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?

2. Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes
Neil attends adult education classes on classical civilisations, taught by the formidable Elizabeth Finch, with whom he is captivated. On her death some years later he is bequeathed her papers and reflects on her life and its impact on him.

I really enjoyed Metroland, Sense of an Ending, Arthur and George and of course the hilarious The Pedant in the Kitchen, so was disappointed that this was not fully realised.

The first section covering Neil and his contemporaries at the Adult Ed. classes was promising, and Finch is a compelling character. But after her death it all falls flat. The second section is literally Neil's extended essay on Finch's hero Julian The Apostate in its entirety. This was dull AF, and kills all the momentum, so the third section where Neil explores Finch's life through her papers never recovered. I still love Barnes but this felt like a flimsy excuse for him to show off his historical/philosophical chops, and I just wasn't up for it.

Next up, Lean, Fall, Stand by Jon McGregor

Thanks so much for this. Just ordered it in!

Lots of Andrew Taylor books on offer today. I particularly enjoyed The American Boy and The Silent Boy.

Can anybody link me to the new offers, please? I can see lots that I've seen before.

@FiveShelties I really hope you enjoy it! I always get nervous when people read my suggestions 😂

Whoops, I mean Connelly. I always mix his spelling up with John Connolly. Glad to see another fan, @BaruFisher!

Another fan of both writers!

smile.amazon.co.uk/b?ie=UTF8&node=3017941031&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&storeType=ebooks&pageType=STOREFRONT&pf_rd_p=&pf_rd_r=47NCPEFWZB4KQGHV3191&pf_rd_s=merchandised-slot-0&pf_rd_t=&ref_=dbs_f_w_s0_3&pf_rd_i=

I just scroll to the bottom and click See All. I think some are existing offers but there are new ones too.

smile.amazon.co.uk/b?ie=UTF8&node=3017941031&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&storeType=ebooks&pageType=STOREFRONT&pf_rd_p=&pf_rd_r=DDX2N8YF6ZHM7R8YG0W1&pf_rd_s=merchandised-slot-0&pf_rd_t=&ref_=dbs_f_w_s0_3&pf_rd_i=

Sorry, try this link

Sorry, can’t seem to get link to work. I just go to Amazon, then Kindle books, then Kindle book deals and then See All.

@InTheCludgie I currently have 224 books on my wish list. Unfortunately whilst these threads to encourage me to keep my reading up they also frequently add to my wishlist, so it never seems to get any shorter

Sorry, tbr not wishlist! 224 tbr and another 15 on my wishlist that I'm refusing to buy but will accept as gifts

Thanks. That’s what I was doing but nothing was particularly jumping out as new. Will try properly later.

Also currently reading invisible women - Caroline Criado Perez. It’s really fascinating and rage inducing at times!

Reporting on my first two of 2023:

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

I enjoyed this but I didn't love it as much as others on this thread have. A few criticisms: it felt very reminiscent of Station Eleven (to the point that if I were ESJM, I would feel a bit miffed), I felt like I knew where most of the scenes/plotlines were going until the end which, conversely, felt a bit all over the place. He's a great writer, but for me this was nowhere near as good as All the Light We Cannot See.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

This was a great read and I tore through it, much better than her newer book The Latecomer, which I read last year. The only flaw for me was that the twist was hugely guessable and I saw it coming at a very early stage. This didn't impact my enjoyment too much though.

4. Watching from the Dark by Gytha Lodge Book 2 in the DCI Jonah Sheens series Aidan is on Skype with his girlfriend Zoe one evening. Whilst Zoe is off screen Aidan hears someone enter her flat and the sounds of an altercation. Zoe never comes back on screen. Aidan contacts the police to ask them to check on her, however he's clearly hiding a few secrets of his own and his obfuscation delays the investigation and casts suspicion on Aidan himself I honestly can't rate these books highly enough. I read a lot of Amazon 99p thrillers so maybe it's just that these are superior to those, but the plots are well thought out and she keeps you guessing throughout the book.

