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 recall strongly disliking Hamnet but I can't remember why

RainyReadingDay and So1invictus, if you liked Snow I'd recommend his Quirke books (written under his Benjamin Black nom de plume.) Fifties Dublin, not rural, but wonderful city atmosphere and period detail about the clothes/cars/food/hotel bars etc. Quirke is the city pathologist and gets involved in murders in that slightly unlikely way that non-police people get involved/allowed to tag along with the police! You get police procedural but plenty about the characters' lives, social tensions, wider social picture etc. Things like the Magdalen laundries and the corruption of priests and the Church in general loom large.

12 A Curious Beginning - Deanna Raybourn Set in Victorian England, with a feisty heroine thrown together with a grumpy, scarred, but sexy mystery man as they try to track down a murderer…

This was frivolous but fun, like Enola Holmes for readers of Mills and Boon, with a bit of Cormoran Strike and Robin thrown in…lots of anachronisms, especially the heroine’s attitude to sex, but I don’t think we’re meant to take the book as serious historical fiction so it didn’t stop me enjoying it! This is the first of a series and my BorrowBox has the next five, so I’ll definitely be reading some more of them!

Because it was boring and badly written shite, probably.

I found my review

Boring and badly written basically

Ive never got on with Maggie Farrell although I only read her first three. Not bothered since.

I got Jenny Eclair's menopause book on a 0.99 deal today. I do find her funny so I'm looking forward to it

Also picked up three books from library so hopefully I'll have something to discuss next week

@BestIsWest I'll look forward to that
@MarkWithaC Thank you! I searched more Banvilles last week when I finished Snow and came across the BB name. Will definitely look out for those.
@EineReiseDurchDieZeit and @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I did snort quite loudly quite early on with Hamnet and the weird shit about girls living in the forest and putting spells on people. If we're heading into magical (not so) realism, I'm probably out.
Going to look at the deals again now and see if they've been sorted properly.

The deals are dreadful, and there only seem to be about a third of the usual amount. I didn't see a single thing I'm interested in except maybe Mexican Gothic but I fear that I wouldn't like it.

I really liked Snow and quite liked The Black-eyed Blonde which is his Raymond Chandler homage, but not found him very readable otherwise.

Remus

RE Mexican Gothic I can guarantee you won't like it, terrible, nearly laughable reveal.

Got a couple of things in non fiction.

Also got a new candidate for Shittest Book Title in

Boat House Pretty Beach

Phew! Thanks for the warning.

That title is a stinker! Sounds like one of those word association games:
carrot / vegetable / fruit / loop
boat / sea / swim / drown
book / read / crap / despair

Inability to craft a meaningful basic sentence for the title does not bode well for the rest of it

Was going to say similar re Mexican Gothic - it becomes very silly and I struggled to see the point of setting it in Mexico (may as well have been England!).

Thought it was just me that only had half the usual deals showing. I bought 2 only. Both non fiction. The Laura Bates one and another angry women one.

I cannot read without joining the Maggie O’Farrell chat. I read The Marriage Portrait recently and thought, I should love this, but I really don’t.

Agree the deals are even worse than usual. Bought the Claire Tomalin biography of Jane Austen, the Julie Bindel feminism book and a "feminist retelling" of Joan of Arc - I hate that phrase as it usually just means "told from a woman's point of view".

As a general word of advice, if like me you have a large Wish List, check it, several on mine are now 99p, despite not showing in the deals section.

Uh oh, looks like the 'Pretty Beach' thing is a SERIES. Pretty Beach Petals or Pretty Beach Blooms, anyone?

Mexican Gothic is the worst book I've read in ages. I think I was somewhere with no internet connection so had to read something already downloaded but I'd have been better off cleaning the skirting boards of the holiday home or something. Total nonsense.

Thanks for all the warnings against Mexican Gothic. I will not be reading it!

I'll resist joining in the weekly Maggie OF debate!

Kindle deals still showing as a mess for me. @EineReiseDurchDieZeit what kinds of things did you find at 99p?

Though to be honest a month of not buying any books in the deals would be good for me.

I got the Julie Bindel and an Angela Hartnett cookbook in the 99ps and there were a couple of PD James books at £2.99 but I'm trying very hard to restrain my book spending at the moment so I didn't get them <virtuous>. I several books in my TBR which have received less than glowing reviews lately so while I will be interested to see what I think of them, I may let them slide down the rankings a bit

I seem to be having a terrible go slow on books at the moment. I'm still reading but only really at bedtime. Too much MN!

Well, I brought a couple of TM Logan books in the kindle sale today. 'The Curfew' and 'Trust Me.'
I do enjoy his books. I thought 'The Holiday.' Was a bit basic, but I really liked 'The Catch.'

There was a 99p Dalgliesh as well.

I'm lying in bed literally skim reading Hamnet. And wondering if people in the 1500s talked about "blending sounds" when teaching others to read. Chinny reckon.

Ooh, I missed the Angela Hartnett, thanks @ClaphamSouth.