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 love The Enchanted April, it's a real comfort read.

And the film is rather lovely too.

I surprised myself by loving Mrs H. It's silly and sweet and old fashioned and charming, I thought.

Adds Bonjour T to my wishlist.

30. Le Mystère des Disparus (deuxième partie): Alice Daurel.

Laura's quest to find her missing parents continues in the sequel to the first book by the same title. As we find out very soon at the start what happened to her parents, there is very little mystery left to uncover. This was a fairly dull and predictable story with no attempt to explain the reasoning behind characters' actions which gave the book a superficial feel. One book would have sufficed and the author could have used the prison subplot in another book.

The best line was the description of the grandmother when Laura went missing.

'Lorsqu'il l'apperçoit, elle est hirsute et a les yeux injectées de sang', which I first read as 'When he noticed her, she was hairy and had blood-shot eyes', leading me to hope she might have turned into a werewolf to liven things up. I think it meant her appearance was dishevelled due to being upset, more's the pity. A missed opportunity :)

Ooh, I didn’t know there was a film!

Oh glad you liked it @DuPainDuVinDuFromage - I discovered it via Viv Groskop's essays on French literature (*Au Revoir, Tristesse). Feeling the pressure now @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie has added to her list.

@ChessieFL I seem to recall that Elizabeth von Arnim wrote a book very similar to Rebecca by du Maurier, but obviously before her, called Vera I think.

I think my last update was my Bollywood actor book. Recent reads.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, Shehan Karunatilaka
Read for bookclub and it was a hard book to 'like' but I did think it was well done and darkly funny. It follows a photographer Maali who has been killed amidst Sri Lanka's civil war and he has seven moons to discover what happened to him. I had a cursory knowledge of recent Sri Lankan history and there is a lot of Hindu folklore and myth dotted about, some of which I noticed and lots I missed I am sure, but it was a sort of let it wash over you and just get the feel. It was hard to like anyone a great deal, but I was drawn in and wanted to find out what had happened, why and how.

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara
I know this one is very marmite on MN. It probably needs no introduction since I am years late reading it (ahead of going to the theatre to see the play) , this is the story of 4 friends and the extreme trauma suffered by one of them and how they all rub along, grow etc together. There was a lot of suffering, abuse, violence but I was weirdly not really touched by it and I am someone who cries when an author says 'she died' usually. I think partly because I knew what I was expecting and partly I think for me, less is often more, the implication of the abuse I found almost more upsetting than reading the passages about the actual abuse (still harrowing). I got extremely angry and shouted out loud when a particular thing happened and my husband thought I was demented. Overall, I am glad I read this and I think she is a good writer, but I am not desperate to jump into her new book (also not that new anymore).

Books# 27 and 28 Prophecy and Sacrilege S J Paris. More Cadfael meets Wolf Hall. Quite enjoyable really though getting a bit predictable now

@StColumbofNavron

RE Hanya Yanigahara stay away from To Paradise some good writing but mostly utterly ridiculous rubbish that fails to hang together

It's difficult to use the word "enjoy" in respect to The People in The Trees because of the fact that it again features child sexual abuse but I found it the best written and most compelling of the three

That is interesting @EineReiseDurchDieZeit - I don't feel compelled to dive back in and I did think A Little Life was prob 200 pages too long, but I thought it was a really interesting dive into a mind plagued by trauma and the repetitiveness of Jude's actions really made me as a reader feel a part of his world.

No pressure @StColumbofNavron

@FuzzyCaoraDhubh i like the idea of a werewolf grandmother! Definitely a missed opportunity 😄

I know 😁I'm glad you liked Bonjour Tristesse. I did as well. It would be worth a reread some time. Aimez-vous Brahms and Un Certain Sourire are good too, although I prefered BT.

Hairy with bloodshot eyes, eh?
Sounds like me on a day when the menopause wants to really show me who’s boss.

@StColumbofNavron thanks for the tip, I’ll look out for Vera as Rebecca is one of my favourite books.

😅Grandmother is called Esperanza.
Living in hope that the menopause will bugger off!

34. The Museum of Ordinary People - Mike Gayle

Jess is grieving for her mother and has some heirlooms which contain family memories but are of little value. Having no space to store them, but reluctant to get rid of them, she hears about the Museum of Ordinary People, a repository of day to day items, each labelled with its own history of where it was found or what it means to the donor.

The subject matter really appealed and the characters were believable; I think MG writes well for women characters. I could see one plot development from very early on, others surprised me. A readable, touching book about grief, family histories and the power of ordinary objects to hold memories and stories which make us who we are. Maybe a bold, not sure.

After spending most of last night awake, I’m also hoping the menopause will sod off.

Couldn’t bring myself to buy the 99p Davina book, as I find her so very annoying. I also (maybe unfairly) feel that it could be summed up as, ‘The menopause is shit. I felt disempowered. I took HRT. I felt empowered. Women are powerful. Women are beautiful. Women are not shit but the menopause is shit. It’s okay to say you’re not feeling okay, hun. Women. Power. Shit.’

Remus I've not long finished Davina's Menopausing book - listened on audio - and thought it made for interesting listening. Gave me the push to speak to the GP whereas I was dithering about it before.
In work yesterday I was excited to see a pile of books sitting which had been donated by a patient. Closer inspection revealed them to be what can only be described as 'bestial porn' - women falling in love and having sex with dinosaurs 🤯. Mind. Blown. Gave us all a good laugh if nothing else!

Dinosaurs???? 🤯🤣🤣

I can’t even begin to picture how that might work!

Just a heads up for anyone who enjoyed Ayobami Adebayo’s Stay with Me, that her second book A Spell of Good Things is on sale for 99p today- it’s not mentioned in the daily deals- I saw the reduction when scrolling through my wish list.

I regret to report that dinosaur porn is indeed a thing. Niche, but a thing nonetheless. Please don't ask me how I know this to be true.

Off on holiday for 2 weeks. Will 30 books be enough?