50 Books Challenge 2023 Part One

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2023, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

Who's in for this year?

Remus to be fair to Ian McEwan IRL, I heard him speak at Hay on Wye many years ago (when the festival consisted of a couple of tents and a small church hall) just after Enduring Love was published and he seemed quite a decent human being.

The question of stalking was being discussed and almost 20 years ago the psychological impact was clearly less well understood. A woman in the audience stood up and shared her story and he was very supportive in his perfectly judged response.

I also recall that day that we thought we were going to listen to IM and Sebastian Faulkes give a talk, whereas they were actually there to support the launch of a new set of study guides. After a short interview the audience was divided into working groups, paper and pens were handed out and we were given an A Level exam task to tackle. DH (not a big reader) was horrified

Tattiepants Espedair Street is one of my favourites, although I love Crow Road too. One of the best opening sentences in modern fiction and the TV series was very well done .. anything with Bill Paterson in it gets my vote. Highly recommended.

When I read Espedair Street I always picture Deacon Blue as the band because of Ricky Ross and Lorraine, however my BIL is adamant the character of Danny is based on the singer from Marillion. Hope you enjoy it.

I came to the Wasp Factory very late as DH had read it years earlier and insisted I'd be traumatised by it. However when IB was dying I decided to work my way through his novels (gave up on the space opera ones after the first three I'm afraid) and I really really loved it. One of the lines in it makes me laugh every time I remember it. Obviously it's dark and there's one image I could have well done without in my head but it's a great book for all that.

Espedair Street is my second favourite Iain Banks novel @TattiePants . Charts the rise and fall of a Scottish band, a sort of amalgam of any 1970s rock band you care to name, focusing on Danny Weir(d), the lead singer. 17 year old me wanted so desperately to live in the crumbling folly he narrates the story of his life from. Actually, 52 year old me still does
It’s about love, ageing, friendships made and broken. The Quarry published posthumously, has echoes of it, but of course that doesn’t have the hope in it, for obvious reasons.

I bet I know the line and the scene @highlandcoo . The first involving a freezer and the second leading to Eric’s breakdown?

Espedair Street is magnificent. I prefer it to the Crow Road and in an arty farty creative period pre cohabiting and childbearing did a calligraphy thingy of my favorite extracts from it, still sitting in a frame on one of my bookshelves.

No, the line that made me laugh ( because I have a dark sense of humour) was spoken by Frank's brother ( I can't remember a freezer and will have to reread) but I think you have the second one right BoldFearlessGirl

That sounds brilliant Solinvinctus - do you have a photo?

After that glowing praise Espedair Street has just leapfrogged all my other books to be my next read. @SolInvictus i’d love to see a pic too.

Loving the Iain Banks chat, The Crow Road is one of my favourite books and I found The Wasp Factory disturbing, while still being able to appreciate the brilliance of his writing.

I have had Espedair Street on my TBR pile (and by pile I mean mountain) for a few years now so will definitely be moving it up the list. In fact I'm going to see if I can find it now!

Oh I might have to do a reread if we're going to have some Espedair Street reviews coming up soon!

Iain Banks was such a likeable person as well as a great writer. Lots of time for his readers and like Ian Rankin did the Scottish thing of never getting too full of himself or losing his old friends. I wish I'd had the chance to meet him. Although my wee sister's ex-boyfriend's brother was a friend of IB's and in fact one of his books was dedicated to him. Does that count as a connection?

That definitely counts @highlandcoo! Which book was dedicated to him?

I can't find my copy, I'm sure a box of books got lost in our last move, or could be lurking at the back of the garage which I'm too scared to go into as it's full of GIGANTIC spiders. Well this is why I keep my husband around. I'm sending him in 😁

Iain Banks - only read The Wasp Factory do have Crow Road thanks to a recent deal. Traumatised by TWF just like everyone else - the maggots scene

Ian McEwan

Read Amsterdam, Saturday, Enduring Love, On Chesil Beach, Cockroach, Nutshell

Only really loved Enduring Love but again I was 17ish and more easily impressed. 17 really does seem to be the age where lots if books made an impression. It was also at this age that I began to have adult problems so it's probably not a coincidence.

The idea behind Saturday is excellent but manages to be rather dully executed (imo) I can't remember Amsterdam, I admired Chesil Beach

Aye @Stokey it's really good but it just made me sad to the degree that it would never come to mind as a recommendation outside of this thread.

Enjoyed isn’t the right word but I appreciated The Cement Garden. I thought the balloon scene in Enduring Love was remarkable, but didn’t like the novel as a whole.

Breaking my 2023 duck with:

1 EC Bateman - Death at the Auction

Cosy mystery (I read a lot of these!) set in Stamford, which I've never been to but sounds beautiful - an auctioneer returns to her home town for a one off favour to her family, only to find a dead body in a wardrobe and be drawn into local mysteries. An easy and enjoyable read, although the scenery contributed a lot to the enjoyment - I don't think it would be anywhere near as fun if set somewhere less picturesque!

