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?

@ChessieFL I know what you mean about Romantic Comedy, and I'm really a Sittenfeld superfan. The characters all felt a bit flat to me when I read it, but it's really stayed with me over the last few weeks so there must have been something good there...

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie The Secret Countess was my first Eva Ibbotson and I loved it!

Still a very short list for me - thinking I probably should have joined the 26 book thread - I also haven't updated for ages! Very much in a non-fiction phase at the moment.

1. The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
2. The Storyteller - Dave Grohl
3. What If? - Randall Monroe
4. Explaining Humans - Dr Camilla Pang
5. The Power - Naomi Alderman
6. Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman
7. Rewild Yourself - Simon Barnes
8. Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari
9. Homo Deus - Yuval Noah Harari
10. The Body: A Guide for Occupants - Bill Bryson
11. Ask a Historian - Greg Jenner
12. A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
13. Alone on the Wall - Alex Honnold and David Roberts
14. Conspiracy - Tom Phillips and John Elledge
15. Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker
16. Camouflage: The Hidden Lives of Autistic Women - Dr Sarah Bargiela

New book reviews:

A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson

I absolutely loved both of the Bill Bryson books I have read this year - I did also try Notes from a Small Island, but only found it ok and dnf - he really seems to excel at writing about science in an accessible way. I found this fascinating and, at times, a little mind blowing (the section on quantum physics actually gave me a bit of a strange nights sleep - I find atoms really spooky). A really good read if you find science interesting but didn't really go down that route in terms of education - I have a good knowledge of human biology but very limited beyond that and I learned a lot. Also, the behaviour of scientists over the centuries is like a soap opera! A bold book for me.

Alone on the Wall

I bought this for dh a few years ago after he enjoyed Free Solo, but he dnf as he found it self indulgent. I picked it up as two of my dc have recently been diagnosed with autism, with the third awaiting assessment (as am I...) and I am interested in reading about people about the lives of autistic people (Alex Honnold describes himself as 'somewhere on the autistic spectrum'). It IS a bit self indulgent but is also fascinating and I enjoyed it overall. Even though I wasn't reading it to learn more about rock climbing, I did find this quite interesting too.

Conspiracy

This was a surprisingly boring book considering it was about conspiracy theories - I thought it would be a lot more interesting than it was! It was ok - some parts were better than others. I much preferred Tom Phillips's book Humans: A Brief History of How we Fucked it All Up which would have been a bold read if I was doing this last year.

Why We Sleep

Fascinating and accessibly written - also terrifying. Everyone should read it. Describes in detail the importance of sleep and why we shouldn't scrimp on it, ever.

Camouflage: The Hidden Lives of Autistic Women

A bit cheeky of me to count this one, as it is essentially a long infographic in book form and I read it easily in the time it took me to drink a cup of coffee - half an hour max. But it was very good and very useful - a really good insight into the world of autistic women.

Now onto another (longer) book about autistic women and also reading The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet, which is very cool. I was reading An Immense World, but my dd has nicked it - fully intending to go back as it was really good.

I do believe I’ve read that Tomorrow x 3 is being made into a film. I completely agree with your review @FuzzyCaoraDhubh

As an aside, there’s a bit that made me curious about driving in America where Sam uses his left foot on the brake (won’t reveal any potential spoilers here but if you’ve read it you know why this causes him problems). I just can’t figure out why he used his left foot. Any car I’ve ever driven I’ve used my right foot on the brake but is it different in the States as he’d be driving on the left?

Sorry, a tiny detail but it’s niggling me.

28 The Atlas Six - Olivie Blake I chose this based on several recommendations on here, and I really enjoyed it so thanks! It’s silly American pretentious YA trash but in a good way 😄 I liked all the magical powers and the characters’ interaction with each other, and as it ended on a cliffhanger I’m definitely going to read the next in the series!

I think if you drive an automatic, you could theoretically use left foot braking as you wouldn't need it for the clutch (and lots of American cars are automatic). I don't think it's considered particularly sensible - the advantage of only using your right foot for accelerating and braking is that you can't really do both at the same time. But I think I remember reading race car drivers do it, and I don't think there are any rules against it.

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage - I'm stuck half way through Atlas Six. I want to love it, but I just can't summon up any enthusiasm for the characters, the set up or the plot. I think it's too many points of view - I'd prefer it to be from just one perspective. I will persevere as in theory it's right up my street.

I've never driven in America or Europe but is the car completely the other way around? So you'd change gear with your right hand, accelerate/brake with your left foot and clutch (if the car has one) with your right foot?

I now drive a left hand drive car & it is not the 'other way round' as regards clucth, brake & accelerator. Still right foot for accelerator/brake & left foot for clutch.

But I still sometimes go to the right hand side of the car to try to get in & drive!!!

