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.

Book 12 - Trespasses by Louise Kennedy. Thanks to all those who recommended this, I loved it. The book is set in Northern Ireland during the 70s and follows Cushla, a young Catholic teacher who starts a love affair with a married, Protestant man, at the same time as trying to help the struggling family of one of her pupils.

I thought Cushla's voice was very strong and believable and I was totally convinced by their affair. I was fascinated by the world the writer created, outside of Belfast where most Troubles based books are set. I was interested in the dynamics of Catholic and Protestant families living alongside each other, socialising, but with a constant tension and sense of danger.

The book was quite clear from the first page it was heading for a tragedy but I was still desperate for it not to happen.

I thought the contemporary bookend chapters were a bit unnecessary, but other than that I really enjoyed it. Will be keen to see what she writes in future.

@grannycake I'm making it through Crossroads very slowly, a chapter a day. Not sure why I'm still going apart from being far enough through now I don't want to give up!

@GrannieMainland I hate giving up but it was becoming a chore and that’s not what I want from my reading. Kudos to you for persistence

I reserved Trespasses on Borrowbox for the end* *of March. Looking forward to it!

When The Dust Settles - Lucy Easthope

Lucy Easthope is a leading expert in disaster recovery planning, advising on planning for and recovering from plane crashes, terrorist attacks, natural disasters and pandemics.

She has been involved with many of the horrific events of the last few decades - the 2004 tsunami and the 7/7 bombings, the Iraq war, the floods of 2007, Grenfell and the pandemic. She organises mortuaries, buys body bags, arranges repatriations and makes sure that the bereaved get what comfort they can. Often this takes years after the initial event.

It’s often graphic and unflinching but also incredibly interesting, deeply humane and sometimes humorous.

She clearly cares very much about how these things are handled and has a lot to say about grief. She pulls no punches about this Governments obsession with optics rather than action and how distaster planning has gone backwards during their tenure. The chapter on Grenfell made me furious and broke my heart.

Not an easy read but I’m glad to have read it.

12 To Sir With Love - ER Braithwaite

Fascinating account of the author’s experiences as a black teacher in the postwar East End of London. Definitely of its time (particularly in the descriptions of some of the female pupils) but overall an appealing read about education, race and class in 1950s Britain.

My local council Borrowbox is clearly shite compared to the rest of you there's nothing on it!

I'm hoping he's going to step up and stop Inspector Burden mansplaining the trollop. I'll keep the faith 🤣

Thanks for the new thread!

1. The Ink Black Heart - Robert Galbraith

2. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus

1. Fieldwork - Bella Bathurst
2. Exit - Belinda Bauer (Audio)

5. Hell Bent - Leigh Bardugo

1. The Stranger Times - C. K. McDonnell (Audio)
2. The Whistler - John Grisham (DNF)

8. The Eight - Katherine Neville

1. This Charming Man - CK McDonnell (Audio)

10. Kolymsky Heights - Lionel Davidson 11. The Last Remains - Elly Griffiths (Audio) 12. Nine Taylors - Dorothy L Sayers 13. The Broken Afternoon - Simon Mason (Audio) 14. Death in 10 Minutes: The Forgotten Life of Radical Suffragette Kitty Marion - Dr Fern Riddell

Kolymsky Heights - Lionel Davidson
This is labelled a thriller but is basically about the logistics (and v detailed logistics they are!) of getting into an isolated facility in Siberia and back out again. It shouldn’t’ve been as gripping as it was! Only picked it up as was recommended by Philip Pullman. Can see why.

The Last Remains - Elly Griffiths (Audio)
Have found the last few Ruth Galloways, including this one, a bit disappointing but still an enjoyable enough listen. I think Elly Griffiths is probably happy to have this series tied off.

Nine Taylors - Dorothy L Sayers
A good read once I actually sat down and read it rather than dipping in every now and then!

The Broken Afternoon - Simon Mason (Audio)
I’d really enjoyed the first one in this series - A Killing in November, and love his YA Garvie Smith books - but found this a bit annoying. Ryan was more of a charicacture than I remember in the first, and Ray’s wife was (portrayed by the narrator at least) as really whiney. In reality she’s pregnant with twins, having a really awful pregnancy and is basically abandoned by her husband as he gets caught up in this case. I'd call it pretty clear cut case for LTB. And TW there’s a pretty graphic forceps scene.

Death in 10 Minutes: The Forgotten Life of Radical Suffragette Kitty Marion - Dr Fern RiddellDeath in 10 Minutes - The Forgotten Life of Radical Suffragette Kitty Marion.

