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?

I haven't had much reading time recently, so haven't had anything to add, until now.

27. The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware.
Working my way through her back catalogue now. I didn't enjoy this one as much as The It Girl, which was a really gripping read. That's not to say that it was bad, though. It is a page turner, although the ending felt a bit rushed. Not one if you don't like boats.

28. The Wind In The Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Inspired by Miranda Mills, a booktuber I watch, who chose this as her Comfort Book Club read recently. I last read it as a child, and enjoyed revisiting the story.

My DH read I’m not scared years and years ago and quite enjoyed it, apparently its a massive best seller in Italy and is based on similar events in 70s Italy.

19 Children of paradise by Camilla Grudova
As this was 99p on kindle I thought I’d give it a go. I really enjoyed this but then I’m ok with bodily fluids and stuff being abit dark. I’d seen a good portion of the films mentioned and still didn’t get a lot of the references though.

20 My Body by Emily Ratajkowski
Another 99p deal and I read this on a plane journey as it was easy to dip in and out. Ratajkowski doesn’t have all the answers and doesn’t pretend so as a result there aren’t really any hard conclusions but it did give me food for thought.

21 Before the Coffee gets Cold by Tashikazu Kawaguchi
I also thought this was meh – I read a fair amount of Japanese fiction and there is a category being translated from the Japanese of this kind of thing (short novella which attempts to tug on the heartstrings) I did like all the set up of this one though.

22 The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff
This was for the outdated bookgroup – I liked this but full thoughts over there.

@BadSpellaSpellaSpella - I like an outdated book. A lot of my recommendations come from Backlisted. I will check out the thread - I read A Fortnight In September a couple of years ago and found it very compelling. It was the detail, which was so specific to its era, combined with a really familiar sense of "this holiday is a HUGE undertaking and it needs to be just right", which I guess is timeless. Sherriff was a versatile if not prolific writer - The Hopkin's Manuscript is completely different to A Fortnight In September thematically but still has that sense of place and time (despite being quite terrifying).

Ooh thanks Biblio, I love a cosy crime series set in Devon of course. Does it have regular visits to M&S for new skirts and cake bakes for the art society or the WI?

24 The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell

Hugely disappointed by this latest book by an author whose novels I normally enjoy.
Jenny Wilcox is a young woman struggling to keep her family afloat, thrown a lifeline by Mrs Dyer, the wife of a theatre owner. Mrs Dyer does not like the lead actress, Lilith Fitzwilliams, for reasons that are explained as the plot moves on. I say “moves” on but it creaks, my god does it creak like a badly built stage set. There’s a series of wildly improbable occurrences and not in a good, gothic, supernatural way. It’s sub Theatre Of Blood nonsense and incredibly badly written to say it’s by Purcell, who I usually associate with escapist but well-written tales of Victorian women battling with malevolent forces.
There’s blood, there’s demons, there’s back street abortions, horrific stage accidents, thinly-veiled spitting rivalry between actresses……..oh, and a sinister Poodle called Eurydice. I should have loved this book, dammit!
I read it while on holiday, in a wind-whistled attic bedroom decorated in deep reds. It should have been perfect but it was crap. The only light relief was the number of times the author mentioned “Mrs Dyer’s growler” arriving at the front door (too many times).

Laura Purcell now relegated to the Only When Your Books Are Below £3.99 list. Possibly even 99p level and I’ll expect a few growlers pulling up at the door for that, too.

29. Virginia Woolf's Women - Vanessa Curtis

Picked this up cheaply as it looked quite good. Curtis co-founded the Virginia Woolf Society so knows her stuff, and goes into a lot of detail about her subject's friendships and family relationships with various women - her mother Julia and half-sister Stella, who both died when Virginia was young, then her sister Vanessa and friends Violet Dickinson, Ottoline Morrell, Dora Carrington, Vita Sackville-West and Ethel Smyth (in some of the latter cases these were love relationships, though possibly not physically). The author's slightly purple prose, especially about Woolf's beauty, got a bit wearing at times (she really, really loves Woolf) but on the whole this was readable and very interesting.

