50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Three

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third 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 and the second one here.

The third series of the Alex Rider tv series on Amazon, that is. The first two series were based on 'Point Blanc.' And 'Eagle Strike.'* Both excellent reads ❤️

@TimeforaGandT I think other people on these threads have enjoyed it more than I did. I used to read a lot of SF which loves a multi viewpoint narrative but have really lost patience with those type of tomes as I've got older.

for Meg.

I always re-read favourites in difficult times, my brain can't seem to cope with anything more challenging when I'm in need of comfort.

Sending very unMN hugs @MegBusset

Cloud Cuckoo Land was a DNF for me. I liked his other one a lot, until the dreadful ending.

I've DNFd All The Light We Cannot See twice, both times around the same point, worth giving it a last chance?

11. Walk the Blue Fields: Claire Keegan.

A collection of eight short stories. Haunting in tone and gripping to read, although I had to pace myself as the stories did tug at my heart. Quietly devastating at times.

Meg 💐My sympathy to you on the passing of your MIL.

Ah, thank you kind 50 Bookers. Light reading is proving a great comfort - at the moment I’m on Measuring The World which @CoteDAzur will be glad to hear I’m enjoying, and just bought The Ship Beneath The Ice for my next Audible.

My library service uses Libby - is that the same as Borrowbox? I find the selection a bit random (often missing big names but can find some pleasingly obscure reads on there) but find it a convenient alternative than having to travel and pick up an actual book. I have the app side loaded onto my Kindle Fire so I can take one e-reader on the go, though I also have a Paperwhite which I do prefer for Kindle books.

I really enjoyed it @EineReiseDurchDieZeit and, in fact, bought it as a gift for my mum and MIL that year. But I have read critical reviews which I can understand so I would say you have given it time enough.

Eine, I wasn't keen on the very short chapters and the change of narrator every second page. It became repetitive. It wasn't a great read for me. I liked the writing but the structure annoyed me. Some funng time-line shenanigans too. And the villain was like he came out of Indiana Jones.

14. Killing Dragons: The Conquest of the Alps - Fergus Fleming

Highly entertaining account of how men (and the occasional woman) have sought to conquer the various peaks of Europe's most spectacular mountain range. The story starts in earnest in the 18thc and runs to the 1930s, by which time every single mountain in the range had finally been climbed, with the terrifying Eiger the last to succumb. Along the way Fleming tells a cracking tale and does justice to the many 'characters' in Alpine history, most of them deeply eccentric and/or obsessed to the point of madness. For some reason there’s a preponderance of 19thc English clergymen who seemed utterly in thrall to the challenge of climbing.

15. Other People's Worlds - William Trevor

A bit of an accidental read after we were talking about fictional versions of the Constance Kent case recently - I googled and this came up. It's the story of widow Julia, who at almost 50 lives quietly with her elderly mother in a sleepy Gloucestershire village. Julia has met a younger man, good-looking and personable minor actor Francis Tyte (about to play a very small role in a TV drama about Constance Kent), and to her own dazed amazement and pleasure has fallen in love and agreed to marry him. The wedding is imminent, but her mother, Mrs. Anstey, feels stirrings of unease she can’t explain.

Little do Julia and her mother know that Francis is a total fantasist and liar who’s woven a web of deceit; enter - unexpectedly - Doris Smith, shoe-shop assistant, love-lorn alcoholic and mother of his child, the painfully-misnamed 12-year old bespectacled Joy. The lives of all of them will be upended by Francis's manipulative games.

This was a beautifully written novel and at times hilariously funny, but my God, it was bleak as well. Trevor wields a scalpel but so delicately and cleverly you can’t quite see how he does it.

@MegBusset hugs from here too. I always turn to Bill when feeling fragile.
@EineReiseDurchDieZeit That's been on my tbr kindle pile for ages. I reckon though that twice is once too many. I'm very pleased I gave Wolf Hall another bash but it'd have gone out of the window if the Thomasathon had beaten me again.

Meg

I haven't read it Eine, but if you've had two pretty good goes at it and you're not feeling it, I think you've done more than enough!

For Meg 💐Glad that books are proving some comfort at a sad time.

I’ve finished Ramble Book which was my tenth read. I said pretty much what I thought about it upthread - enjoyable enough but not exactly gripping.

I have Diary of a Bookseller on the go from Borrowbox - ours is pretty good. I’ve read 28 on there since this time last year - most of them recommendations from this thread. Have the current one, it’s sequel and the recently mentioned A Net for Small Fishes sitting in my loans, with Lessons in Chemistry and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tonorrow on reserve. It tends to be the first place I look up any recommendations, then if it’s not there I’ll consider using an audible credit and only then will consider buying. Reduces the spend a little although not foolproof as I’ve still bought far more than I’ll ever read and keep adding to it.

