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?

Thanks biblio - I’ve bought Footnotes and The Moth and the Mountain.

I also got Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard and in fiction I got the Claire Chambers one.

If anyone likes half decent chick-lit there’s a couple of Mhairi Mcfarlane on there. Its a genre I very rarely read these days but I always enjoy hers.

@BestIsWest

I struggled through Outlander on 2020's thread to get it off my TBR. Review said something like Never Again. Horrendous

I Read Buddha of Surburbia and The Black Album more than twenty years ago, at a time when my choice of books was heavily influenced by English Literature studying older sibling, which definitely pushed the boundaries of my reading at the time. My recollection of both books, beyond having enjoyed them, is now sketchy. Instead, the piece of Kureishi’s writing which has remained indelibly in my brain in a short story from Love in a Blue Time called The Tale of the Turd. It can’t be more than a couple of thousand words long, but it’s a masterpiece for capturing the absolute horror of an awkward toilet situation. Never forgotten it. Haven’t read it in years, but must look it out!

@Piggywaspushed ah! Perhaps I should start with it first then… we’ll have the set between us!

In the deals I have bought Possession by AS Byatt - no idea if I will like it but have always meant to read it - and When The Dust Settles by Lucy Easthope, who is an emergency planner who has responded to disasters including 9/11, the Grenfell fire and the Salisbury poisonings, among many others. There was a discussion somewhere upthread about good people doing useful jobs, and this looks like a worthy addition to the genre.

@TheAnswerIsCake I read Travellers in the Third Reich 2 (or 3?) years ago and A Village INTR last year - they’re both compelling but they’re not generally related, other than both being about the same place and time-period, so you can start with either, I’d say.

I also think of him as a young author which is ridiculous as I read his books in the 90s so at least 20 years ago. I remember very little about them now but know I liked The Buddha of Suburbia and Intimacy at the time.

Travellers is good, but I struggled with Village towards the end of last year and haven't gone back to it yet.

I've only read the first Outlander book. The scene where Jamie punishes Claire by beating her with his belt was more than enough for me.

I also found the American's author depiction of Scotland - in all respects - so inauthentic it was irritating.

I won't be reading any more.

Thanks all for saving me from Outlander It is so much not my thing from the sound of it!

Thank you! I’ve bought both too now. I’ve got Possession in paperback form but would like to read it again and I like the sound of When The Dust Settles.

The Mhairi Mc book in the deals (You Had Me at Hello) is quite good, but is also possibly the last of the genre I read, (though I've re-read Bridget Jones and some Marian Keyes) I figured given I was in my 50s it was probably time to hand the baton over to dd for that kind of thing.

I got:
Joe Lycett
David Attenborough
Footnotes

in non fiction, and

the Nicki French and the Ragnar Jonasson in crime series etc.

Finally updating my list with:

1. Anatomy of a Scandal Sarah Vaughan. Haven't watched the series, won't either. It was alright. Quick read. There was a sense it had been written by someone who has read a lot of this kind of thing and watched a lot of TV dramas. Don't know if it's her first foray into writing fiction. She might improve. <pithy>

       My gripes:

1. All the characters were foul. Hated every single one. Didn't even care what happened to any of them.
2. She mentions people hooking up in internet chat rooms in 1992. Now I know they existed, but were they really how university students were contacting each other then?
3. The minor characters are a laughable group of British cardboard cut-out stereotypes. The black man says "yo", the young working class women are orange faced, there's an Essex boy, there's an "obese middle-aged matron" who "rearranges her bosom" and "forthright women in their 50s in peacock and magenta jackets"
4. She says in one sentence (more stereotyping) that the black man on the jury and the old man looked blank when the name of the defendant was read out and they didn't have a clue who he was. In the next paragraph she says how hard the trial will be given that everyone knows who the defendant is.
5. The judge is in his 50s and not "like the old breed" yet wears half moon glasses.
6. She writes the French (obviously) au-pairs dialogue as though she's in Allo Allo.
7. Keeps shoehorning a strange Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe obsession into the narrative.
8. She nearly got thrown out of the window when she described somebody's eyes as "pale orbs"
9. Kate's friend only recognises the defendant's wife when she googles him. Yet they were all at university together. Despite moving in different circles I can still tell you which famous political bods were at university with me (Alok Sharma and policywonk Blairite Ruth Turner for the record)
10. His wife recognises Kate on the basis of her being left-handed. Per-lease.
11. His mother is called Tuppence. Not even Boris's mother is called bloody Tuppence.

