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.

I may have found it pacy having just endured some utter bilge of course!

13. To Live - Yu Hua

This is apparently very famous in China but I must admit I had never heard of it when it was recommended to me. Fugui is the main character and growths up in a well-of family. He becomes a hedonistic, selfish and unpleasant young man but by the end of the book and his life he has undergone a transformation and whilst lacking material wealth has become a better person. An interesting read particularly around the difficulties of everyday life in the Cultural Revolution - not sure if it’s a bold - will see if it stays with me.

14. Gamble - Felix Francis

Nick Foxton, a retired jockey, is now a financial adviser with lots of clients in the facing world. Whilst at Aintree with Nick, his colleague is shot dead. Nick becomes the next target when he starts looking into why his colleague was murdered and asking difficult questions. Pacy and enjoyable.

@TimeforaGandT I've read a non-fiction book by Yu Hua which was quite interesting - part memoir, which maybe made it a bit more revealing - China in Ten Words. I learned a lot about the years around/just following the Cultural Revolution, when he grew up. It seemed surprisingly outspoken in places, too.

18. The Importance of Being Kennedy by Laurie Graham Fiction based on fact. This is the fictionalised memoir of Nora Brennan, nursemaid to the 9 Kennedy children. This was a fascinating look into the Kennedy's in their younger years, the tragedy of Rose Marie is especially heart-wrenching. Really well written and absolutely gripping. I really enjoyed this and would definitely recommend

I quite like Robert Harris and generally find his books readable, except the Tony Blair one which I didn't like. I'm a fellow classicist @LadybirdDaphne and really enjoyed watching the dramatisation of the Cicero books too. One Mr Boris Johnson was at the theatre on one of the nights I went.

14. The Book of Form And Emptiness - Ruth Ozeki. I just managed to read last year's Women's Prize winner before this year's Longlist is announced. This wasn't my favourite of the ones I've read. For me it was too long, and trying to pack too many themes into one book - jazz, zen, hoarding, mental health, the environment, libraries, books. I found quite a few of the characters were a bit stereotypical - homeless poet, artistic self-harmer, hoarding mother. I may have suffered from reading it just after Cloud Cuckoo Land, another long book about books, and in the same year as The Sentence, which was by far my favourite of the 3.

@Stokey I really hope you threw Werthers Originals/popcorn/olives/insert theatre snack of choice at him.

#11 Godmersham Park Gill Hornby the imagined story (with some factual input from the diary of Fanny Austen) about the friendship between Jane Austen and Anne Sharp. It was ok but nothing to write home about, not sure it lived up to the hype

13 Run Towards The Danger by Sarah Polley. A series of six autobiographical essays by the Canadian actress and director. This is my first non-fiction bold of the year, and actually I think it's one of the best memoirs I've ever read. I'm going to put it up there with Viv Albertine; although the two women are very different in personality, their books share the same raw, sometimes shocking, honesty. I enjoyed all these essays, especially the one about her experience of concussion, and a special mention goes to The Woman Who Stayed Silent which is about sexual assault, and in particular how it plays out in a courtroom. A powerfully captured experience of a hugely important topic.

14 The Psychopath Inside by James Fallon. The USP of this is that, while observing brain scans of a control group of "normal" subjects, the author (a neuroscientist) finds one that looks exactly like the ones he has seen while studying the brain scans of psychopaths. After de-anonymising the scans... he discovers that it is his own. It is a fascinating premise, and in a way I'm surprised this didn't grab me more. It has some big-picture stuff about the different parts of the brain, and a bit of self-reflection about the aspects of his personality that fit with the profile of a non-violent, pro-social psychopath. I should have found it interesting but for some reason it was only okay.

@Tarahumara

I will be taking that recommendation but would like to recommend back if you haven't seen it her documentary Stories We Tell if you can find it, it was autobiographical but also about her Mum, it was brilliant

11. How to be famous – Caitlin Moran This is the sequel to Moran's How to build a girl that I discovered last year and loved. Johanna is now fully ensconced in mid-1990s London, having escaped family life in Wolverhampton.... but not completely. This is a no-holds barred account of how those that are famous treat those that are not, how gutsy young girls have to fight hard to find their place - and is filled with poignant, funny, rude stuff. Once again the voice of Louise Brealey was a perfect choice for this on audible. She does an absolutely brilliant job.

Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

Read this (late!) for the Christie challenge this year - I'm trying not to buy books this year so was at the mercy of library queues. That fact that I was number twenty something in line when I ordered this in January says something about the popularity of the challenge maybe?

This is only the second Christie novel I've read, and the first Poirot - although I'm aware of the general idea from a kind of TV and film zeitgeist, despite never having watched one. It was alright I guess - it feels like a period piece now, and that aspect is fascinating enough. The actual whodunnit - hard to do without giving spoilers. But there were loads of potentials (of course). And two people of a certain, er, category. And almost everyone in the story made a point of saying that someone in that category couldn't possibly have done the crime. Which highlights especially to a modern reader that it must have been one of them. Plot twist! (Not really) It was one of them. Hm. Next up for the challenge is a Tommy and Tuppence collection - again I'm at the mercy of the library queue, I'm somthing like tenth in line.

