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?

25. Midnight Sun by Stephanie Meyer This wasn't out when I originally read the Twilight series so I thought I'd read it now as part of my re-read. It follows the exact same storyline as Twilight but told from Edward's perspective instead of Bella's. This was LONG. Nearly 200 pages more than Twilight despite telling the exact same story. That's really all I've taken away from it. It took me ages to get through and frustrated me a lot. Edward is way too angsty

@Piggywaspushed I knew Cameron Wyllie once upon a time; I went to the World Schools Debating Championships as a 17 year old and he was the coach to the Scottish team (in fact my best friend from university's debating coach, as it turned out). I didn't know he'd written a book - I will have to seek it out!

He does indeed mention that a few times!

Yes, do seek it put. It'll be a trip down memory lane.

I did debating too, but I don't remember him. We were rarely let out of Glasgow, mind...

61. In Pieces by Sally Field

It's a weird thing to critique a memoir but this commits one of the big celebrity memoir sins. You get all of her childhood, her early career, her first marriage and DC and really a definite idea that she was not an overnight success and she really had to persevere. The sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather is given a light touch and I imagine that it was very difficult to decide how to express that.

Despite the fact that this was all easy to engage with, she stops. She finally becomes a Hollywood star at the release of Norma Rae in 1979 and you turn the page and suddenly she's talking about Brothers And Sisters and Lincoln and has basically excised 20 years of her career and the entirety of her second marriage.

I get why celebrities do this - it's self preserving not to say "I did X horrible thing or X did a horrible thing or working with this person was the worst experience of my life" but to leave out the heights of her fame and everything she did and everyone she met just seems like a type of dishonesty unless she plans a sequel..

That said the brief glimpse of Burt Reynolds reveals the type of coercive control bastard that women write about on the Relationships board.

Sally echoes the Relationships Board herself I thought :

"I moved house loads of times and moved my kids in with men they didn't know, and I'm only considering now as I write this that this must have affected them and I don't know why I didn't think about it at the time"

A bit half arsed. Literally half a story.

@cassandre Flaubert, Zola and Turgenev all mates with Sand. All struggling (expect Turgenev) and all writing for different reasons. Flaubert was all about the art, so generally pretty unhappy, Zola was happy serialise and get out there because he needed to live and Sand from my understanding was the same. I haven’t actually read any of her work though, but will bump up my list.

I’ve been away on holiday over Easter with no internet, which has done wonders for the amount of books I’ve read. So updating before I catch up with the thread:

21. George’s Secret Key to the Universe by Lucy & Stephen Hawking

One I read with DC.
George meets his new next door neighbours - scientist Eric, daughter Annie, and super computer Cosmos, who can open portals into outer space. Lots of information about space wrapped around an adventure story. I’d recommend it for a child aged around 9-11 who’s interested in science and space.

22. Understanding High Blood Pressure by Dr Shahid Aziz & Dr Zara Aziz

A short book about blood pressure. Not the most accessible of health books for a layperson.

23. The Forever Ship by Francesca Haig

Final book in the Fire Sermon trilogy. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, where all children born are twins - one perfect alpha, one imperfect omega, and the twins are somehow linked so that if one dies, both die. Omega Cass is a seer, and with her allies, she’s trying to stop the ruling alpha council setting off another apocalypse.
It’s a bit slow, but winds the trilogy up nicely.

24. The Fast 800 by Dr Michael Mosley

Basically describes a 800 calorie a day diet, which sounds challenging. But the writing is very accessible and easy to read.

25. The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories by Susan Hill

Four short ghostly stories. The first two (including the title story) were ghostly, but not really unsettling. The last two were a bit spookier, but more creepy than scary.

26. The Time of the Clockmaker by Anna Caltabiano

I was about halfway through this before I realised it was the second in a series. But anyway.
It’s about a woman, originally from the 1950’s, who became immortal after her neighbour surreptitiously gave her a drop of liquid from a pool of immortality, who then gets stranded in Tudor England until she manages to find a magic clock that will allow her to time travel.
It’s all got a very YA feel to it. And the time travelling immortal manages to blend into Tudor England very well, with the help of a ghost, a bit of identity theft, and pretending that her American accent is a Lithuanian one.

