noodlezoodle Great taste! The Crow Road is one of my favourite books and I loved The Secret History. I've not read it for years so might be due a re-read.

62 Anatomy of a Scandal - Sarah Vaughan This covers the prosecution of a junior government minister for rape in the present day (2016-17), with much of the story being told via flashbacks to Oxford University in the early 90s. It switches between the perspectives of several main characters including the junior minister, his wife and the prosecuting barrister. The court case itself is very much not the main story - it’s really about entitled men and the effect they have on women.

I could have done without the courtroom drama element, and the big twist is both obvious and highly unlikely; but apart from that I really enjoyed the book. It all felt so real - the Oxford bits were completely realistic and the political elements have (sadly) only got more believable since the book was written: the arrogant, unthinking privilege was both shocking and absolutely unsurprising. Definitely worth reading! I have another Sarah Vaughan book waiting for me on BorrowBox and am looking forward to it.

51. Trust by Hernan Diaz. Reviewed up thread by @FortunaMajor as part of the Booker long list. This tells the story of a very wealthy New York financier and his wife during the 1920s, in four different ways while you try to get closer to the truth of who they were. A very clever book though not one I particularly warmed to. Also a lot of the stock market detail went over my head.

52. Shrines of Gaity by Kate Atkinson. Also already reviewed and much anticipated. A romp through inter-war Soho involving nightclubs, rival gangs, bent police officers and teenage girls running away to make their fortunes. Nothing like as good as Life After Life or A God in Ruins but great fun and the final 20 pages were excellent. I actually thought this had more in common with the Jackson Brodie books - full of missing girls, doubles, wild coincidences and bodies turning up in the water.

53. Honey and Spice by Bola Babalola - cute, almost YA romance with a fake dating set up on a fictional university campus somewhere in the South East. Not much plot and the writing was pretty patchy but I think I really enjoyed it in spite of that. She creates a kind of technicolour Nigerian-British-American world (diners, basketball courts, cult Nigerian fantasy novels, characters slipping into Yoruba language) that I don't think I've seen before in commercial fiction.

Book twinning!

Thank you for the ballet recs. As I said up thread, I know nothing about it, never went to classes as a child, had never watched a ballet, haven’t even read Ballet Shoes but although I didn’t like the plot of Watch Her Fall the descriptions of the ballet world did pique my interest and I ended up watching Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake last night and thoroughly enjoyed it to my surprise. I may well follow up with some reading.

@BestIsWest Please do read Ballet Shoes. I'd be really surprised if you don't love it.

Ballet Shoes is lovely, one of my favourite childhood books.

229 My Darling Daughter by J P Delaney

Musician Suzie gave up her daughter for adoption. Years later she is contacted by someone claiming to be her daughter and saying that she’s very unhappy. Suzie is drawn into trying to help - but what is the truth about Anna’s life now? Enjoyed most of this but the ending was disappointing.

230 Lolita

Wow. This is definitely one that will stay with me. The writing is wonderful, the subject matter is horrifying. The way Nabokov structures the story, told from the unreliable narrator’s point of view, is so clever. I’m sure I will reread it at some point to pick up on some of the nuances that I’m sure have escaped me on this first reading, but that reread definitely won’t be for a while given the subject matter which inevitably leaves you feeling rather grubby.

231 Calling The Shots by Sue Barker

On to something completely different…

I love tennis so this was a great read for me. My only criticism is that I would have liked a bit more gossip about some of the players - as you would expect she’s so nice about everyone (except Cliff Richard - she does talk about that episode and how he made so much more out of it than there ever really was!). It was really interesting reading how different things were when she was playing - no coach travelling with her whereas nowadays each player has a whole entourage with them.

Ballet Shoes is an all time favourite of mine! And @BestIsWest if you liked Swan Lake there are several more Matthew Bourne re-workings of classic ballets out there. I like his Sleeping Beauty particularly.

