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50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Two

999 replies

Southeastdweller · 17/01/2023 22:41

Welcome to the second thread of the 50 Books 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, it’s not too late to join, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

The first thread of the year is here.

What are you reading?

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10
RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 27/01/2023 20:07

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit It’s so nice to see you share my hatred of Cold Comfort Farm. I knew you’d hate it, but didn’t want to say it before you’d tried it!

FortunaMajor · 27/01/2023 20:53

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 27/01/2023 20:07

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit It’s so nice to see you share my hatred of Cold Comfort Farm. I knew you’d hate it, but didn’t want to say it before you’d tried it!

My real life book group ask if I've read something and if I say "it was ok" they now know I hated it but don't want to put them off. I feel like I'm killing people's joy.

I also didn't get the point of CCF, but assume you had to be there at the time and have read enough of the books it sends up to appreciate it. The jokes haven't stood the test of time.

bibliomania · 27/01/2023 21:05

I rather enjoyed Cold Comfort Farm and I made a bread and butter pudding last week, so what I can say. I'm just superior, I suppose <shrugs modestly.>

6. Good Taste, Caroline Scott
In the 1930s, a young woman is commissioned to write a book about English food. Will she be led astray by the charming man she encounters on her travels? Will her best male friend untangle himself from the temptress who has ensnared him? What will happen with her widowed father and the cleaning woman? It was pleasant enough but the plot unfurls slooowly and entirely predictably.

7. A Chelsea Concerto, by Frances Faviell Real-life eye-witness account of living through the Blitz. Vivid and gripping.

dontlookgottalook · 27/01/2023 21:11

I thought it was just me that hated Cold Comfort Farm! I gave up I was so mind-numbingly bored. But now thinking about it, I think @FortunaMajor is right, it probably would have seemed very funny at the time.

BestIsWest · 27/01/2023 21:13

I liked Cold Comfort Farm and I used to have a Golden Retriever if that counts.

BestIsWest · 27/01/2023 21:16

I hate Coldplay though. I once turned down free VIP tickets for a Coldplay stadium gig with free food and drink and all.

ClaphamSouth · 27/01/2023 21:18

I like Stella Gibbons but don't think CCF is her best. Her Starlight was the first book I read after a big health event four years ago and I've been thinking of rereading it to see if it's really as comforting as I remember.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 27/01/2023 22:04

I love a good bread and butter pudding.

PermanentTemporary · 27/01/2023 22:16

Thank you Southeast.

Finally I have finished reading something. My concentration is absolutely shot. I'm exhausted and just starting a 2 week holiday which I desperately need. Lots more reading I hope.

1. Odds Against by Dick Francis
The first of the three Sid Halley books about a disabled ex-jockey. This time I noticed the political background. Mary Francis was extremely right wing and I suddenly saw the plot point based on fear of the nationalisation of building land - it was published a year into the first Wilson government.

Tarahumara · 27/01/2023 22:17

I thought CCF was quite good, like Coldplay, not keen on bread and butter pudding and have never owned a dog (labrador or otherwise). There must be a pattern in there somewhere.

Tarahumara · 27/01/2023 22:18

Enjoy your holiday @PermanentTemporary!

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 27/01/2023 22:32

Been wondering where you were Perm!

@dontlookgottalook @FortunaMajor

I agree that had I known what she was satirising it might have felt like it was cleverer/more substantial

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie @SolInvictus

Yes moving into someone's house and chucking them unsuspectingly into an institution. Gosh how my sides ache from the hilarity.

Touch of the Delafields maybe?

Liked Friends as a teenager, but if you are making liking Friends a personality point in your 40s, you need to move on. Been to a Coldplay concert but in their early days. Never had or made a bread and butter pudding, don't have a dog, Retriever or otherwise Grin

PermanentTemporary · 27/01/2023 22:41

Thanks @Tarahumara I intend to!

2. Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
I read this to please a friend who is a massive Pratchett fan and... I don't really know what to make of it. I laughed quite a few times but I couldn't really follow it or work out what was going on overall; it's so episodic that I just kept losing track. It sits in my head now as a kind of small fuzzy area. I did like Death the character and his speech in capitals. Was Pratchett aiming to be Dickens? I personally don't think he got there. It probably doesn't help that it's apparently the 20th Discworld novel - presumably there's a lot of worldbuilding i haven't read. (Tbh i can't stand worldbuilding so that doesn't fill me with eagerness.)

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 27/01/2023 22:43

I've never got on with Pratchett Perm, but I'm not really one for fantasy.

