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?

@MegBusset Wishing you luck with the Stalin. It took me forever. In fact, there might be a version of me in a parallel universe still reading the damned thing.

I think that's a good approach with the diaries, @MegBusset, although I'm not sure Stalin would be my alternate book. SSM was on Laura Kuenssberg last week and I was surprised to hear he goes by the name Sebag, rather than Simon. I thought Laura K had it wrong, at first, but she used it throughout.

Just catching up and feel slightly out of vogue as I liked Hammer, Queenie and even Fleischman although agree both members of the couple were annoying. And the weird author/narrator/breaking 4th wall really didn't work.

After loving The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, I've come sharply down to Earth.

72. Ponti - Sharlene Teo. This is a debut novel set in Singapore. It's about two girls Szu and Circe, who are school friends. The story is divided into Szu's tale when they're 16 in 2003, Circe's tale when they're estranged adults in 2020 and Szu's mother Amisa, who was a beautiful actress in the 1970s. The descriptions of Singapore are great, oppressive clammy heat and weird food, but the plot is virtually non-existent, and the characters are all miserable and rather flat. I really didn't enjoy this.

73. People Person - Candice Carty- Williams. The writer of Queenie's second novel is about 5 half siblings. They all have the same father and 4 different mothers and don't really know each other, but come together when the middle girl accidentally harms her boyfriend. I found the writing pedestrian, the story predictable and the main character particularly annoying. I think I may have liked this if I was in my 20s but just felt like the wrong audience, unlike Queenie which I felt just jumped off the page regardless of my age.

Like @PepeLePew I'm going to have read a lot less this year. I blame the news. I spent a good few months unable to stop refreshing Twitter while various governments imploded. I did also make an active effort to read less thrashy thrillers which I have on the whole achieved.

I loved Queenie (did that not come across?)

@Stokey and Fleischman is awful but it's very compelling in its awfulness

Agree @Stokey I thought People Person was such a disappointment compared with Queenie.

I read Fleischman when it came out and absolutely loved it, I thought it was vivid and witty and insightful! Feel like I must have been reading a different book now...

92: Young Mrs Burton - Margaret Penn

Third and final volume of the trilogy that started with Manchester Fourteen Miles. Hilda had become engaged to the older but charming army captain Frank Burton at the end of the previous volume; now he’s home from WW1, minus an arm, and showing worrying signs of carelessness when it comes to money. Hilda, though, wrapped in a blissful romantic dream and soon to have her first baby, is too dim to notice anything, and it takes a more worldly friend to alert her that Frank is drinking heavily.

The narrative takes a dark and distressing turn as Frank fails to find work and repeatedly disappears on epic binges, often leaving Hilda and their children (two of them now) literally starving, borrowing money from everyone within sight and failing to pay rent time and time again. I’m afraid my patience with Hilda evaporated as she kept forgiving her scumbag husband, and had to remind myself that her options in the 1920s were limited - and indeed the terrible point was reached where both her beloved children were given up for adoption to a well-off childless couple who adored them, while Hilda - unbelievably - reunited with Frank even after he’d yet again stolen her savings to go and get obliterated. The trilogy ends here but 'Hilda'/Margaret Penn lived until 1982 and I long to know what happened to her subsequently - it’s frustrating that there doesn’t seem to be anything online about her later life.

93: The Clothes They Stood Up In - Alan Bennett

Novella/short story. A middle-aged couple come home from the opera one night to find that literally all their possessions have been stolen from their flat. Amusing but, as always with Bennett, layers are gradually revealed to leave a much sadder and more thought-provoking story at the end.

39. A Three Dog Problem by S. J. Bennett The second in the Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series. These books are pretty silly with the ridiculous premise that Queen Elizabeth II was some sort of super sleuth who regularly solved crimes. But they're easy to read, good little mysteries and give an interesting insight into the inner workings of royal life and all the staff the royals have and the ways in which they rely on them. In this one a senior housekeeper at Buckingham Palace is found dead beside the swimming pool, ostensibly after a tragic accident. Apparently separately, the Queen is investigating how a personal painting of hers has somehow ended up in the office of a royal navy officer and a campaign of hate mail among the staff at the palace needs investigating. Are all these issues linked? Or just unfortunate coincidences?

Just dropping in with a plea for help - not much of my own reading to update on at the moment.

Have my 86 year old aunt staying for Christmas and her gift hasn't arrived. I want to get her a back up book from amazon just in case.

She's not your typical octogenarian, was still working in travel up to the start of COVID, lives abroad, still travels a lot, sings in a choir, acts in an amateur dramatics group, member of a walking group.

She loves travel writing but has probably read most of the big names, big fan of Dervla Murphy and has read all of her work.

A few years ago I sent her Erebus which was a hit - she loves ships/ sailing.

