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?

I was of the same opinion as you both. Hard work and not really worth the effort required.

57 Fatherland - Robert Harris

An easy pageturner which I needed with some family stuff happening lately. The best Harris I've read, lacking the silliness of Archangel and more action-packed than Munich. Though The Man In The High Castle remains my gold standard for WW2 alternative history fiction.

59. The Fell by Sarah Moss
60. Burntcoat by Sarah Hall

It felt right to read these together, pandemic novels by writers called Sarah!

The Fell is already much reviewed here and there's always lots of Sarah Moss chat. A woman in quarantine after being exposed to covid snaps after a week in the house, goes for a walk in the hills and has an accident. The novel moves between her, perspective, her son, a neighbour, and the mountain rescue team. It's almost entirely stream of consciousness so I think you have to really enjoy that and Moss' particular style, which I do, but it could be a bit much if not. The main weakness was that all the characters sound the same, and all pretty much have the same perspective on the pandemic.

Burntcoat was doing something much more interesting. It's told from the perspective of Edith, a famous sculptor, who is ill with the virus a second time and expects to die from it. She looks back over her life, childhood, art and lovers. This really consumed me, beautiful and powerful writing.

What Hall does differently is to slightly fictionalise the pandemic - it's a different, unnamed virus, and it's more dangerous than covid was which gives her room to explore the limits of what we all went through - a kind of 'what if it was 30% worse' scenario. It made the stakes a bit higher and more dramatic. The bit I wasn't keen on was a slight veer into speculative fiction at the end, with the virus reappearing in different ways, which seemed a bit unnecessary.

Overall these two did make me wonder if we'll see many more books set during 2020-21. I've read the latest Ali Smith novel as well which as ever was written very quickly as events were happening. But already I'm reading books that talk about the pandemic in the past tense so it may be that most authors decide to skip it entirely and move on.

Catching up yet again...

I visited Mr. B's Emporium in Bath this week- looks like many of us have been recently- maybe we should have a meet up there, I'm sure they'd love it. Jonathan Coe was there that evening promoting his latest book which I'm looking forward to once it comes out in paperback/Kindle offer and I was tempted to go but had to wine and dine DD. The staff are so knowledgeable and friendly. I went in and bought dd the Book Spa gift for Christmas- you get a 121 meeting with one of their book experts and coffee and cake. It costs £95 but you get a £60 voucher back to spend in-store on their recommendations for you (or other things I think) This is the place I got the subscription thing for dd for last year and every single book was a hit. I went in really to tell them that. So lovely. Can't speak highly enough of them.

@LadybirdDaphne sorry for your loss and hope dd is getting better

@RomanMum yes, it was me who got exasperated by Once Upon a River. The lovely young whippersnapper next to me on the train this week was just starting it, and I bit my tongue not to say to him "you sure you want to get going with that?"

@MaudOfTheMarches Have added both your coalmining book and the Europe one to my wishlist. I'm a northern miner's daughter and granddaughter and an expat in Europe who still humphs loudly every time my passport is stamped.

Adding my recent reads- I confess that I'll be reading short and simple in the run-up to the end of the year in the vain attempt to reach 50.

I'm dipping in and out of Wintering by Katherine May which is OK. Beautifully written- lots of the musings remind me of both Nigel Slater in The Christmas Chronicles and Kathleen Jamie. There's more naval gazing from KM though as she talks a lot about her personal issues.

Also getting through (with increasing exasperation) the bloody dreadful Forty Years of Christmas TV by Ben Baker. Unlimited on Kindle, but frankly, despite paying precisely £0 I feel short-changed. The English is appallingly bad, he forgets the sex of the people he writes about, the Kindle edition has chapters half missing (there's a music chapter supposedly dealing with Christmas number Ones from the year dot to 1999 that ends abruptly in 1969. It's also far less about Christmas telly, and more about "here's everything I know about Only Fools and Horses and oh! they did some Christmas specials" I love a nostalgic anthology of trivia as much as the next person, but it has to at least have a semblance of having been edited and proof read.

37 A Walk In the Woods Bill Bryson- think I may have updated with this one last time I posted but I forgot to bookmark. Comforting Bill reread.

