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?

Book #17 Original Rude Boy by Neville Staple averagely written autobiography, I found him not very likeable but the history or the time and band was fascinating and he definitely brought that to life

Book #18 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu kawaguchi demolished in one sitting. It's original and interesting. Didn't evoke the emotion in me that it has others but I'd definitely recommend

Ooh, interested in the KH book as one of my birthday presents is a craft workshop on her farm in a few months time. I might pick the book up beforehand.

Just finished The Last Remains - Elly Griffiths A farewell for now to Ruth and Nelson, Probably about time to be honest although I’ve loved this series. There are bits that didn’t make sense at all so I might have to re-read. They might just have been plot holes.

Finished You Don't Own Me by Mary Higgens Clark. A woman who has a TV show investigating unsolved crimes investigates an unsolved crime (obviously) and almost gets murdered in the process. Was not very gripping or exciting. I'm sure I've read books of hers before that were gripping so this was a bit disappointing.

28: Adventures of a Suburban Boy - John Boorman

I love anything to do with film, and this memoir by director John Boorman throws fascinating light on the industry as well as his life. From a childhood in wartime London and an education at a grim Jesuit school (though he wasn’t a Catholic) he worked his way into films via stints at the infant ITV and the BBC.

After his first film failed at the impossible task of making the lumpen Dave Clark Five seem like part of the Swinging 60s, he improbably but brilliantly had a hit with the brutal 'Point Blank', striking up a lifelong friendship with its maverick star, Lee Marvin (who was…er, not easy). Other off-beat hits followed - 'Deliverance', 'Excalibur', and 'Hope and Glory', a recreation of his childhood, for which he recreated an entire suburban street on a 50-acre plot, then proceeded to subject it to German bomb attack.

All this is told with a very dry and winning humour, underpinned with his deep love of nature, trees and (especially) water. He also has a very mystical bent, which often surfaced in his choice of film projects, but isn’t averse to telling stories against himself, which made me warm to him. Definitely recommended if you’re interested in films.

Oops! Sorry - miscounted. That should be book 27.

56. Chocky by John Wyndham (Audible)

Like @MamaNewtNewt I've been working my way through John Wyndham's output most of which is free to Audible members.

In this one, Mary and David Gore become concerned when adopted son Matthew develops a sophisticated imaginary friend called "Chocky"

It started so well but the ending is dreadful absolutely pants, and it's baffling to me that my experience of John Wyndham does seem to be becoming Amazing or Rubbish - it's a short one too. Less than 5 hours but the whole mystery is resolved by a simple and very boring conversation

Random.

28: The Summer Birds - Penelope Farmer

OK, this really is book 28. First in the triptych that ends with Charlotte Sometimes, this introduces 12-year-old Charlotte Makepeace and her younger sister Emma, who live with their rather forbidding grandfather at Aviary Hall. When they encounter a strange boy one day on the way to school, he turns out to have the power of flight. Over the summer he teaches all the children in the small village school to fly, a power they (understandably) keep secret from their families. But tensions erupt between the children and as summer ends, what will happen with the mysterious, nameless boy?

A charming, elegiac and rhapsodic short book, much more overtly a fantasy than Charlotte Sometimes, and really quite odd, though in a good way. While definitely intended for children, its resonances of time and childhood slipping away felt very poignant to an adult reader…well, to this one, anyway.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I totally agree re John Wyndham, I mean how can the mind that brought us The Chrysalids also have delivered Trouble With Lichen - I'll tell you the trouble Johnny Boy, it's boring!

And desperately sexist which was again in evidence in Chocky's smuggity smug narrator

Oh so sexist, I can cope with a bit of that when it's due to 'the times' but only when it's slight and is offset by a good story, which in that case it was not. I didn't mind Chocky, I mean it wasn't great, but I remember I did hate the smugly, posh narrator.

36. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Lily Bart is part of NY high society and is expected to make a dazzling marriage, despite the fact that her family money is gone and her parents have died, leaving her to negotiate the complicated marriage game unsupported. Lily is a complex character, and at times is somewhat unlikable. She freely admits that she needs to make a good marriage as she prizes comfort and wealth and beauty and is not prepared to sacrifice these for a marriage based on love. But that is what she has been raised to expect and the novel makes much of the limited choices afforded to women. And yet… It seems to me that Lily can’t quite follow through on this and manages to self-sabotage and throw away a number of brilliant opportunities to marry well, that and the fact that Lily is not quite as smart as she thinks she is. As Lily loses her reputation amongst the old money crowd, due to a combination of poor judgment, bad timing and the sheer callousness of her so-called friends, her response is both desperately sad and admirable. This is a book that I think will stay with me for a long time.

Oh my God @MamaNewtNewt I couldn't cope with The House Of Mirth AT ALL I found Lily Bart utterly insufferable. That takes me back, good few years since I read it, hated it and didn't feel sorry for her at all, architect of her own misfortune!

I DNF it. I did finish another of hers which I’ve forgotten the title of (Something to do with innocence, which I cba to google) and thought it was a tedious load of shite full of unlikeable and tedious people being tedious.

16 Fairy Tale - Stephen King
17-year-old Charlie befriends an old man and his dog and discovers there’s something in the woodshed - namely a spiral staircase leading down to a magical but cursed land. This is my first Stephen King and it won’t be my last - he certainly knows how to write clear and gripping prose. That said, this didn’t quite deliver - I was drawn by the title and was hoping this would actually be a dark tale involving the nasty sort of fairy - but the good people don’t actually appear. Rather what Charlie encounters down there is a sort of ragbag of dark fantasy elements, and there doesn’t seem to be any wider metaphor or meaning about how fairy tales and folklore interact with and shape our everyday world, which would have given it so much more depth.

