50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Five

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the fifth 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, the third one here here and the fourth one here.

What are you reading?

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit
Mr B's book of the month came through.
Less by Andrew Sean Greer.
Looks good at a first glance although have been too caught up in street parties and bank holiday shenanigans to read much.

Mines on the way but I doubt I'll see it til Tuesday now

I didn’t mind the LW Agatha book though there were a couple of minor inconsistencies. I managed to keep reading until the end anyway (faint praise).

Stuart Maconie - The Full English

Maconie travels around England post pandemic following in the steps of a journey J.B.Priestley took in the 1930s. I adore Maconie’s writing and this was as good as ever. Here, he looks at what it is to be English and the differences between town and city - how the cities are thriving and the towns dying on their arses. I’m not English but much of it resonated with what I see here in Wales. It’s helpful if you share Maconie’s left wing politics (I do) and his anger at the treatment of the working classes. It’s not all dry however and very humorous at times.

Eine that made me laugh a lot 😂

24. Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

This is such a bizarre book I googled to check if the author was on drugs when he wrote it. Apparently he wasn't.

Anyway. I didn't get it. I don't mind a bit of absurdity but this is just weird. My biggest annoyance is that Alice never gives a second thought or worry about how to get home. I'd have been beside myself with fear.

At least that's my classic for the year. Although I also have Jekyll and Hyde downloaded and that one also seems to be 2 hours so I'm sure I can manage that at some point.

@LadybirdDaphne I don't know why I'm not getting on with Hags. I just don't find it illuminating to have everything compared to the witch trials.

@RazorstormUnicorn Alice disoriented me as a child and I disliked it for the reasons you mention. I became fonder as an adult, partly due to the familiarity of the Tenniel illustrations.

19 Children of Paradise - Camilla Grudova
Yuck

35. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life - Ruth Franklin

A hefty biog, printed on very thin paper, of the author of The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It’s highly detailed but very readable; but If you’ve read Jackson's own humorous books about family life you already know about her 4 children and her husband (the philandering Stanley, although understandably she doesn’t mention that aspect in her writing).

Franklin does add in more detail about Jackson's upbringing (highly critical, fault-finding mother) and marriage to the aforementioned Stanley, a pompous literary critic who not only chased other women and made Jackson thoroughly unhappy on that account, but also had the utter cheek to badger her about not working hard enough, when she consistently earned the majority of the family income through her writing. There were ever-present tensions between her marriage and her need to write - she loved her children dearly but struggled with the conventions of wife/motherhood in 40s and 50s America. It’s somehow especially sad and telling that when she died suddenly, aged only 44 - the cumulative effects of a lifetime of smoking, drinking and being significantly overweight - Stanley didn’t even know how to make a cup of coffee.

Hello - not posted on this thread yet as I’ve not finished anything new but I’m currently rereading The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie and having a lovely time. It’s an Indian Pop Music Saga (our protagonists are a bit like Elvis or maybe Sunny and Cher). It’s very beautifully written and talks a lot about home and post colonial sense of self.

I studied Rushdie at uni and was reading my uni copy and enjoying all the underlining and little comments but very sadly left it on the train so back to a kindle version.

Took me forever to finish reading Hags by Victoria Dutchman-Smith (book number 27), most of my spare time has been spent studying driving theory instead rather than reading but finished last night and liked it very much, despite all the rage it made me feel, and the focus it required. Now back to light reading, more Rick Riordan Percy Jackson adventures with The Lost Hero.
I guess I could add the driving theory book to my list too

Some recent reads:

The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater

Although this is a cookbook I’m counting it as there’s a lot of actual writing in it. There’s lots of lovely food descriptions in there but it’s also pleasing to know that Nigel does sometimes resort to fish fingers, oven chips and frozen peas for his tea. There is no way I could ever shop/eat like Nigel - it is obviously much easier to shop around for the best produce when you live in London and are surrounded by delis, markets, specialist food shops etc. I have to make do with what I can get in Tesco.

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J Sullivan

Lydia works in a bookstore and one day, one of the customers that she’s befriended hangs himself in the shop. Lydia then discovers he’s left her a series of messages hidden in books. In the meantime Lydia is trying to come to terms with her childhood trauma. I did like this but I’m not sure the device of leaving messages in books worked and didn’t really add anything to the plot.

The Four Last Things
The Judgment of Strangers
The Office of the Dead
All by Andrew Taylor

Collectively known as the Roth Trilogy, this tells the story going backwards in time of two interlinked families and how religious obsessions lead to various events. I first read these back in about 2007 when they were turned into a TV series, and I enjoyed revisiting them. Next time I’m tempted to read them the other way round, starting further back in time and going forwards.