38 The Chestnut Man couldn't decide whether to watch it or read it, but too often Netflix series disappoint, so I read. Good old Scandi multiple gruesome murders. Can't beat them.

39 The Magdalene Deception- Gary McAvoy- Also an Kindle Unlimited and worth the £0. Part 1 of a trilogy and have downloaded the other two. What's not to like- Rome, errant priests, more than a hefty touch of Dan Browns and lots of Marian mythology. Enjoyable but, like Dan Brown, don't go looking for Literature in there.

40 Hostage Claire McIntosh. a 99p Kindle and for once has been filed under "good crime" on my Goodreads. Lots of implausible happenings, taking place on a plane, which is where I (possibly unwisely) read it. You can see the Netflix/film makers rubbing their hands with this one. Two very big twists as well that I didn't see coming. I think I've read some CM before, but in the 99p psycho thriller way, they are gone and forgotten almost the minute I finish them. This will stay in my mind as Rosamund Lupton's Three Hours did.

I am a bit crimed out though now, so might dibble into something a little less fatal.

I finished After Sappho and have nothing more to add to the above really - as you say @FortunaMajor it didn’t reward the effort it took to read it. Also I finished it two days ago and already can’t remember how it ended (did it have an end or just kind of peter out? I think by that point I was just staring blankly at each page in turn rather than actually reading).

As an antidote, I jumped on @MaudOfTheMarches ’ recommendation for A Ladies Guide to Fortune Hunting by Sophie Irwin, which was indeed good fun.

Im also reading Calm Christmas by Beth Kempton - not far enough into it yet really to decide if I like it or not.

@SolInvictus I can't really take credit for Black Diamonds, that recommendation came to me from @satelliteheart - I'm from mining stock myself (slate, not coal) and it's harrowing to read what people went through.

@AliasGrape Glad you liked A Ladies Guide to Fortune Hunting!

As Eine said upthread, I tend to save my long reads for the end of the year, when I'm confident about reaching 50. Hence:

48 Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davies. This is about the British expeditions attempting to summit Everest in 1921, 1922 and 1924. It includes quite a bit about WWI; nearly all the members of the expeditions had fought in the trenches, with the exception of a couple who were too young/old, and it is certainly part of the backdrop to the Everest attempts. This book is incredibly well researched by a true devotee of the subject, and goes into enormous detail about every member of the expeditions and every stage of their journey, both physical and psychological. It's fascinating stuff, but it has taken me ages to read!

Agreed Tarahumana, a wonderful book but a bit of an expedition in itself.

I've just DNFd Happy Like Murderers by Gordon Burn. I don't know why I chose this really, except that I am in a true crime phase and I did find In Plain Sight really intriguing in terms of recapturing a different time. But this... there is nothing, nothing but degradation in the story of the Wests and I should have known better than to think there would be. I believe Gordon Burn was trying to do something interesting, and his book on Peter Sutcliffe was much better (Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son). This wasn't worth his time. Except i bought it, didn't I.

Ouch @PermanentTemporary that was a recent gift to someone from me. They only like true life. I hope it's not a dud for them too!

Yep @Tarahumara currently halfway up a Trilogy mountain and its not looking good.

@SolInvictus
I'm thinking of getting a subscription from Mr B's Emporium for my DD (17 and into Sci Fi and books about science) - take it you would recommend? Did you get the yearly one?

I got DD the 6mth was as it is quite expensive, plus with all her final year of school reading she didn't have much time for fun reading! You either get the recipient to do the questionnaire or you do it for them to keep the surprise element. I did it for DD and you list books/authors they've read and loved, plus their interests. With DD it was politics/feminism toe-dipping (she's now gone to university to do Politics/IR) and dystopian YA fiction/coming of age stuff.

@Tarahumara I loved Into the Silence so much, but I seem to remember there were big sections of Tibetan religious stuff which I ended up scanning.

@SolInvictus
Thanks for that. Will get her to do the questionnaire.

