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?

Bold everything in chats @BoldFearlessGirl
And then if you do a list, just bold your standouts.

2.The Fell By Sarah Moss. This was my second Moss book, read for a book club and I think it will probably be my last. Her writing is sparse yet rambling and thoughts pour out of her characters. In this book assumed to be set in 2020 a woman who should be isolating goes for a walk that has serious consequences.

it was I suppose an interesting document of that time and the rules we lived by and the worries we had. But it was really short and I just generally don’t gel with her writing style. It’s me not you.

There were three non-fiction books I loved in the monthly deals: Footnotes, by Peter Fiennes, Waterlog, by Roger Deakin and The Mother and the Mountain, by Ed Caesar

It was, and will always be, Keanu Reeves for me. My VHS of Bill &Ted's wore through in the end.

Following on from @noodlezoodle, I've just finished #18 Remainders of the Day: More Diaries from The Bookshop, Wigtown, which looks like it may be the final instalment in the series. Another year in the life of Shaun with anecdotes from his life and the odd people who visit the shop. The epilogue is particularly heartwarming.

#19 The 39 Steps, John Buchan. I read this for a reading challenge (The shortest book on your TBR) and thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly the romp through the Galloway hills.

@Panda89 The Long Walk is one of my favourite novellas. So well done.

@noodlezoodle that is disappointing about The Cloisters. I have been eyeing it up for a few weeks now and it's just come free at the library.

I’m well behind on the thread, but just came to say the same thing!

I got Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn in the deals, which I think has been recommended on these threads before.

Very slow to move my list over. It was all written in a notebook but now transferred to laptop.

1. The Ink Black Heart - Robert Galbraith

2. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus

1. Fieldwork - Bella Bathurst
2. Exit - Belinda Bauer (Audio)

5. Hell Bent - Leigh Bardugo

1. The Stranger Times - C. K. McDonnell (Audio)
2. The Whistler - John Grisham (DNF)

8. The Eight - Katherine Neville

Exit - Belinda Bauer
Listened to this on audio. Enjoyed it but didn't love it. Cosy crime, though I wasn't at all sure where it was going at the beginning. Found the voices quite annoying.

Hell Bent - Belinda Bauer
LOVED this. Didn't know Dark Academical was a thing, but its mine. Even without rereading the first in the series (though I did google spoiler filled reviews as suggested on this thread) it mostly made sense. Love the characters - including the houses. Who wouldn't want Dawes and Il Bastone in their lives?

The Stranger Times - C. K. McDonnell (Audio)
Really pleased I discovered this series. A bit of a Slow Horses/Jackson Lamb vibe but set in a newspaper that writes about the paranormal. Well done and entertaining if you like that kind of thing.

The Whistler - John Grisham (DNF)
DNF is nothing to do with the book really. I'd read the sequel, The Judges List, at the end of last year and really enjoyed it, so ordered this from the library. I knew the end though and it was a bit real estatey and I cba translating the jargon. Am sure I would've enjoyed it if I hadn't the books in the wrong order though.

The Eight - Katherine Neville
I was inspired to hunt this out after some discussion on books we'd loved as teenagers in this thread somewhere. I must've read this 10 times at school/uni. Absolutely loved it so was a bit worried what I'd think of it now. The metaphors can be a bit obvious and there is lots of blatant foreshadowing but while clunky it still gripped me. It's not a million miles from The Da Vinci Code, but Katherine Neville did it first. There's an ancient chess game that is played out in real life across two story lines. One set in the 1970s and one in the 1790s. The modern one is more compelling, I felt.

Currently reading:
Anna Karenina - L Tolstoy - and very far behind!
Death in Ten Minutes - Dr Fern Riddell - Interesting but each chapter makes me angry so am pausing between. Think pockets large enough to secrete machetes are the way to go.
Klomsky Heights - Lionel Davidson - A Barter Books <3 purchase. Recommended by Philip Pullman. Not too far in but enjoying both the writing and the story. Had never heard of it before.
The Nine Taylors - Dorothy L. Sayers - Accidentally found out a bit about the mystery after I started reading it, this has slowed me down. Also the first I've read without Harriet and I'm adjusting.
This Charming Man - CK McDonnell - Second in the stranger times series. That the characters and dynamics are familiar and I'm enjoying it even more than the first.

Not a fan of Cold Play. Yes, to mould in bathroom. Grrr. No to B&B pud. Yes, to dogs. Ambivalent about Cold Comfort Farm.

As you can probably tell I'm currently hibernating in YA/Fantasy/Thriller mode and enjoying it very much!

12 The Great Gatsby- a reread and very enjoyable. Gatsby seems so much more tragic a figure in my 40s than he did in my teens when I last encountered him.