59 The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

Booker shortlisted (some time ago) novel centring around the titular garden in post-war and modern day Malaysia. The story is told through Yun Ling, a retired judge, who lived and worked in the garden for a formative period of her life after being imprisoned by the Japanese during the war. She is initially mistrustful of Aritomo, the elusive Japanese gardener who has designed and built the garden, but their relationship develops and he takes her on as a sort of apprentice. I liked the relationship between the two central, flawed characters, and the slow revealing of their lives. Almost everyone involved I the story is incomplete in some way, and memory is a powerful theme running through the book. The real heart of the book, though, is the garden, which is beautifully described. I enjoyed this but because I've been busy I was reading it in bits, and I think it's the sort of book you need to immerse yourself in.

14)The Cornish Hideaway by Jennifer Bibby

I wanted a not too taxing uplifting summertime read so went for this romance novel. It is Jennifer Bobby’s debut novel and it delivered all that I was looking for in a typical romance. It is about a young lady called Freya who has failed her Masters Fine Art degree. She is also dumped by her boyfriend Matt. She is offered a chance to escape London and work in a cafe with her friend Lola in a sleepy Cornish village until she decides what she wants from life. She meets Angelo a hottie Italian and wham. Yes if you want something very light
hearted and romantic I recommend.

I've got a lot of catching up to do on this thread.

88. The Owl Service by Alan Garner
    A blended family are staying in a Welsh cottage inherited by the teenage daughter. When she finds a crockery set with a floral pattern on it that resembles owls mysterious things start happening.
    I read a few Alan Garner books as a child but not this one because I thought from the title that it would be about talking birds. That wasn't what it was about at all but I still didn't really enjoy the plot. The writing is good, with lots of dialogue, and the class tensions between the middle class English family and their Welsh live in housekeeper and her son, as well as the tensions within the two families are portrayed very well.

89. The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent
    Two girls raised in isolation in a cabin in the woods wait for their mother and sister to return. Meanwhile Nicolette who lives at the edge of the forest is growing increasingly suspicious of her husband.
    I really liked the scenes set in the woods but Nicolette's story seems a bit contrived. Mostly a good read though.

90. America City by Chris Beckett
    In a future US ravaged by floods and storms with an increasing number of internal refugees liberal Holly starts working a for charismatic right wing politician.
    Pretty good climate disaster and political science fiction, though it wears its politics a little too heavily.

91. The Book of Koli by
    M.R. Carey
    In a future Britain Koli lives in a dwindling community ruled by the elite who are able to use the few technological relics that still exist. When he discovers a secret about the technology his world view starts to change.
    Annoyingly the most interesting thing about this world, moving carnivorous trees, don't make an appearance in this book, other than a couple of brief mentions.
    If you like anything post-apocalytic dystopia YA you'll probably like this, but it's nothing stand-out in the genre.

92. Feathertide by Beth Cartwright
    Maréa is born with feathers growing on her back and raised in semi secret in a brothel. When she leaves at eighteen to search for her father she comes to the mysterious City of Murmurs and discovers more about life and herself.
    Nice enough coming of age story. I enjoyed the magic and the atmosphere.

93. Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran
    Three Iranian sisters move to a small Irish town in the 1980s and open a cafe.
    Easy to read book about moving on, acceptance and small town life.

94.The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
Agoraphobic Anna has not left her house in months, she spends her time watching her neighbours through the window but then she witnesses something shocking.
Good twisty thriller as we discover more about the neighbours and also more about Anna.

95. Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You by Marcus Chown Supposed to make quantum theory easy to understand. Interesting but still totally incomprehensible to me.

30. The Bullet that Missed Richard Osman. I really enjoyed this and have enjoyed the series so far but you do have to suspend disbelief a lot for the story in this one and the second to have happened. Our group of pensioners start to explore the cold case of a local news journalist who's car was found at the bottom of a cliff and who's body was never found. Previous recurring characters in the series appear too. If you want a cosy setting and an interesting story then might be worth reading but you do need to read the previous book at least.

31. The Colours of Cattle Alexander Mcall Smith. Another visit to Botswana and the wonderful world of Mma Ramotswe. I've almost read the series in its entirety this year and although they aren't going to win any literary awards they are my comfort read.

I have now officially reached (and beaten) my Goodreads goal for the year. Honestly didn't expect to reach it this year.

Just caught up with the Mr B chat and have to agree it is my favourite bookshop. I always feel bad when we visit Bath as DH is not a reader and I could spend hours there.....