I've been browsing the Mr B's website and just discovered they have a 'recommend me a book' feature where you tell them what type of book you'd like, your last three standout reads, and the book on your shelf you'd most like to re-read. I've given it a go to see what they suggest. I've asked for fiction as looking back through this year's reads so far around half have been fiction but I've only bolded two (compared to 17 non-fiction).
Happily in the course of filling it in I've discovered Dave Hutchinson has another book in his Fractured Europe sequence out so treated myself to that in the hope it'll be a good'un.

Clothes-Pegs by Susan Scarlett
Well, this was a rather lovely discovery. I can't remember how I found out - was it somebody here? - that Noel Streatfeild also wrote quaint little romances under a pen name. This is the first, and it was everything I hoped it would be - salt of the earth working class folk, a handsome lord, some new frocks, a couple of spiteful little bitches, green velvet curtains and all. If you like Ballet Shoes and haven't come across this before, you will love. I've already bought some more of these.

In the meantime, yet more non-fiction

92 How to Change Your Mind - The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan
Interesting exploration of the renewed interest in psychedelic drugs.

This worked well for me as a follow on from The Microdot Gang (and indeed from seeing the musical Operation Julie a little while back). Many of those involved in the LSD microdot operation in the 1970s seem to have genuinely been motivated by a desire to change the world (though others definitely just wanted the financial rewards).

It's easy from a 21stC perspective to dismiss this as 70s naivety, & I was fascinated to hear so many of the same views coming through from modern voices. I also really liked the very clear distinction between the use of these drugs in a therapeutic-type setting as opposed to free-form recreational use.

I think it would be fair to say that in my social circles mushrooms at least are pretty widely used, I don't know how much that is the norm in other parts of the UK (not by me - I discovered many years back that mind-altering drugs are really not my thing) & I'm not sure that they are achieving the advertised results in party settings. But, it does seem that there is a great deal of potential for helping some people in the right context.

In the meantime, yet more non-fiction

92 How to Change Your Mind - The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan
Interesting exploration of the renewed interest in psychedelic drugs.

This worked well for me as a follow on from The Microdot Gang (and indeed from seeing the musical Operation Julie a little while back). Many of those involved in the LSD microdot operation in the 1970s seem to have genuinely been motivated by a desire to change the world (though others definitely just wanted the financial rewards).

It's easy from a 21stC perspective to dismiss this as 70s naivety, & I was fascinated to hear so many of the same views coming through from modern voices. I also really liked the very clear distinction between the use of these drugs in a therapeutic-type setting as opposed to free-form recreational use.

I think it would be fair to say that in my social circles mushrooms at least are pretty widely used, I don't know how much that is the norm in other parts of the UK (not by me - I discovered many years back that mind-altering drugs are really not my thing) & I'm not sure that they are achieving the advertised results in party settings. But, it does seem that there is a great deal of potential for helping some people in the right context.

Oops, sorry for double post

That sounds wonderful Remus

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I had heard of these but thought they were out of print! How delightful.

On Kindle - less than £3.

Oh, I think that was me, Remus. There are quite a few of them now - Dean Street Press/Furrowed Middlebrow publish them on Kindle. Greyladies books did quite a few previously as actual books. They’re really good fun.

67 The Bullet That Missed - Richard Osman Lots of fun, as expected, and I love the little jokes that are scattered throughout the book, and the main characters. Osman has such a friendly way of writing, and I always have a very clear picture in my head of the characters and their voices. This is who I would cast in the main roles - the first two in particular are exactly how I imagine the characters:

Joyce - Anne Reid (she’s probably too old though)
Elizabeth - Fiona Shaw
Ibrahim - Art Malik
Ron - Ray Winstone

Thanks @Terpsichore It was just lovely.
Finished another one last night, set in a department store. I didn’t like it as much as the first. It followed a very similar formula though, so it might have been better to space them out!

Ah yes, Babbacombes! I read that last (?) year after having one of those joyful chance moments of going into a charity shop and finding about 20 Greyladies books for 99p each - loads of Susan Scarletts and other little-known women writers of the era. I staggered home with two huge bags full. I’m quite partial to department-store fiction and there are a few examples around.

I see Dean Street Press has also now reprinted SS's Murder While You Work, which is annoying as I’d only just paid a moderate amount for a secondhand copy. C'est la vie though.