JL Carr - A Month in the Country

Brilliant. A re-read - it's a favourite. Just a wonderful novel really, the kind that I'm not even sure anyone writes any more. Or maybe it's just that I'm old and so things written in the late seventies, early eighties, when I was growing up, hold more power over me than newer things. Anyway, there are three stories really: the "now" timeline of the 1920s summer, when the action takes place; buried underneath that, like the painting that our hero is slowly revealing, are the memories of 1914-1918; and underneath all that (I think) is an almost unconscious commentary on the way things changed during the author's lifetime.

Some things seem incredibly modern:

"I never exchanged a word with the Colonel. He has no significance at all in what happened during my stay in Oxgodby. As far as I'm concerned he might as well have gone around the corner and died. But that goes for most of us, doesn't it? We look blankly at each other. Here I am, here you are. What are we doing here? What do you suppose it's all about? Let's dream on. Yes, that's my dad and mum on the piano top. My eldest boy is on the mantelpiece. That cushion cover was embroidered by my cousin Sarah only a month before she passed on. I go to work at eight and come home at five-thirty. When I retire they'll give me a clock - with my name engraved on the back. Now you know all about me. Go away: I've forgotten you already."

And after the discussion of eye accent in writing earlier in the thread, how could I not share this:

'T'missus and me, yam's doon a claay laane, a lang clay laane, and roond ooor spot t'claay's claggy. Yan sabbath t'missus says "Faither, ah'll nut be gannin ti t'chapel, t'muck'll be ower me beeat tops." "Nay," I says, "thu maunt let a bit o'muck keeap thee yam, ah'll hump thi on me back an' thu m'clag on till we git ower t'wast o't'claay ..." '

Have you seen Stories We Tell, Polley's documentary? It's brilliant.

I didn't know she had written a book and will look it out!

Thanks for the recommendation @EineReiseDurchDieZeit and @Piggywaspushed - I'll definitely look out for it.

Anyone who's interested, there's a really good biography of Roald Dahl- Storyteller by Donald Sturrock. It's not a fawning biography at all- he seems to have been a really divisive person and people either loved or hated him. Interesting stuff. I also think Miss Trunchbull is a character who's long overdue one of these feminist reclaiming novels where we finally get the story from her perspective. I'd definitely read Trunchbull: The Novel :)

Oh sorry reise! Just saw you had already mentioned SWT! I have found someone else who has seen it!!

Yes, Ive just looked to see if its available online, I would watch again, all of it was just so great from a human psychology pov. I also like the story that Sarah Polley, aged 17 asked Margaret Atwood for the rights to Alias Grace, Atwood said no, Polley still ended up being the person who brought it to screen.

Oh yes, and it's quoted at the beginning of Stories We tell, too.

1. The Night Ship- Jess Kidd

I love her writing. Her books are off the wall in parts but I'm always happy to go with it because they're just so beautifully written, inventive and there's a lot of humour too. If I had any criticism of this it would be that the Gil sections didn't hold my attention as much as the Mayken sections did, and the link between them was pretty tenuous. But I think she's an exceptional writer. I'd never heard the story of the Batavia either, so it was an education.

@satelliteheart I read The Importance of Being Kennedy last year and loved it, button I find all things Kennedy clan fascinating.

Is anyone else a fan of Ruth Ware? I'm generally not big on 'twisty psychological thrillers' but I've got a soft spot for her books and think she's one of the better authors of the genre. I'm almost finished reading Turn of the Key which is really spooking me out tbh, I had trouble getting to sleep last night because of it 😳 it follows Rowan, a nanny who we find out at the start of the book is imprisoned for the death of one of her charges and she writes her story to a lawyer, telling him that she's innocent and how something wasn't quite right at the remote house in Scotland that she was working at. Looking forward to finding out how it ends and hope its not too disappointing (or too 'woo').

7. Time to Think by Hannah Barnes
An exploration of the story of the specialist gender identity clinic for children in the UK, which is closing next month having been dogged by increasing controversy.
My main takeaway from this, which has surprised me, is reflecting on my own work in a very busy and understaffed NHS service and how I deal with the pressure to work superficially to deal with the sheer numbers. As a result (well, as one of the factors) I'm applying for another job today! So it's had quite a profound effect on me.
As a book I think it's a well written polemic. I know someone who worked a GIDS and I think they would agree with the premise of the book, but there is some space given to more positive views of the clinic's work.

I loved The Night Ship too, @Whosawake I saw it was based on a real event but didn't look into that further until I finished it.

@InTheCludgie I've not read anything by Ruth Ware yet but have The Death of Mrs Westaway on my kindle TBR mountain. Have you read that one and is it any good?

Just seent Entangled Life is on daily deal today - absolutely fascinating book, I'd really recommend it.

@InTheCludgie I read One by One recently and loved it - stands out from the recent batch of thrillers set in luxury ski chalets. I'm waiting for It Girl to come up in the daily deals or to turn up in a charity shop.

@MamaNewtNewt I'd say The Death of Mrs Westaway is my favourite one, closely followed by In A Dark Dark Wood. @MaudOfTheMarches One By One was a good read but would say I rate her other ones better. Not read any other ski chalet thrillers unfortunately to compare it to!