30. The Fortnight in September - R. C. Sherriff

Read for the Slightly Dated Bookclub. I ripped through this in double-quick time and enjoyed it a lot, but with a few niggles. Full thoughts over on that thread!

In our book club we talked quite a bit how the write of Before the Coffee Gets Cold was written by a playwright (and I can’t remember if actually as a script first) and I think that comes across. I’d go and watch in. In fact I’d quite like to be cast as the woman at the table who tells everyone to move.

58. Old Filth by Jane Gardam

I really wouldn't have read this had it not been @Gingerwarthog 's Mr B pick and then come up in the deals, and I'm really glad I did.

It was everything I expected that Cold Comfort Farm would be and wasn't...just that very English eccentricity, stiff upper, boarding school, at times very funny, lots of pathos Jolly Good Old Thing type of schtick.

I loved this actually, but I feel a bit apprehensive about the sequel, as though a sequel would do little but spoil the way the often sparse storytelling worked.

I enjoyed the sequel Eine; it was quite illuminating. However by the time I got to the third in the trilogy the story had been told every which way so less enthusiastic about that volume.

I love reading this thread, but have fallen waaaaay behind, going to post my current list and catch up properly another time

1: EC Bateman - Death at the Auction
2: Sophie Irwin - A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting
3: Deanna Raybourn - Night of a Thousand Stars
4: Lynn Messina - A Brazen Curiosity
5: Lynn Messina - A Scandalous Deception
6: Lynn Messina - An Infamous Betrayal
7: Lynn Messina - A Nefarious Engagement
8: Richard Armitage - Geneva (audiobook)
9: Hazel Holt - Death of a Dean
10: Richard Osman - The Bullet That Missed
11: Anthony Horowitz - Stormbreaker
12: Rosie Talbot - Sixteen Souls
13: Jonathan Stroud - The Notorious Scarlett & Browne
14: Rory Clements - Corpus
15: Rory Clements - Nucleus
16: Sophie Hannah - Closed Casket
17: Karen M McManus - Nothing More to Tell
18: M C Beaton - Devil's Delight
19: Alexandra Benedict - Murder on the Christmas Express
20: M A Bennett - S.T.A.G.S.
21: M A Bennett - D.O.G.S.
22: M A Bennett - F.O.X.E.S.
23: M A Bennett - T.I.G.E.R.S.
24: M A Bennett - H.A.W.K.S.
25: Sophie Hannah - The Monogram Murders
26: Sophie Hannah - The Mystery of Three Quarters
27: Joanna Lowell - Artfully Yours
28: Joanna Lowell - The Runaway Duchess
29: Caroline O'Donoghue - All Our Hidden Gifts
30: Caroline O'Donoghue - The Gifts That Bind Us
31: Emily Brightwell - Mrs Jeffries weeds the plot
32: Rhys Bowen - The Last Mrs Summers
33: Rhys Bowen - God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen
34: Rhys Bowen - Four funerals & maybe a wedding
35: Michelle Salter - Murder at Crookham Hall
36: Deanna Raybourn - Killers of a Certain Age
37: Lesley Cookman - Murder on the Run
38: Lesley Cookman - Murder at Mallowan Manor
39: Scott Allan - Do the Hard Things First
40: Helena Dixon - Murder at the Country Club
41: Helena Dixon - Murder on Board
42: Helena Dixon - Murder at the Charity Ball
43: Beverley Watts - Grace
44: Beverley Watts - Temperance
45: Beverley Watts - Faith
46: Rachel McLean - The Blue Pool Murders
47: Lynn Messina - A Treacherous Performance
48: Lynn Messina - A Sinister Establishment
49: Maureen Johnson - The Box in the Woods

@StColumbofNavron that's very interesting, and makes complete sense. Can absolutely imagine the stage set and the way it builds up is very like a stage performance as well.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit
I might try the sequel too.
The Good People by Hannah Kent, was beautifully written and I was interested in the characters (particularly Nance) but it was also traumatic - with not much light at the end of the tunnel.
Well researched (based on a true story), as always with Hannah Kent.
I now need to read something uplifting....

