50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Four

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fourth 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, the second one here and the third one here.

What are you reading?

19 A Whisper Of Sorrows by JD Kirk
All I could manage through a fluey haze, which isn’t a criticism as you know what you’re getting with this series. Pacy action, tormented hero, snappy dialogue. This got a little nastier than the previous books, particularly towards the end and I don’t think the characterisation has the moral depth to quite carry it off in the way that a John Connolly or an Ian Rankin book does. Bit Game Of Thrones in the way he discards characters to grisly ends.

@Palegreenstars that’s a very superior and sniffy article. Fantasy isn’t for everyone and much of it doesn’t hit the Well Written mark but many people like it and “at least they’re reading”, to borrow a phrase.

@BoldFearlessGirl agreed. I think fantasy can often be more about being a good, prolific story teller (see also JK, George RR) than an amazing literary writer.

Thanks @Stokey - will get myself a copy of Pod. it's the one that interests me most from the long list.
@Palegreenstars
Just read that article- writer doesn't do himself any favours does he? Just comes across as jealous and superior while Sanderson and his fans seem like good fun. If so many people love your books then you've written something that connects with people. What's wrong with entertaining people - and encouraging a love of reading. Think the Wired writer wants adoring fsns and a home cinema too.

Definitely some jealous-y in their somewhere @Gingerwarthog - here is Sanderson’s reply: https://www.reddit.com/r/brandonsanderson/comments/1200dzk/on_the_wired_article/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Yes mine too regarding libby.im trying to find a library which gas books on libby.

@elkiedee This one It's actually very good, but I keep falling asleep over it and getting confused with all the different people, who all seem to be called Fitz Von Schmitface or Otto Von Stiffbitz.

Ooh, I didn't know I was putting a photo in there!

I’m still on a bit of a reading go-slow. Have finished number 12 though, The Etymologican by Mark Forsyth

Think the original recommendation was from this thread (maybe not this year though!) so thank you for that. Right up my street and just engaging enough without requiring masses of concentration which suited me at the moment.

I mostly listened on audible, then realised i could get the book itself on kindle unlimited so did a bit of both. I actually really enjoyed the audio version, great narrator.

That reply is brilliant. Skewers the knowing pretension of the article writer without personally attacking him. Thanks for sharing it, I couldn’t click through to Twitter because my cookies need clearing or something faffy like that, but Reddit loads fine.

I really enjoyed The Etymologican, @AliasGrape . Have added it to our Family Book Swap, but asked for it back when everyone has finished with it.

@Palegreenstars
Thanks for the link to the reply.
Oo....very dignified while making it clear that Jason isn't a particularly nice human being and...can't write!

That's a very gracious response under the circumstances. Still it's good publicity in a way, I'd never heard of him but am going to check out his books now.

For those of you who use Audible, the 2 for 1 sale is on at the moment. I know they happen frequently (so frequently that's it's really rare I use my credit for a single book these days) but there seems to be quite a few books I want so thought I'd mention it.

29. Brilliance by Marcus Sakey
30. A Better World by Marcus Sakey
31. Written in Fire by Marcus Sakey

Roughly 1% of the world’s population are ‘brilliants’, people who have an enhanced ability that sets them apart from the general population. Nick Cooper is one of these brilliants, and he uses his talent to hunt other ‘brilliants’ for the government. When he goes undercover to locate the ‘brilliant’ terrorist John Smith he makes some discoveries that make him doubt whether he is on the right side or not. I found the general concept interesting and the story running through the trilogy of the impact of the ‘brilliants’ on society and the growing conflict with ‘normals’ worked well. The main thing that let it down was the main character. Cooper is one of those stereotypical white American males, who men want to be and women want to be with. By the end I didn’t care which side won, as long as Nick was on the losing side.

32. Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova

Much reviewed recently so I’ll just add that I found it weird (good weird), gruesome and fascinating.

33. Just Kids by Patti Smith

A reread, which I adored even more second time around. The story of the great love between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, their development as artists, the people they meet along the way, and the portrait of New York in the 60s and 70s is just gorgeous. Patti Smith writes beautifully, and you can see her origins as a poet on every page. It was a book I lingered over, savouring every sentence. This is one of the best books I have ever read and I was enraptured - the highest praise I can give a book.

23 Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
It’s only March but this might be my book of the year. It’s definitely in my top 20, if not top 10 books ever. It’s a small book (approx 150 pages) but packs a huge emotional punch.

It’s the 1950s and American David is living a Bohemian life in Paris whilst his girlfriend spends a few months in Spain, deciding whether their relationship has a future. One night he meets the beautiful Giovanni in a bar and they embark on a passionate affair, with much of their relationship taking place in the titular ‘room’. David struggles to accept his love for Giovanni so when his girlfriend returns, he ends the affair with Giovanni and does what he thinks is the right and conventional thing to do. Giovanni struggles to accept this and his life spirals into tragedy.

It’s clear from the beginning of the book that there isn’t going to be a happy ending and I delayed reading the end for a week as I didn’t want it to finish. I read If Beale Street Could Talk by the same author a few years ago which was also excellent and will be looking to read more of his books.