AliasGrape · 27/01/2023 22:57

Tarahumara · 27/01/2023 22:17

I thought CCF was quite good, like Coldplay, not keen on bread and butter pudding and have never owned a dog (labrador or otherwise). There must be a pattern in there somewhere.

I love Cold Comfort Farm. I don’t find it particularly hilarious even, and have no real knowledge of the books it’s sending up so I’m not really sure why I liked it so much when I first read it (think in my teens maybe) and why it still counts as a comfort read for me (have revisited quite a few times).

I have no particular opinions on Coldplay and I also have a mouldy bathroom for whatever it’s worth.

Just devoured 7. Rizzio - Denise Mina
Loved this thanks to all those who recommended it. Really tightly written, atmospheric and gripping.

Stokey · 27/01/2023 23:00

Conversations like this is why I love this thread.

Yay to CCF from me, nay to Coldplay & country living - one mouldy and one decent bathroom....

BestIsWest · 27/01/2023 23:33

It’s like one of those readers Digest puzzles. B likes CCF, has a dog and dislikes Coldplay. R hates CCF and Coldplay but likes bread and butter pudding. S likes CCF, has 2 mouldy bathrooms and a Labrador.
Who lives in the house with the yellow door?

noodlezoodle · 27/01/2023 23:48

@BestIsWest 😂(I do love those puzzles though!)

@HikingforScenery I read New People a couple of years ago and was absolutely baffled. No idea what the point was.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit Ooh why are you nervous after the trailer? I was nervous before the trailer, but I absolutely loved it and can't wait for the series. Daisy looks just as I'd imagined.

Such a relief to find out CCF is not in fact universally loved. At the risk of being barred from the thread, I also dislike The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie which is another one I thought everyone but me adores.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 27/01/2023 23:52

@noodlezoodle

I don't know if the talking heads documentary aspect is going to work.

noodlezoodle · 28/01/2023 00:01

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 27/01/2023 23:52

@noodlezoodle

I don't know if the talking heads documentary aspect is going to work.

Ah I see. I don't mind that, but I think it will probably only be a small part of the show. I was very impressed with the music!

FortunaMajor · 28/01/2023 00:43

I was also quite ambivalent about Jean Brodie but someone, possibly Welsh if memory serves gave a very rousing post on why it's excellent and it did make me see it in a new light. (But not enough to make me want to read it again).

FortunaMajor · 28/01/2023 00:45

Oh and put Listerine* on your bathroom mould.

Other mouthwashes are available.

RainyReadingDay · 28/01/2023 05:21

Cold Comfort Farm was one of my late DM's favourite novels. She would quote bits of it ("Something nasty in the woodshed" etc) and think it hilarious.

I did try reading it but never really got it. Must be a generational thing. She was born in 1930, a time (between the wars) when novels were being written that this parodied, like those by Mary Webb (another author I couldn't warm to).

Oh and I only like the crispy top part of bread and butter pudding. The soggy under part is disgusting imo 😆

ChessieFL · 28/01/2023 05:27

I like CCF but don’t love it. I like Friends, don’t mind Coldplay, don’t have a fire, love bread & butter pudding but never make it, and don’t have a dog. Where do I fit in?!

I also didn’t like Jean Brodie.

SolInvictus · 28/01/2023 05:59

BestIsWest · 27/01/2023 23:33

It’s like one of those readers Digest puzzles. B likes CCF, has a dog and dislikes Coldplay. R hates CCF and Coldplay but likes bread and butter pudding. S likes CCF, has 2 mouldy bathrooms and a Labrador.
Who lives in the house with the yellow door?

😂
Reminds me of A level General Studies. I'm sure every person in the 1984 cohort still remembers the taxi fare calculator thing.

See, I didn't even know CCF was a send up of cultural references. That might have helped but doubt it.

(I like labradors and bread and butter pudding very much. I don't mind the Christmas Coldplay song and I love Para-para-para-dise. I would rather read fucking Wintering out loud to the town standing on a box every day of my life than try and watch Friends though. I've tried. Honest. Both at the time and when DD binged it during COVID. But nope. And I'm so used to mould it's almost like Stockholm syndrome. "well hello you! was wondering when you'd be back!" (The mould will be its own character in my expose of all those "driving over pomegranates with toothless locals" books about living in Italy. They never fucking mention the mould in winter do they? )

I've started Owen Jones This Land and the lad's doing alright so far, but he might start to do the woman-erasing thing he does so very often and I might then throw him at the wall.