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?

Hey @LadybirdDaphne some of us software engineers actually read

Snap Janina! And I saw the Pixies perform live back in the 90s!

So now I'm quite grateful to those 3 hours I wasted listening to Heart of Darkness for provoking this wonderful 'pretentious uni boyfriend' chat. Every cloud and all that!!

I have little to add to the above chat though as my uni boyfriends were pretty genuine and the guy I met in my third year (not from uni and also a software engineer @LadybirdDaphne ) turned out to be The One! We waited another 18 years (and 2 children) before getting married though 😂

Glasgow SEC '91 for me 😁

And I married a software engineer (although he was studying astrophysics when I met him).

Crystal Palace for me - also in 1991! I studied electrical engineering and married a mathematician 😀

<whispers> I really liked Wintering <slinks off guiltily>

@SolInvictus I thought The Maidens started well before going wildly off the rails. Just checked my review and it included the phrase 'the worst book I've ever finished'😂

I tried to read Wintering last year but couldn’t quite get into it. It’s in my pile to try again this December but I’m now tempted to stick it in the oxfam pile.

Oh lordy.
Tbh, I only cracked on because I got to about 28% of it (on Kindle obvs) in about an hour so I thought, oh, I can see this one off before Monday.
Having just DNF'd Outside by Ragnar Jonasson (if you like Ari Thor and the Dark/Hidden Iceland books DO NOT EVEN THINK OF ATTEMPTING THIS HUGE STEAMING PILE OF SHIT) I really don't want another DNF.....

@SolInvictus I wish you luck and I'll see you when you've finished it

DNF The Christmas Wish List by Heidi Swain, though I would go for a Christmassy themed book but this is boring. Only managed about thirty pages but think I just don’t want this type of feel good Christmassy book at the moment. Really can’t be bothered with it. On to something much more interesting just don’t know what yet. This book is destined for the charity shop bargain bin.

Quick update on recent reads - life's been a bit full on lately so haven't had much review-writing stamina:

71. Powerful Women of the Medieval World - Dorsey Armstrong
    Life stories of interesting figures including Eleanor of Aquitaine, Joan of Arc, Heloise, and (more surprisingly) Genius Khan's female relatives.

72. Food Isn’t Medicine - Joshua Wolrich
    Interesting debunking of a lot of diet myths by a junior doctor - although he definitely is on an anti-wellness-culture crusade, so may not be the most balanced source.

73. Drunk - Edward Slingerland
    Exploration of the positive role alcohol and other intoxicants have played in the development of human culture, by giving us a temporary release from the narrowly-focused control of the prefrontal cortex to allow creativity and social bonding. Does also acknowledge the harms alcohol can do in the modern context. I think this might be preaching to converted Dionysiac devotees though, and will be controversial to the many people that alcohol has harmed.

74. I Am Autistic - Chanelle Moriah
    Illustrated guide to one autistic New Zealander's experience.

75. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
    High Victorian intrigue and melodrama, complete with shady Italians. Loved it, but will save detailed thoughts for the readalong.

34. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie Inspired to read this by watching the 100 years of Agatha Christie documentary on Netflix. I didn't enjoy the only previous Poirot I read (Mysterious Affair at Styles) but this one was a much better read. I worked out quite a major clue early on but it still didn't leave me any the wiser to whodunnit until quite close to the end. Think I might give some more a go now. My mum actually has a beautiful matching set of hardbacks of the complete works of AC, probably published in the 60s which she's previously said I could have as she won't re-read them so I might take her up on that offer to save buying them. Although imagine dh will lose his mind if I bring home another massive stack of books that need storage space

The Lucy Worsley series on Agatha Christie that is currently on (& on iPlayer) is also really interesting @satelliteheart

Loving the pretentious boyfriend talk. My crush was an eco-warrior with smelly dreads and a dog on a rope, around the Swampy time. I nearly moved out of the city to dwell in a country hovel near him but thankfully failed my driving test.

Just finished Truly, Madly Guilty by Lianne Moriarty. Someone gave me this as I live near a hoarder and that's one of the plotlines. Think you know what you're getting with her books. It's quite a page turner and was good for a relaxing weekend.

dh will lose his mind if I bring home another massive stack of books that need storage space - this made me smile!

I’ve tried to catch up and failed at about page 12, so all I can say is - how lovely to see Cote and I love Wuthering Heights and get something new every single time I read it. I’d suggest it isn’t about an abusive relationship but abusive relationships. Nellie Dean is the person I hate most in literature actually. She is a shit stirring busy body.

I’m glad to see people reading Three Bags Full!

I think I left over at that awful 10 Cities book and I’ve had a slow few months

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
Book club read. Enjoy is a strong word here since a lot of bad stuff happens, including a great deal of awful violence. Overall, though I did like this book about Oscar and his family from the Dominican Republic. I knew enough about Trujillo etc to not be put off by the historical context and enough Spanish (and Kindle translate function) to not be put off by just how much Spanish there was. I thought that the writing was very good and it managed to draw lots of emotions from me without being sentimental, I think that the power of that was from the way Diaz chose to narrate the story. I also loved the footnotes, but I’m a historian so …

The Road to Lichfield, Penelope Lively
Started for the dated bookclub that I have also got behind with. I thought this was so boring. Not one interesting character, everyone just meh and two dimensional. I was a bit surprised by the ending but that’s it really.

