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.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I really enjoyed Brave New World but can't remember why particularly.

@TheAnswerIsCake I loved River Sing Me Home. So powerful and moving ❤️

13 The Woman in the Middle by Milly Johnson
Shay is classic sandwich generation - working from home, caring for elderly parents, sorting out her children's problems, & with a 'd'h who considers earning money & putting the bins out the limits of his responsibility.
I saw this recommended on another thread, & while it was a bit predictable in places it's a good light read & was a nice change of pace from the other books I'm reading atm.

I really enjoyed Brave New World. I read it this year and was impressed by how it had remained relevant and captured the disinterest and disengagement of society. But the first half was much stronger than second half which I can see where you'd find bits of it silly. The ideas were better than the story I think but it was still a highlight for me.

You’re not the only one to be underwhelmed by Brave New World. Lots of people had told me it was THE classic dystopian novel and that I must read it. It’s been a good few years since I read it but I remember thinking ’is that it?’ It felt very flat and yes, pretty dull. I think we’re in the minority!

@Wafflefudge

I really did presume I was going to love it, definitely concept over execution

@TattiePants

I've read so many better dystopias

I like Brave New World for the ambiguity of the dystopia, but I agree that the first half is much better than the second.

Anyone who does like BNW and who reads YA, I liked the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld as a nicely done modern take on the same theme.

I'm enjoying the contrast between @AliasGrape's lovely phrase 'reading with my eyes' and the horribly snooty 'eye dialect'. Perhaps we need to come up with a better word of our own for written accents. Eyeccents maybe?!

@AliasGrape 's "reading with your eyes" reminds me of my youngest DC who used to say "Tell me a story out of your mouth Mummy". He liked my made-up stories sometimes rather than one from a book. A long time ago now ..

*@CoteDAzur I thought “Oh that sounds good”, went to add to my wish list and discovered I already own it. I think I’ll move it up my ridiculously large TBR list.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I feel the same about A Brave New World. I read it twice (years apart) to make sure, and it was boring both times.*

That is adorable @highlandcoo

Surprisingly it is DH, all about the facts and having previously demonstrated no more imaginative capability your average slab of granite, who has ended up telling DD the most exciting and wonderful stories ‘out of his mouth’. I was forever making up good ones for my nephews and nieces but seems like the creative spark has dimmed a bit these days and it’s easier to stick to the Gruffalo and his mates.

@kateandme I love a book with a twist!!

16 House of Ashes by Stuart Neville. This tells the story of Mary, raised by two mothers in captivity in the home of three farmers in Northern Ireland in the early 1960s all of whom she refers to as Daddy. Chapters alternate with Sara, who has just moved into the same house with her husband in modern times. It started out well but soon became disturbing and the modern story was, I felt, unconvincing. Interestingly (because of discussion above) Neville uses a lot of Ulster Scots dialect in the book. I found this easy to follow having lived there for many years but other readers may find it wearing.

17 Desire Haruki Murakami. 5 short stories from different collections grouped together in this penguin vintage mini. I have never read Murakami before and thought this might be a good introduction. I found his prose flat, the characters unconvincing and the the plots ludicrous. I’m sure there is a deeper meaning somewhere, but it was above my head! As an introduction, it has done its job- I won’t read any more of this author. He is not for me.

I’ve been bogged down in some non-fiction that I was glad to put aside when my reservation of Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses came through. Thanks to everyone here for the recommendations of this as I wouldn’t have known of it otherwise and can only echo the high praise. Takes you to NI at the height of the Troubles and meets all its characters with empathy, with a love affair and tales of quiet heroism. A good read, beautifully written, that transported me to a different world.

10. The Whalebone Theatre: Joanna Quinn.

Set in Dorset during the 1920s, the story follows the adventures of Christabel and her step-siblings who set up a theatre in the bones of a beached whale. The children are pretty much left to their own devices while their parents or step-parents enjoy a decadent lifestyle. When WW2 breaks out, they become involved in the war effort. Two of them become undercover agents in France and one stays behind to manage the big house.