The books all follow the same format with alternating chapters, one following Sheens and his team investigating the crime and one following the victim in the past gradually leading up to the crime

5. Lie Beside Me by Gytha Lodge Book 3 in DCI Jonah Sheens Louise wakes up hungover with huge chunks of the night before missing. Her husband is away on a business trip and Louise is shocked to find a strange man sharing her bed. She's even more shocked when she realises he's dead. The format of this one is slightly different in that it still has alternating chapters but in this book Louise's chapters are in the form of a letter she is writing to her husband, Niall In this book we also get an increase in drama in the personal lives of both Sheens and his DC Juliette Hanson By book 3 I'm getting a bit frustrated by the over-egged stereotype of DC O'Malley's Irish dialect. I've never come across anyone Irish who, having lived in England for many years, still uses Irish phrases with the regularity of O'Malley. I'm not completely convinced even people living in Ireland are quite so stereotypical but I may be wrong. There's one more book in the series currently available so I'll read that next and then have a break until book 5 is published in April

I’ve also got the full set 😁

Although some of them are the abridged Armada ones 🤷‍♀️

3/50 Slow Horses - Mick Herron
1st in the series now adapted; n apple. Excellent.

@PermanentTemporary I've been driving around with the library's copy of The Vanishing Half in my car for months now and I really need to get it read. I tend to forget about library books unless someone else reserves them then that usually puts a rocket under me.

@Terpsichore and @BaruFisher I'm another Connolly fan, his Bosch books are wonderful and I class them as 'cosy' reads, along with Agatha Christie and Harlan Coben. Still reading through his books though, it's one of these series I'll be sorry to reach the end of.

Arghh sorry I meant Michael Connelly not John Connolly! Never read John Connolly.

3. The Running Man by Stephen King

One of the books King wrote under the name of Richard Bachman. This is set in a dystopian near future USA, where there’s massive inequality between the rich and the poor.
Ben Richards is desperate for money to pay for medical treatment for his sick daughter, so he applies for a place in one of the TV money giveaway games - reality TV shows where contestants risk their lives and their health to complete the games for the chance of winning money.

Richards is selected for The Running Man, where the contestants have to outrun hunters. Massive jackpot if they survive 30 days, but it’s a rigged game and the record score so far is about 8 days.

It’s fast paced, and as you’d expect from a Stephen King book, there’s a lot of violence and bad language right to the end.

2 The Tip of My Tongue by Trezza Azzopardi
One of the New Stories from the Mabinogion series, re-telling classic tales. This one is inspired by the story of Geraint, son of Erbin. It centres on Enid, a young child in 1970s Cardiff, who is sent away to stay with relatives when her mother is terminally ill. Enid is never shy to speak up, and her spikey relationship with older cousin Geraint is delightful.

2 - Les Cahiers d'Esther : Histoires de mes 10 ans - Riad Sattouf
This was a recommendation from this thread, so sorry I can't remember from whom. Ironically I was half way through a library copy when DD2 pointed out that she has it on her bookshelf. My sister in law bought if for her several years ago when she would have been too young for it so I'm quite glad she hadn't read it! She'll love it now though.
Esther is 10 and lives in Paris with her Mum, Dad and older brother. She hero-worships her father, we rarely hear about her mother and she can't stand her brother, who she shares a bedroom with. The comic strip follows Esther's train of thought in relation to primary school, friends, her Dad, her brother, the things she learns at school, the things she learns in the playground and her daily life in general.
I loved it and have reserved the 2nd in the series from the library (after checking that neither of my children have this one on their bookshelves 😂)
It's kind of crazy that I live in France but first heard of this book on here!! Thank you 😁

4/50 - Murder Before Evensong - The Rev Richard Coles

I thought this was fine and I'll probably read the next one when it is released. I was a bit confused at first as its not obvious that its set in the 1980s and there were references to Tenko and other 80s cultural events. There was also a lot of Anglician terminology which was alien to me.

I'm now going to move on to my last library book of this batch, The Fourth Enemy by Anne Perry.

2.. Run by Blake Crouch

I really liked this excellent apocalyptic tale about the sudden breakdown of law and order. Initially, it is not clear why most people have turned homicidal but we have an idea if not an explanation later on in the book.

Most of the book is about a family's quest to get to Canada, a place reputedly spared from whatever has driven Americans to madness. The hardships and brutality they encounter along the way reads not only like non-fiction to anyone familiar with the uglier façade of human nature, but also like a fast-paced thriller. I stayed up into the esrly hours of the morning to finish this book.

Highly recommended, especially to misguided Station 11 fans who could benefit from a lesson on how the post-apocalyptic breakdown of society would really look like