I believe Fairy Tale was King’s escape during Covid. His version of “books are a way to go somewhere when you have to stay where you are”.

I haven’t read it yet. His descriptions of a young woman in the aftermath of a rape in his last book really put me off, despite being a huge fan of his earlier work.

Yes, he said he wrote Fairy Tale because it was what he wanted to read in lockdown.

I really liked the first half, before the fairy tale world, but was disappointed with the actual fairy tale stuff which I found derivative and a bit dull. His strength is his characterisation and the relationships between characters but too many in the fairytale land were just spares.

I am still reading Great Expectations in between other things. Latest reads are:

24. Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie

This month’s challenge book. Rosemary dies at her birthday dinner from cyanide in her champagne. It’s assumed to be suicide at the time as she has been unwell and there is a letter detailing who should receive her personal belongings. Then her husband receives an anonymous letter telling him Rosemary was murdered. No Poirot or Marple but it moves along well with a number of suspects.

25. Bloodline - Dick Francis

Still continuing my re-read in order. Mark is a racing commentator and presenter and becomes embroiled in trouble when his twin sister, a successful jockey, falls to her death from a hotel window. He does not believe it’s suicide and soon becomes a target himself as he investigates her death. I could actually remember some of the plot of this one but it still kept me turning the pages.

Feeling very behind - I'm flitting about a bit at the moment, with several NF books on the go.

10 - Ask a Historian - Greg Jenner

This was kind of like Horrible Histories for adults in places - I really enjoyed it. GJ has taken questions from the public and answers 50 of them with humour and intelligence. I also really liked his earlier book Dead Famous.

Whoops - used italics instead of bold! Been away for so long that I have forgotten how to post on this thread.

I'm reading The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell and I'm enjoying it so far, nearly half way through. It's a good, lively read, alternating between the present day and the near past. Lucrezia is a feisty heroine and I'm rooting for her, although the outlook is grim and according to the historical note at the start of the book, she is doomed, poor thing. I'm reading it in paperback and the cover is very pretty.

I’m way behind on my reviews so these are all going to be quickies.

32 Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by KJ Parker
When his city is put under siege, engineer Orhun is the only one who can see a way to win. A fantasy with a nice witty voice (in fact I discovered only at the end that the author is a pen name for Tom Holt). Quite enjoyable but not good enough to bother with the sequels.

33 Five by F Scott Fitzgerald
Five short stories I listened to on audio. 3 of the five were good (including Benjamin Button) but the other two were meh.

34 Agamemnon (from the Oresteia) by Aeschylus
A fast paced and somewhat horrifying Greek tragedy that tells the story of what happened to Agamemnon after Troy. I couldn’t help but sympathise with the villain in this tale. I’ll read the second and third plays later this year, then I’m abandoning the Greeks for a while.

35 A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf. I listened to this on audio, read (very well) by Juliet Stevenson. It’s made up of two essays based on talks that Virginia Woolf gave to an Oxbridge women’s college. Interesting and infuriating, especially when we see how many of the problems she highlights have still not been addressed. This one is a bold.

36 Empire of Pain Patrick Radden Keefe. Much reviewed on these threads and I’m well behind the curve reading this one. An excellent look at the Sackler family whose shady business practices mean they carry some of the responsibility for the US opioid crisis. Another bold.

37 Wastelands- stories of the Apocalypse
An anthology of post apocalyptic stories. Out of around 20, 3 were excellent (including one by Octavia Butler) 5 were good and the rest were forgettable.

38 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka
A fast read. I liked the dry wit and behind the absurd premise (Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning as a giant bug) it explores issues of responsibility, capitalism, isolation and family. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would but am not sure if I will read any more Kafka.

Now I’m back to the women’s prize with three books lined up- Bandit Queens, Wandering Souls but first Demon Copperhead.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit You know I felt the same about Lily until the end, I found myself rolling my eyes at her throughout the book and finding her really irritating and smug. But when I thought about it, it seemed to me that she was self-sabotaging her options because she didn't quite believe what she was saying. She had the opportunity to do the wrong thing on a so many occasions (the letters for one) or marrying a rich idiot and she generally does the right thing, but it's just so poorly timed and so disguised that she never really gets the credit.

It will be interesting to see how I feel about this in a wee while as I can quite often change my mind on a book I've read / film I've watched with a bit of distance. That's why my bolds change from list to list sometimes.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie The Age of Innocence was a DNF for me as well, but I absolutely adored Ethan Frome, so Edith Wharton is a bit of a mixed bag for me.

@BaruFisher I read The Metamorphosis not long ago and although I got most of the themes you mentioned, I was still left with the fact it was the story of a man who changes into a bug with no clue as to how or why.

I always find it fascinating how two people can read the same thing and it can invoke totally different feelings and they can take such different things from it. Hearing why others loved a book I hated, or vice versa, is one of my favourite things about this thread. And a lot cheaper than my other favourite thing - the book recommendations 😊

I first read Edith Wharton - both The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, on a university survey course, and really liked them. I think I reread both maybe about 17 years ago, and I've also read The Custom of the Country which seems like a much more satirical look at a young woman who is a bit of a gold digger. Unlike Lily, Undine's parents are also major characters, though I can't remember the role they play (think there may be a suggestion that she's been brought up to be the way she is).

I also read the much shorter Ethan Frome which is very different from anything else by her I've read, set in a small town with very ordinary people, not society types, as characters.