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?

30 The It Girl - Ruth Ware Much-reviewed on these threads so I won’t recap the plot, except to say I didn’t get a Secret History vibe from it at all (as others have mentioned) - it feels like a very different kind of book. Which is fine - I loved The Secret History, but I really enjoyed this in a different way. And on top of it being a good story, the description of being a fresher at Oxford was completely realistic (even though my experience was a decade earlier) - to the point where I was surprised to read in the Acknowledgements that Ware didn’t go to Oxford herself. The relationships you build with people completely different from you just because you’re thrown together in freshers’ week, the weirdness of suddenly having to be a quasi-adult completely independent from your parents, the constant feeling that you’re the only one who doesn’t fit in / isn’t mature enough - all that was so relatable that (apart from the main storyline obviously!) it was like watching myself 20 years ago, and the locations and characters could have been my college and (in some cases) my friends. That tipped it into a bold for me, but YMMV as they say - without the Oxford connection it’s simply a good whodunnit.

I can finally devote more time to reading now I've done my theory test and don't have to study any more. Finished number 30 the other day, The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, now onto the next one in the series and hope that DD finishes the next one after that before I finish this so I don't have to wait!

Seen several interesting sounding books in the last few pages on this thread but none of them are in my library system :(

PS as it happens, I am sitting in sunny Oxford right now eating a scone with jam and cream and thinking about B. Pym 😊

OMG Terpsichore, how lovely! Maybe I just cycled past you as I'm here too 😀

Maybe we should DM!

The scone sounds very civilised, I'm sure Barbara would approve.

My day has been less genteel as my washing machine has been broken for THREE WEEKS (just kill me now), so I have been cycling to the grimy local laundrette with large bags of washing, and feeding enormous quantities of pound coins into the few machines there that are not labelled 'Out of Order'. It's so glamorous, I can't tell you. Somehow I believe Barbara would feel my pain, as it's not unlike the petty indignities her heroines suffer when they live in rented lodgings and have to share a bathroom and so on.

OK maybe I'm getting carried away here feeling sorry for myself 😄

You are clearly all unworthy of the wonderful Barbara Pym. I will gather her books and take them off to a dark cavern where I will sit atop a pile of my treasures and gloat over them like Smaug.

I do see why she's not everyone's cup of tea, but I love her for the sense that we are all faintly ridiculous, even in our woes. She's queen of the unrequited crush and the consolations of the mundane.

I've not tried Barbara Pym. I quite like Rosamund Pilcher and imagine they're similar (or am I wrong?); in Pilcher there's quite a lot of men being indulged, and women are forever getting cold chickens out of the larder and giving them to people for lunch with fresh bread and butter ( I love the cold chicken stuff).

Recent reads:

58 Wellmania, Brigid Delaney
Non-fiction by Australian author about her experiences with fasting, yoga and meditation. I thought this was going to be a take-down of the wellness industry and she makes a few pointed remarks about capitalist profiteering from the repackaging of other's people's spirituality, but she's genuinely in search of practices that will improve her life. Not bad if you're interested in one woman's experiences of the wellness industry, but if that's your idea of hell, this is unlikely to convert you.

59. The Full English, Stuart Maconie
A travelogue in the footsteps of J B Priestley? Sign me up! This is the sort of book I like. I thought it was fine, nothing special for the genre. I wanted to correct him when he said Yemen is in Africa, but that is mere petty point-scoring on my part.

Not you, cassandre and Terp. You clearly are worth of BP and can visit me in my lair and croon over the volumes with me.

I’ll take you up on that, biblio 😉

@MarkWithaC there is a lot of food in Pym but she’s much sharper-eyed about men than Rosamund Pilcher, and has a wicked sense of humour with it.

Sold! I love Pilcher's food, not quite so keen on her men.

Phew, I am honoured to be exempt!

I love her for the sense that we are all faintly ridiculous, even in our woes. She's queen of the unrequited crush and the consolations of the mundane.

That's so well put!

Terpsichore said, she’s much sharper-eyed about men than Rosamund Pilcher, and has a wicked sense of humour with it.

I haven't read Pilcher but that's certainly true of Pym. There's at least one of her novels (I forget which one) where an extremely self-satisfied man proposes to the self-effacing heroine, and she is like, 'GOD no!' Unremarkable as her life may be, she's not THAT desperate. Ha.

Actually it was a Swedish friend of mine who introduced me to Pym. Apparently Pym has a kind of cult following, and every two years the Barbara Pym Society holds a conference at St Hilda's College in Oxford, which my friend attends religiously. I've never been! In alternate years the Anthony Powell Society holds their conference (or at least they used to; I think Covid put a spanner in the works).

I seem to have set the cat among the pigeons!

I do get it, why other people like them, she is excellent at the minute observations of human behaviour and mundane acts.

Her style just is not for me

I also have a friend who belongs to the Barbara Pym Society and attends the StHilda’s conference!

I don’t think there’s any similarity between Pilcher and Pym. I prefer Pilcher but they are very much comfort, easy reading books.

😂

@cassandre Is Gaudy Night the one where he saves whatshername? I’m as fond of a bluestocking as anyone, but I hoped these would be books I’d want to return to and they’re just not, not even that one.

Oh gosh, Best, it's a small world!

Speaking of Pym and food, I just came across this:
[[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Barbara-Pym-Cookbook-Hilary/dp/1480408050

To my embarrassment Remus, I can't remember! I think Peter does help Harriet out in Gaudy Night, but it's not the one where he saves her from prison.

I seem to have forgotten all the important plot points of Gaudy Night; I only remember random bits, like the fact that there's this really cool antique chess set which Harriet sees in an Oxford shop (and which is later maliciously destroyed I think?). There's an Oxford shop with fancy chess sets in the window and I always wonder if the same one Harriet went to, although I'm sure it's not.

Is it bad that I really, really want you to read a Pym@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie?

Some Tame Gazelle should do it.

Sweet Jesus save me from curates and bishops and librarians (oh my!).

I propose a Pym read-a-long 😁

I have proven to be incapable of sticking to any read a long!

I think the Pym and Powell's should join forces. Surely they have enough in common to sustain them - although I'd definitely lean towards the Pym camp. @FuzzyCaoraDhubh I think if you liked Mrs Palfrey from the dated book club, you'd like Excellent Woman.

And I also can't get on with Dorothy L despite a lifelong love of Agatha. She's just so much better at pacing.

@cassandre Homesick is the only ones that really appealed out of the ones that were left so I may give it a whirl.

Thank you @Stokey! I'll give it a go.