24 My Name is Why by Lemn Sissay

An autobiography of Lemn’s life growing up in the care of Wigan Council. His young, single Ethiopian mother was pressured into giving him up for adoption and although she refused, (and later tried to get him back) he was placed with white foster parents when he was a few months old. This was the only family he knew but when he was 12 (by now they had 3 birth children), they orchestrated reasons to give him up and he was placed in a series of group homes where he was at best ignored, at worst abused.

His experiences are both heartbreaking and anger inducing as both Lemn and his birth mother were completely failed by the system. His story is told partly by him but also by excerpts from his social services record. The book ends just as he leaves care and I would have loved to hear more about his life as an adult. According to Wiki, he did go on to be reunited with his birth mother and received an apology from Wigan Council.

19. Adrift - Tracey Williams

I loved this: another bold. In 1997 the cargo ship Tokio Express shed 62 shipping containers near the Cornish coast. One held nearly 5 million Lego pieces which have since been washed up on the shores of Britain and France, and as far east as the Netherlands, even to the present day.

This book traces the journeys of the Lego pieces and the research into this particular container's contents, as well as looking into other shipwrecks, the environmental impact of modern cargo spills, the use of these to track ocean currents, and the archaeology of plastic flotsam washed up on the coast. There is a sense of magic in the beachcombing process which comes across. The book is dotted with poems, and photos of some of the weird and wonderful finds which the author and others have made over the years.

20. Emil and the Detectives - Erich Kastner

A children's classic I saw in a charity shop and couldn't resist. As exciting as I remember.

33 A House of Mr Biswas VS Naipaul

Largely glad I read this, although there were a couple of times it nearly landed on the DNF pile. In some ways an epic classic, with timeless observations reminiscent Dickens or Steinbeck. And also hugely evocative with wonderful detailed descriptions of daily life and struggles in early 20th century Trinidad. It also contained moments of brilliant humour and wisdom. But I struggled to get past the amount of violence against women and children depicted in the boom. Quite possibly accurate or that time and place but it made it a hard read. And I also struggled at times with the fact the main protagonist was really just deeply unlikeable.

Going to pick up something light and fluffy and contemporary now I think, for balance!

@Palegreenstars
Told DD about this and she's bought her first Sanderson.

thesign for home. Ifelt so ignorant with this one.i wasn't sure how I'd feel a book using sign language for its main characters? But it's been really interesting and wow.incredible humans who are both deaf and blind and how they then use sign language!(literally by putting the hands over a person using sign language. 😃👌 skills.
But realising also how much our brains take in on any given "scene" we are in(therefore how kuchen they miss) and so how our sight and then brains are incredible processor's.

@Gingerwarthog thats great - I found a copy of the first in his series on my husbands book shelf (he’s not read it but thought he might get into it because Sanderson has written some Wheel of Time books). It’s got a quote from Robin Hobb on the front so I’m intrigued

11. And In the End by Ken McNab
Reviewed by several 50 Bookers last year - thank you all, I enjoyed it. Warts and all stuffed the Beatles implode artistically, personally and financially, but I've found that Abbey Road is on repeat in my house at the moment. They didn't half write great songs, you know.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I think mumsnet have changed the way that links work so that they now pull in an image and a little excerpt from the text. I like it a lot!

1 The Guest Cat
2 A Woman In Berlin
3 All The Broken Places

48. Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo

Anna Graham grew up not knowing who her father was except for he was black and her mother white.

Following her mothers death and the end of her marriage, Anna goes in search of her roots.

This is like a novel version of "Long Lost Family" or "Who Do You Think You Are"

This was a one sitting read for me again, and I really enjoyed it, I seem to be on quite a good streak at the moment.

It does suffer from 'Weak Ending Syndrome" - not enough attention has been paid to the characters feelings about her losses for her feelings at the end to be particularly moving IMO

Book 18 completed today

Hear No Evil by Sarah Smith
this was recommended to me by someone who knows my appreciation for Victorian/Georgian era central Scotland.

Robert Kinniburgh is a teacher at the school ‘for the deaf and dumb’ in Edinburgh. He is charged with the task of interpreting the story of Jean Campbell, a dead woman witnessed throwing her baby from a bridge.

Jean and Robert were real people and the story itself is based on real events. I was surprised often by the amount of kindness and generosity of spirit shown towards Jean in this book. I don’t know why I found this tricky to believe but I did find it heartwarming. The descriptions of how Robert, an educated hearing man and Jean, an uneducated deaf woman from the island, communicate is both the making and the undoing of this book. I found the descriptions of how signs were formed fascinating and I had a clear send of how challenging it would be to communicate. However, while the author tells us all of this she then goes on to write pages of detailed conversation full of nuance which simply cannot have been possible. Thankfully just as I was losing patience with the endless, detailed discussion I became wholly wrapped up
in the plot and I genuinely cared about the outcome.

on the basis of the plot and the wonderful Scots language I would wholly recommend this but I would need to caveat it with a dose of healthy suspension of disbelief