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?

This is why we are friends

Do you agree about unsatisfying ending?

Great! I'm going to start it tonight is it good?

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit yeah, its brilliant ❤️

Pachinko was a fail for me - I just couldn't get into it.

I really enjoyed Pachinko, but I had read The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane just before which was also a family saga set in East Asia so I did (probably unfairly) compare them and preferred Tea Girl, Pachinko was good, though slightly too long. I also don’t recall a lot of what the review mentioned, but I do remember small details about tea and a various things

Ancestry - Simon Mawer
Starting from his own research into his great great grandparents, Mawer creates a novelisation of their lives. He explores both sides of the family and how each couple met, their lives and their children. This is interspersed with his own notes on his research, the limitations of how much you can realistically discover, the historical context they lived through etc.

It's an incredibly interesting project and is very compelling, but does contain a bit of a research dump for one who was in the Crimean war. The idea of it isn't well explained at the beginning, so the transitions between each side of the family feels a little abrupt. I have read a few of his fiction books and have a few more I really want to read, however, I found the way in which he spoke about the women in the family very off putting. The men have rich inner lives and aspirations. There are illegitimate children on both sides and he portrays the women as simple sex mad harpies. I found it a bit odd for him to be writing graphic sex scenes for women he is related to. That was a bit grim really and has really changed my opinion of him. I am a bit of a prude though. I would still say it's worth a read.

I didn’t mind the ending as it felt like Sunja finally got some closure. I haven’t got Apple TV so I might see if I can hunt out a free introductory offer.

Book 5 finished, Tombland by CJ Sansom. This is the final Shardlake book and bloody hell, it was long! Each book has gotten longer and longer and I’m sure they could have cut out 2-300 pages and still told the same story. It’s two years since Henry VIII’s death and lawyer Shardlake is now working for The Lady Elizabeth. He is asked to investigate a murder thought to have been committed by a distant relative of the Boleyn family and finds himself in Norfolk where he meets up with his old employee Barack.

The first half is Shardlake’s investigation into the murder which leads to an ever increasing suspect list and he’s then caught up in Kett’s Rebellion for the remainder of the book. This part felt too long and I found myself skimming over pages about life in the camp.

Is that it for Shardlake or does Sansom plan to write more?

I read The End of Mr Y when it first came out and loved it at the time, but I did do a philosophy degree!

I read 84k by Claire North last year I think and found it a real slog. Utterly depressing and didn't make me want to read any of her others.

@Terpsichore interesting review, thanks. I'm about 1/4 way through and agree with much of what you said. The editing is peculiar to say the least: why are some names bracketed in the main text and others footnoted, without seemingly any logic to the choice?

It's an insight into his life and thoughts but best for dipping into (which is why it's taking forever to read). Slightly disappointed so far sadly.

I was the DNF for The End of Mr Y @DuPainDuVinDuFromage I mean I quite like a bit of philosophy but frankly couldn't make head nor tail of it...

@TattiePants that Shardlake book was loooong - I skipped many, many pages of Norwich description, and I love the Shardlake series!

4: Lynn Messina - A Brazen Curiosity

Quite similar to A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting in many ways - Beatrice Hyde-Clare is a 'washed up spinster of six and twenty', dependent on her aunt & uncle's charity after being orphaned at 5. She becomes embroiled in a murder investigation during a weekend away at a country house and has to work closely with a handsome Duke to solve the crime, whilst observing the proprieties of the age. It's set in the Georgian period and whilst I quite enjoyed it and will probably read more in the series, I do wonder why the obvious Americanisms/ anachronisms/ general mistakes aren't edited out?! It was written by an American - do the editors not know/ care that (for example) 'teacakes' aren't dainty little cakes eaten with tea, and English people don't say 'do the math'? Anyhow, I will overlook it and not be too pedantic for now as it was free with my Kindle Unlimited subscription, but I'm glad I didn't pay for it.

@ClaraTheImpossibleGirl I should have remembered it was you - we’ve been watching Doctor Who with the DCs (a re-watch for me and DH) and have just seen Matt Smith turn into Peter Capaldi today! I’m liking Clara a lot more this time around - I think I missed Amy and Rory too much when I first watched it!

