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?

Sorry, that link won't post - it should be https :// royalreadingroom.uk, without the spaces.

Just bought Burn by Patrick Ness. Also, Ordinary Monsters and A Child Alone with Strangers which had both been on my wishlist after good Guardian reviews.

@MaudOfTheMarches I've been following the Reading Room for a couple of years. I love it. Huge aunty crush on Camilla anyway (have loved her since reading the book written by one of the Soham victim's father when he mentions the family being invited to Highgrove for a private tea and Camilla noticing the children were scoffing the biscuits so went and packed the rest into a tupperware box for them to take with them) and love seeing her reading corner and other fabulous bits of Highgrove.

@ChessieFL I've downloaded the breakfast book. Sounds right up my street.

Just finished Remarkable Creatures and will finish the Hygge book this afternoon. Then I'll move over to the PC to copy out my final lists. 48 which is a bit of a Brexit so near yet so far, but never mind!

I pondered buying Bourneville when I was in Mr B's and JC was in that evening doing a talk and signing but buying a hardback seems such an indulgence in these 99p Kindle days. Will probably get the paperback though his last book annoyed me (as I think I said last year!)

@SolInvictus that's a lovely story. I'm currently reading The Palace Papers by Tina Brown, which goes into great detail about Camilla's first marriage and her period of "purdah" (TB's word) following the initial disclosure of her relationship with Charles. You never know how much is true in books about the royals, but it certainly made me think more about what it must have been like for Camilla.

Finished what will be my last book of the year , Kate Mosses' Warrior Queens and Quite Revolutionaries I think she was wise to focus largely (but not exclusively) on dead women because - honestly- there are gazillions of names already in here! She is careful to include as many cultures as she can, and interweaves the whole thing with the journey of discovering her own great grandmother's life.

It takes a bit of getting used to because it seems so breakneck but then I did settle into a reading rhythm.

If I were to criticise, she is overly influenced by her own history so religion and faith get a whole chapter, for example. This does become too much when you get to the end and sport ahs two pages and film zero. This despite actually repeating at least five women across the book, so she had room.

One is always going to find the oversights but given yesterday's events, there are no fashion pioneers, so no Westwood. And there is no popular/20th century music either. She mentions the Grunwick strikers but not Dagenham.

I like her style, especially her use of ellipses to capture a tone... usually of some disapproval...

I've never actually read a Kate Mosse! Feel like I have now as she does tend to plug her books... (see what I did there!?)

This is my list:

1. The Women of Troy -Pat Barker
2. The Time Traveller’s Guide to Regency Britain – Ian Mortimer
3. Orphans of the Storm- Celia Imrie
4. All In – Billie Jean King
5. Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr
6. Miss Benson’s Beetle- Rachel Joyce
7. Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s – Alwyn Turner
8. The Year Without Summer – Guinevere Glasfurd
9. The Dark Lady – Akala
10. A Line To Kill – Anthony Horowitz
11. Everything You Really Need to Know About Politics : My Life as an MP – Jess Phillips
12. The Dictionary of Lost Words – Pip Williams
13. Songbirds- Christy Lefteri
14. Crippled : Austerity and the demonization of disabled people – Frances Ryan
15. The Sleeping Beauties – Suzanne O’Sullivan
16. Dead Famous – Greg Jenner
17. Why We Kneel, How We Rise – Michael Holding
18. Lamentation- CJ Sansom
19. Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
20. Hard Times- Charles Dickens
21. Windswept & Interesting – Billy Connolly
22. Nala’s World- Dean Nicholson
23. Broken Heartlands – Sebastian Payne
24. Tombland – CJ Sansom
25. 21st Century Boys – Sue Palmer
26. The Girl With The Louding Voice – Abi Dare
27. When Women Were Dragons – Kelly Barnhill
28. The Only Plane in the Sky – Garrett M. Graff
29. A Net For Small Fishes – Lucy Jago
30. 21st Century Girls – Sue Palmer
31. How to be a Sociologist – Sarah Cant and Jennifer Hardes
32. Duskwood – Amelia Wolf
33. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
34. Maggie and Me – Damian Barr
35. The Twyford Code – Janice Hallett
36. Emily Noble’s Disgrace – Mary Paulson Ellis
37. The Maths of Life and Death – Kit Yates
38. Chums – Simon Kuper
39. Into Thin Air – Jon Krakauer
40. The Marriage Portrait – Maggie O’Farrell
41. An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain – John O’Farrell
42. A Classless Society : Britain in the 1990s – Alwyn W Turner
43. The Devil and the Dark Water – Stuart Turton
44. The Decade In Tory – Russell Jones
45. The Heart’s Invisible Furies – John Boyne
46. Utopia For Realists – Rutger Bregman
47. Shrines of Gaiety – Kate Atkinson
48. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
49. Advent Street – Carol Ann Duffy
50. A Christmas Tree – Charles Dickens
51. The Whalebone Theatre – Joanna Quinn
52. Talking to my Daughter : A Brief History of Capitalism – Yanis Varoufakis
53. She Speaks – Yvette Cooper
54. Warrior Queens and Quiet Revolutionaries- Kate Mosse

It's more or less a year of 50/50s - 50% women and nearly 50% non fiction.

