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?

Me.

Finished my first book of the year - I think a recommendation from the 2022 threads & definitely a good one (though I can't remember who from)

1 The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier (trans. Adriana Hunter)
Air France flight 006 from Paris flies into a terrifying storm in March 2021. The plane survives, and lands safely in New York. Then, 3 months later, the same plane lands again, with a duplicate, identical, set of passengers and crew.

This is billed as a 'thriller' and starts out pretty much that way. After a few chapters it slows down & turns more into a thoughtful, quite gentle SFF novel looking at the implications of living in the world twice. Enjoyable, and a nice easy reading break from the other much more dense novel I've got on the go.

The Crow Road tv series is currently on the iplayer, and there's a wee documentary interview with Joe McFadden too.

Thanks for this, I've just started reading today

I really envy you @EineReiseDurchDieZeit I wish I could read it again for the first time, or even the second!

1. It Ends At Midnight by Harriet Tyce

This psychological thriller started off really well, was gripping and had me turning the pages quickly, wanting to know where it was going. Until the end, when it went rather off the boil and fizzled out like a damp squib. Rather disappointed tbh.

I like a good thriller, but prefer a police procedural, like Cara Hunter's Adam Fawley series.

I’ll definitely give that a watch.

Finished my first book of the year, mind you I started it in November. Russia Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921 by Anthony Beevor

Like all his books very interesting and for such a heavy subject it really flowed. However I can see why he ended with PTSD after researching it. It, along with his book about the fall of Berlin, explains so much about the atrocities the Russians have been committing in Ukraine. Talk about mans inhumanity to man. I can't say I enjoyed it but I think it's going to be one of my standout books of this year and I highly recommend it.

I am also half way through Midnight in Chernobyl but I am going to spend this weekend reading some nice fluffy romances.

The Crow Road was one of my best-loved books as a teen, but I'm not sure I'd want to risk reading it again - regulars may recall my year of rereads a few years back, which led to quite a few disappointments when books I'd loved 30 years ago just annoyed middle-aged me!

@minsmum I'm going to add that to my list as it would make a good companion to the Sebag Stalin biog. I really like Beevor - his Stalingrad was similarly brilliant and appalling.

Anyway on to:

4 The Gold Machine - Iain Sinclair

The prolific London psychogeographer heads to South America for a journey in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, who journeyed to Peru in the 1890s as a surveyor for what became the Peruvian Corporation of London. In typical Sinclair style it's not a straightforward travelogue, but a fascinating exploration of colonial guilt and what it means to travel and write. If you enjoy his writing style (and I do) then you'll like this.

@TattiePants

It is the same Jon Sopel book. I love books about other cultures - another favourite is Ben Coates Why the Dutch are Different.

I started Human Croquet yesterday afternoon so will let you know - positive so far

I finished a truly terrible book called The Ribs of Death by Joan Aiken. It’s one of her thrillers and even though I knew from essentially page two that it was awful, I kept reading in appalled fascination. Lord knows how it got published. Kindle gave me a fiver so it was free, but I think Joan Aiken should have paid me for making it to the end of this steaming pile of nonsense.

3 The Lighthouse Witches by C J Cooke

I don’t know why I didn’t read this before, but the swirly cover may have made me think I had, or I’d read similar Swirly Covers and fancied a change.
It’s a solid 3 stars for me. I spotted the significance of the numbers carved into people straight away and it was a bit frustrating to see that the more contemporary characters didn’t cotton onto that quicker. The atmosphere of the lighthouse and the surrounding area was beautifully rendered throughout, although the characterisation sometimes seemed rather clunky.
As a tribute to the Scottish women murdered in the name of witchfinding it was excellent, although I never really slipped into the pace of the action, particularly in the last third of the plot.
All in all, a superior Swirly Cover book and good enough for me to buy The Ghost Woods by the same author.

@satelliteheart I have just borrowed the Gytha Lodge book from Borrowbox, sounds like a good read.

To my shame I have never read any Iain Banks, M. or otherwise.

Ian McEwan I can take or leave. I have read most of his earlier books but not with any great enthusiasm. I enjoyed Atonement as a teenager but found Saturday rather dull. I can't see myself ever choosing another one of his books in preference to all the other books out there in the world (which is how I now realise I should go about deciding what to read next. That is a vaguely alarming thought).

As for Ishiguro, NLMG was…fine. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t feel any great desire to recommend it to anyone. Remains of the Day similarly, but The Unconsoled sticks in my mind as an absolute turgid slog. I remember it well as I was on holiday (pre kindle) with only that and a book about philosophy of language for entertainment, many years ago. Wittgenstein was (by comparison) very appealing.

