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.

Yes, definitely not overkill...

The graphic descriptions of the executions certainly do stick in the mind for a few days. It's a horrific way to die. What amazed me was that they often seemed ready to say a final few words beforehand, like dying in that manner was a perfectly normal thing and they had prepared a speech. Instead of being almost senseless with fear. Although perhaps that is just Robert Harris's version of events. I really enjoyed the book. Incredible how hard it was for them to really hide for long. I guess they were limited to the few settlements that existed at the time.

What was interesting about this book was that everyone seemed to be in debt - all the men in court were in debt and that was the normal state of things, it kept them loyal.
It sounds like an incredibly stressful life in many ways and Anne's gradual sink into poverty along with her lack of choices and options to make a living were well written. Once she has ties herself to the girl, she had sealed her fate but was sort of powerless to do anything about it.

I read Dead in the Water last year & found it really interesting

Before the Coffee gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and Geoffrey Trousselot (trans)

Great, thanks to all those who recommended this on here. I love Japanese literature, and this has the key characteristic I think: at once it seems both frothy and in some way profound. Definitely a bold for me.

@dontlookgottalook

Yes, it really did ram home the powerlessness of women, eg Arthur's desertion and the way Frankie had to get male family to seek a divorce on her behalf.

A lot of the debt issues were about people vying for seniority through having the best clothes, deliberately losing to the King at a game of cards, and that type of thing in a speculate to accumulate sense of having to gain notice and favour to perhaps be awarded titles and lands.

Seemed suffocating.

DFN'd We Never Asked For Wings- It was well written but I didn't like it as much as the author's first book. I just found it a bit slow going.

Now rereading 'The Wolf Den.' By Elodie Harper. This is the first in a trilogy of historical fiction books (the second book has only just been released, with a third one out soon,) about the life of a enslaved prostitute in Pompeii.

Also read 'The Day I Fell Into A Fairytale.' By Ben Miller.

I really enjoyed this. They are children's books, but are very well written stories with merge fairy tales with a modern twist. I like Ben Miller as an actor, and I'm pleased to report that he is a brilliant storyteller! ❤️

It sounds like a terrifying and very precarious way to live. Clearly there were winners and losers and life could be brutal. Anne was so powerless and it was touching how she tried right to the end to improve her children's lot.

14 Measuring The World - Daniel Kehlmann

An enjoyable, quick read which fictionalises the lives and friendship of explorer Alexander von Humboldt and mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. Written with a dry humour and lightness of touch while evoking the world of 19th century European science.

Has anyone read anything by Jane Gardam and if so what are their opinions?
Thanks!

@Gingerwarthog yes, the Old Filth trilogy. Filth standing for Failed in London Try Hong Kong. Eddie is a Raj orphan, sent home from Malaya to be educated in England - stiff upper lip required - and rather buttoned up as a consequence. We learn about his marriage to Betty, his life-long rivalry with Veneering, and his regrets, weaknesses and eccentricities. It's poignant, touching and sometimes funny.

I really enjoyed the first volume, enjoyed the second which has some surprising revelatuions, and by the time I got to the third I wanted to finish the trilogy but was a little tired of the same story being related from a third point of view to be honest. Very much worth reading the first to see what you think though.

just finished how to kill your family. haha it was good.quirky little twist at the end which i thought was really smartly done.

@highlandcoo
Thank you!
Old Filth sounds interesting - will give it a go!

Finished number 12, Picture You Dead by Peter James. Enjoyed this even though I haven't read the whole series (think I read a few earlier ones ages ago) so didn't know about the stuff going on in his life like the death of Bruno but might read the earlier ones at some point.

And then number 13 Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Probably shouldn't have read this after books with a lot of action and excitement so this felt a bit too dull in comparison but it was an interesting concept and I got more into the characters about half way through.