We use the physical library for books for DD. I haven’t been reading real books for ages but now I can again I should probably dig out my own library card.

to Meg

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo

This was mostly a re-read, not sure if I got to the end the first time. I picked it up from the library after seeing someone, maybe on here, linking to this article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jan/30/queen-of-clean-marie-kondo-says-she-has-kind-of-given-up-on-tidying-at-home

Much media reaction was along the lines of "ah see it was a load of nonsense all along" but that's being a bit harsh I think - the short Guardian piece makes it clear that she is just focussed on different ways to achieve joy right now.

Anyway, the book seems somewhat dated. I'm sure it was edited to take advantage of the wave of decluttering that was popular at the time, but it feels a lot like Minimalism 1.0: as if the point was getting rid of things and tidying up the rest. Much of what is really now a minimalism industry is still at that point. But Marie does touch at the end of the book on what many others such as The Minimalists and Joshua Becker now stress: that it's not about the discarding, and the tidying, but about what you do with the space (in your head) that that process creates.

Off to read Spark of Joy next since that sounds like Marie may have gone in the same direction anyway...

Meg

Sorry to hear of your family’s loss, Meg

11 The Drift, by CJ Tudor
A solid 5 stars for this book. Difficult to review fully without spoilers, but here goes….. there are 3 separate groups of people trapped in a) a cable car b) a crashed coach in a snowdrift and c) a remote research facility.
The setting is a post-pandemic world, where survivors aren’t so much ‘living with’ the virus as battling with its mutations constantly. They have to use Whistlers, people who have lived through the initial illness and are now changed into something vicious, pathetic and feral, as live plasma donors. You get the impression of more settled pockets of humanity elsewhere in the world, but all the action is centred around the 3 environments above. Each acts as a sort of Escape Room set piece and I found them gripping, despite not being a huge fan of action/adventure fiction. They are all connected, you begin to realise.
Apparently, the author had the ideas for this book in Autumn 2019 and debated whether anyone was ready for a Pandemic Novel, as she fleshed it out during Covid. It’s more of a Girl With All The Gifts than a lazy cash-in.
It’s full of tension, sadness and gritty descriptions of the frailty of the human body. Survival is the theme that it all hangs on, and just how far some people will go to achieve it.

Sorry for your loss meg

Sorry to hear about your MIL, @MegBusset

Sorry to those who dislike lists for bringing mine over on page 11 😱 Really not able to find time to read at the moment, which I hate.

1. After Henry – Joan Didion 2. Year of Wonder – Clemency Burton-Hill
2. Motherwell – Deborah Orr 4. Just Kids – Patti Smith
3. Best of Friends – Kamila Shamsie 6. Macbeth – William Shakespeare 7. Wyrd Sisters – Terry Pratchett

And my latest read:

8. War Gardens – Lalage Snow

This was a Shelterbox pick which does what it says on the tin - a journalistic account of gardens in war zones, primarily Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and Ukraine. I liked the premise and really enjoyed reading about some of the gardens, but I found it a bit clunkily-written, lacking in nuance in places (especially around Israel/Palestine) and also too long. Some amazing people in there, though, and really made me appreciate the garden and my newly blooming crocuses.

Currently reading Soul Music by Terry Pratchett and greatly enjoying it so far.

I enjoyed Diary of a Bookseller and have had the sequel on my wishlist for a while, so your mention, Alias, prompted me to go to Borrowbox to look it up. Predictably, they don’t have it 🙄😂

All the talk of borrowbox prompted me to check it out for the first time. Seems to be absolutely loads on there, so have reserved a few that have been mentioned on here.

I think I’m just unlucky in my particular library, but it seems a little odd as I’m in prime London commuter belt in the Home Counties. But that’s the way it goes, I suppose.

@Terpsichore Maybe your library has additional services for e-books? Where we are in Tower Hamlets, the library service uses Libby, Borrowbox and Overdrive. As well as the odd physical book too ;)

If you search in the main library catalogue you see everything; but using the search in any of the three e-book apps is misleading and appears disappointing, since only the books available in that service appear.

I reviewed Cloud Cuckoo Land on a previous thread, so sorry to be repetitious, but maybe it's worth saying again here.
I loved All the Light We Cannot See too, and approached CCL with trepidation as I am a bit averse to a) future-set stuff and b) multiple timelines linked 'cleverly'. I was pleasantly surprised, though. The future stuff turned out to have much more heart than it seemed it would at first, and I found the other storylines interesting and touching/moving too.
I still think All the Light We Cannot See is better, or maybe just more my kind of thing. But I'd say do try CCL.

@Waawo yes, our library used to use Overdrive but they switched exclusively to Borrowbox a couple of years ago. The good thing about Overdrive was that it gave you the option to ask for books to be added if they didn’t have them, but that functionality doesn’t seem to have carried through since the change.

Anyway, I’ll stop moaning about it now, as it’s not as though I haven’t got enough to read without library books!