Not sure I read a life changing book but nothing too awful either.

For reasons I am not very clear on, I wrote to the (now) King and Queen, Consort when they got married to congratulate them and got a lovely response. I am
not a royalist and if asked would probably vote to become a Republic, but wouldn’t start a Revolution over it. I think I just had a really boring job at the time so had time on my hands.

Best wishes Bett.

My number 60: A Curious History of Sex by Kate Lister. This was a great final read of the year for me. An absolutely fascinating read from the creator of the Twitter account ‘whores of yore’ (she has more impressive claims to fame but that’s where I’d seen her.)

From the history of the word cunt to some of the terrible ways women’s pleasure has been denied over the years - it covers a lot of territory. The style is quite colloquial, with slang terms littered throughout. One of the most interesting history books I’ve ever read.

I’ve had a lovely bookish day visiting the book shop Much Ado About Books in sussex which I would recommend if you are ever near by. The bookseller was so keen to recommend me a book she gave it to me for free and the rooms was so charming.

My numbers below

59 books:

• 19 non fiction / 40 fiction (pretty happy with this I love non fiction and have started to always have one on the go which has boosted my number dramatic)
• 29 female, 1 unknown, 29 male (Even stevens!)

Highlights:
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson for sheer joy.

Top of the pops was definitely Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier.

A few duds but with some sickness and stress this year I think I went for some easy reads that I’ve subsequently judged but they were useful at the time.

Looking forward to 2023, my tbr is HUGE so keen to buy no books til April. We will see. I’ve been hanging out in this corner of the internet for enough years to doubt myself on this.

bett, enormous sympathy and very best wishes. Thinking of you.

1 Ramble Book -Adam Buxton
2 Enigma - Robert Harris
3 Christmas Chronicles Nigel Slater
4 221163 - Stephen King
5 A Place of Execution -Val McDermid
6 Howards End is on the Landing -Susan Hill
7 Hidden Killers- Lynda La Plante
8 The Wreath- Sigrid Undset
9 Fatal Isles- Maria Adolfson
10 The Great Circle- Maggie Shipstead
11 The Whole Truth- Cara Huntley
12 A Dark Adapted Eye- Barbara Vine
13 The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher- Kate Summerscale
14 British Summer Time Begins- Ysenda Graham
15 The Haunting of Alma Fielding Kate Summerscale
16 The Day of the Jackal- Frederick Forsyth
17 How Iceland Changed the World Egill Bjarnasson
18 A Single Thread- Tracey Chevalier
19 The Essex Serpent- Sarah Perry
20 The Lost Continent- Bill Bryson
21 The Wimbledon Poisoner- Nigel Williams
22 Magpie Lane- Lucy Atkins
23 Slow Trains Around Spain- Tom Chessyre
24 Daughters of Spain- Jean Plaidy
25 Blood Orange- Harriet Tyce
26 Written in Blood Caroline Graham
27 September Rosamund Pilcher
28 The Family Upstairs- Lisa Jewell
29 Once Upon a River- Diane Setterfield
30 I know you- Clare McGowan
31 The Night Visitor- Lucy Atkins
32 Watching Neighbours Twice A Day- Josh Widdecomb
33 It Ends at Midnight- Harriet Tyce
34 The Bone Bed Patricia Cornwell
35 The Museum of Whales You Will Not See D Kendra Greene
36 The Secret History Donna Tartt
37 The Way through the woods- Bill Bryson
38 The Chestnut Man - Soren Sveistrup
39 The Magdalene Deception- Gary McAvoy
40 Hostage Clare Macintosh
41 Wintering Katherine May (DNF but got over halfway)
42 Let Me Lie- Clare Macintosh
43 I see you- Clare Macintosh
44 The Maidens Alex Michaelides
45 The Fell Sarah Moss
46 The Changeling Philippa Gregory
47 Remarkable Creatures Tracey Chevalier
48 The Little Book of Hygge- Meik Wiking

Soooo, 48 in total.
5 standouts, of which The Secret History is probably my read of the year.
5 bollocking toshfests, of which Wintering is, without a doubt not only the worst book I read (even though I DNF) this year, but in all my 57 years. My hatred for it will be mentioned often in years to come.
15 men
33 women
12 non-fiction (but almost all dippy-in-and-outy nothing heavy books)
36 fiction
6 re-reads

@bettbburg best wishes

Betts.. No words.