The Midnight Library, Matt Haig
Nope. Didn’t like this either. Maybe it was the hype but it felt very writing by numbers where Haig missed the class on show not tell. I liked the premise and the opening was promising but just totally in memorable and meh.

The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
I was doing the readalong and assumed they had finished so raced on, but I don’t think they quite have. Anyway, loved this. I really enjoyed the episodic testimony which slowly unravels the story, all the different voices came through and I just adored the characters - from the strong wonderful Marian, to the quieter strength of Laura to the arch villain Count Fosco who is surely one of the best characters in the history of English language literature.

I’ve committed to not starting anything new until I’ve finished all my outstanding reads, currently War and Peace read long (also behind), The Vimcomte of Bragelonne, some Chekhov short stories and a non fiction about Genghis Khan.

51. Bungalows - Kathryn Ferry
This is a Shire Book about bungalows, read while staying in a bungalow. We were lucky enough to stay in a Landmark Trust place last week, and this was in the "library". LT try to provide books that reflect the place you're staying in, either the location or the building. Also on the shelf was The Salt Path, which I didn't finish on account of the drahhma. I sympathise with the awful circumstances in which Raynor and Moth found themselves, but boy does she have a taste for the melodramatic. I gave up when the pet sheep laid down and DIED because they had just lost their home. I thought long and hard about whether to post that, but there must have been opportunity during the publication process to rein it in a bit (the melodrama, not the sheep).

52. The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank
Reviewed upthread, I think. I enjoyed this and think it repays slow reading, becaues there is so much left unsaid, or rather said in the margins.

53. Royals - Emma Forrest
Speaking of melodrama. Steven is gay, Jewish and an aspiring fashion designer, Jasmine is the neglected daughter of a millionaire who lives alone in a Notting Hill mansion. They meet in hospital following Jasmine's failed suicide attempt and Steven's beating at the hands of his father. The backstory is moving - Steven trying to find a way to get his mother out of the abusive home, and Jasmine's attempts to please her usually-absent father whenever he turns up. However, the two main characters are infuriating in a very late-teen way, trading obscure bands and philosophers and wrecking expensive clothes (reminds me of the boyfriend chat upthread). There is some good writing among the overblown, so I wouldn't not recommend it, but it was not what I expected. The cover reviews suggest it is exciting, cool and sophisticated, but the overall tone is very sad.

57. A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre

I kmow others have read this including @PermanentTemporary

It's a biography of the Cambridge Spy Ring scandal and as such covers well trodden ground quite well, as it feels contemporary and was engaging. It also benefits factually through its distance in time from its subject, as a result of classified information having now been released.

I mostly read this ahead of the TV adaptation with Damien Lewis etc
As a non fiction, it's the sort of thing I generally enjoy but it didn't set me alight as such.

I've backed off now from "getting long reads done" to "just reading what I want" It's been in and around 20 years and still I have to remind myself "you aren't in school, Eine, who gives a shit?"

Does anyone else STILL have the You've Failed Your Exams Dream? I get it a good few times a year.

This was serviceable, but not special.

Count Fosco is one of the best villains ever.

I'm in a rut. Reading a pretty rubbish British Library collection of stories and a non-fiction one which is good in parts, but with lots of boring bits.

I don't really want to fall back on re-reads, so I'm driving myself and DP mad by complaining I can't find anything to read.

I do so admire the intellect of the excellent Marian Halcombe.

twiddles moustache and leaves the thread eating a fruit tart

<offers Count Fosco a jug of cream>

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

Treat us like bibliotherapists and write a list of what you really want and don't want, you know, don't just say TRAINS

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit 😂

Trains would be good tbh

A long ocean journey

Peril in the snow

An old fashioned children’s classic set in winter, which I’ve somehow missed

The best Agatha C which I haven’t yet read - but only Hercule. Miss Marple can fuck off.

Something sinister like Dorian G but not DG

A lost Wilkie Collins - I’ve read em all

Historical crime fiction or non

Anything to do with cross dressing/homosexuality/feats of heroism/counter culture in the Georgian period onwards

Pretty much anything that won’t send me to sleep or make me angry tbh.

A long ocean journey

Did you look at Jamrach's Menagerie or Charlotte Doyle. I also have We, The Drowned on TBR and I think that would fit, also, the Master And Commander series?

Also, the new series 1899 on Netflix ticks a lot of your boxes

Dorian Gray but not?

Jekyll And Hyde, Talented Mr Ripley, and I think the overall notions in Night Circus if not exactly

Historical misbehaviour, homosexuality, counter culture

The Queen Of Whale Cay, The Favourite, Georgiana, Duchess Of Devonshire

Winter Childrens

Laura Ingalls Wilder has one?

Thank you! I’ve read a lot of those but not the first few and not The Queen of Whale Cay. Got samples of those four.