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?

Happy New Year to everyone, and thanks to @Southeastdweller for the new thread.

I’ve finally finished:

1. Let’s Do It: the Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood - Jasper Rees
Much as I love Victoria Wood’s work, I found this hard-going. There’s just too much day-to-day detail of her life, and little or no analysis or reflection. Fans are better off re-watching ‘Acorn Antiques’.

Going to read Three Bags Full next.

What PD James are you reading? Love her.

Helllo
Please may I join?
I am determined to do more reading this year and keep track
Loving all these suggestions
I have overnight and then this afternoon read Colleen hoover it ends with us for my book club I am undecided on it tbh
I do have a big tbr pile and I want to get on with it
Am also reading a library copy of Brene brown atlas of the heart which is quite heavy (physically)

Oh I also DNF ducks newburyport previously. Off to read the thread properly rather than Placemark and write down some of these lovely suggestions

Kicking off with:

1. The Secret Diary of Charles Dickens, Aged 13 3/4 - Lee Jackson

I've read Lee Jackson's very detailed and interesting book about Victorian London and his Twitter thread often has good Victorian info so I follow that too. He was on there the other night, amusingly taking issue with something that was said on a recent edition of 'In Our Time' on Radio 4, and I noticed a mention of this book that he’d written as an end-of-year frolic, so thought I’d splurge £1.99 on it.

It’s a mostly-entertaining romp, historically quite true to the facts (the Dickens family set up, their various lodgings around London, parents in perpetual financial embarrassment etc) but obviously just a bit of knockabout fun. Dickens works quite well as a kind of proto-Adrian Mole, it turns out. I’m counting this as fiction, though!

Headed to bed, but welcome @coffeeginandkindness we are a nice bunch, honest!

Place keeping

Very glad to see you here @bettbburg

I’d like to join please. My reading mojo has dwindled recently but I’m determined to get it back. I have just finished Midnight in Everwood by Maria Kuzniar and I was bought The Familiars by Stacey Hall for Christmas so might head there next. I have a reasonable pile of unread books but definitely looking for inspiration.

(Book number 2) Matilda by Roald Dahl (reread) I'm working on a translation for a competition, and have seen the new film of the musical a few times with youngest DD in December, so wanted to blast through this as a way to try to expunge the film versions from my mind for a bit and get back to the text.

(Book number 3) Ribstone Pippins by Helen Wykham (pseudonym of Paddy Figgis) First from my tbr pile. I knew the author, decades ago, and have most of her ouvre on my shelf unread. Ridiculous that I've been carrying the idea of reading this around for almost 40 years, and this actual copy of the book for over 10 years, and I ended up reading it in a single day. It's brilliant, but hard to summarise. Bright young (and not so young) things have a house party after the Dublin Horse show. Lots of drink is taken. Much getting off with one another happens. It's a novel that envelops the reader with its words rather than its plot I guess. Are novels like this even being written anymore? Maybe, I don't tend to pick up "literary" fiction these days.

That second book was published in 1974, yet still feels "modern" to me. Sure, the characters aren't using mobile phones, but they fly from Dublin to London, drink instant coffee, buy photographs of themselves from booths at Hunt Balls. Timewise, this is like someone in 1974 reading something from 1925. Great Gatsby? Mrs Dalloway? Did these still feel "modern" in 1974 I wonder? Or is it that there were schisms between the mid-twenties and mid-seventies (WWII, the sixties?) that introduce more of a break? Or is it just that being in my sixth decade, I see those things that happened before my life as schisms, but not things that happened after it? I'm sure either DD would see 1974 as positively pre-historic! Deep thoughts for 6am lol.

On a lighter note: one day of not buying any books accomplished 😉

I'm in! Personal aim is 40 this year, 50 would be awesome.

Just finished Book 1 (didn't quite manage to finish it before NY).

Richard Osman, The Man who Died Twice, Thursday Murder Club (2). It took me a year to read (read others in between) because it was a hard back and heavy 🤣

I would reccomend Families and How to Survive Them by Robin Skynner and John Cleese. It is written in a very conversational style but is an excellent introduction to family dynamics and how they form the blueprint of how we relate to others.

Sorry you are having a tough time

Thoughts to you @EineReiseDurchDieZeit
Different circumstances, but when my 30 yr marriage fell apart & various other stuff happened I found these helpful. Firstly, not a book, but this essay on anger by philosopher Martha Nussbaum.

Then the book Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. A warning that it is rather American, but if you can get past that I found it useful. Really the title is misleading, in that a lot of it is more about understanding your own feelings and needs before you get to the point of communicating.

Recently I've also read Say What You Mean by Oren Sofer which combines elements of mindfulness with NVC, with the aim of helping one actually stay calm in the moment and use the NVC tools. A lot of the last one I'd say applies to difficult family relationships particularly.

