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?

@PepeLePew I do highly recommend sauna and then a roll in the snow, so long as you don't do it in the later winter/spring as there's a layer of ice in the snow that can be a tad painful as you break through it with your bare skin! And whatever you do, don't grasp a metal door handle with cold wet hands afterwards
Ice swimming after sauna is far superior though.

Why thank you Pepe, now that is a compliment!

And good question Remus and Eine - where is Satsuki? Hopefully here with a name change, or living a very happy life away from mumsnet.

Will be back later with another review but in case anyone's interested, Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London) is doing a live Q&A at 11am via the Virtual Village Hall - free but they do ask for donations to the RVS if possible

If you haven't read her earlier novels, I do implore you to. I apologise for bringing them up again, because I've wanged on at great length on these threads about them, but: try particularly Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children (the latter is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read; it's kind of a sequel to the former, not as good IMO but still very good).
Night Waking, The Tidal Zone and Cold Earth are all very much worth a read (in that order of preference, for me).
The writing style is drastically different, not nearly so flat, and different characters think and speak differently from one another, which I don't find in her newer work. It's all much less mannered and self-conscious.
I do wonder what happened; she must have made a conscious choice to write differently, but I don't know why.

Where do you see the monthly deals? I can only seem to see daily and then the massive 80 books one.

It’s the massive one Mark - they don’t call it monthly deals any more but the main deals page does change on the 1st of each month.

I see, thank you! I CBA trawling through it...

Oh, and my first, very innocent crush was probably Snufkin from the Moomins books Although I'm not sure how much I had a crush on him and how much I wanted to BE him.
First proper one was River Phoenix in my mid-teens. I still loved him when I was 19 or so and he died . I still feel proper pain thinking about it. He was so beautiful and fragile.

@MarkWithaC I agree with you about how Sarah Moss's style has changed.

I thought The Fell was very well-written and the dreadful father brilliantly described, however I much preferred Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children. She used to write in an unshowy, straightforward way and that's really what I prefer. Now she's doing something "cleverer" stylistically but for me it's less enjoyable.

I haven't read Night Waking yet but I'm interested in the Hebrides so will do at some point.

I'm with you on Snufkin

Bad Relations by Cressida Connolly is on 99p Kindle Daily Deal today. I read it last year and thought it was good.

>>high-five<<

Hangs head to confess I have read (and watched) Outlander - love a bit of time travel - and generally enjoyed it. I agree there are some unpleasant scenes but women were treated pretty badly in the 1700s so it’s not inconsistent with the period. Am I allowed to stay?

12. Stealing the Crown by T. P. Fielden In 1941 Guy Harford is working as a civil servant in Buckingham Palace. He's an artist by trade and this is not a job he's cut out for, but after an embarrassing incident when he was living in Tangier resulted in an unexpectedly swift return to England, this is the only job he can get.

One morning Ed Brampton, the man he shares an office with, is found dead in the palace, apparently the result of a suicide. Guy is given the job of finding out what happened to Ed, a job he is spectacularly bad at

This was not particularly good. I think it was an Amazon first reads. Guy is not the type of amateur detective you normally get in these types of books in that he neither wants to discover what happened nor is he particularly adept at investigations. He's also quite annoying to be honest. So I definitely won't be reading any more of these. We never really learn much about Guy's family connections or youth but he seems to be an "old friend" of absolutely everybody.

The dialogue is also very poorly written. One person will speak for many many paragraphs in a row without the other participants in the conversation saying a word. I also found it hard to differentiate between the different characters as they all spoke in exactly the same way and seemed to have the same (non-existent) personality. Having read the whole book I couldn't tell you one thing about anyone's physical appearance apart from two of the women being "beautiful". The author literally provides no description whatsoever. He also has an annoying habit of writing "ha ha" whenever a character laughs which is maddening

Overall quite badly written, it seems to be the bare bones of a story before it's been fleshed out with character development etc

Bringing my list up to date before going tk catch up on the thread.

1. Mythos - Stephen Fry
2. Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
3. Rizzio - Denise Mina
4. Hex - Jenni Fagan
5. A Thousand Ships - Natalie Hayes
6. Foster - Claire Keegan
7. Kid Normal and the Rogue Heroes - Greg James and Chris Smith
8. The World I Fell Out Of - Melanie Reid
9. Heroes- Stephen Fry

10. The Five - Hallie Rubenhold

Heroes was an audio book as I think Stephen Fry’s style lends itself to this. I have read mixed reviews about this including one that suggests it reads like a jocular Wikipedia entry. I don’t disagree but I also don’t think that this is a bad thing. It was perfect, bite-sized chunks of interesting stories which worked perfectly with my commute. Much of what I have been reading recently has been quite heavy and this was the perfect antidote.

