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?

If I collected the clothbound classics I want both editions too - that's exactly the sort of thing I'd need. Someone mentioned 84 Charing Cross Road on here and I decided I want it, but I saw it in a 2008 Virago Modern Classic hardback version on instagram and now that's the one I want at some silly price. I keep looking for it on Abebooks, ebay etc.

I'm also in the hundreds of unread books on my Kindle. I feel very uninspired by some of the older ones. There's that sad passage in The Book of Form and Emptiness about how books feel rejected as they slip off the top of your TBR pile without ever being finished. I have unloved book guilt.

Not so many RL ones as we've got nowhere to put them. I'm just getting some shelves built to rectify this but already have boxes of books in the attic that have been there since we moved in over 10 years ago.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one with a problem... Book buyers Anonymous?

I hated Eileen so have been put off reading anything else by Otessa Moshfegh but maybe I should give her another go.

@Stokey i think I need a blitz of my list and strike off ones that realistically, I’ll never get round to reading. I’ve had some books sitting unread on my bookshelves for 20+ years (looking at you Catch 22 and the Little Friend), there’s obviously a reason they never ride to the top of the pike.

• FFS, ‘rise to the top of the pile!’

I am definitely at some point this year going to start a lot of my outstandings and permanently turf if I'm getting nowhere. I'd like to set aside a month, but I suspect I am too weak willed to stick to it.

Thanks Southeastdweller for organising us all so well. I haven't been in a place to contribute much recently but have enjoyed reading everyone's reviews and will try to do better.

Welcome @SweetSakura and all the best to you and ICrunchCrisps and anyone else who's finding life tough at the moment.

Thanks for the Little Library information. They're great. I discovered I have one about ten minutes away so will be driving over there to drop off some donations. And try not to bring any back! I'd love to have one in my front garden, but it's a pretty quiet road and I don't think many people would pass by. However, I'm thinking of asking our local cafe, run by a mum (over 80) and her daughter, if they'd like to start a swap shelf. It could work well I think.

And thanks to the PP on the third thread (might have been Passmethe crisps, apologies if not) who reminded me about Ambrose Parry's latest book. I really liked the first two; I used to live in Edinburgh and the familiar setting added to my enjoyment of the book. I'm a Christopher Brookmyre fan - love his dark sense of humour - and this collaboration with his wife works really well too.

Wishing good health to @ICrunchCrispsNotNumbers and @SweetSakura, and I hope your health buggies are resolved soon @AliasGrape.

My tbr pile is approx 200 books on my kindle plus a handful of physical books. So not as bad as some of you!

Just checking in to mark my place, I have a couple of reviews to write later.

So sorry to everyone who is having a difficult time health wise.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit Burntcoat was one of my standout books last year, so fierce and powerful.

I'm a lot stricter on buying books these days and I'm trying to use the library for hardbacks (though my local one has a delay on reservations at the moment which is frustrating). I still have a terrible habit of buying books in charity shops, looking at them on the shelf for 6 months, then donating them back to charity.

Embarrassing incident: Prompted by this conversation, I had an appointment earlier and knew I was going to walk past a local Little Free Library on the way, so I took a couple of books with me to add to the library.

Was just about to open the box and put the books in when I realised it was a library for baby and children's books - on reflection I decided that my copies of Spare and Lily Allen's autobiography were probably not a good fit.

Scurried away quickly while trying to emit an air of 'nothing to see here' 😳

At the end of our street is an old telephone box which has been converted into a book exchange. It's maintained by a group of local residents and they just ask for a small donation towards the upkeep of the box. It's used a lot, which is good to see. I've donated books to it and currently have a pile waiting to be dropped off.

I don't really have a purchased tbr pile at all. If I buy a book, I generally at least start to read it within a week or so. My unread physical books are almost entirely gifts, though denser non-fiction often waits for me to have more reading time. I'm a serial DNF-er though, so if I buy a 99p kindle book I'll start reading it almost immediately, & if it doesn't grip me I'll give it a week or so & a couple of goes then delete it off my phone & that's it.

Somehow having a book bought & hanging around makes it really unlikely that I'll read it. That very much happens with DF's books that he shares with me through kindle family library. Books I'd definitely read if I bought them myself sit on my phone because I'm not in the mood for them, & then I can't ever bring myself to start them.

My tbr list is entirely virtual - in my kindle wishlist (mostly newly published books waiting for the price to come down or for them to be available in the library) or in my spreadsheet next to books read. .

Luckily, perhaps, we don’t have any Little Libraries within miles of us. I used to have a serious charity-shop habit and could barely leave the house without coming back laden with books, but lockdown managed to break me of that to a large extent.

Having said that, DH and I went out the other day looking for a specific book for our next book club, didn’t find it in any of our usual haunts (local Oxfam bookshop, massive charity book place, nice National Trust place with cafe and rather large bookstall adjacent) and I still managed to come back with 6 books 🫣 However, I’ll read and dispose of them all. We got rid of numerous boxes of surplus books in the pandemic.