Last one I sent her was The Heart's Invisible Furies - chosen on the basis that it reminded me a bit of John Irving and she loves his books. She liked it.

Other stuff I know she loved to give an idea of her taste -

Like Water for Chocolate
Big fan of Isabelle Allende, Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Poisonwood Bible
Tulip Fever
Stuff about Spain - Ghosts of Spain etc

Does anyone have any suggestions? Either for travel writing/ biography that might appeal, or good novels with a travel slant, or set somewhere interesting?

How is she on war stuff? The Whalebone Theatre is good. It's similar in some ways to heart's Invisible Furies but I think it's a whole lot better. Female protagonists who have some gumption and end of an era type stuff. Got 50 pages of it to go so will be reviewing soon!

If she loved The Poisonwood Bible, how about The Lacuna?

Also, has she read Carlos Ruiz Zafon?

Also Whalebone Theatre has an amateur dramatics plot. Sort of.

@AliasGrape
My similarly active and sharp father in law loved Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier.

If she likes the sea then what about Fabled Coast which tells of the myths and legends around the UK coasts?

37. The Hobbit J.R.R Tolkein. This was a prime reading book which I picked up because I'd not read it and heard a lot about by friends who are huge tolkein fans. I loved it and couldn't put it down near the end, I know it's seen my many as a children's book but I still adored it. Not sure if I'll ever read lord of the rings but am glad to have read this.

Next book is A Christmas Cornucopia thought it be a good pick up and put down over next few days.

Thanks Piggy
I think she’s read The Lacuna
I can’t see her enjoying Zafon for some reason - I’m not sure why. I think she can cope with some elements of magical realism but not too much.

Ive never known her speak about/ enjoy anything war related as in WW1 or WW2 - certainly not from the British side anyway. But that’s not to say she wouldn’t enjoy it - just that it’s not the sort of thing that comes up when we talk books. (Spanish civil war or any type of coup or revolution anywhere then yes, more interested!) I’ll check out the Whalebone Theatre though, sounds like it could be a good one (maybe for me too!)

Sorry @Tarahumara - it was you who suggested The Lacuna and I think she has read it but thank you.

@Gingerwarthog thank you I’ll check that out

I’ve recommended this before, @AliasGrape, but I was enthralled by Fergus Fleming’s Barrow’s Boys, which is largely about the sea-voyages of the 19thc to try and explore undiscovered territory - including the Franklin/Erebus expedition - but also land journeys. It’s wonderfully written and truly fascinating. One of my stand-out books of a couple of years ago.

That sounds fab @Terpsichore - can't seem to get hold of a copy in time for Christmas unfortunately but it's definitely going on the list for her next birthday :)

I'd recommend South Riding by Winifred Holtby. I think anyone who enjoys good stories and good writing would like it and it's both edifying (lots of chat about local authority committee meetings and drainage) and a good love story.
It's set in a lightly fictionalised Hull though so not terribly interesting as a location.

@AliasGrape

Homage To Catalonia ? TTOD ?

Thanks @EineReiseDurchDieZeit She's definitely read/ got the first.

I think TTOD might be a winner, I had mixed feelings but I'm sure she'd like it, but I've got this niggling feeling I've either given it to her before, or recommended it - I honestly can't remember though.

I'm going to have to just ask her I think!

Thanks @PepeLePew - that's one that's on my tbr list too after seeing recs on here.

Isabelle Allende's latest one The Long Petal of the Sea may go down well @AliasGrape. I found it over researched, but it starts in the Spanish Civil War and moves over to Chile.

Still Life is another good one, war too but based in Italy with a chaotic bunch of characters.

So, have just finished the aforementioned The Whalebone Theatre , a debut novel by Joanna Quinn. This was a very well received debut and is indeed impressive and accomplished. A quick google tells me this was her PhD project extended and is a somewhat different enterprise.

It is a country house novel, leading into a WW2 novel and, yes, this is indeed a narrative very familiar ! Like most Amazon reviewers, I felt it was a book of two halves- although the opening is slow , I thought it was more atmospheric and intriguing , creating interesting ambivalent feelings towards the adult characters. The WW2 stuff moves at a faster pace but, to me anyway was less original when the heroine gets to France. I actually found all the 1919 stuff about the dynamics of class and marriage and the bit about Jasper's dead first wife more adeptly done.

The best bit is Flossie who gets abandoned for too much of the novel and her affair with Hans is really well done. I found brother Digby less interesting. The Russian painter adds very little to the plot really. The book is intentionally female focuses which leads to some of the male characters (Digby, Willoughby, Taras, Jasper, Hans ) being ditched from the narrative, often never to return.

There are lots of characters - maybe too many and I kind of forgot who some of them were.

When Quinn writes another one , I hope she will ditch the sudden forays into PhD Creative Writing experimentation with form stuff! She does it about 4 times and it jars ,although they were some of the more memorable parts so maybe it did serve its purpose!