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?

I'll try to be in. But I am a full time uni student and lone parent to dd 3yo with additional needs so maybe I'm overly ambitious 🤣

Happy New Year all!

Currently most of the way through 2 books:

Doughnut Economics on audible and Mum’s Army . Will report back once finished.

Joining please!

I used to read a lot but over the last decade lost my mojo. I've a huge pile of unread books and even more on my kindle waiting for me.

Like a pp said, I need to stop doomscrolling and immerse myself in something less mentally destructive. I'm not setting a target as 50 feels like reaching Jupiter right now, but I'll try for a couple a month.

Happy New Year to everyone, thanks to southeast for the shiny new thread, and welcome to all the new joiners.

I'm starting with a fictional piece of fun by historian Lee Jackson - The Secret Diary of Charles Dickens, Aged 13 3/4. Also have The Beautiful Visit on library loan for the Rather Dated Book Club, and The Old Curiosity Shop to start for the readalong. Still pondering what my first non-fiction of 2023 should be.

Choices, choices!

I got Shrines of gaiety by Kate Atkinson for Christmas so I'm looking forward to starting that later.

Forgot to add my current read
Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

Happy New Year 50 Bookers, and thanks to Southeast for setting us up in 2023!

I’ve just started Act of Oblivion (Robert Harris), which was a Christmas present. Also have on the go An Immense World (Ed Yong), an exploration of animal senses, and Unmasking Autism (Devon Price), which I have mixed feelings about!

I'm in. I'd read 50 by July last year and stopped counting, starting this year with #1 snowed in for Christmas by Sarah Morgan

Happy new year! Thanks for the shiny new thread @Southeastdweller . I'm still trudging through Glory by Noviolet Bulwayo, a book to be admired rather than loved so far.

I'd like to join this year, although I don't think I'm going to manage 50 books. Some of my tbr pile are absolute bricks!

I've joined the Anna Karenina readalong thread, and will be starting The Only Plane in the Sky: The Oral History of 9/11 by Garret M. Graff today as well. One of my aims for this year is to read at least 50 pages a day, and more non-fiction.

Happy new year all and thanks for the new thread @Southeastdweller! I've just started my first book of 2023, The Colony by Audrey Magee.

There are some great books in the kindle deals this month - Americanah and Prep, two of my all time favourites. The Paper Palace, Sorrow and Bliss and Still Life for anyone who still wants to read those but hasn't, plus Meg Mason and Sarah Winman's earlier books (I bought Tin Man which I listened to a podcast about recently).

I’d love to join!
I read 80 books last year but will be returning to work, after a long sabbatical, in August so I think 50 is a more realistic aim for this year.
my NY reading resolution is to branch out a bit more this year from my reliables of crime and fantasy.
I finished my first book this morning (had been reading for a week)
The Furies- John Connolly- I enjoyed the second of the two novellas in this but I feel Connolly’s last couple of books haven’t been as good as usual. The first story was revised from a story he wrote during the first lockdown, releasing around 800 words per day.
Books currently underway are
A Crown of Swords- Robert Jordan- the 7th in the Wheel of Time trilogy. I’m listening to this one on audio. It’s just okay.
The Woman in White- Wilkie Collins- I just started today and am enjoying so far. It’s much less dense than I expected and quite witty. (I see I’m way behind on this one as there was a read along last year)

Hi everyone and Happy New Year. I was a regular on these threads under a different username in 2019 and 2020, but midway through 2022 I had a catastrophic life-changing event, which involved the sudden break up of my 30 year marriage, and I am still under the enhanced witness support programme and the DV team, and have to give evidence in court next month. I haven't picked up a book since June, mainly due to simply not having the mental space for anything else.
I gave myself today as my new reading start date and will be doing my very best to make some time to read, and enjoy some book chat like I used to. I have restarted my Goodreads account today as well.

I used to do a combination of listening to Audible and reading on Kindle, and am currently listening to The Ink Black heart and reading Englby by Sebastian Faulks both of which are going slowly.

I'd appreciate recommendations for "easy" but quality reads. No Coffee Shop by the Sea fluff and Brave Wartime Nurses. I like a good whodunnit (Love the Strike series), and enjoy historical fiction like Shardlake etc.

@WinnieFosterReads I really enjoyed Lady In Waiting

I woke up at 6am and everyone else is still asleep so I picked up Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. And then couldn't put it down. I did it justice because it warrants a slow and thoughtful read but have just finished it, and wow. I know many of you have read it so won't do a long recap beyond saying it's about a gentle thoughtful Irish man in Waterford in the 1980s who becomes aware that the local convent is running a Magdalene laundry. It's set just before Christmas and was beautifully evocative of poverty and aspiration and love

I see it was on many people's book of the year. It will almost certainly make my list - it did cross my mind that I may have peaked too soon!

Thanks @Southeastdweller and HNY everyone.

Oh that sounds so tough. Reading can be so therapeutic.

A few of us did enjoy The Whalebone Theatre and Shrines of Gaiety which fit your historical brief.

I really enjoy Mary Paulson Ellis books. Kind of whodunnit with a historical reach. Do check content in case any of it is triggering for you, obviously.
Likewise, Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie books are fab. Like Strike but better written imo.

I'd like to join too, please. I will try really hard to post all my reviews/thoughts, whether good or bad.

Current reads, that I didn't manage to finish before the end of the year - Why Did You Stay by Rebecca Humphries and Days like These by Brian Bilston.

I know the Brian Bilston is a daily read but I can never commit to daily readings so am reading it all now. Currently up to the end of May. The poems are variable in quality. Some really clever and funny/poignant, others not so much. He's good to follow on social media too.

Also about to start It Ends At Midnight by Harriet Tyce. Appropriate it starts on New Year's Eve.

Just checking in for the New Year! Got to 39 books last year and hoping for 50 this.

Currently reading The first Kingdom - Max Adams A non fiction book on how the first kingdoms developed post Roman invasion.

Standout reads from last year
The Bullet that missed - Richard Osman
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkein
Murder on the Nile - Agatha Christie
Norss Mythology- Neil Gaiman
Murderous Contagion - Mary Dobson

Pepe If you haven't read it already, I'd really recommend Foster by Claire Keegan which I think is even better. (I may have mentioned that once or twice before.........)

@OldCrone22 So sorry to hear you’ve been through all that. I hope 2023 will be a better year for you.

Others will be along with good suggestions, but have you read the Mick Herron Slough Hough series? A big favourite on here.

Foster is also in the current kindle sale. Lots of good books this time.

I read 103 books last year. I had a target of 150 but didn't get there. Going to set a realistic target of 110 this year.
Best book
It ends with us Colleen Hoover

Welcome back OldCrone. I'm so sorry to hear all that you have been through and send you all best wishes.

Thanks Southeast and HNY to you all.

Kicking off with the Alan Rickman Diaries which I should finish in the next day or two.