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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
Welshwabbit · 28/01/2023 11:04

Well, what a time for me to return to the thread after work has taken me out for a while 😁

In order:

I like CCF, grew up in the country with a dog but now live in the city with a cat, like bread and butter pudding but have never made one myself and although Yellow makes me want to throw things at walls I am secretly a bit partial to the co-dependent toxicity that is Fix You.

Jean Brodie is my favourite book and I do try to convert people to it as @FortunaMajor correctly remembers although I will spare you all now as this post is long enough and I still have reviews to do.

@InTheCludgie I loved The Magician’s Assistant.

Welshwabbit · 28/01/2023 11:11

Reviews!

6 Macbeth by, er, you know

OK, so including this is probably cheating as it was only part of my Complete Works of Shakespeare, but you can get it as a separate book so what the hell. Realised I had never read or seen this when my 10 year old announced he was doing it at school 😳so thought it was about time. It's really good isn’t it?! Pacy and chock full of famous stuff.

7 Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

I also read Macbeth because I didn't think I could read Wyrd Sisters without having done so. Really loved this. It was great to read it so soon after Macbeth because I picked up on all the parody stuff. The bit where the witches go to the theatre for the first time had me cackling on the train and people looking at me oddly. The repeated odd lines from "the hedgehog can never be buggered at all" nearly finished me off. It's been a tough month at work and my parents both have serious health problems at the moment so I'm rather running on empty and this was just the thing to cheer me up. To think until recently I was a Pratchett refusenik....

JaninaDuszejko · 28/01/2023 11:49

Liked CCF but agree Starlight stays with you longer. Keep meaning to read more Stella Gibbons, I think she rather hated how incredibly popular CCF became.

Grew uon a farm with lots of cats and several working collies. Not keen on dogs, don't like B&B pudding, watched and enjoyed Friends at the time but good God it's dated now. Meh about Coldplay.

Welshwabbit · 28/01/2023 11:52

Forgot to say never liked Friends!

grannycake · 28/01/2023 12:16

Liked both CCF and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie but not enough to reread. Hate Coldplay with a passion. Friends was OK at the time but haven't watched for years. But I like labs and bread and butter pudding but I prefer plain bread pudding

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 28/01/2023 12:22

I really enjoyed Brodie the first time, but found it totally unreadable the second.

Death is far and away the best Terry P character.

StitchesInTime · 28/01/2023 12:25

I didn’t have any strong feelings about CCF when I read it. Didn’t hate it, didn’t like it, wondered if I was missing something about it. If it’s meant as a parody of its contemporary books, then that’ll have gone right over my head.

Never had a dog and not interested in getting one.
I’ve never tried bread and butter pudding - like ClaphamSouth, I feel that it seems suspiciously like a sweet quiche and I hate quiches.
I quite like Coldplay.
I liked Friends back when it was on TV the first time, but not enough to bother rewatching it.

ChannelLightVessel · 28/01/2023 12:31

Is anyone else identifying most with “frantically drying pants on radiators”?

JaninaDuszejko · 28/01/2023 12:37

Not really, if pants need frantic drying a hairdryer is quicker. Radiators are theleisurely way to dry them.

nowanearlyNicemum · 28/01/2023 12:44

Never read CCF, flipping love labradors but can't have one as DH is allergic 😢, familiar with mould as sadly don't have a roaring log fire, loved Friends as a teen but haven't felt the need to revisit. I love Miss Jean Brodie and hate bread and butter pudding in equal measure.

And in other news:

Book no. 4 and first bold of the year is L'Assommoir by Emile Zola. Bloody hell!! Fully transported to the late 1800s, living the daily grind of the working class Parisians as they slowly starved from hunger, froze from the cold and drank themselves to death.

Looking for something more upbeat next...

dontlookgottalook · 28/01/2023 12:56

I enjoyed Brodie but not sure I'd read it again. Bread and butter pudding with a bit of custard is delicious. Coldplay have some reasonable songs but the frontman is far too smug. We had a little Star Wars dog but it died in the summer.

