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?

Hello everyone! No requirement to list your books, number your reads or even hit 50 (though some of us do all these). Really this is just a lovely happy place to talk about books we love, didn't love or think we may want to read.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit we had to have our 19 year old puss put to sleep just before Christmas and a cat free house was so weird. They are absolute demons - especially the black & white one!

Good afternoon and Happy New Year 50 bookers, both new and returning. Thanks as always to @Southeastdweller for the first thread of the year. I read very little last year, and have a modest target of 30 this year as a result. But I have finished:

1. In a Good Light by Claire Chambers
Esther and her brother Christian grow up in a benignly odd, hippy/liberal family in the 1970s. The story follows Esther's encounters with more worldly teens, including the son of a family friend who stays with them, her brother's girlfriend, and a school bully who becomes a friend. It's a mostly light and gentle read, but the family does experience tragedy. The bringing together of Esther's youthful memories and her current life was a bit clumsy, but it was still an enjoyable, cosy read. Next up is Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes.

I've also started Another Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton Hill, in which Burton Hill selects a single piece to listen to for each day of the year, and gives a brief an introduction to it. Year of Wonder was great fun last year so here's hoping for more of the same.

@SunUpSunDown I am the same I read fiction fine on the Kindle but I prefer a real book for nonfiction, especially the type of book with photos or maps to refer to

Thank you @Southeastdweller and Happy New Year to all 50 Bookers, new and old.

@OldCrone22 that sounds horrendous - I can well imagine you haven't been able to read! I hope you find some comfort here - last year I really enjoyed Lucy Foley's The Paris Apartment, which I thought was much better than another of hers that I'd read. My all time favourite (but highly eccentric) whodunnit is Peter Heller's Celine.

I ended last year with a horrible bug and am still convalescing, so I'm currently on with Confessions of a Bookseller which is exactly what I need at the moment.

Can I join. I am trying to put the phone down more and get back to reading. I used to love it. Probably managed 4 books that weren't related to work last year. I find once I get into a book I am fine, it's choosing one.

I have just started The Midwife of Auschwitz by Anna Stewart

😍😍😍😍

Ah, good to know I'm not the only one! And I hope this year is so much kinder to you

Happy New Year! Thank you for the new thread @Southeastdweller Love this little corner of mumsnet.
Currently reading The Fear Bubble by Ant Middleton, The Secret Gift of Lucia Lemon by Celia Anderson and the readalong The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. The first two have really not hit the mark with me but will review when done.

Thanks southeast and welcome to new posters.

Some travel writing to kick off the year: The Born to Travel Collection, by Jules Brown. Chosen partly to assuage travel longings and partly because I got it as part of a Kindle Unlimited trial which I plan to cancel soon.

I’m in I’m currently reading the island of missing trees by elif shafak. Just about made fifty books last year so hoping to be more than that this year.

Is anyone doing the Agatha Christie readlong this year? Decided I might do it as have really enjoyed her books.

I'm reading them in order, interspersed with other books, I'm up to The Secret of Chimneys
www.the52book.club/the-agatha-christie-mystery-challenge/
Hastings is such a ninny!

Going to join this year, have been on here with another name a few years ago.

1. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

fairly sure I bought this due to a few recommendations on an old 50 books thread and I previously enjoyed Atonement. This is a very sad read about a young couple, there are hints about their childhood that have a baring on their adult actions, but as it is only about 160 pages it isn't really very in depth. Well written but not very enjoyable for me. * *

I have been enjoying Nicci French books but my first 1/50 secret smile ended a bit strangely. I really enjoyed the story but not the ending. 2/50 Ruth Rendell Adam and Eve and Pinch me

Oh my life, thread kittens!!! 😍
Happy new year 50 bookers old and new. May your list be full of stars and not bollocking toshfests ™️. Thank you @Southeastdweller for keeping us all going and well done on finishing your work. My attempt to avoid doomscrolling is to not buy a replacement phone for the one which fell and cracked the other day and now takes an age to do anything.
I've bought a lot in this month's deals (almost all the ones mentioned by @GrannieMainland ).Had a lovely afternoon lying in bed with the PD James I started on Friday and Poncey Nigel.

My favourite book of 2022 was the crocodile bird by Ruth rendel. A loving, protective mother and a child who finally finds her wings. It was so different from the other Rendell books I have read.

Happy New Year 50-Bookers, and thanks as always to @Southeastdweller for the new thread.

I have set my Goodreads challenge to 25 books for this year and have planned most of my reads from my TBR pile.

Currently reading Mort - by Sir Pterry Pratchett, as well us keeping up with the read-along for The Christmas Chronicles - Nigel Slater and I loved all your comments on the last thread about his fusspotting.

DS got Varjak Paw - SF Said for Christmas and we a reading a chapter each night.

@Wafflefudge i had similar feelings about On Chesil Beach. I’ve read 5 Ian McEwan books and with the exception of Atonement, they all been meh, he just isn’t for me.

Hello everyone!

I'm cheating rather and starting my list with the two books I was reading at the end of the year (well, in one case, throughout the year) but only finished this morning.

1 After Henry by Joan Didion

The third in a compendium of Didion's essays. I started last year with Slouching Towards Bethlehem and ended it with this. After Henry is justly less famous and more concerned with late 1980s politics, both local and national. Some interesting nuggets in there although the essays are quite dry and I understand why Didion's 60s musings are more celebrated. However, the final set of essays on New York, centring around the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park, were really interesting, within insights that still stand up now, 30 years later.

2 Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Hill

I really enjoyed the separate thread read-along of this book, which I read throughout the year albeit, I have to admit, in gluts rather than day by day as I intended. Thanks so much @FuzzyCaoraDhubh for setting it up. Although the book is probably too superficial for those who know a great deal about classical music, it was just right for me and has introduced me to some wonderful new (to me) composers. My absolutely favourite find was Jan Dismas Zelenka, whose music I have listened to all year. I am very grateful for that find alone.

I am starting Another Year Of Wonder (don't know if we're going to be doing a separate thread?) and will probably pick up on various books that I abandoned at points of stress during the year, which I suspect was more about me than them!

Happy New Year to all on the thread, newcomers and old hands alike.

OldCrone22 welcome back after what sounds like a very tough time. I hope reading will offer some comfort and escape.

I've been having a trawl through my bookshelves .. some suggestions here:

The Inspector Bruno series by Martin Walker. Set in a village in the Dordogne; not too grisly and with rural France as a backdrop.

Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, set in French Canada in the village of Three Pines.

Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series if you haven't already read them.

The St Mary's time travelling history series by Jodi Taylor - not my usual sort of thing but I've enjoyed the first three.

The book I recommend to everyone - The Observations by Jane Harris. Entertaining with an engaging narrator. And if you enjoy it there's also Gillespie and I by the same author.

Yy to Old Baggage and its sequels. Great stuff.

Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession is the heartwarming tale of two friends who don't fit into mainstream society. For me, much better than A Man Called Ove, Eleanor Oliphant and the like.

And if you really want cosy easy reading - as I needed myself after a sudden bereavement last year - how about James Herriot's vet stories or Miss Read's Village School books? Sometimes a bit of escapism where almost all ends well is what's required.

Oops and I meant to say thank you south for the new thread, and Happy New Year to all

Hey @Welshwabbit AliasGrape started a new thread for Year of Wonder 2 today!

Thanks @FuzzyCaoraDhubh I've just seen it and posted!

Please can I join? I really want to get back into reading: I have massively fallen out of the habit.

Currently reading a graphic novel (never read one before) The Sandman Preludes and Nocturnes after seeing the Netflix series and am enjoying it so far .