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?

OK scratch that, after my Kindle tantrum I've just checked and the list is now down to 107 pages, and scrolling through the first few pages, it does look as though at least half of it is new stuff.

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage
It's definitely an adult's take on what 10 year old Esther might be thinking. I certainly wouldn't say that it's a totally reliable portrayal of a French 10 year old. Hope your DDs are settling in ok.

I only found 107 pages of kindle deals, wonder what I missed

I also found 107 and it all looked terrible.

@nowanearlyNicemum It’s stand alone as far as I can tell, I’ve read Olive Kitteridge and the Lucy Barton ones and it’s not related to those anyway.

First three books of 2023 (first two started / mostly read in 2022).

1. Mum's Army by Winifred Philips - autobiography of former WRAF telling of her 20+ years in the Army not long after WW2. Interesting to hear of tours in Egypt, Cyprus and Singapore and how she defied the norms of the time by being an independent woman.
2. Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth . Listened to on audible, would be better as a book. Questions all the unwritten rules / assumptions of economics, eg growth is good and asks how the world would be different if we counted the cost of environmental damage as a true cost rather than an 'externality' that is irrelevant.
3. Miss Merkel by David Safire (in German). Angela Merkel has retired to a village in East Germany with her husband, dog and bodyguard but is finding the new pace of life a bit slow. Attending a party at the local castle, the owner dies in what looks like suicide, she is not convinced and decides to investigate. Fun, lighthearted read with plenty of references to her political career and painting her as a real vulnerable person.

I only found 48

1. Gerta: A Novel by Kateřina Tučková and Véronique Firkusny (trans).

Well, this was a surprise - another book that has been sitting unread on my Kindle for an absolute age and I can't remember why I bought it in the first place. Interesting thing about Kindle - the cover looks like so many other paperbacks of its time (2010s?) and there's no way to get the size of it from that, so it was a surprise to see over 400 print pages. It's the story of Gerta, a German Czech, and what happens to her and her family from the end of WWII through to the fall of the Berlin wall. This isn't something I knew much about, but I was hooked almost from the start. Probably will be a bold at the end of the year. The sheer relentlessness of the story is somewhat heavy going though - need something light and fluffy for balance now perhaps!

In other news - a whole week without buying any books! 😃

5. A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe

When the Aberfan disaster occurs, newly qualified embalmer William Lavery volunteers to travel to the village to help to prepare the dead for their loved ones. The impact that this, and other events from his childhood, have on William and his relationships with those that he loves and who love him, is the major theme of the book. The sections on Aberfan were so incredibly heartbreaking and poignant without being mawkish and I had tears in my eye more than once and I loved the use of music throughout. I absolutely loved this book, and it’s 99p for the kindle at the moment.

1. The Crow Road by Iain Banks

In this coming of age family saga, Prentice navigates loss, romance, difficult family dynamics and the mystery of his missing Uncle Rory.

I may have to hand my membership badge over and give southeast my key back because I'm not going to rave like everyone else.

I'm not going to sit here and slag it, I didn't hate it at all or think it was shit. I just properly struggled. This could be me - I've got a couple of things on my mind and no control over them either so perhaps the wrong headspace, but, I felt like I was external to the novel at all times. I was never in the world, and I didn't believe in it or the people.

I felt like every time I was settling in there was a time shift, a POV shift, or both, and I didn't feel they always added to the story.

I thought Prentice was a wee shite, but I suspect that's the point.

There was just soooo much filler though, utter waffle that was extraneous to the plot and long dialogues about nothing. Yes that's life, and as such it's a really good depiction of the quite boring conversations about nothing that we have in life, but my eyes glazed so much and so frequently.

If reading a book is about entering a world, this just wasn't a world I enjoyed being in.

My apologies to the majority x

2/50 Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sanderson
This was a really lovely book, very whimsical and typical Sanderson whilst also having a slightly different tone/voice to some of his other stuff. Lots of Easter eggs to his other series.

Starting a thriller now (Three Hours - Rosamund Lipton) before I tackle one of my chunky TBR pile. It will either be Babel or Priory of the Orange Tree, I'm undecided. Any recommendations for either?

@nowanearlyNicemum thanks - it took a while but yes they are well settled now, although they still miss their old friends and school. I’ve just got the reference in your username - I guess you’re in the south-east? 😄

3.-5. Space Boy Vols 12-14 - Stephen McCranie
DD (14) got the latest volumes of this excellent YA SF graphic novel for Christmas.

6. The Princess of the Chalet School - Elinor M Brent-Dyer
One of the best of the early books, full of incident, large and small: Joey’s Girl
Guide expertise thwarts the Ruritanian kidnappers (she makes a rope from stockings and ‘cellulite vests’); that most insufferable of characters, the Robin, finally learns to pronounce the letter J; Madge becomes Frau Doktor Russell. And it ends with the apotheosis of Joey, as the whole of Belsornia turns out to applaud her - and her hair is neatly brushed, for once.