Jane Gardam is on my ‘read everything she’s written’ list Ginger - but not quite high enough up for me to get to them! I agree the Old Filth trilogy is a good place to start, I’ve also enjoyed Queen of the Tambourine and Bilgewater. She’s very good at suggesting and building things up and at the end when things are revealed more clearly you feel you semi-knew all along. You’ve made me want to read another, I have one waiting on the shelf!

18 The Odyssey Homer - I didn’t enjoy this as much as The Iliad. Odysseus wasn’t a very likeable character until the last 5 books and I thought he brought a lot of his misfortune on himself.

19 Widowland C J Carey. Set in 1953, where the Nazis won the war and Britain is now a German ‘protectorate’. The story follows Rose, a Geli (the most elite category of woman) who is asked to investigate anti-state propaganda being spread from Widowland- the areas where childless women over 50 (Freidas) have been forced to live in penury. The premise was interesting but the book focused on Rose and the Freidas (which were the bit I was interested in as an almost 50 childless woman, and we’re never the heroes!) hardly appeared at all. Disappointing in the end.

17. The Duchess by Amanda Foreman Non-fiction about the life of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, adapted into the film with Keira Knightley I found this really interesting although it was heavy going and sometimes hard to keep track of who people are as sometimes Foreman uses their name and sometimes their title, and people's titles change as parents die and the title passes down the family. But overall a fascinating look into the life of one of history's forgotten women. I was surprised how incredibly active Georgiana was in politics and how much power and sway she held over political events. An excellent example of a supremely capable woman limited by the social constraints placed on her because of her sex

@BaruFisher Odysseus is an absolute dick. Probably suffering from PTSD but no excuse for most of his awful behaviour throughout the Odyssey. I found the Odyssey a much easier read than the Iliad because it was so much more personal and plot driven - I've preferred reading around the Iliad rather than actually reading it. But I think it suffered a little from the translation I chose, and I am looking forward to Emily Wilson's which is coming out later this year when I will give it another go. Currently reading Troy with DS, and that's hitting all the right notes in terms of plot while sparing me some of what I found to be slightly tedious battle scenes.

9 - The Paper Palace - Miranda Cowley Heller
I didn’t enjoy reading this book at all. For me it made for extremely uncomfortable reading.

Having said that, it was never a potential DNF as it's quite pacy and you want to know what happens. Since finishing it last night I’ve thought about it a lot and must admit that I thought the book was well written, the double timeline worked well and the premise was interesting.
Will I read any more of her work? I think that would depend on the subject matter.

Historian Ian Mortimer in a bio of Henry IV describes just such an execution and what he says must be the coolest remark ever made by someone facing hanging, drawing and quartering - the condemned man has gone through the first part (hanging until nearly dead then let down) was being disembowelled and was asked if he wanted a drink and replied 'No, for I know not where I should put it.'

They offered them a drink mid torture??

How thoroughly British.

For those interested Meghan Phelps Roper's podcast featuring JK Rowling has been released today. The Witch Trials Of JK Rowling as it's getting underway is more at this point about the strength of the Christian Right reaction to Harry Potter originally and I assume will progress from there.

'When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.' WSC.

14 Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor by Dave Haslam
Memoir by the DJ & music writer. I think several other posters have read & reviewed this previously. I found it a very entertaining canter through the Manchester scene, & have enjoyed listening my way through much of the music he talks about.

15 Unraveller by Frances Hardinge
In the country of Raddith, wild things live in the woods, and if people become angry enough, they can curse their enemies. Kellen has an exceptional talent; he can unravel curses, and restore the victims to their original state. Nettle - cursed with her siblings, 'fixed' by Kellen - travels with him. But now someone powerful is helping the cursers Kellen has helped imprison to escape.
This was a fantastic read - a really gripping plot, and fabulous world building. Although Hardinge is marketed as YA / children's fiction, lots of her books stand up as well as any adult fantasy. This one definitely lived up to her earlier books like Fly by Night or A Face Like Glass, & I'm sure I'll read it again.