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?

A couple more for my list:

45 Mrs Everything by Jennifer Weiner. Weiner is usually a great choice when I'm in the mood for a bit of chick lit, but I wasn't sure about this one. It felt like she was trying to move beyond chick lit and perhaps towards the 'family saga' type of book - it was long, and the timeline of the book spanned several decades, covering the entire lives of sisters Jo and Bethie from childhood to old age / death. But the language and plot still felt like chick lit. IMO Weiner should stick to what she's good at! This felt a bit like it was trying to be something it's not.

46 The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller. This was longlisted for the 2022 Women's Prize for Fiction and was reviewed upthread by several posters. I seem to remember it got mixed reviews on here? It's a dual timeline novel, with one strand moving slowly in the present day and the other moving quickly from a point several decades before, until the two strands meet. The present day strand starts with an act of infidelity between the protagonist Elle and her childhood friend Jonas, and over the course of the book we discover the complex history of their relationship. I thought the dual timeline aspect worked well and I liked the characters, but I agree with other posters on this thread that some aspects felt a bit unrealistic. Overall I liked it a lot rather than loved it.

So I went through all 46 pages of THE DEALS

I got

The Kraken Wakes
Purple Hibiscus
Project Hail Mary
The Terror
The North Water

As well as those Chessie mentioned, I'm happy to vouch for The Poisonwood Bible and The Garden Of Evening Mists if there are 50 Bookers who haven't read them.

As usual, pages of dross.

If anyone sees some bankable non fiction, let me know.

I got Project Hail Mary and The Seven Ages of Death.

I got a grand total of three books in the deals:

Africa is not a Country by Nigerian author Dipo Faloyin, subtitled "breaking stereotypes of modern Africa" .

Mother's Boy by Howard Jacobson. About his childhood so hopefully not about priapic and/or impotent men (for once).

Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart.

I also saw Jamaica Inn and Swallows and Amazons.

Is there a link to Monthly deals? I spent a while going through them only to realise I was on the American site.

I used this link:

www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-Deals/b?ie=UTF8&node=3017941031

Then scroll to the bottom and "see all results". They don't call them monthly deals any more but they do still seem to refresh on the first of the month.

Thanks Maud I got to page 20 and didn’t really see anything.

I bought the latest Sophie Hannah, The Couple at the Table, because I have some sort of masochistic compulsion.

34. The People In The Trees by Hanya Yanagihara

This is going to be quite hard to review I think, but bare with me.

The beginning of the novel introduces us to Ron Kubodera, a scientist, who has chosen to stand by his colleague Norton Perina, a once Nobel Prize winner now convicted paedophile serving time.
Kubodera presents us with Perina's autobiography, sent to him in installments from prison. Kubodera adds a set of footnotes, a fiction within a fiction. There was a lot I thought of Nabokov in the air. I ignored the footnotes and didn't think, on a skim, at the end, they added much, but regretted not realising they formed part of it before finishing.

The bulk of the novel is about Perina's career which begins when he is selected to go as the team doctor on an anthropological trip to a Micronesian island. Perina makes an important scientific discovery, but all it achieves is destruction and ruin.

Essentially this book is a general commentary on how predominantly white Westerners travel to exotic lands only to remove or destroy anything of beauty or value in the natural world, whilst also destroying the culture of the indigenous peoples. Such stories have indeed been done before, but this is a good one.

I just, from even the earliest pages, found this so engrossing. I was immersed in it, and I've read it in two days. The prose is great, and this is certainly my first bold this year.

Yet, though I don't particularly agree with books needing trigger warnings; I do feel that it would be remiss of me to enthuse about how "good" a book is, when there are many challenging elements for which to use the word "enjoy" in relation to the book would be wrong.
It's got strong literary merit, but is by no means light.

There are examples of abuse to animals, in the form of animal testing
Abuse of indigenous persons as guinea pigs
There are a number of examples of child sexual abuse

If you have the stomach for that content, then do proceed.
If not I'm happy to have given fair warning.

There is a postscript which is both a complete surprise and no surprise at all.

I also loved A Little Life and so will definitely be seeking out To Paradise when it comes down a bit in price.