I haven’t counted what’s on my Kindle but it's a fair number. I only buy 99p jobs and I’ve largely stopped impulse buying (though that’s not a hard and fast rule). The physical books in the house are my notional tbr pile so could keep me going for (cough) years, probably. We've got bookshelves in every room except the bathroom <eyes bathroom thoughtfully>

Maybe we could do a "Taming the TBR pile challenge" week - agree to read the first 10 pages of x number of tbr books (everyone to choose their own target) and decide in each case whether to keep or donate/delete.

Or maybe there's pleasure in the teetering piles of potential and we want to keep them....

I am up for that, biblio. It's out of control here. I think the first 10 pages approach is a good one, but would add the page 67 criterion to my filtering. I can't remember where I came across it - perhaps it was a book about reading by John Sutherland - but the idea is that particularly for fiction, reading page 67 of a book is a good way of knowing if it's going to be something you will enjoy. By that point, the theory is that the style and narrative are established, but you're unlikely to risk any spoilers.

I can't bear to get rid of books because what if I change my mind in the future and decide to read it after all?

I think Sadik's virtual tbr list is a great idea or to download a sample on Kindle first before committing to a book.

I did a count on my Kindle. I have a small pile of around twelve books and I've three on Borrowbox coming up. I'll get through them first before buying any more. The exception is buying for The Rather Dated Bookclub once a month. I like to support my local bookshop as well by buying a book there every few weeks. It's a good cause ;)

That wouldn't work for me biblio because I almost never DNF a book (literally two or three times in my life). So I'd just end up reading 10 pages of lots of books and deciding to keep them all 😂

I have about 400 unread books on kindle - all 99p deals that I haven’t got around to. It’s out of control. Now I only buy them if they’re already on my wish list. I’d definitely be up for that challenge biblio - I need something to make me get it under control.

Okay, some people are in and some are out, for entirely understandable reasons! I'll start a separate thread for anyone who wants to experiment.

As well as my massive TBR list I have a separate Amazon wish list of books I want to buy (either when they come down in price or when they’re actually published). Some of them I do end up getting from the library so I then delete from my wish list. I do t always buy through Amazon either but it’s just a useful place to keep the list of books I want.

Interesting to see that we all include different things on our TBR - for me it’s just books I own that I haven’t read yet whereas others include books they want to read but don’t yet own or books they want to reread.

Thread here.

Taming my TBR sounds a really good plan. I have no problem with getting rid of actual books but can't seem to do the same with ebooks, so they just sit there, unread, on my kindle, judging me for having bought them and not read them! But I'm definitely going to give it a go. The page 67 trick would work best for me, otherwise I'll end up reading all day and not getting any work done.

My TBR pile is down to only 2 as I have recently had covid but all my reservations are coming in at the library so at least 11 more. I start getting anxious if I have too many library books even though I am a fast reader - some of these are on the large side like Babel and the last Sarah Maas.

Hello folks.
On the TBR issue, I don't have loads - maybe around 6-12 at any given time? It tends to peak at my birthday, and then dwindle over the year. We've a small house, though, so I have to be a bit ruthless about what comes in, and I regularly take bags down to our Little Free Library.

My very short list so far:

1. In a Good Light by Claire Chambers
2. Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes

3. Lean, Fall, Stand by Jon McGregor

1. The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns

5. The End of Innocence: Britain in the Time of AIDS by Simon Garfield

And I've just finished 6. The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
Elle is at her family's holiday home with husband, children and old friends. She rekindles a love affair from years ago. The narrative moves back and forth between her childhood, young adulthood and the present, to build a picture of why Elle is engaging in the affair.

I didn't enjoy this, so progress was slow. A couple of the female characters, especially Elle's awful mother, were well drawn, but the men were pretty cardboard. I think perhaps though the main problem is that I was expecting an entirely different book. The reviews I read spoke of the detailed depictions of the landscapes and suggested the odd dark secret. However it was fairly brutal with lots of upsetting bits - admittedly, nothing I haven't read before, but I wasn't expecting it and so wasn't really in the mood to press ahead.

So if there's anyone left who hasn't read it I'd wait for the inevitable HBO adaption.

I finally finished something (unfortunately it was because DD kept me awake throwing up so regularly last night it seemed pointless going back to sleep past a certain point).

11 Diary of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell
I’ve been plodding through this for weeks, and I’m not sure it warranted that much of my time to be fair. It was on Borrowbox so I felt compelled to keep going to the finish rather than just dipping in and out which is probably a better way to read it. It was fine, I just didn’t much warm to Bythell himself and couldn’t keep straight who all the people he named were. I’m sure it’s supposed to be wryly amusing, and know it’s been popular on here, but I seem to have had a sense of humour bypass and just found him irritating, judgy and a bit smug. By the end I was enjoying it more though, and it was perfect for the reading circumstances last night as above!

Im going to try the first 10 pages trick now and hopefully get something gripping enough to get me over this readers block!