It's The Murder Room and it's the 12th Inspector Dalgliesh. He's very peripheral at the moment (am 40% in on the Kindle and he's only just been called to investigate) so good. Such good writing.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I'm with you on that. I understand why my toxic MIL (apologies for MNspeak) is how she is, (and believe me, none of the MN MILs could even come close to this 90 year old evil human being) but my compassion I reserve for people who deserve it because they are NOT arseholes. I can understand but I will never accept or forgive.

I’m going to join as I really want to start reading again but not sure if I’ll reach 50! I’m aiming for at least 30 though.

I’ve just finished Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. It’s not the usual thing I’d read but I enjoyed it enough. I was slightly teary at the end which surprised me as I knew the ending from watching the film a few years ago, but the book went more in depth with the characters.

I’ve now started reading The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. I actually don’t know the story so I’m quite looking forward to this. I’ve also joined the Anna Karenina readalong, I watched the Keira Knightley film version years ago but don’t know how accurate it was 😂

Finished this last night. A nice light enjoyable read centred around complicated family and romantic relationships based on one family snowed in at Christmas time. If you like Jenny Colgan you'll like this.

Forgot to mention I'm also listening to Brandon Sanderson rhythm of war on audible. It's about 60 hours worth of book so is going to take some getting through and I thoroughly dislike both narrators

Book #2 will be David Blake Horsey Mere which I'll start this morning and then pace of reading will drop as I go back to work. I'm also completing some studies so no substantial weekend reading for pleasure until mid feb

Really enjoying reading everyone's recommendations

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit
i read George K Simon PH D
In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People
it gives pretty extreme examples of peoples behaviour but I could relate a type to a family member. Not sure I’ve learnt how to deal with it but maybe a step closer to understanding and not letting myself react as much. It’s a short and easy read anyway.

I'd love to join. I always follow this thread avidly, and pretty much always read more than 50 books, so I'm not sure why I've remained a lurker!

I read 57 books in 2022, and my first read for 2023 is Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr which I'm about halfway through and I know lots of you on here have loved. Very much liking it so far.

To those embarking on Ducks, Newburyport, I hope you enjoy it, I loved it. The key for me was having plenty of time to look up the names and places that she drops in lightly to the text. I knew very little about American history, but following up the references was fascinating and really added to the narrative (but also to the time it took me to read it - it's not a book to rush through!).

I haven't read properly ever since having my kids the last 2 years. This will sound ridiculous but I hate sad books so always read light things like Austen, Tolkien, random historical romances. I love Agatha Christie too and Dumas.

If anyone has any good crime/mystery or light reads I'd love some suggestions.

I think I need to make this the year I tackle Ducks, Newburyport. I bought the audiobook of it some time ago on the recommendation of a booktuber, who loved it, but it's just sat on the TBR list ever since. I'm a bit daunted by its length tbh, although it is the kind of book I like.

Book 1 The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

This was the perfect winter read although I should have read it a couple of weeks ago when the snow was thick on the ground.

Jack and Mabel start a new life in 1920s Alaska to escape the constant reminder of other people’s children following a miscarriage. Life in Alaska is much harder than they expected, it’s remote, the winter is brutal and work on the homestead proves very difficult. One night there’s heavy snow and the couple make a little girl out of snow. The next morning the snow girl has gone but they see a child running through the forest. Has the snow child come to life or is she real?

I loved this book and the descriptions of life in Alaska were beautiful. For much of the book you aren’t sure if the snow child is real or if she’s their imagination. A good first book for the year and I now need to decide which of my Christmas books to start on.

I’m rejoining the 50 Books threads for 2023 🙂

I dropped off mumsnet completely for more than half of last year for various boring life related reasons, but still managed to read more than 50 books over 2022.

And I’ve already finished book 1, although I did start reading it last year.

1. Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard.

Thriller. A woman is murdered in an isolated holiday cottage, and the whole thing is recorded by a hidden camera in a clock.
There’s a lot of jumping about between different times and POV’s in this, so motivations, identity of the murderer etc aren’t revealed until the end of the book.
Readable but probably not very memorable.

Although it has left me feeling a little bit paranoid about hidden cameras in hotel rooms now 😬

@highlandcoo - I found I wanted to scream at Louise Penny by book 3… yes, I know you based him on your husband that you adore, but could he please not be so sodding perfect in every goddamn regard???

I predict by book 6 he’ll be revealed to be the son of God.

I remember the same thing in the Clan Of The Cave Bear series way back when. Jean Auel was so massively in love with her fictional hero Jondalar my best friend and I used to laugh and shout “get a room!” when reading those bits. Authors in love with their characters write them badly.

Completely agree the St Mary’s books are great fun.