The Five is an example of some of the heavy reading. I can’t decide if I enjoyed this or not. It was deeply moving in its account of the lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper. But it was relentless. The endless cycle of poverty, inequity, abuse was, of course, very bleak. I think it’s when I came to the final chapter and the author concludes that it all comes together. She writes a furious and heart felt argument against the polarisation of women in the press - either good or bad. And if bad then their end is likely their own doing.

the following quote was one of many which stood out in these last few pages:

When a woman steps out of line and contravenes the feminine norm, whether on social media or on the Victorian street, there is a tacit understanding that someone must put her back in her place.

The final pages listing the tiny number of objects they kept on their person and while were found on their bodies when they died was particularly moving.

I think it’s one which will sit with me for a while.

1. One of The Girls by Lucy Clarke

Another one chosen from my kindle backlist. I hadn't read anything by her before, and found this one more enjoyable than I thought it might be.

A group of women go to a remote villa in Greece for a hen party. There are fallings out, and someone gets murdered. Not hard to work out who or why but it was a fun read.

10. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett A collection of her non fiction writing - essays on various subjects, including a very moving piece about her friend Sooki's treatment for pancreatic cancer.

I like Ann Patchett's writing a lot, and have added a few more of her novels to my tbr wishlist.

A mixed bag of crime for me this week.

1. The Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson. I was sucked into the relentless social media marketing of this. YA about a high achieving student, Pip, who starts a school project to reopen an old murder case and exonerate a local teenager accused of killing his girlfriend. Told through her essay notes as well as the narrative. Ludicrous plot twists but very engaging.

1. Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka. Currently a Waterstones book of the month. In the final hours of a serial killer's life, awaiting execution, the author looks back at the women he has interacted with over the years and draws out their stories.

This was a very unusual, deeply moving book. I think it's intended as a challenge to the cultural interest in murderers, especially men who kill women, and it's at its most meaningful when describing the many lives shattered by his actions and the futures that some of these women should have had. But it's also very clear about the suffering in the murderer's own life and the horrors of the death penalty.

It does start with some really upsetting domestic abuse, which I almost stopped reading, but it's not a harrowing book overall. It's heavy but almost uplifting at the end. This is one that will stay with me for a while I think.

@Passmethecrisps the excellent book about pockets I reviewed recently (upthread) mentioned the contents of Catherine Eddowes' pockets. A heartbreaking and genuinely pathetic (in the true sense) indictment of a life of terrible need and poverty.

I missed that @Terpsichore and it sounds interesting would you mind mentioning the title again?

@RainyReadingDay I read One of the Girls by Lucy Clarke last year when I was in the mood for something not requiring a brain cell and don't recall buying it (it was also on my Kindle TBR list). I agree totally with your assessment.

@AliasGrape yes sure! It’s The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women's Lives, 1660-1900 - Barbara Burman & Ariane Fennetaux
Really it’s a bit of an academic study but the lavish illustrations are so beautiful and the text still has plenty to interest a non-specialist reader. DH bought it for me a couple of years back because I’m interested in historical textiles.

18. Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

In a near future US dystopia, persons of Asian origin are held in deep suspicion suffer extreme prejudice and are tested regarding their patriotism. Those who have mounted resistance against this new law PACT risk having their children removed.

The story is partially told from the point of view of Bird, a 12 year old boy, and partially his mother.

It is clear the author is using the fictitious PACT to talk about real issues of race in the US today.

It was really engaging and I read it in one sitting but I found it insubstantial- I could see the end arriving and was like really? That's it?

I did enjoy it but did not think it was as good as either Everything I Never Told You or Little Fires Everywhere

@GrannieMainland

I have Notes On An Execution on TBR and as a general heads up to the thread it's on a deal for 99p, which has really annoyed me as I paid full price only a couple of months ago

Thanks @Terpsichore itdoes sound good! I’ll add it to the wish list

Aiming to read two physical books I own each month, as otherwise I prioritize library books and kindle books so they don't get read. Slightly late with January's:

8. A Time to Die, by Hazel Holt
I've talked before about enjoying this cosy crime series, but this is I've of the weaker ones. Our heroine is never the most active of sleuths, but here she does nothing at all except gossip a bit about the deaths in the local riding school, and then someone hands her a letter in the final chapter, explaining what happened.

9. Come Away, Death, by Gladys Mitchell.
Golden era crime. A group of Brits in Greece trail around historical sites, re-enacting ancient rituals when strange things start to happen. It's all drags on for far too long until the final few chapters when we finally get a murder and a solution. It made me appreciate the sheer economy of Agatha Christie - this didn't need to be so long.

Turns out I've been granting shelf space to some not-great books. Good to get them cleared out, if nothing else.