Book # 19 James Herriot Vet in Harness. Whilst I was a huge fan as a child of the original tv series I've never read any of the books. It was nicely written, gentle and fascinating all at once

I didn’t like The Good People but really enjoyed Burial Rites.

Just reread Why Didn’t They Ask Evans because we were watching the TV thing and I couldn’t remember the ending, although I did remember that I thought it was a stupid ending. It’s still a stupid ending. The TV thing was okay - overlong and a couples of horribly stereotypical performances, but the two leads were good and it looked nice.

I posted on about page 3 of thread 1 and then haven’t been back! Rather choppy waters going on in life, also post Covid my brain seems to have less focus for some reason.

I’m back though if you’ll have me! Lovely reading all your reviews and recommendations as ever. Just finished The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. One of the classics I’ve had on my TBR. Moving on to Sea Monsters by Chloe Aridjis

@SoNoWrecksToday welcome back!

im reading Homesick by Jennifer Croft which is on the womens prize list. I wondered if anyone has read this yet? I saw in a review that the author designed it to have photos with each chapter but the paperback doesn’t include and am wondering how much I’m missing out?

Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan

The opening chapter in Viv Groskop’s
Au Revoir, Tristesse was about this book so I was inspired to pick it up when I saw it in the bookshop last weekend. Cecile and her father live rather hedonistically in 1950s France, taking a villa in the South for the summer. Her father works through a raft of young mistresses, the most recent is Elsa and Cecile herself is having a romance. When Anne, a friend of Cecile’s deceased mother turns up, it is like she is putting a dampener on the life Cecile and her father lead. Sagan wrote this when she was 18 and it’s a total triumph. Cecile is a bit of a Catcher in the Rye type character, utterly self absorbed but more self aware. I really enjoyed the oppressive feeling of this book - whether it was the heat, the relationships - no one is likeable and there is not much to redeem any of them but I like that.

Hi all,

Have also been off the thread for a while. Have been struggling with a vitamin deficiency so haven't felt like reading.

Only 1 book stands out for me so far:

'The Sea Sisters.'- Lucy Clarke

When her sister tragically kills herself aboard, Katie can't believe it. She gives up everything to go and follow her path to discover exactly how her sister died.

With only Mia's travel journal at her side, Katie attempts to retrace her path and piece together the last few months of Mia's life, to uncover the mystery of her death.
What she discovers changes everything, and will the search for the truth push her and Mia's bond to breaking point?

I found this an easy and engaging read. A bit predictable in places, but a good book to escape with and pass the time. Some lovely travel writing too.

Currently reading 'I Will Find You.' By Harlan Coben.

@StColumbofNavron I've also read (and enjoyed) Bonjour Tristesse.

Me too. I'm glad you enjoyed it StColomb.

@StColumbofNavron Bonjour Tristesse sounds good - I’ve just reserved it at the library 😊

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie Why didn’t they ask Evans is one of my favourite Christies - although I can’t remember the ending and haven’t read it for years…maybe I would be less taken with it now! DD1 is reading Roger Ackroyd (her first Christie) so when she finishes it I’ll see if she wants to pick up Evans.

I really enjoyed the TV adaptation. Very pretty to look at. I thought the two leads were great.

23 Le Chapeau de Mitterand - Antoine Laurain (in French) I think this was recommended on one of these threads - if not, I saw it recommended somewhere else. It’s the story of what happens to François Mitterrand’s hat after he leaves it in a restaurant - it passes from one temporary owner to another, and affects the lives of each one in a positive way. It’s got nice observations of humanity and a bit of humour, and evokes 80s Paris very well (not that I experienced Paris in the 80s, but it feels right 😂). And it wasn’t at all difficult to read in French - I found myself reading it for fun rather than because I felt I ought to get it finished.

I agree @DuPainDuVinDuFromage. It was a good, fun read, not a chore at all. I must decide on another book to read in French again soon. I haven't read anything since Les Années. I needed some recovery time though :)