Also just finished Burn by Patrick Ness
A YA story about a world where dragons and humans have managed to exist together but now there’s an assassin looking for a girl from a prophecy and the world could be changed forever. I think Ness is a flawed writer and for me this was another of his that wasn’t as good as it could have been. I really liked some of the characters and their relationships but some of the dragon descriptions were a bit overwrought and silly. Overall it was okay. It feels like he’s set it up for a series but not sure I’d bother if so.

@grannycake can I recommend A Geek in Japan? By Hector Garcia, a Spanish guy who lived there for 15 years or so.

I read it before visiting my son who was working in Sendai. The Amazon description suggests it's about manga and anime however it covers lots of other interesting stuff like the language, the significance of the tea ceremony, the enduring idea of honour which is linked to the prevalence of suicide particularly among men, attitudes to work and the family .. it's a fascinating book. Loads of good photos too.

@highlandcoo Thanks so much for this - will put it on my wishlist as sounds right up my street

Finally finished my first book - can’t believe it’s taken me so long as relatively short:

1. Old Filth - Jane Garam

Recommended on here so maybe my expectations were too high or perhaps it’s because I have been off work and distracted by family, television etc. - I was expecting to love this but didn’t.

Old Filth is a retired judge from Hong Kong and the book looks back at his life as a child of the Empire sent to a foster family in the U.K., his schooling, the war and his relationships whilst he is struggling with old age and retirement.

Absolutely not a bad book or a difficult read - just the wrong book at the wrong time for me.

2. The World I Fell Out Of by Melanie Reid

On Good Friday 2010, Melanie Reid fell off her horse and broke her neck and back. As a result, she was paralysed from the top of her chest down.
In this memoir, she talks about her year in the spinal ward at hospital, working to try and regain as much mobility as possible, and about learning to live with her disability after her discharge from hospital.
It’s very well written and moving, and one I’d recommend.

3 - What if? - Randall Munroe

Picked this up after reading What if? 2 before Christmas and really enjoying it - this was just as good. He takes daft questions through his website and answers them with real science. Things like: what would happen if everyone in the world jumped at the same time, or if all your DNA suddenly disappeared. There are bits of chemistry, biology, some geography, but it is mostly physics - never my favourite science and am surprised by how funny and interesting I found these two books. A complete surprise really, as it was originally bought for my teen dc - I picked it up out of curiosity and ended up loving it!

Very behind with the thread so will have a catch up read later. Finished book two. It was an audio listen from borrowbox.
2.The Secret Gift of Lucia Lemon by Celia Anderson
This should have been a DNF for me and I wish I hadn’t bothered with it. I only carried on as I am forever giving up on books I listen too usually because the voice grates and I can’t tolerate six plus hours of a voice I can’t stand. However this book was read well but it was just not for me. I was quite bored by what could have been a promising story and the only interesting part was the end section probably because it was ending. This is about a late fifty’s lady called Lucia who has not done much with her life but be married to her mismatch of a husband called Des. They both retire but Des has had enough and leaves Lucia. She is gifted a compass which has special powers and a wad of money and she goes of travelling in a camper van with her autistic adult son , her lodger and various other characters. It was about their relationships with each other more than anything supernatural and their various travels to seaside locations. A definite not recommended and very surprised on good reads that this has had 4 star/ 5 star reviews.

it truly is a magical read, hope you enjoy it.

First finish of the year (and one started before Chrisrnas)

1. The first Kingdom - Max adams This book was clearly well researched and informative however I found it a bit of a slog as it felt more like an academic book than an accessible one. It covers the ideal of kings and lordship in the centuries immediately after the Romans left Britain. Ahen i picked this up i assimed it was going to look at the mythology of arthur due to its subtitle which memtions arthur but this not the case! There was a lot of repetition and some topics felt glossed over rather than discussed perhaps due to the lack of information about it. Honestly wouldn't recommend to the casual history nerd.

Next read The Cat who saved books - Sasoke Natsukawa

@highlandcoo My DD's are massive Anime/Manga/Gaming geeks and hoping to go to Japan so the Geek in Japan book looks right up their street.
@BigMadAdrian - the What if? books sound just perfect for my DS.
Great scalps for upcoming birthdays and just becauses... Thanks!

On non fiction recommendations, in the Guardian today Steven Pinker, Mary Beard, Rebecca Solnit and others reveal the books that made them see the world differently.
www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/07/it-altered-my-entire-worldview-leading-authors-pick-eight-nonfiction-books-to-change-your-mind

As if any of us need to spending more money!

@BigMadAdrian my BIL got What if 2 for Christmas and was recommending it, may have to add to my TBR.