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 had already bought a lot of those when they were previously on offer. I have all 8 of them. And yes, I've bought others.

Have any stood out? @elkiedee

And I've no idea what my number of books TBR is, especially if I consider books read 5/10/30/40 years ago that I'd like to reread. I don't buy many new full price books but I buy a lot on Kindle offers and in charity shops etc.

I also have a lot to give away and have wondered about trying to set up a local-ish bookswap on FB, not posting books and really aimed at people who live in my area, or are around for work or visiting family and friends anyway, and not getting people to travel out of their way.

Haha. I haven't properly read any yet though I heard quite a bit of Difficult Women and The Raptures on the radio.

From the first few pages, I've read:

During the pandemic I considered doing one of those outdoor libraries - but we just don't get the weather.

If I had a garden, which I don't I'd consider building one of those book birdhouses has anyone seen them?

Eine there's a map of Little Free Libraries here: littlefreelibrary.org/map/

Thanks, there are none in my county, I would do one if I moved to a bigger home.

Posted too soon. From the first few pages of 99p deals, I've previously acquired/read

Elly Griffiths, Bleeding Heart Yard (2022)
Jo Baker, Longbourn
Clare Chambers, Small Pleasures
Anna Mazzola, The Clockwork Girl (2022)
Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones and the Six
Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project
Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go - book group read 3 or 4 years ago. I really liked it
Neil Gaiman, American Gods - this was a book group read and I didn't like it that much. Had previously bought a paperback copy because dp was interested in it - this must have been years ago.

I enjoyed all of these but people have probably read all of the older ones that they want to - some are from a few years ago, as I remember giving my mum a copy of Longbourn which was passed around several women in our family, and she died in 2016. The books by Elly Griffiths (a Harbinder Kaur one) and Anna Mazzola (a historical novel set against the backdrop of revolutionary France in the 1790s) are books I really liked last year. I know someone hated the Moshfegh but I quite enjoyed it.

I've just finished reading and would recommend Mary Ann Sieghart, The Authority Gap, which is another repeat 99p offer. It's not quite as good as Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez, which would have been a library book group discussion scheduled for the end of March 2020 (the discussion never happened), but I would recommend it to anyone who found IW interesting/useful. I liked this more than I expected to, on the basis of my memory of reading some of her newspaper articles in the past.

Another very good value 99p non-fiction recommendation is Sarah Helm, If This is a Woman - it's about the Ravensbruck concentration camp which was for women - including communists, resistance fighters and women deemed "antisocial" by the Nazis, as well as Jewish women. It's quite long and definitely not light reading, but this was a standout read for me a few years ago.

I've read 6 of those and loved American Gods - I have the Mosfegh on TBR

During the pandemic my village sponsored the red telephone box and we use that as a library. People also use it to swap children’s toys and seeds.

And regarding book buying. I use my kindle almost exclusively. I don’t fire through books at anything like the rate some of you do and I really don’t want to waste time reading books which are not great so typically I buy what I fancy. As I almost always buy the audible accompaniment I have to factor that in also

I have an entirely arbitrary system of deciding what to spend which very much depends on how much I fancy the book.

99p and recommended on here - generally just gets bought. The audible partners for these usually take it to about £4/5

£2.99 roughly - I will purchase if a) I really fancy it b) the audible accompaniment is approx the same price

£5 or above - my maximum spend is £10 on the combination so this is a delicate balance. I would struggle to spend over £5 on a kindle book and I am not sure if I have. If it’s on my wish list I generally keep an eye and get it when it drops.

it makes absolutely no sense but it works for me.

Oh, there's a little free library a few streets away, I may have to visit that.

Just joining so that this appears on ‘threads I’m on’. Thank you south for the new thread.

I’d usually bring my list over but since we’re 5 pages in, and since I don’t think it’s actually changed since the start of the last thread then I’ll leave it this time.

I’m really struggling finding any time to read. Work is hectic and toddler is hectic and I’ve got a few niggly health things going on, plus sleep is crap so that by the time I get into bed I manage about 2 pages of whatever book before I’m just too shattered to continue. I’m listening to podcasts a lot instead right now since I can just drift off and doesn’t really matter if I can’t remember where I got up to.

I have given up telling myself not to buy more books as it never works. I think I have an addiction to new (to me) books.