A Curious History of Sex has been on my wish list forever.

I've had a field day today! I won't lie, absolutely spoilt

It’s so good @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie although I admit to blushing a little and angling my book away from Christmas guests as there are a lot of illustrations 😬

Betts

I've finished off 3 books that I've had on the go for a while:

110 War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
I first tried to read this 35 years ago after finishing A levels, and thanks to the MN readalong (helped also by e-books & larger print) I've finally got there. I won't be adding it to my list of favourite classics, but I'm glad to have read it and have already bought a copy of Anna Karenina in preparation for the readalong in 2023.

My final two happily bring me up to the same total as last year, and pleasingly were both real standouts.

111 The Islander by Chris Blackwell
Memoir by the founder of Island Records. This is subtitled 'my life in music', and apart from his early life in Jamaica it is really all about the music and the musicians. It's read on audio by Bill Nighy, who is as excellent as you might expect, and I absolutely loved the whole thing. Blackwell's enthusiasm for such a wide range of music really shines through. It's taken me a long time to listen to because I kept pausing the book to go over to spotify & listen to tracks and/or whole albums, and I still have a whole lot more queued up. A highlight of the year for me, I've bought my Dad the kindle version as he doesn't do audio, and I'll be revisiting in the future for sure for more listening inspiration.

112 A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Reviewed many times on here, & I don't have much to add beyond the fact that I also loved this, my standout fiction of the year. It's not at all something I'd have picked up without this thread and a great example of how fantastic all your recommendations are.

Oh @bettbburg very best wishes.

Clearly mixed views on the Whalebone Theatre. It's definitely flawed but has so many features - a crumbling family house, children running around unsupervised, bohemian Russian visitors, then segueing into a wartime epic - that are literary catnip to me that I didn't care.

@bettbburg I can only echo 'no words' but plenty of emotion as I type this.

lol

Maybe check out Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire by Eric Berkowitz - a really interesting read.

It sounds like so many of the things I love - wish it was in past tense!

Oh @bettbburg [hugs]
I hope there's music and peace and whatever you like at the moment.

Bits of it are...

I realise that doesn't improve matters...

@bettbburg echoing everyone else.

32.Born a Crime, Trevor Noah
I’ve had this for absolutely ages from when it was 99p. Finally got to it as a book club friend at work was raving about it. It didn’t disappoint. In my head I thought I knew about apartheid, about South Africa but I did not. Suspect most will be familiar with this book and Noah more generally, but this is a bio of his childhood and almost a tribute to his mother. I would definitely recommend and it’s only 300 pages.

It sounds like so many of the things I love - wish it was in past tense!

It took me ages to understand that this meant writing style, I also meant to write treat yourself on my last post to Remus I may in general be festively liquidised

💐bettbburg Thinking of you and sending hugs.

My last for the year was wonderful, wise and humane:

A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland A non-fiction about the work of a country doctor who has been practicing as a GP in a rural surgery for 20 years. Sadly it feels almost like a period piece as her way of working, based on her knowledge of her patients and the relationships she has built with them over that time, bears no resemblance to my local GP practice, though the book was started during the pandemic and published this year. The writer happened upon a copy of 'A Fortunate Man' by John Berger, a study of a doctor in the same practice published in 1967, and realised she lived in the area where it was written and approached the current doctor there with a view to doing a similar study. This book is the result of their conversations over a year and is about the doctor's working life, how she relates to her patients, and what it is to be a country doctor. I loved this, you get a real sense of the community she works in and of some of the sorts of cases and people, as well as a powerful sense of the doctor's approach to and love of her work. At first I thought the writer's own presence was going to be an annoyance, but this wasn't the case once the book got going.

I haven't quite made 50 this year but have got better at DNFing books I'm not enjoying. I've read much more fiction than non-, but the nonfiction is overrepresented in the bolds, resolution for next year is to read more non-fiction and not to read so much newly published fiction, new fiction has probably accounted for most of my DNFs.

My bolds this year, these imho beat War and Peace:

Non-fiction

A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland
Michel The Giant by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
Original Sins by Matt Rowland Hill
Names for the Sea by Sarah Moss
Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay

Fiction

Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith
The Man Who Died Twice and The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman
Bad Actors by Mick Herron
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
The Fell and Summerwater by Sarah Moss
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

Also enjoyed the 3 books in Susie Steiner's Manon Bradshaw series.

Thanks everyone for all the reviews and chat, I've got so many recommendations and a lot of joy from these threads. Thanks for organising us SouthEast. Happy New Year all!