PepeLePew · 28/01/2023 13:15

Very few lols in L'Assomoir, @nowanearlyNicemum. Not many elsewhere in Zola either but I found that particularly bleak.

Terpsichore · 28/01/2023 13:19

It’s such a pity that Cold Comfort Farm is the only novel by Stella Gibbons that most people know, especially as it was her first, specifically a parody of a particular kind of overblown rural novel made popular by the likes of Mary Webb (Precious Bane is impossible to read seriously after CCF, if it ever was), and she wrote 25 more which are nothing like CCF. Many of them are good reading. I spent a lot of time (and ££££ 😭) collecting them some years ago, when they were pretty hard to find, but most have been made available dirt cheap on kindle now.

Having said that, I do like Cold Comfort Farm…

Natsku · 28/01/2023 14:06

This thread is making me really want a bread and butter pudding now. I sometimes make savoury ones, when I can't think what to make for dinner or the crust bag in the freezer is full.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 28/01/2023 14:12

@InTheCludgie

Never apologize for The BabySitters Club, I'm still bitter about my mother donating/throwing out my full set. I was in maybe the 80s or 90s numbers wise and had at least 10 of the thicker specials, but I was 16 and hadn't touched them in a long time. I could probably have fetched a fortune on Ebay now AngryGrin

@Terpsichore

That's interesting that it really is just CCF that is "like that". Which would you recommend?

I think I found Brodie ok, wasn't there one girl she kept around just to be nasty to? I met a few teachers in my time with overt favourites and overt hatred, it probably still goes on.

Friends has dated spectacularly. There's a supercut on YouTube somewhere of all the homophobia involved. I'm surprised it hasn't been "cancelled"

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 28/01/2023 14:13

@dontlookgottalook

Sorry about your dog Flowers

PepeLePew · 28/01/2023 14:38

@Natsku savoury bread and butter pudding is genius. How did I not know this was a possibility?

Wafflefudge · 28/01/2023 14:39

6.Beyond the Wand by Tom Felton
I hardly ever read autobiographies but had heard good things about this one and love HP so thought I'd give it a go. Enjoyed it, was entertaining enough and he came across very well. Nice to hear stories from making the movies but imagine it wouldn't be very interesting if you weren't interested in HP. Covered his mental health issues which I hadn't been aware of.

  1. Welsh Monsters and Mythical Beasts CCJ Ellis. Beautifully illustrated reference book of Welsh Beasts. I thought it might have been similar to the Scottish ones that I heard about on here but this just has brief descriptions and short summaries of some stories. Very beautiful book and my son really liked it as well.
Natsku · 28/01/2023 14:44

PepeLePew · 28/01/2023 14:38

@Natsku savoury bread and butter pudding is genius. How did I not know this was a possibility?

They are good, prefer them to the sweet kind.

MegBusset · 28/01/2023 14:44

I enjoyed Cold Comfort Farm but preferred Starlight. Can't stand Coldplay, love Friends, live in a new-build on a suburban estate, am a cat person but will tolerate labradors. And I use the tumble dryer to dry pants ;)

MegBusset · 28/01/2023 14:45

No particular opinion on bread and butter pudding, I love Panettone if that counts?

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 28/01/2023 15:19

@Natsku We used to have savoury b&B pudding as kids and I keep promising to make dp one. Any good recipes/tips for a veggie one? The ones we had as kids had bacon in.

Natsku · 28/01/2023 15:24

I mostly do bacon and cheese or leftover meat and gravy ones but I've done before with cherry tomatoes and leftover gravy which could work with veggie gravy and any veg really. No recipes though, I just make things up as I go along Grin

ChessieFL · 28/01/2023 15:31

@InTheCludgie Happy birthday! I also loved The Babysitters Club when younger but unfortunately didn’t keep them. I got very excited a year or so ago when I found three in a charity shop! You don’t see them very often unless you specifically hunt them out on eBay. Have you seen the Netflix version? I thought it was pretty good except for Mallory who is nice in the books but really irritating in the programme.

Waawo · 28/01/2023 15:48

At the library, and look what I see on one of the “have you tried…?” tables. It must be fate. That, or there’s a 50-booker working here ;)

50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Two