27. Survive The Night by Riley Sager

Charlie’s ride sharing from her university, with a driver who may or may not be the serial killer who murdered her roommate.
There’s a lot of is he, isn’t he, especially as Charlie is a very unreliable narrator, but it’s very readable.

28. Hallowdene by George Mann

A witches grave is uncovered by an archaeological dig, and shortly afterwards, there’s a number of murders in the local village. But is it a supernatural witchy curse, or something more mundane?
It’s the second in a series, but it works well as a standalone book.

29. Fat Cow, Fat Chance by Jenni Murray

This is a sort of mixture of a memoir - with a focus on Murray’s struggles with her weight - and Murray talking about her views on weight and weight loss.
I came out with the impression that Murray thinks diets never work and surgery’s the only answer to obesity. And I’ve mixed feelings about that. But an interesting read, on the whole.

Cursed Bread - Sophie Mackintosh
I finished this 10 days ago, but didn't feel the love enough to want to post about it. This is the blurb.
Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population.
In that town lived a woman named Elodie. She was the baker’s wife: a plain, unremarkable person who yearned to transcend her dull existence. So when a charismatic new couple arrived in town, the forceful ambassador and his sharp-toothed wife, Violet, Elodie was quickly drawn into their orbit. Thus began a dangerous game of cat and mouse – but who was the predator and on whom did they prey?

It's based on real events where a whole town was under some sort of collective mass hysteria and suffering from hallucinations.

It's very slow to get going, and is largely a character study, it concentrates on the relationships between 2 couples, this is quite heavy going and lacklustre. All of the plot as such happens in the last few pages and doesn't feel worth the effort beforehand.

I've also read Blue Ticket by the same author. I think she has some really unique ideas, but sadly lacks the execution.

I'm about 20% into Pod - Laline Paull and feeling no love for it at all. I usually force myself to finish Women's Prize books, but not sure I will with this one. It feels very juvenile so far.

I get my hands on FireRush tomorrow which leaves Black Butterflies which is proving to be elusive via any libraries.

I read the edition with the photos. They're largely abstract and it's more that they trigger a memory for the author than being integral to the book.

29 Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
A relatively short historical novel set in mid nineteenth century Liverpool and Crimea. Georgie is a surgeon and amateur photographer and the book is structured around six photographs, one for each chapter. The story is told by three alternating characters linked to Georgie, a foundling that his family adopts and who idolises him, his pompous brother in law and a street urchin who helps him with a difficult situation. Each chapter shows a brief glimpse into the lives of Georgie and the related characters, taking the reader from the back streets of Victorian Liverpool to the horrors of the Crimean war. It’s my first Bainbridge and I’ll look out for more of her books.

30 The Bell by Iris Murdoch
I had high hopes for this from the early chapters but it didn’t quite keep my attention all the way through and I ended up liking rather than loving the book. Most of the story takes place at Imber Court, a religious / spiritual commune, set up in the grounds of an Abbey that is about to get a new bell, replacing the original bell that went missing centuries ago.

It’s told from three perspectives - Dora, a flighty artist in an unhappy marriage that follows her husband to Imber, Michael, the commune’s leader with a shady past and Toby, a naive 18 year old volunteering at Imber before university - and I felt some were stronger than others.

31 A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
I read a third of this book several years ago and put it down for some reason (possibly due to the unrelenting misery) so have been meaning to pick it up again to finish off. As this is the year I’m reading books I’ve had for years it was now or never. Set in 1970s India, it’s the story of four interlinked characters struggling with the after effects of partition, the caste system, government corruption, poverty and violence, trying to better their lives but never able to succeed. I’m glad I read it and I will read more of his books, but by God, I needed some light relief after this!