9 The Last Banquet - Jonathan Grimwood
Jean-Marie D'Aumont, orphaned child of noble parents who starved to death in pre-revolutionary France, rescued from starvation and neglect at the age of 5, is sent to a boarding school then military academy where he meets friends of the ruling class and hones his skills as a cook while developing an odious recipe book of dishes involving the meat of cats, dogs, rats, snakes, insects etc. Marrying the sister of his high-born friend Charlot, Jean-Marie becomes the marquis d'Aumont and secures a chateau of his own as well as the title of Master of the Menagerie of Versailles, a post which ensures he can transport ill and elderly exotic animals to his own home and eat them when they die. Meanwhile the revolution is building momentum and our protagonist must choose the manner of his own death.

I enjoyed reading this, but it doesn't make bold status for me. Clearly the author has read Suskind's Perfume and created a similar character, though not quite as horrific in nature or as depraved in action. He's a kind of Grenouille-light, with an over-developed sense of taste rather than smell.

I read that detail about the left foot on the brake and stored it away to think about it later, Best. Thanks for bringing it up!

Yolandi, that sounds like an intriguing read, but did you not feel squeamish reading it?! I have Perfume on my shelf. I think about rereading it sometimes.

Is the left foot thing in Tomorrow to do with his injury?

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh I'm not really a squeamish reader (with some exceptions - the flaying scene in the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles never fully leaves my mind!) and the squeam factor is considerably lower than in Perfume.

@GrannieMainland It’s a beauty. One that will probably become a re-read for me at some point.

Best, I agree with Pepe's theory - my mother has always driven an automatic and as she's never used a clutch, she uses left foot brake, right foot accelerator.

And just to add an even more mind blowing dimension, most racecar drivers will at some point have used "heel and toe" which involves pressing the brake and the throttle at the same time with the right foot, while pressing the clutch with the left foot!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I enjoyed the book, but have never seen the film. Must give it a go.

I don't think I saw it as a horror story though.

40. The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

Nate inherits his childhood home when his abusive father dies, and decides to move there with his wife Maddie and son Oliver.

And then weird sinister stuff starts happening. Spooky tunnels with holes between worlds, creepy teenagers possessed by demons and so on, with a fair bit of violence.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one.

77. The Prestige by Christopher Priest (Audible)

Stage magicians Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier develop a rivalry which has far reaching consequences for their lives and their families

This is difficult to fairly review because:

a) I don't think this was right as Audible and I should have read a physical copy

b) it also really didn't fit my 30 minutes at bedtime audiobook routine

c) I saw the film years ago which is brilliant but the diversions are huge

I ended up finding the main difference which is to create a kind of horror story a bit silly. Definitely the ending is really WTF?! and then on the audio it chimes in with wacky music hall piano which really jars with the last line.

The film is miles better, yeah, I said it

The stuff with the copies/bodies just isn't there the film stays to the basics and feels far cleverer for this

Sorry for the confusion I wanted to change my post

Ah right. Yes the bodies stuff got a bit daft at the end.

One of my favourite ever films. I don’t want to read the book, in case it spoils it. I find Priest a bit too clever-clever, generally.

I do like the way the deleted post in the conversation almost appears to play with Time, but that’s all an illusion. Quite fitting

I'm The Transported Woman !

Two books I liked more than I expected for me.

53 Dubliners by James Joyce
A collection of short stories by Joyce, exploring the lives and concerns of Dublin’s middle classes in the early 20th century. I’d been told this was the easiest Joyce to read which was true. The stories are in order of the age of the protagonists starting with the youngest. I didn’t love all of them but I did enjoy most. I found An Encounter, Eveline, A Painful Case and The Dead the best. I’ve a feeling this is a book I will go back to again and again as I imagine there are many more layers for me to discover on reread. I listened to the Audible recording by Andrew Scott while following along on Project Gutenberg online. I will buy a physical copy for my next read. A definite bold for me.

54 Pod by Laline Paul
I read 8/16 of the Women’s Prize longlist in March/April and three of those were on the shortlist (Demon Copperhead, The Marriage Portrait and Trespasses), leaving me three more to read before the winner is announced. I read this one first because I expected to hate it. I don’t get on particularly well with animal protagonists and I heard a lot of surprise that this was shortlisted. Despite all that, I quite enjoyed it. It tells the story of what we humans have done to life in the ocean through a number of animal POVs. The main POV is Ea, a spinner dolphin, and her story is shocking and brutal at times. That said, I wanted to find out what happened to her and her pod. I absolutely loved the POV from the whale- I found it very moving, but I could have done without the wrasse and the clams which totally gave me the ick (those who have read it will know what I mean). Overall, maybe a 3/5 but I was expecting it to be a 1!