I found this a much better read than Murder before Evensong @AConvivialHost - like you I was quite disappointed with MBE, the Rev Richard Coles seems like a lovely chap but the book could have done with a lot of sharpening up! And yes, I agree that the conclusion was quite rushed, after the book meandering on for at least 50 pages longer than necessary

I love a Michael Crichton book too @MamaNewtNewt, Jurassic Park is awesome!

I’ve long harboured a vague feeling of suspicion towards Ian McE because The Cement Garden - his breakthrough book - was uncannily similar in plot to an earlier novel by another author, which had also been made into a film. But iirc McE denied ever having read the book (had he seen the film, I wonder?). I didn’t much enjoy that book though I’ve read a few others of his and they were….all right. Wouldn’t call myself a great McEwan devotee, though I wouldn’t go as far as a fellow member of my book club, who harbours an irrational hatred of him for no apparent reason other than that he’s ‘one of those clever Oxbridge types’ (I’ve tried pointing out the E Anglia connection to no avail).

He does seem like a perfectly nice chap. He was a guest on Adam Buxton’s podcast recently and I rather enjoyed his dry humour.

I’m definitely #TeamIshiguro, although I have to admit I haven’t tackled The Unconsoled or The Buried Giant yet. I agree that he is always writing about what it means to be human, and also what love is, and how far love can counter mortality.

I haven’t reread a lot of classics, but I managed to read - and enjoy - Tristram Shandy - relatively recently, having given up on it as a teenager. I’m also wondering if I’d appreciate Henry James more now.

2. Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann
A very unusual detective novel: a flock of very clever sheep solve the death of their shepherd. I enjoyed the sheep’s eye view of the world, but the human characters are mostly only sketched in, and the setting is a very stereotypical Irish village.

I think Ian McEwan writes very well, but he’s not always believable. The doctor and main character in Saturday wasn’t convincing somehow; I used to be married to a doctor, and he just wasn’t right. And I didn’t believe On Chesil Beach could be set in the early sixties (DM, who was around then, didn’t find it very plausible either).

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit! Stop what you're doing and read The Crow Road immediately

Or, less bossily, read it as soon as you can - it's v unlike The Wasp Factory; it's gloriously human, and I find it very comforting despite it being a bit spiky in places.

As soon as I finish my current book I'm going in for a re-read.

Bit late to the party
already read the match harken coben and one last secret by Adele parks.
not great

1. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. This had been sitting unread on my Kindle for years, I seem to recall it was pretty popular when it came out. It was okay, I didn't know there was a sequel but I'll probably read it - so it must have gripped me somehow. Even though it's a key part of how the book came to exist, I'm not sure the photographs really added anything for me.

1. Cress Watercress by Gregory Maguire and David Litchfield (ilus). Youngest DD's book, I like to read what she's reading every now and again to keep up. This is beautifully illustrated, but it felt like it was trying a bit too hard to shoehorn more modern concerns into a Wind in the Willows framework.

1. Didgeridoo - Ritual Origins and Playing Techniques by Dirk Schellberg. A physical book that's been sitting around on various shelves for years. A very high level skim over both aspects really, the ritual and the playing. Nice bit about learning to circular breathe (breathing in through the nose at the same time as breathing out through the mouth) by standing in the shower blowing water out of your mouth 😀

Just thinking again about that last one and the various shelves - in fact, it has sat unread on shelves in seven different houses 😳

Onto something somewhat longer now: Gerta: A Novel by Kateřina Tučková and Véronique Firkusny (trans)

Waawo I think there’s about 5 Peculiar Children sequels now. I really enjoyed the first book, read the next two and gave up after that. For me the photos in the first one were really interesting but they got less interesting in subsequent books and the story took some very weird turns so I decided the rest of the series wasn’t for me.

@ChannelLightVessel My mum had a brain operation and her surgeon was the man that the character in Saturday is based on (Ian McEwan shadowed him while researching for the book). My mum said the book was very true to life. Of course she only knew him as a surgeon, not a husband!

This is all very interesting talk about ImcE. I've never gotten on with his books, I find them cold somehow. Always thought it was just me as everybody else seems to love them!

It was Canal Dreams , MamaNewtNewt. And he gets a mention at the start of The Business as well.

Remus, I agree that the opening scene of Enduring Love is excellent. McEwan had heard a radio report of such an incident which is what inspired him to include it.

1. The Beautiful Visit: Elizabeth Jane Howard.

Read for 'The Rather Dated Book Club'. This is the story of a young girl who comes from a genteel but impoverished background who is determined to make a life for herself and not follow the socially acceptable norm of getting married. It is set in the years before World War One and during the war.

I enjoyed this book. I hadn't read anything by EJH before and I really liked her writing which was incredibly descriptive and vivid. (A huge contrast to Elizabeth Strout, my first book of the year). The book portrayed the frustration and boredom that many women experienced until they had a chance to become useful in the war out of necessity. The constraints that they experienced and the difficulty they had in aserting their own will. I haven't read too many books from this period and I enjoyed it.

Now, what to read next...I picked up Crow Road recently, so I might move onto that.