Currently reading The Odyssey and Unfettered (a book of sci fi and fantasy short stories). I’m away on hols for 3 weeks of this month so am hoping to fit lots of reading in.
I did buy a few books from the new kindle sale today- a Mick Herron (not a Slow Horses one), and Elizabeth Strout, Mrs Dalloway and I couldn’t resist Cold Comfort Farm after all the talk!

I used to love The Eight as well, Agnes.

DNF Outlander - Diana Gabaldon or in other words, read the sample and don’t know if I want to pay £2.99 to continue. Anyone read it? I was sort of enjoying it but fantasy is not my usual genre. Is it fantasy? I don’t know.

Anyway, on to Carrie Soto is Back

Glad you enjoyed The Remains of the Day @Waawo - I'm also #TeamIshiguro.
I was bit ambivalent about The Fell @Palegreenstars but loved Ghost Wall that was seemed quite a different style. Sometimes in The Fell the stream of consciousness aspect became a bit wearing.
Can't say Sean Bean does anything for me. I had a friend at uni who was keen and insisted we watch Sharpe. Embaressing first crush - Murdoch from the A Team . DP was like 'Not Face?' Nope - can't explain it - I'm just a bit odd 😁
Between books at the moment - need yo get something else started.

Out of interest is anyone following Hanif Kureishi on Twitter? He had a serious fall over Christmas and is in hospital with spinal injuries. His Twitter feed which he’s dictating to his wife and son is painful, moving, sometimes humorous and captivating.

I am! It's become a daily read for me.

I have just completed A Village in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd which isa fascinating account of Obertsdorf ,a village tucked away in Bavaria, close to the Austrian border and how its people navigated the war. This is meticulously documented, often shocking , never not fascinating. The chapter on Theodor Weissenberger is heartbreaking.

I'd heard about Hanif Kureishi and it really shocked me - I still think of him as a young writer, had no idea he was in his seventies. What a sad thing to have happened.

Just finished:
7 Dear Reader - Cathy Rentzenbrink
I liked this but didn't love it. Rentenbrink says that she never misses an opportunity to strike up a conversation about reading, including if she someone reading on the train. As a long-term commuter I'm afraid she would get short shrift from me, though her heart is in the right place. The book is structured as shortish chapters about her life as a reader, prison reading mentor and bookseller, interspersed with reading recommendations. Loved the parts about her prison work and about encouraging her father to read - she is very empathetic and concerned only with helping people enjoy reading.

@MaudOfTheMarches I enjoyed the Cathy Rentzenbrink book and her enthusiasm for books in general. I'm someone who is always trying to see what others are reading though.

I've just finished
7. Joy Ellis - Their Lost Daughters
Really enjoying this series so far. This book sees Jackman and Evans investigating an illegal drinking club and the disappearance of teenage girls. The twist at the end is still running through my mind, how did the author think that one up?

I’m following Hanif Khureishi’s tweets too - I’ve never read anything by him but his tweets have made me want to. What he’s going through is awful, hopefully he will recover as well as possible.

@BestIsWest I haven't read Outlander but a booktuber I watch has been reading it and had quite a lot to say about the seemingly casual approach to violence against women, sexism and misogyny. It was enough to strike it off my "vaguely interested" list.

Thanks @RainyReadingDay, that sort of confirms things for me. I won’t bother either.

@Piggywaspushed I saw that this is in the Kindle deals… but still have Travellers in the Third Reich on my TBR pile. Have you read both? Which is best to start with?

Have only finished one book since I last updated (and very behind on the CCF etc chat) but it was another stand out:

9. Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham
This was reviewed already upthread, which prompted me to dig it out from the depths of my “unread” list on Kindle, and I’m glad I did. My hugs and has always been fascinated with the disaster (and nuclear physics in general) so I’ve heard lots about it, as well as having watched the miniseries a few years ago. But this was still a real eye opener, particularly regarding the Soviet systems, the full extent of the cover up and the role of the disaster in the break up of the Soviet Union. Very well written and would highly recommend, even if nuclear physics isn’t your thing - it’s a very small part of the book and well explained!

Off the back of that have moved to one from my husband’s Kindle library Command and Control by Eric Schlosser, and also half way through Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, which is somewhat depressing yet highly engaging.

@BestIsWest i read Outlander some time ago. It was so disappointing, I loved the premise but the violence was so gratuitous- I’d compare it to Colleen Hoover or 50 Shades where the women are supposed to respect their violent love interests. There was one particularly graphic sexual assault that felt like it was supposed to titillate rather than educate and had no place in a romance fantasy. I’ve heard the author listened to criticisms about this and the sequels are better but I was never up for going back.

I haven't read the other one. It's in my TBR pile!

I've heard about Hanif Kureishi, and like DuPainDuVinDuFromage haven't read any of his work but now want to. Poor man, it sounds very traumatic and I'm glad the tweets seem to have helped him a bit.

I've just made a list of books I bought in January. I need to get a grip, it's like a compulsion!