32 And the Rest is History by Jodi Taylor
Book 8 in the St Mary’s series about a group of time travelling historians. These are easy reads when you haven’t got the headspace to tackle anything challenging but they’ve become formulaic and repetitive so this will probably be my last.

On the Women's Prize, I've started reading Memphis which I discovered on looking through the longlist and noticing that it was on offer for 99p, that I had actually bought it last year. I have Fire Rush from the library, and have Black Butterflies, Cursed Bread and Dog of the North waiting collection. With the three I've read via library hardback and ebook loans, and a Netgalley of Pod, I might be heading for the possibility of being able to read from the whole longlist - however, I have other books and particularly other library loans to juggle.

I DNF Cursed Bread. I got about a third through but wasn’t engaged by either the characters or storyline so gave up.

I'm glad it's not just me.

Reading the list has been a strange experience this year as I had read a lot of the big hitters before it was announced. I can't say I've been that enthused or impressed.

Thanks for the heads-up re Memphis @elkiedee. I’ve also just bought The Bandit Queens for 99p.

10- Mothering Sunday- Graham Swift- Thoroughly enjoyed this- beautifully constructed. I really liked the way the character of Jane became increasingly empowered as the book went on.

17. Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

Recommended by someone on here (sorry I don't keep notes on who!) and I also enjoyed it. It's an interesting take on vampires and most of the story is simply thoughts inside the girls head. I usually like more action and/or dialogue than that in a story so I was almost surprised this kept me engaged.

DNF Menopause Manifesto. Too much science for me. I've marked it as read and hoping to remember (!) I've got it once it becomes relevant in a few years time, maybe I'll want to dig deeper when it's a bit closer.

I've just stumbled across a new section of kindle deals - if you go to the main page, there's a section for '2022 new releases on sale'. There were a couple of items from my wishlist on there.

I swear whoever's in charge of these deals likes to make it a quest to buy them 😬

'Twas me @RazorstormUnicorn - yes it was super contained and had the potential to really develop and expand which it didn't choose to do but still really worked as like a stand alone story without needing more frills

<puts fingers in ears then rushes over to Amazon>

I refuse to look after buying 3 today and 1 yesterday. I knew starting to use a kindle would be dangerous. (Well I might just have a quick peak…)

Some Amazon "categories" are a bit strange. A recent biography of Harold Wilson by a current Labour MP is at #1 and #3 in "Contemporary English Bible Translations" (Kindle and hardback respectively). The top 30 does include a biblical texts, but also books about Islamic State, memoirs and a colouring book.... I'm not at all religious but my grandfather was a vicar and dp's family were Methodists, so I was given all kinds of Bible stories for kids books when young, and dp's aunt did the same for the kids when they were small. When I was starting English Lit A level I was told I should have a King James Authorised version, and I still have my other grandfather's copy of that (he was a lapsed Catholic atheist, also a novelist and a publisher and I think this might have been something important to have handy for him from student days - a lot of the 1930s - and at work after WWII onwards).

Thanks @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

When I add stuff to my wishlist I sometimes add a note of who recommends it, but since I might download it and then not read it til months (or even years) later it doesn't help!

I should pay more attention, as I bet people's reading tastes overlap more with some people than others!

@TattiePants A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is one of my all time favorite books! But I absolutely agree with you about the misery.

I’ve found I’m much less inclined to read very sad books in the last year or so. Shuggie Bains has been on my TBR pile for ages but keeps being bumped for that reason.

@RazorstormUnicorn

Yes definitely, I miss Satsuki for that, she's gone from the threads now, but we did have similar tastes. I overlap with MamaNewt a fair bit also.

I dnf-ed Shuggie Bain a couple of chapters in for exactly that reason.

@SoNoWrecksToday Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo by the same author are both harrowing but definitely worth a read. Make sure you sandwich them between lighter / happier books!

It turns out that my resolve for not buying 99p books is about as strong as my resolve for not eating chocolate (non existent). Fortunately there was only one book, To Paradise, on my wish list.