I got these...spent far too much when I already have books to read 🙄

Ah, there are some good ones in there, bett. I might go back for the Gordon Brown book, which reminded me I also saw Andrew Rawnsley's The End of the Party for 99p. It's one of my all time favourite political books, about New Labour and how they fell from power. Rawnsley appears to have had very good connections and all the key players are there, notably of course Blair, Brown, Ed Balls and Alastair Campbell. I really recommend it.

109. Rule, Nostalgia: A Backwards History of Britain, by Hannah Rose Woods. Nostalgia is less about the delights of the past and more about the anxieties of the present. People have always looked back at simpler, better times, from lockdown references to the Blitz spirit through the Victorian romance with medievalism, right back to certain Elizabeth hankerings for a previous Golden Age. It's a clever idea and a sensible book.

219 Don’t Tell Alfred by Nancy Mitford

The last of her novels, and a sequel to The Pursuit Of Love and Love In A Cold Climate. We revisit Fanny as an older woman living in Paris (and this book also features Grace who was the main character in The Blessing so it’s sort of a sequel to that book too). This was funny but not as good as the earlier books.

220 The Other Side Of The Story by Marian Keyes

A reread (via Audible) of one of Keynes’s earlier books. I hadn’t read this one for ages so it was nice to revisit. Partly set in the publishing world (the three main characters are a literary agent and two of her writers) which I enjoyed hearing about.

I went through the whole bloody list of deals. Not a sausage for me.

I got Project Hail Mary in the deals which someone recommended to me while I was on holiday earlier this year, delighted to see a few other 50 bookers recommend it too!

43. Rose Madder by Stephen King

King writes two types of horror, those starring humans, and other supernatural horror. The human ones are always harder to read, as unbelievably awful as the abuser in this is, I can't just tell myself it's not real in the same way I can when it's supernatural forces at work.

Rose is escaping an abusive husband and living in fear that he tracks her down just as she is starting a new life. There is a supernatural twist, but the main plot is the evil of man.

It's an ok book, but it did make me wonder why I am persisting with his back catalogue of books, but when I check the bibliography I can see Green Mile is up next, and a lot more Dark Tower coming as well as The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon so I'm sticking with it!
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The only thing I saw in the deals was Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead for £1.99. I didn't buy it as I have the paperback TBR.

@RazorstormUnicorn The ones you've got coming are all excellent. I think I might be due a re-read of The Green Mile (but it's so devastating, I'm not sure if I'm feeling brave enough!).

110. Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman, by Lucy Worsley Readable biography. Not particularly profound and LW is no great prose stylist but this slipped down easily enough. Remus, you'd hate it though!

111. The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley
Published in 1919, this was a pleasing little period piece. Set in a bookshop in Brooklyn, it's part spy thriller, part romance, not at all a ghost story and above all a love story to books and bookselling. It's uneven but I did like the setting.

@RazorstormUnicorn coincidentally we are at pretty much the same point in our read of all Stephen King books, although I read all of the Dark Tower books in one go as I kept forgetting what had happened in previous books. There's definitely been a few stinkers recently but it looks like it's going to pick up and I'm also very much looking forward to The Green Mile! Are you reading the short story collections as well? I recently finished Insomnia and realised I'd missed Nightmares and Dreamscapes so am going back to that before Rose Madder.

69. Netherspace by Andrew Lane and Nigel Foster

Aliens have been in contact with Earth for decades but despite trading, of a sort, taking place effective communication between the different species has proved impossible. However through the trading Earth has become dependant on Alien technology, particularly faster than light drives, which enable humans to travel across the universe via the ‘neverspace’. When an Earth ship is attacked by aliens, and the passengers kidnapped, a team is sent to negotiate with the aliens for their safe return. This was ok, with some interesting ideas, but I doubt I’ll bother reading book 2.

70. Did You See Melody by Sophie Hannah

Woman blows a huge chunk of family savings and runs off to a spa in Arizona. While there she sees one of America’s most famous murder victims, or does she? This was terrible. Awful characters, doing inexplicable things. The ending was especially mind-numbingly terrible while clearly thinking it was delightfully intriguing and ambiguous.

71. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

I absolutely love John Wyndham, and I think this might be my absolute favourite book by him. I read it years ago and loved, it but couldn’t remember much about it so my terrible memory has allowed me to enjoy this all over again. In a post-apocalyptic world, where any type of genetic mutation is seen as a deviation and dealt with harshly by the religious nut-jobs running the place, David and his friends live life in fear of their ‘extra talent’ being discovered. I listened to this on audible, and if you are a member pretty much all of his books are free to listen to, so I’m working my way through.

