50 Books Challenge 2022 Part Seven

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh and (and probably) final 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, and even though it's late in the year, it’s not too late to join. Please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

How have you got on this year?

Delighted to see I already nabbed The Christmas Cornucopia as a 99p deal - must crack on and read it at a suitable time otherwise I won't bother til next winter.

70. The Somnambulist by Essie Fox

As I said downthread this has been on my Kindle for 10 years and never got past a few pages. My thought was that it was trying too hard to be Sarah Waters, and that is still true, but :

Phoebe Turner falls on hard times after the death of her Aunt and is sent to the country as a ladies companion. There is general mild intrigue.

I found it such a page turner and did half in one sitting, and I was really surprised at myself and the book considering.

It was definitely going for bold, until the last third, when it goes downhill and feels rushed and a bit forced.

Good if you like period stuff with country houses and secrets.

131. The Black Bear, by Frances Faviell.. Recommended by Terp recently, this is an account of Berlin immediately after WWII. I thought this was fantastic - frank about the horrors, but not gratuitous, and redeemed by its steady compassion and willingness to recognize decency. It's a cliche, but it really does bring history to life. Memorable.

Ha, having said it's memorable, I remembered the name wrong. Should be The Dancing Bear.

Really pleased you enjoyed it, biblio.

Had to laugh about The Christmas Cornucopia; completely coincidentally I stumbled across it a couple of days ago, saw it was 99p, and was dithering about buying it. Then all the posts popped up on here, so I've bought it too.

54. Roger Daltrey: My Story. Thanks a Lot Mr Kibblewight
I needed something undemanding to read as my Mum is ill. This fitted the bill; a gentle canter through Daltrey's life story. Curiously opaque even while he's opening up; Daltrey always did seem like a bloke's bloke who happened to have an amazing performing talent and the most incredible look. But I did find myself listening to Who tracks, and I was quite touched by the portrait of his own family life and his London working class background.

I’m taking a firm stand and ignoring the Christmas Cornucopia.

I started The Dark is Rising last night. I’d been saving it, but needs must.

It's certainly feeling properly wintry here - loads of snow!

I finished The Household Spirit by Tod Wodicka - thanks for the recommendation @DameHelena

I don’t know if it was lovely 😆but it was an absorbing read and certainly not arch, nor cynical which is what I felt I’d had enough of. I loved the free sample, paid for the full book and then immediately went off it a bit, but it pulled me back in.

It’s a story of isolation, loneliness and friendship. I found It frustrating at times but ultimately was really rooting for the main characters.

Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe of Empire of Pain fame is 99p today - it’s a collection of his essays from The New Yorker

@Palegreenstars Thanks for that, I saw it earlier and bought it. Empire of Pain is probably my book of the year. Looking out for a deal on his latest but have plenty to be going on with.

@MaudOfTheMarches onw of by books of the year too - I have Say Nothing on my tbr, although that’s a little long right now.

Same here - I don't have the headspace for Say Nothing just now but will definitely read it.

Say Nothing is my book of the year, but I would agree it's not festive. I'm basically housebound due to the weather, but my current read is very good.

38. Lady Worsley's Whim by Hallie Rubenhold This was a re-read for me and I believe this book has been republished as The Scandalous Lady W. In the 18th century Seymour Dorothy Fleming married Sir Richard Worsley. The marriage was an unmitigated disaster and eventually Seymour ran off with their neighbour and close friend Maurice George Bisset. Unfortunately this was a period when a woman couldn't sue for divorce or own any property or money in her own name. Worsley used the legal power he had to punish Seymour as much as possible and her life ended up being mostly tragic. Rubenhold is a good historian and an excellent writer and this book is another fab read

36 Bear Head - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Genetically modified man living on Mars becomes host to the mind of a deceased bear.

Drivel. Space drivel at that, really not my thing. I read Dogs of War by the same author earlier this year so I should have known really. * *

36. Elementary: The Periodic table explained by James M Russell.

This was a prime read. As someone who is not a chemist this was an OK introduction to the elements but as someone who doesn't know a lot about chemistry I do wish some of the terms had been explained better (there's no glossary so had to do a lot of googling). Worth a read if you want to know what different elements are used for or how they were discovered.

Currently reading Hobbit J.R.R Tolkien. Never read this or any Tolkein before and am currently really enjoying it.

War and Peace by Tolstoy

It feels great to have finished this, having started on New Year’s Day! I’m glad I read it. I really liked some bits and found other bits really dull. I don’t think I’ll ever reread it but glad it’s ticked off the list.

71. House Of Glass by Hadley Freeman

Freeman's family memoir about her grandmother and siblings, who were born Jewish in Poland and lived in France during WW2.

As many voices on the thread have noted, this is beautifully written and quietly haunting. A definite must, a definite bold.

The Dark is Rising
I can’t remember when I last read this- lots of it felt very familiar but other sections felt like I’d rarely seen them before, so it was a bit of an odd reread.

I enjoyed this but with a bit of a caveat. Bits of it felt old fashioned in a rather awkward and long winded sort of way. And Will just doesn’t feel believable as an 11 year old. And there was far too much rabbiting on about flutes and Greensleeves for my liking. And the female characters are entirely one dimensional. And the dad is a bit of a pillock.

But some of it I found genuinely moving (Hawkins in particular) and I really liked the snow!

81 Theodora and the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent-Dyer

Joey is a horror, the triplets do their thing, Mary-Lou is insufferable and there was some drama with scarlet fever.

82 Red Sauce Brown Sauce by Felicity Cloake

I like Cloake's Guardian columns and I like breakfast food so this worked well for me. She cycles round the UK in search of great breakfast options and it's part travelogue, part recipe book. The recipes look really good - I'm planning a gentle exploration of a couple this weekend, including making my own mustard and Staffordshire oatcakes.

The Dark is Rising I'm a bit too old to have read this when it originally came out, so it was a first time for me. I think I would have loved this when I was young and with snow outside the window it was the perfect time to read it. I did enjoy it but agree with the caveats outlined by Remus; it felt very much a book from the 1970s.

I enjoyed The Dark is Rising when I read it last year and can tell you all it felt a lot more modern than The Box of Delights that I'm reading this year. But DD2 (who usually loves a classic children's novel) said she felt both too old and too young for TDIR when she tried it aged 12.

101 Murder Before Evensong by Richard Cole
I picked this vicar-does-detecting up in the library expecting something in the Thursday Murder Club vein. It didn't really hit the spot for me - it's set theoretically in the 1980s but the period didn't really ring true & the characters were pretty cardboard.

102 Welsh Food Stories by Carwyn Graves
This one, on the other hand, was much better than I'd expected. The cover makes it look very much like something written for the tourist market, but instead it's an interesting mix of social history, food writing and stories of farmers, cheesemakers and others working in Wales today.

103 The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
Rather odd mystery novel in which Horowitz becomes a character in his own book, the Watson to ex-Met detective Hawthorne's Holmes. The conceit is that he is going to write a true crime book based on the case that Hawthorne is currently working on, and that we are reading a first person account of the process. Very readable, if a bit gory for my taste.

My DS read TDIR when he was about 12 ( now 18) and enjoyed the books.