Found this fascinating. I only knew what everyone else knows about the suffragettes but turns out a lot of that is incomplete. The suffragettes themselves made sure their record was sanitised and removed the more violent activism:
letter bombs, nail bombs and the occasional gun (loaded with blanks). Kitty Marion was a formidable woman: from living with a brute of a father, to music halls, radical suffrage and then relentless promotion of the legalisation of contraception. This account is based on Kitty’s records and an autobiography which she wrote but was never published seemingly because didn’t fit with how the suffragettes chose to be remembered. Insights into women’s lives in the early 19th century and the tensions between the middle class and working class suffragettes. Also Christabel Pankhurst encouraged the suffragettes to extreme action which often resulted in imprisonment and force feeding while she stayed safely tucked up in Paris. 😡

Does anyone have any recommendations on other books on the movement/period or, on a slight tangent, Hypatia? Female authors, pls, if poss.

I read Rise Up, Women! a few years ago and thought it was excellent.

Thank you - I've just requested that from the library. 😊

Snap!

@agnesmartin The Broken Afternoon is the one I'm reading on Audible at the moment - maybe it's not the narrator's fault that the wife sounds whiny! I have been getting quite annoyed with him for making her sound pathetic when actually, you know, she is having a really tough time of it.

Yeah, I'm sure you're right. I had hopes it wasn't the author (because I'd been so excited to discover him last year) - but I couldn't bear to listen back to check. Grrr.

And I've just seen all my spelling mistakes! 😳

Nine Taylors - Dorothy L Sayers
A good read once I actually sat down and read it rather than dipping in every now and then!

I love the Wimsey books but I flip over the pages of bell ringing technicalities in this one because I think the minutiae are offputting and frankly dull - and it's unfortunate that she makes knowing about those minutiae a crucial moment in solving the mystery.

Yes, who knew bell ringing was so involved?! I did skip through those pages. And there seemed to be so many names to remember, names of people, names of bells ...

As I imagine you have read most, if not all, of the books, which would you recommend next? I've read all the Harriet ones and Nine Tailors.

I have the first Simon Mason book on my Kindle and I'm still going to read that - I 'm very on the fence about audiobooks, so I may get on better with the written format, and it sounds like the first book is better.

Oh, definitely read it! I really enjoyed the first one, and I've been looking forward to the second coming out for months so it's possible I set my expectations too high - though he is definitely too hard on Ray's wife. Would be interested to see what you think.

@agnesmartin Persephone publish a book about the suffragette movement called No Surrender. It's a fictionalised story by Constance Maud who was in the Womens Suffrage writers group and was published in 1911 (so was contemporary). It covers most of the real life significant events and tactics.
persephonebooks.co.uk/products/no-surrender
I read it many years ago so can't recall how good it was.

Thanks @SapatSea I'll have a look at that too!

As I imagine you have read most, if not all, of the books, which would you recommend next? I've read all the Harriet ones and Nine Tailors

Murder Must Advertise is very good. I need to read that and Strong Poison again, altho IMO the latter suffers from a gaping plot hole with Miss Climpson and her investigations - far too much reliance on coincidence. Not quite sure how it would stand up in court, either 😀

Lovely - thank you!

Those of you who use BorrowBox what do you read it on? I’ve signed up to it via my local library and there’s a great selection.

Into the Silence by Wade Davis

Much reviewed on here in previous years, which is why it came to be on my tbr list in the first place. A solid 5/5 for me.

Interesting that Davis seems to be very in-tune with the somewhat stoic leanings of the 1920s climbers. Apart from this stoicism induced by experiences of the Great War - "They had seen so much of death that life mattered less than the moments of being alive" and all that - there doesn't seem to be as much of a difference between these men and the men who went to war ten years before as many have made out. Officers or officer class to a man; generally disgraceful treatment of natives much of the time; and a very entitled worldview, which seems totally indicative of empire and all that went with it. Even the expeditions were organised, and described, more like military operations than anything else.

Ultimately, Mallory &co don't seem to have been having any kind of fun. Which begs the question, why bother? Because it was there, I suppose.

@BestIsWest I use my IPad for BorrowBox and listening to library audiobooks through there too. I use the Libby library app for free magazines.

If I'm out and about though I use my kindle and kindle books, though I could download BorrowBox on my phone, but I don't know if it would be accessible across both devices.

I find it easier to read on my kindle than on the iPad, though I'm dyslexic so that could be a factor.

I still have Audible as understandably they have a far greater range of audiobooks than the library offers, plus some of the library books have a long wait time.