72. Where She Lies by Michael Scanlon

First in a mediocre crime series that I won’t be continuing with. Young girl is murdered. Disgraced, messed up, maverick, emotionally unavailable cop (I probably missed a few of the cliches there but I'm betting the author did not) investigates. Silly and terrible but it was set in a part of Ireland which my ancestors came from which provided the only interest for me.

@MamaNewtNewt

I did The Chrysalids last year, I loved it. Brilliantly read by Noah Reid from Schitt's Creek. Like you, I'm working through. Stephen Fry does Midwich Cuckoos and I somehow found him too jovial. I bought Kraken Wakes for 99p, so I'll read that "properly" as I did with Triffids

I'm really really interested in your opinion of Trouble With Lichen mainly because its such a baffling waste (imo) of an amazing concept

I'm just listening to 2001: A Space Odyssey and was planning to listen to Trouble With Lichen after that. I read The Midwich Cuckoos fairly recently so won't listen to that, but I really enjoyed listening to The Kraken Wakes which Alex Jennings read perfectly. I think I bought that version a while ago though and don't think it's one of the free ones.

Thank you for the (not very) new thread.

Currently dying of boredom listening to my book 41: Becky Chambers' 'The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet' which sadly came highly recommended and is the choice for my book club.

Obviously sci-fi is its own thing; I have enjoyed some sci-fi. I like Robert A Heinlein's unfiltered blast of American pulp, and I really loved reading Ted Chiang's mind-expanding and thoughtful stories. Ursula le Guin led me into new thoughts as well. But this.... God.

Plot; new administrator from the Mars settlement (long after Earth was abandoned following climate catastrophe) arrives on a tunnelling spaceship as they are about to do some kind of tunnelling job. So far, that's it. When I attempt writing fiction I have massive problems getting the plot moving as I get stuck with two characters explaining things to each other in a scene. Judging by this, I should have just kept writing that until I had a book, because that's what this is like. I'm in chapter 6, and the administrator hasn't started work yet; literally the only thing that has happened is that the characters have eaten a meal together while perkily explaining [various preoccupations of 2015] to each other. I'm reminded of the fourth Harry Potter when JKR had got too famous to be edited and it took about 200 pages for HP to get to school. Except with a lot of swearing and rather unpleasant sexual references (no actual sex, more like an 80s office before sexual harassment was considered a bad idea).

Presumably something will happen eventually. If it gets better I'll update. And also if someone loves this, can you explain why?

Have you heard the episode of Backlisted on John Wyndham, @MamaNewtNewt? It's mainly about The Chysalids but they discuss most of the others as well. A good listen.

From the latest to the oldest on my TBR list:

52: The House on Half Moon Street - Alex Reeve

Intrigued by Remus's review of The Blood Flower, I picked this up - it's the first in the series of Victorian crime novels featuring a trans protagonist. On the whole I enjoyed this but didn't find it terribly easy to imagine the setting. Thankfully it didn't have 'Ye Olde Victorian London' feel but I would have liked a little more to place it in its historical context. Also I felt as if there were a few too many reminders to the reader of "BTW I was born a woman". Having said that it was a solid start to the series and I'm interested enough in how the characters will progress to put the second book on my TBR.

53. Four Mums in a Boat - Janette Benaddi, Helen Butters, Niki Doeg and Frances Davies

This has been on my TBR since my MIL recommended it, and she passed away in 2018. Eek.

Well. If this doesn't inspire you to go and have an adventure I don't know what will. Four middle aged mums from Yorkshire met at a Saturday morning rowing club, and after a few glasses of wine decided to enter an Atlantic rowing race from La Gomera to Antigua. I loved this. The book goes into the preparation and lead up to the event, the families and the row itself. Felt like I knew each of the team by the end. From starting out as ordinary mums to becoming rowers, adventurers and record breakers, it was an amazing story. Recommended!

Right, just heading off to climb a mountain of my TBR.

@PermanentTemporary I can't help I'm afraid, this was a DNF for me earlier this year. Like you I found it incredibly boring and I just wasn't willing to put any more time into it. Incidentally I'm reading Exhalation by Ted Chiang at the moment, I'm about 3 stories in and am enjoying it so far.

@Terpsichore oh I've not heard of that, will check it out, thanks!