I thought the author succeeded in evoking a vivid description of this time period. It was well researched and included extracts from magazine advertisements and slogans from posters. Quinn also played around with the text layout for added effect and included diary extracts from the maid (eye dialect alert!), letters and scrap book entries.

That might sound a bit gimmicky, but it wasn't overdone. The book was long in length and leisurely in pace. It got a bit exciting in Act Five (the theatre metaphor ran through the book and there were many references to uniforms as costumes and playing a role). That was a bit heavy-handed.

I thought the character development was a bit thin. The children were already little adults at six, seven and twelve years old, so it seemed they were just bigger versions of themselves in the second half of the book. I think the author played it a bit safe in some ways. Nobody got compromised, it was a bit too cosy. It drew me in towards the end when it really became a matter of life or death.

Overall, I thought this was a good but not a great read. It requires some patience on the part of the reader. There is the issue of the narrative in the present tense, which is annoying until you get used to it. As it is a book of two parts, it might have worked better as two separate books, perhaps with a little more scope for expansion, but there were good moments so maybe I'm being overly critical.

Ooh I've been putting this one off and off for some reason. I won't now.

Oh me too! And wondering if I can get a physical book in before the borrowbox one expires. Its tough.

@kateandme that sounds stressful! I'm staying resolutely analogue for that reason (also I love the feel and smell of books). It raises an interesting question about digital reading choices. I don't think it would cure my book obsession though.

Brave New World is kind of boring, once the (very good) world building is out of the way. I had zero interest in John and his existential angst, running around quoting Shakespeare. I was surprised when I re-read it recently that I'd made it to the end as a teenager.

19 Orlando by Virginia Woolf

I somehow have absorbed the view that Woolf is in some way inaccessible or “difficult”. I have read Mrs Dalloway, which I enjoyed and found fascinating though it is not a particularly easy read but nothing else of hers. This was read after I saw the West End show earlier this year (which is outstanding!) and was a wonderful, transporting piece of fiction. Orlando is born a man in Elizabethan England and is a celebrated member of the court. After falling in love with a Russian woman who breaks his heart, he goes to Turkey as the British Ambassador, only to find one day he has transformed from man to woman. She leaves and returns to England, where she lives and loves as a woman (sometimes loving men, sometimes women) for the remainder of the novel, which ends in 1928.

I can see why this has been embraced as a standard bearer for queer fiction, though I think it says more about the female condition than it does about gender preferences or sexuality. This is wonderfully evocative writing and some paragraphs were so precise and visual that I went back and reread them several times, which is really unusual for me.

1. The Four Winds, Kristin Hannah

This opens in 1920s rural Texas. Elsa is considered unattractive and delicate. Whilst her sisters have left home and married, she is stuck with her parents, living a very restricted life and considered 'on the shelf' in her mid twenties. Fed up with this and seeking affection she makes herself a red silk dress and heads out to town. Here she meets Rafe a younger local lad and looses her virginity in the back of his truck. This all seemed a reasonably promising start (think I read all this in the sample), but it was downhill from there on. Most of the book takes places 10 years after in the great depression. Predictably Elsa has got pregnant, been abandoned by her family and had no choice but to marry Rafe. She and her two children first endure the devastation of their farm where the land is destroyed by constant dust storms and then life as migrant workers in California. It is an interesting and harrowing period of history & to be fair I did learn a bit about how awful life in the dust bowl must have been, but overall the telling was flat and uninteresting. Characters are all clearly goodies or baddies with practically no nuance.

Borrowbox users, obviously this doesn't work if you're in a queue, but unlike the other most common library ebook app, Libby/Overdrive, if there are no other reservations when you borrow a book, you can renew it immediately so you know that you have a little longer to read if you need it - you don't have to wait until 3 days from the end of a loan period. And this clearly doesn't stop you returning it sooner.

Thanks for the Orlando review Pepe, I bought it last year but have been putting it off as feels somewhat intimidating.

Not in the slightest, @CornishLizard . I thought it was wonderful, and much less challenging than I expected. Thinking back to things like Piranesi which have a similar vibe, it was far easier and more entertaining as a read.

😂I didn’t get on with Piranesi, but will try to get onto Orlando soon!