@Waawo and @ChessieFL - I really enjoyed the first two Miss Peregrine books (read before I realised there was a film!) - gave up on the third, had no idea there were more but can't imagine the idea stretched that far

I've never read any Ian McEwan so I can't contribute to that - went to a special screening of Atonement when it came out and was given a copy of the book, but was so traumatised by the film that I've never read it!

I agree that MBE being set in the 1980s wasn't obvious @Tarragon123 - I think at one point they refer to the 40 year anniversary of WWII ending, but perhaps the time period could have been made explicit rather than implicit...

A DNF for me - Scarlett Thomas - The End of Mr Y. I thought I'd really enjoy this as it looked along the lines of The Chronicles of St Marys, but I actually just found it quite mystifying and slightly dull. Instead I went for light relief in the form of:

2: Sophie Irwin - A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting - such good fun! Set in Georgian times, Kitty and her sister travel to London with the purpose of securing a rich husband for Kitty to ensure that their family doesn't go bankrupt after the death of their parents. Kitty finds herself a rich young man only to be foiled by his elder brother, who also happens to be very rich and handsome. Is it predictable? Of course, but it was just what my tired brain needed after weeks and bloody weeks of school holidays

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage spot on!

Can't remember how many pages the deals threw up for me this month(I reward myself on the first of the month by going through them at leisure) (I think it took me a good while to go through them) but I did buy more than I've bought for many a long month. I filter out anything over 99p though. That's my limit for Kindle (esp given my tbr on Kindle is nearer 1000 than 500 and IT'S ALL THE FAULT OF YOU LOT 😂)
Obviously with it being January there were lots of self help books and fewer "the proctologist's daughter with the Christmas pop up Cafe and no boyfriend in Whimsical Bay" stuff.
I think I bought about 15 books.

I've finished n3
The Lighthouse Witches

Nothing much to add to previous reviews- Costa clanger aside, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, (as most swirly Gothic covers end up on my bollocking toshfest shelf) until getting to the "ta da" twist which made me go "ffs" and was, I think, totally unnecessary. I think the writer watched the same Netflix series I watched from a few years ago for this bit of plot. (even the physical location was similar) (a plot hole is also how Liv ended up on the island in the first place as it jars with the "ta da") That said, it was well-written and I'll probably pay 99p for other books by the writer.

Obviously with it being January there were lots of self help books and fewer "the proctologist's daughter with the Christmas pop up Cafe and no boyfriend in Whimsical Bay" stuff.
😂

@ClaraTheImpossibleGirl I agree with you about Sophie Irwin's The Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting I read it last year and it started a bit Ho Hum but soon drew me in. Total fluffy nonsense, no surprises at all but zipped along! A Very good natured book.

I went through the deals last night. There was indeed a lot of dross as always, but I bought quite a lot (love that description of the typical type of book @SolInvictus - I find they tend to peak in Nov/ Dec when you get the X's daughter etc etc at Christmas times about a thousand).

I bought:
The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
Jane and Prudence - Barbara Pym
Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky (wonder if I'll ever actually read this!)
Emma Watson - Joan Aiken's attempt at Jane Austen's unfinished novel
Rules of Civility - Amore Towles
The American Boy - Andrew Taylor
The Carer - Deborah Moggach
The Winter Sea - Susannah Kearsley (I'd a feeling I'd read this or another of hers before and was getting a bit trigger happy with the 'buy now' button by this point - looking again at the write up I'm not quite sure on this one)

Also spotted Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor there which I've read before but really liked. And The Weirdstone of Brisingamen which DH loved as a boy but I've never read, although we have his copy so didn't get the kindle one.

Finger was hovering over A Terrible Kindness - interesting to hear you enjoyed it so much @MamaNewtNewt I may go back in for that one, although I just feel like I'm not up to anything too sad at the moment.

Agree with you both on Sophie Irwin's The Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting @SapatSea and @ClaraTheImpossibleGirl I picked it up last year after a recommendation on the thread. Great fun and I hope there's a sequel.

I started Anthony Doerr's About Grace, seemed interesting but I backed out of it after a few pages once I realised it deals with the daughter's (potential/ maybe) death. Just not an ok topic for me right now - even if as far as I read it was only in a dream. Hopefully I'll return to it though, I would like to read some of his.

So now on The Book of Form and Emptiness Ruth Ozeki, winner of the Women's Prize last year. Seem to recall it was well thought of on the thread. I'm liking, not loving, it so far but only a little way in.

@AliasGrape I loved A Terrible Kindness but probably not one to read if you are feeling at all vulnerable or just don't feel up to reading anything sad.

@AliasGrape - I liked The Carer by Deborah Moggach another easy read and quite humorous IIRC

I absolutely loved A TERRIBLE KINDNESS - was one of my favourite books of last year, and a bargain at 99p.

I wrote my own review of this on the last thread, so will just say I haven't read the original and know v little about it, so wasn't troubled by it. Maybe its an advantage if you don't know the originaI; you can't be haunted by it! I absolutely loved this and think it's a masterpiece.

I liked A Terrible Kindness a lot too, worth 99p.

I've been thinking of getting this but how harrowing is it please given the subject matter?