Obviously, the daft coincidence of the whole thing is also too preposterous to give time to, and the fact the writer had signposted this in within about 50 pages was bizarre. It would have been a whole lot better if the ta-da had come at the end. Hey ho.

I DNF Outlander, and I have tried a few times as I love time travel. I just found it so bloody tedious.

@SolInvictus Your whole review made me laugh [rearranges magenta jacket over matronly bosom]. The whole business of not recognising that person is ridiculous - I thought so from the outset and I read the book thinking it would be explained any moment. Obviously not.

Forgot to say, I also bought The Ruin of All Witches which was reviewed upthread, non-fiction about witches in early America. I have the paperback but I am giving up on my ability to read on anything but kindle, which is disappointing because I actually like physical books. They just never seem convenient in the moment.

11. Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family by Omid Scobie & Carolyn Durand All the talk of Spare reminded me I still had this on my Kindle tbr and it was probably time I read it. I'm sure anything I have to say has already been said when it first came out but it was a bit too sycophantic in its support of Harry and Meghan and the authors very much seemed to feel they could do no wrong. This made it hard to believe any of it as nobody is perfect and I'm sure Harry and Meghan have made mistakes, as have the other royals, so the suggestion that the flaws are entirely with everyone except h&m was patently ridiculous and made me suspicious of everything the authors claimed. So probably the opposite to their aim. Also despite the authors repeatedly emphasising their own Britishness the book was painfully Americanized. Temperatures quoted in Fahrenheit was confusing and took me a while to work out why they were discussing a "crisp, chilly morning in the low thirties". Also the authors apparently didn't know that "throne" is a common term for a toilet and seemed to think it was some sort of personal dig at Meghan. Overall it was painful to read and made me doubt the journalistic credibility of the authors. I am definitely not in a hurry to read spare. To be honest I'm a bit bored of the entire debacle and will probably now avoid all books concerning the current Royal family

A friend forced Outlander on me and I felt I had to finish it to be polite. Soooooooo......many......terrible......sex scenes......

I've bought Plenty and The Moth and the Mountain.

I had the same experience with Outlander Remus - a friend of mine pressed it on me. If I wanted terrible spanking porn there are less effortful ways to get it.

@PermanentTemporary Yes. I'm sure DP would put a kilt on and spank me for free if I so desired, and it would be much faster and probably less painful than reading Outlander.

Just dug out my review:
A friend lent it to me, thinking I'd love it. Essentially it's 600 pages of shagging a geezer in a kilt, or thinking about shagging a geezer in a kilt, with a few pages of plot to tie the shags together and pretend it's not just about shagging a geezer in a kilt.

A friend lent it to me, thinking I'd love it. Essentially it's 600 pages of shagging a geezer in a kilt, or thinking about shagging a geezer in a kilt, with a few pages of plot to tie the shags together and pretend it's not just about shagging a geezer in a kilt.

😂😂😂 I’m so glad I asked.

Love that reviewRemus. I've watched a few episodes off the telly and that also seems to be about shagging a geezer in a kilt.

Another one who loved The Eight. Google tells me there's a sequel ... I may have to indulge in both again.

Please, please read it @BestIsWest I think you'd really enjoy it (or you'd certainly enjoy reviewing it afterwards).

@remus 🤣

Between this and the Sex topic on Mumsnet suddenly unhiding itself and threads about all kinds popping up in Active it’s too much for me!

I know the thread you mean 😂

Oh my active threads aren't about sex. Thank goodness . I'm rather prudish.