My TBR pile of books I’ve never read is probably around 200 split about equally between kindle and physical. If I add on all the books I want to reread it’s probably well over 1000 as I guess I would have to include all the books I keep. My TBR never really seems to go down (see above paragraph).

I almost never spend more than 99p on a kindle book - occasionally £1.99 or £2.99 if it’s one I’m keen to read. I’ll happily spend plenty on a beautiful physical book though, although only if I’m fairly sure I’ll want to keep it.

@ICrunchCrispsNotNumbers I am so sorry you spend a lot of time stuck in bed too. It's awful, I miss all the things I used to do. My only consolation is that at least I am getting through a lot of books.

This is my list, so far. It's pretty random, partly because it depends what come up in charity shops/the free book exchange. But also partly because it depends what I'm in the mood for reading. I also treated myself to the feel good book club subscription so it includes the books from that, not always ones I would pick but I would say i enjoy the majority of them

(I read House of Glass last year and loved it)

The secret river -Kate Grenville
American Dirt -Jeanine Cummins
Strictly between us - Jane Fallon
A thousand splendid suns - Kaled Hosseini
The shell seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo
The accidental further adventures of the 100 year old man -Jonas Jonasson
Single, carefree, Mellow- Katherine Heiny
Glamorama - Brett Easton Ellis
The Perfect Nazi -Martin Davidson
Beach read- Emily Henry
The Paper Palace -Miranda Cowley Heller
Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout
Lessons in Chemistry -Bonnie Garmus.
How women rise - sally helgesen
A life of crime, the memoirs of a high court judge - Harry Ognall
Light on snow -Anita Shreve
Status Anxiety - Alain de Boton
The White Umbrella -Brian Sewell
If only I could tell you -Hannah Beckerman
Winter in Madrid -CJ Sansom
The island home - Libby Page
All the light we cannot see - Anthony Doerr
Rules -Jenny Colgan
The Christmas escape -Sarah Morgan
Wintering - Katherine May
My name is Lucy Barton. - Elizabeth Strout
Standard Deviation - Katherine Heiny
Hiking with Nietzsche- John Kaag

(Am assuming the idea is to bold the ones we particularly loved, if so those are mine!)

Oh we also have a bookshelf tucked away at my work where people can borrow books, but I always forget about it when I'm in work mode!

My book buying habit is definitely in compulsion territory and has only got worse since I discovered amazon's 99p deals. This year I've started keeping a list of books I've bought by month, just in an effort to keep some sort of eye on it. I don't buy new real books often, I much prefer trawling charity and secondhand shops. I'll often end up with books in both kindle and physical format, because I like reading (and having) real books, but prefer my kindle for reading in bed at night and taking on holiday. That feels very wasteful, but I'm comforted by the idea that others have audiobooks in addition to text format - phew! However, I got an Audible subscription for Christmas so I'll no doubt end up with three versions of some

I realised after I posted it that I forgot to thank Southeastdweller for the new thread in my list post for the second thread running - sorry and thank you

Finished listening to Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes, narrated by the author. I felt this was a women-focused version of her Stands up for the Classics' series on BBC R4, and enjoyed learning more about the female characters I've only really heard about from the usual sources which probably have neglected the women's side of the stories. Overall, though, I don't think it's quite a bold, but it's definitely one I'll be encouraging my kids to read (as above, I have a secondhand paperback on my shelves).

I have 3 versions of Crime And Punishment - still haven't read it

That's funny :)

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh

Embarrassingly, I thought about it and actually I have 5

Oh dear 😂Five!!

I've done a stocktake on my Kindle and found two copies of Jane Eyre. Clearly, it could have been worse!

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh

I collect Penguin Clothbound Classics and had a later edition and managed to get the (different) first edition. x 2

Kindle x1

Paperback x 1

Audiobook x 1

Ah! Diverse copies is not mindless :)

I like the sound of your Penguin Clothbound Classics collection.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I too have a clothbound classics collection and some of these are duplicates of physical books, that I also have on kindle and in some cases I have on audible too. It's good to have options 😊

I’ve just checked Goodreads and my want to read list is at 399 of which I probably own 50-60%. I mainly buy from charity shops or second hand shops unless I desperately want to read something.