The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller

I really can’t decide how I feel about this. It’s set in a slightly alternative world. There’s a pandemic and Neffy has volunteered to be part of a vaccine trial. When she comes round she discovers the pandemic has got worse, virtually everyone in London is dead or has scarpered, and only Neffy and four others on the trial have survived. There’s a subplot about octopuses plus some technology that allows Neffy to revisit her memories as if they are really happening. I found this really intriguing and I wanted to keep reading to find out where it was going. However there’s a few odd things in there that I wasn’t sure about, and the metaphor of captivity v freedom feels a bit laboured.

37. How to Break a Dragon’s Heart by Cressida Cowell

More of the adventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third.
Hiccup once again overcomes a perilous situation and comes out triumphant, but this time we’re left with a setup for the potential of big problems in a future book.

My 11 year old DS thinks these books are great. And they’re fun ones to read to him as bedtime stories.

I'm reading My Father's House by Joseph o'Connor and not liking it very much so far. It's very 'Irish' and quite boring imo. Has anybody finished it? I will finish it, but suspect I'll have to do some skim reading.

I got at as a birthday present for my dad and he loved it, Remus. Not sure how much of a recommendation that is! He's not a big reader but knew of the main character ( there's a mural in the local town).

@ChessieFL I read The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller a while ago (but didn;t post up a review). You are are right it started off so intriguing. I feel Claire Fuller can write really well. However, as I recall she just kept introducing more sub plots so the narrative started to feel crowded (when any one of the plots would have made a good story on its own)and then towards the end did a big time jump with a twisty reveal of a decision Neffy (the main character)would not have made in a million years. I felt cheated out of my time like CF had just got bored and decided OMG I need to wrap this up now. If it had been a RL book and not on my Kindle I would have thrown it across the room!

Yes the ending did feel a bit like she had run out of ideas. Still an intriguing book though and I now know far more about octopuses (octopi?) than I did before!

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie i read it last month. I liked it rather than loved it and have read a couple of similar books that I thought were better.

24 Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan. Liz is a paediatrician, and is at the hospital when her friend Jess brings her baby into A&E. Liz feels concerned about the nature of the injury, but surely her lovely 'earth mother' friend Jess would never do anything to harm her baby? A mixture of chick lit and thriller, this was fun to read but not particularly memorable.

25 Trespasses by Louise Kennedy. Already reviewed by lots of people on this thread, I really enjoyed this and I think it will be a bold. I liked Cushla and the other characters, and I felt the backdrop of the Troubles was handled well. Not nearly as good as Milkman, though.

27. Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus

I suspect there are as many opinions on this book as there are readers. It grew on me but it still is only ok, not great. Liked the dog, Wakely and even Frask, more than the main characters.

28. The Ghost at Brooklands Museum - Mark Richardson

A children's book, but a real rip-roaring adventure set at the museum, not scary ghostly, but a well-researched time-travelling adventure just right for children interested in history or motor racing. Very evocative, and great fun - I raced through it (excuse the pun) and enjoyed it.

Thanks @bibliomania and @TattiePants Hopefully it'll pick up when his diary extract is done.

Andy Miller - The Year of Reading Dangerously
Loved this, even though the books about books genre has probably gone as far as it can go for now. Maybe it's just an age thing, but a lot of his backdrop is very familiar. I had only read ten of the fifty books he talks about, but that's not really the point - as he says, it's not meant to be an agenda. But I am this year slowly making my way through the books that are in the house that we've been carrying from place to place, for decades sometimes, and that feels like a very similar exercise to reading books that you've been telling people you've read for years, so I think I understand the journey he was on. Definitely a bold for me.

Oh, and reading the sections written in the British Library has inspired me, after years of never quite getting round to it, to finally register for a BL Reader Pass 😀

Finally gone back and read about 4 pages!

I saw the recommendation for the short story by Ambrose Parry @BoldFearlessGirl so thank you very much for that. It will keep me looking forward to the latest instalment.

I like all the recommendations for children’s books - I have two Audible enthusiasts so I like to keep their recommendations fresh. I have just finished bedtime reading of James and the Giant Peach which I don’t think I have ever read before. It’s an odd little book I have to say - I mean, they are all odd obviously, but this is odder than most. And the cloud men are terrifying

still only 60 pages into The Colour of Magic. I am enjoying it when I manage to pick it up and sustain it for any length of time. I had hoped that this weekend would get me properly into it but sadly not.

@Waawo It is a lovely place to work/read/write.

I really liked 'So Pretty- I thought it a really well built up gothic thriller with brilliant characters. The main character is particularly well drawn- a grade one creep that all women on this thread should stay clear off (if he was real, of course. 🤣🤣)

Currently reading 'Finding Me.' By Viola Davis for my book club.

31 Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

Much reviewed on here so I’ll keep it brief. I couldn’t shake off the feeling I’d read this before. Plot and character twists fairly obvious, although I was surprised at how young Cushla was. It kept me reading and the backdrop of violence was well written, but all in all it was as if Clare Chambers had dialed up the Misery to 11.

The author is Louise Kennedy??