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?

Under the Dome is in today’s daily deals. I’ve only read two Kings (The Gunslinger and 11/22/63), is it worth a try?

37. Colours of Film: The Story of Cinema in 50 Palettes - Charles Bramesco

I bought this for 99p on a whim a while ago as it looked interesting and I’m keen on anything to do with film. It was a quick read, but while it was an unusual and thought-provoking basis for a book, and definitely made me think much more about how colour is an unspoken element in all films - to the extent of being a whole major character that’s never named or acknowledged openly - I’m not sure it worked 100%. The concept is that Bramesco discusses the colour palettes of his chosen films, and at the end of each section prints a few stills together with the relevant RBG colour codes.

I suspect a print copy might have had more impact than my kindle version (though lots of the reviews moaned about the inferior quality of the printing), but my problem was with the very short chapters for each film, which didn’t really do them justice - there would have been more to say, and more satisfyingly, if he’d chosen fewer films but explained in greater depth about the importance of the visual style and colour decisions. I also got a bit exasperated with his very American film-studies jargon - US movies of the 70s are 'counterculture artefacts'; in 'Blue Velvet, colour opens up a trove of possibility for David Lynch's oneiric mode'. And so on.

On the plus side, it did make me really want to watch, or re-watch, most of his chosen 50 films, though!

@TattiePants yes, it's great though the ending (as I'm sure others will be along to confirm) is utterly absurd. But the rest of it makes it worthwhile. It's one of his best I think (if you discount endings which I usually do as they really aren't his strong point).

Thanks, it’s purchased. Although at 1100 pages it may well sit unread for as long as The Stand has!

Thanks for the heads up @TattiePants & the review @PepeLePew, I have also bought it.

I’m finding these 99p way too addictive. So in addition to buying Under the Dome, these seem to have also slipped into my basket:
Metronome, Tom Watson
The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood
Prisoners of Geography, Tim Marshall
Natives, Akala
Material Girls, Kathleen Stock
Learning to Swim, Claire Chambers
Africa is not a Country, Dipo Faloyin
Devotion, Hannah Kent

I was also hovering over Number9Dream and Stalingrad by Antony Beevor. I think I have a problem!

Under the Dome is great until the terrible ending. But worth a shot for 99p. Agreed!

I've started reading The Secret Countess recommended by Remus recently.* *I've read the Kindle sample and really liked it. A nice engaging read so far and a bit of a tonic. Thanks, Remus.

I have been good at avoiding 99p deals for most of this year. But Stalingrad and Africa Is Not a Country have been on my wish list for a while, so I have snapped them up.

@TattiePants - I hope you like Under the Dome. I may read it again at some point, and just skip the last ten pages. I loved the way he meticulously constructed this world where something like that happens, and how people react. Look forward to your review, including the ending!

@TattiePants

I have a few of those on TBR

I can recommend Natives it was really good. I DNFd Number9dream earlier this year

Glad you're enjoying it. I've started another of hers, A Song for Summer but it's not as good as Countess so far. I think Journey to the River Sea and Countess are going to be her stand-outs for me.

Weird bold/italics thing there!

I'll make a note of that :)

@PepeLePew Stalingrad is very good, I love his books and would also recommend The Downfall of Berlin and Russia 1917-1921.

If you haven't read them already

Not to encourage people, but Thinking, Fast & Slow is also on for 99p today. It's not an easy read, but an absolute classic of behavioural science that is properly life changing.

Just finished the audio book of Evil under the Sun read by David Suchet I like his voice reading this. We all know the story but enjoyed the reading much more than I expected

A Good Heart is hard to findby Trisha Ashley one of her early books very enjoyable

Another night of insomnia has meant I’ve finished A Song for Summer which I thought was the worst of the Eva Ibottson books I’ve read. It felt very long and anybody who didn’t know anything about Brecht would have been a bit lost. I got quite bored with the classical music stuff.

And I kept thinking there would be the obligatory happy ending but she teased it out for years (in the plot) and what felt like years to me. Could really have used some cutting down imo.

Three books set in Northumberland...

24. Twelve Moons: A Year Under A Shared Sky by Caro Giles
Picked up on audio as I was interested in the Northumberland connection and a positive blurb comment from Amy Liptrot whose writing I have enjoyed. Like The Outrun, this is a memoir with themes of leaving a busy life in London for a more rural location, references to nature and lots of open water swimming. However, this book is also largely about the author's experiences of motherhood - becoming a single mother to four girls and coping with specific challenges around physical and mental illness, neurodiversity and the limitations of the education system, all experienced through the restrictions imposed during the Covid pandemic. Overall, this was fine but didn't blow me away. It just didn't entirely hold my interest.

25. The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce
This is kind of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry part 2, although the events of the two novels run alongside each other so it is not really a sequel. Queenie is living in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed - she has written to old friend Harold Fry as she knows that she is nearing the end of her life, and he has written back asking her to wait as he walks the length of England to visit her. In this book, we see the story from Queenie's perspective as she spends her days with the other hospice residents and the nuns and volunteers who care for them. She looks back on her life both when she worked with Harold Fry and later living on the Northumberland coast. Again, this didn't entirely hold my interest - I would read a few pages and then find myself thinking about getting up to do something else instead. I was intrigued to see where the story would go, and had very mixed feelings about the ending. This felt quite unlike much of my usual reading, perhaps slower and with different themes. I didn't love it but I'm not sad that I read it.

26. The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves
Loved this and gulped it down in just a few days. After the previous two reads, this felt like I was in the safe hands of an author who knew what they were doing following a police procedural formula that left me feeling like I knew where I stood as a reader. It was more plot driven and I found myself looking for every chance to get back to it.
A group of 60 something friends travel over the tidal causeway to Holy Island one October weekend, meeting up in the same location as they had every five years since their first visit on a school residential trip as teenagers. One of the group is found dead and Vera Stanhope is called upon to investigate.
This is book 10 in the Vera Stanhope series and the first one I've read. I don't think it affected my enjoyment to be jumping into an established series, but this has certainly made me more keen to go back to the start and read more of the novels. This felt evenly paced with a strong sense of place (loved the narrator's accents on audio!) and an ending that made sense. Some of the dialogue didn't quite feel realistic and some suspension of disbelief was required, but no more than I would expect in a crime novel. If you would like to read a book set in Northumberland, this is my pick of the three!

Gah! Thinking Fast and Slow has been on my wishlist for ages waiting for 99p! And Under The Dome would have been great too, King doesn't seem to get reduced to 99p much.

I stopped looking daily as I was buying them quicker than I could read them, and now I feel like I missed out! I'll have to check daily and try some self control....

Also gutted to miss Thinking Fast And Slow

Went shoe shopping, bought two pairs of shoes, then found a $1 (50p) book sale. Is this the best day ever?

Great haul! I love Sharon Penman and especially the Plantaganet series.

33 All Among The Barley by Melissa Harrison

Deceptively slow and gentle to begin with, this coming of age story told by a young girl, Edie Mather, begins to gather pace and address the rise of fascism between WW1 and 2, the role of women and girls in rural society and the effect of changing farming practices in this era.
I found one of the incidents at the end of the book unsurprising and one quite sadly unexpected, but I was pleased the author didn’t go for “and they all lived happily ever after”.
Some beautiful descriptions of the countryside.

I also missed Thinking, fast and slow
Was wondering whether to use an audible credit on it but, when I listened to the sample, he was making reference to images (that are included in a pdf) which wouldn't work for me as an audible. @Sadik is there lots of visual content? Has anyone listened to it?