50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Two

[Southeastdweller]

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?

@RainyReadingDay I remember also using "there's something nasty in the woodshed" before even realising where it was from. It must have been pretty huge really at the time.

There’s a song by The Divine Comedy called Something for the Weekend and the lyrics are all based around ‘something in the woodshed’. That might be one reason why the phrase is quite well known.

I have to say I didn't understand a word of Cold Comfort Farm. I do not really like Coldplay, labradors or bread and butter pudding, but I confess to still thinking Friends is very funny.

Hoping to finish my book today, The Dance Tree, but I'm finding it a slog.

I thought Daisy Jones was great, best of the TJRs by far, so I'm excited to see the adaptation!

I like CCF - but again read it first as a teenager which maybe makes a difference. Wouldn't recognise a Coldplay song if it bit me on the arse, never watched a single episode of friends, and haven't eaten bread& butter pudding in years though I used to like it.
I did grow up in the country though and have spent much of my adult life living in or around scruffy hippy communities in big farmhouses. (Also experienced the occasional would be Flora Poste, though they've all given up & gone back to the city in despair)

I have fond memories of watching Friends for hours while breastfeeding DC1 (he's 17 now so this was before I owned a kindle or a smartphone).

Oh yes that makes sense @ChessieFL - I think it's from that song that I know the phrase.

Read CCF as a teenager. Recall finding it perfectly adequate but nothing special.

Friends has a special place in my heart though I haven't seen it in years. Bread and butter pudding is fine, I wouldn't seek it out. Same for Labradors. Coldplay is a guilty pleasure - I mostly play it these days to piss off DP who is a tiresome snob about music, and won't accept that just because you find someone annoying you can still appreciate their creative output (see also U2, some of the time). And they are outstanding live; not all live music has to be endured in a tiny venue with a sticky floor while an angry bloke with a beard rants loudly and tunelessly. Sometimes you can enjoy a large crowd of happy people and a massive light show and an energetic bloke who looks like he is having the time of his life. Not everything has to be a challenge. This is something he fails to understand- for him, art really is about suffering. Whereas I like froth and fun and easy, a lot of the time.

Never read CCF. Never knowingly listened to Coldplay. Have never seen an episode of Friends. Hate dogs. Maybe I’m on the wrong thread 😑

I do quite like M&S brioche and butter pudding though 😉

Love CCF, again maybe because my dm loved it so much and explained that it was a parody to me. I have been known to listen to Coldplay, don't do dogs and bnb pudding doesn't make my top 50 puddings. I enjoyed Friends in the 90s but I don't think it's aged as well as CCF...

Saved by M&S bread and butter pudding, Waawo.

And I really want to read Sol's "toothless locals with added mould" book.

Read CCF and appreciated it as a decent parody without actually liking it much, adore dogs, never watched Friends, liked early Coldplay and nothing can compare to the bread and butter pudding my Mum used to make in the 70s with stale Warburtons and some raisins.

I just don’t ’get’ Friends. I’ve seen a couple of episodes and didn’t even crack a smile. Not funny at all.

The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer
This was one of the first Heyers I read and this was my first and last reread of it. It seemed very long and I remembered who the villain was. Several very long and boring bits about William Godwin and the like, which made no sense and were totally irrelevant to the story. I didn’t like it but slogged to the end.

Rathbones, not Warburtons! For some reason, I feel I must get the bread right

Oh and Coldplay are shit.

Hmm I like labradors and B and B pudding, enjoyed Friends at the time (wouldn’t watch it now) and like a few Coldplay songs. Looks like I should read Cold Comfort Farm.

Here's my birthday book haul. Excuse the Ann M. Martin book, I'm reliving my childhood here! Kind of wish I'd asked someone to get me Ink Black Heart, I've just finished Troubled Blood which I found difficult to put down and I'm desperate to read the next in the series, but it's long waiting lists at the two libraries in registered with 😭

Happy Birthday InTheCludgie! (Or belated happy birthday). That's a lovely haul. I like the look of the Ann Patchett book.

I've never read Cold Comfort Farm but I hated The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie too @noodlezoodle I thought I was the only one as it seems to be pretty universally admired.

Oh I liked Ideal Homes @InTheCludgie. I have a bit of a crush on Deborah Sugg Ryan.
Happy Birthday.

1. Sovereign - CJ Samson

One of the Shardlake series and a really good one. Quite dramatic / violent for Shardlake imo. I also 'met' Tamasin in other novels and had no idea she was such a dickhead 😂. Anyway, I really enjoyed it.

1. Murder Before Evensong - Rev Richard Coles

This was ok, but I didn't find it that engaging. It took me a while to get through it. I feel like it would suit being a TV program more than a book, which is maybe the intention. It took me ages to figure out when it was set as well, which was a bit annoying. (If someone pops up and tells me the date was written on the first page, I will feel a bit silly)!

1. Dry - Augusten Burroughs

A non-fictional memoir of an alcoholic and executive from Manhattan who goes to rehab. It is pretty dark. He had a horrible childhood and suffered a lot of trauma and abuse. He then has all the horrible things happen which often go hand in hand with being an addict. Despite that, he managed to make it pretty funny and it was well written. His rehab stint reminds me a bit of Rachel's Holiday (although I think Dry is better - I'm not a huge fan of Marian Keyes). The horror when he gets there and realises it is a hospital and not a spa. He does make it very funny. There's a bit where he is speculating about why the nurse's shoes are worn more on one side than the other and I think I did actually laugh aloud at it.

*ad executive

I could be persuaded for a read of CCF to see if I like it better as an adult.

I'd love a labrador. We had spaniels when I was younger, but DH is allergic to dog hair. We have our gorgeous cat instead.

I rewatched all of Friends a couple of years ago. It's funny in places, but feels quite dated now. Some of the storylines haven't aged well.

I haven't read ccf but I do enjoy a discussion on what "type" of people like certain books. Also really agree with the comment that Matt Haig is enjoyed by people who don't read much, I hadn't put it into words so concisely but that's exactly how I feel about MH

10. Gallows Court by Martin Edwards This book is sort of dual timeline. In 1930 we follow crime journalist Jacob Flint who is suspicious of a wealthy heiress called Rachel Savernake who has recently moved to London following the death of her father, a powerful and influential judge. The judge's old cronies keep committing suicide after confessing to atrocious crimes against women and Flint is convinced Rachel knows more about it all than she's letting on. Chapters are interspersed with flashbacks to the journal of Juliet Brentano in 1919, a young girl who grew up with Rachel on the Judge's remote, isolated island of Gaunt

I previously read one of Edwards' modern crime fictions and didn't love it as I felt the "twist" was disingenuous. This book contains a fairly similar twist and while it's better handled it's made me suspicious he may use the same twist in all his books. I'm also not convinced that Rachel Savernake is as sympathetic a character as the author expects us to find her. The book contains a hefty dose of vigilanteism and the reader is supposed to be totally ok with this. This is the first in a series and I wasn't sure about reading any others, but then last night I did download the second one on kindle, partly because I had an offer for £5 kindle credit and needed to reach the minimum spend and partly because it's a country house locked room mystery which is my favourite type of crime fiction. So I'll give the second one a go and see if I get on better with it

I've never tried b&b pudding. I'm always put off by the idea that it'll be like sweet quiche. I don't like quiche.

Oh yes. Rathbones takes me right back to university and thick wodges of toast and vitalite at 3am.

@InTheCludgie happy birthday!