3 Devil in Spring by Lisa kleypas
4 Devil's Daughter by Lisa kleypas
5 When it falls Apart by Catherine Bybee
6 Be your everything by Catherine Bybee
7 Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

the first four of these are good fun and light fluffy reads, I am mostly reading non fiction at the moment and need the light relief.

Midnight in Chernobyl was a brilliant read, prompted by the mini series. It was very interesting and I can honestly say that I know more about nuclear power than I ever wanted to know. It struck home as family used to take part in the scheme that brought children from Chernobyl to countries in Europe for the summer. They would love with us for months and I remember wonderful summer's with ready made friends. It was well researched and parts of it read like a thriller

@minsmum I'm halfway through Midnight in Chernobyl and think it's brilliant, glad to hear it's good all the way through.

I read The End of Mr Y a good few years ago and I think quite liked it, although there were definitely parts that were quite dense and difficult to understand.

Disappointed to hear the other Claire North books aren't that good. I loved Harry August but couldn't get into 84K at all. I do have two others by her on my kindle so will give them a go but not planning on persevering if they don't grab me.

I don't get all the love for Pachinko I though it was ok but pretty forgettable.

I cannot keep up with this thread! Just finished book 2 The Birdcage by Eve Chase. It was an ok, easy read.

Not sure what I will read next. I have lots of actual books but favouring the kindle at the moment as doing lots of reading at night with a baby that doesn’t sleep.

For those who enjoy Elizabeth Strait’s books- there is now a second one for sale on kindle for 99p. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Amy and Isabelle which is still 99p. Now Abide with Me is also.

I loved Pachinko, but I agree it got a bit overlong. I was listening on Audible and found the names a bit of a struggle. I'll be looking into the Tea Girl mentioned.
I'll stand corrected, but I'm sure I heard there would be no more Shardlake as CJ Sansom is in poor health.

4. Light Perpetual - Francis Spufford

Seem to recall that this may have divided opinions on last year’s thread.
It starts well but with a WW2 bomb destroying a Woolworths in South London and killing five children. The rest of the book imagines the lives they would have led had they not been killed with snapshots of them at every 15 years through relationships, ill health, careers etc. I didn’t dislike it but I didn’t love it. I would read something else by him.

@Sadik
Yeah, I’m still here 🙂Work is a bit tricky at the moment (I’m a MH nurse) so I’m reading and lurking. Will update the thread once I actually finish a book!
I’m glad you like Book 4. What did you make of the ending?
(And, yes, they are a bit dense…you have to like both sci-fi and 18th century philosophical novels; this is a rather niche demographic 😬).

5. The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcolm Gaskill

Non fiction. It’s about witch hunting in mid-17th century colonial America, focusing mainly on the lives of one couple, Hugh and Mary Parsons, who had settled in the frontier town of Springfield.

It’s well researched with lots of detail. The colonists clearly had a difficult time - a harsher climate than they’d been used to, problems with the crops, sick animals, accidents, sick children - I honestly lost count of the number of times the author mentions babies and toddlers sickening and dying. It sounded like an appallingly high infant mortality rate, although I don’t know how it compared to other places at the same time period.

Couple that with the tensions between townspeople, the tendencies of people to want a scapegoat when things start going wrong, and superstitions about witchcraft, and there’s the perfect environment for a witch hunt to start.

Overall very interesting, but not a light read in any sense of the word.

Thank you! I'll look it up.

Pachinko was also a bold for me last year, despite finding the ending to be somewhat unsatisfying.

I heard the same @OldCrone. My local independent bookseller didn't expect him to write another after Heartstone in fact. It seems that Tombstone was written when CJS was already quite unwell.

I only have Tombstone left to read so I'm delaying that, as I really don't want the series to be over.

Can I join? So far this year I have managed to read: Lessons in Chemistry
Song of Achilles
Alan Rickman’s Diaries
The English Patient
Scoff

I have Malcom Gaskill’s Witchfinders on my tbr pile.

Launched into Hell Bent last night. It’s fabulous. I have cleared the afternoon to read more. I have two reading modes. Skim Read and Let Every Word Sink In. This book definitely calls for the latter and peace and quiet.

Hi and welcome @ElizabethBennetismybestfriend , looks like you're off to a good start with your reading