50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Six

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the sixth 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, the fourth one here and the fifth one: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/4793238-50-books-challenge-2023-part-five?page=20&reply=126860721

What are you reading?

🤣 oh dear. Interesting choice of words there!

🤣😱
Spoiler: they did.

43. The Birthday Party - Laurent Mauviginier. This was on the International Booker Longlist and was described as a literary thriller. It's about a family who live in a tiny hamlet with just 3 houses. Farmer Patrice Bergogne, wife Marion and 10 year-old daughter Ida live in the main house and ageing artist Christine is their tenant, the other house is empty. The action takes place over one day, Marion's 40th birthday. Patrice is organizing a party with the help of Christine & Ida, but unexpected visitors turn it into something else. The writing is incredibly dense. Sentences go on for pages, and chapters take different 3rd person pov going through each person's thoughts and feelings. Here is the first sentence as an example:

"She watches him through the window and what she sees in the car park, despite the reflection of the sun that blinds her and prevents her from seeing him as she’d like to, leaning against that old Renault Kangoo he’s going to have to get around to trading in one of these days – as though by watching him she can guess what he’s thinking, when maybe he’s just waiting for her to come out of this police station where he’s brought her for the how many times now, two or three in two weeks, she can’t remember – what she sees, in any case, elevated slightly over the car park which seems to incline somewhat past the grove of trees, standing near the chairs in the waiting room between a scrawny plant and a concrete pillar painted yellow on which she could read appeals for witnesses if she bothered to take an interest, is, because she’s slightly above it, overlooking and thus observing a misshapen version of it, a bit more packed down than it really is, the silhouette, compact but large, solid, of this man whom, she now thinks, she’s no doubt been too long in the habit of seeing as though he’s still a child – not her child, she has none and has never felt the desire to have any – but one of those kids you look after from time to time, like a godchild or one of those nephews you can enjoy selfishly, for the pleasure they bring, taking advantage of their youthfulness without having to bother with all the trouble that it entails, that educating them generates like so much inevitable collateral damage."

I was desperate for more full stops.

It does ratchet up a bit more about halfway through when the action starts happening but I did find it quite hard work - 500 pages in the above style- and the characters seemed like caricatures.

32 Pandora’s Jar - Natalie Haynes

Exploration of key women from Greek mythology, spanning the range from Pandora (released all the evils of the world onto humanity) to Penelope (ideal chaste wife, albeit a clever one). Nothing groundbreaking, but especially interesting to see the nuances the playwright Euripides brought to the portrayal of women - showing that at least some Ancient Greek men appreciated women as fully human, complex beings.

33 The Happy Puppy Handbook - Pippa Mattison
Seems like sensible advice - photos will follow once I get the actual puppy in a couple of months!

34 Life Ceremony - Sayaka Murata
Collection of short stories from the author of Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, focusing on the arbitrary nature of social convention, especially around the treatment of the dead and conventions on eating. Since dead bodies and food are often connected in Murata’s imagination, you need a relatively strong stomach for this - some of it was just a bit too weird for me.

Apart to take a very long haul flight from NZ to the UK for a holiday - potentially will get some reading done over the 30 hours in transit but realistically will look at the pictures in a magazine and watch crap tv while inserting snacks and melatonin into DD.

Checking in a little late to the party. I've been so overwhelmed by work that I've hit a reading slump but hoping to get back to it.
I'm currently reading Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (mainly for work but it's 400 pages I'm counting it) and Dead Famous by Greg Jenner.

Now to catch up on the thread.

@eitak22 now I want to know what job you do that involves reading Swallows & Amazons ....

@Stokey I was exhausted by line 3 of that utter drivel you’ve just shared. How the hell does stuff like that get published? It’s like Jodi Piccoult woke up one morning thinking she was Samuel Beckett.

At least that's the first sentence so you can decide immediately whether you want to read the book!

OMG Stokey. I bought Birthday Party in French (it has a different title in French, Histoires de la nuit) and it was at the top of my TBR pile, but now I think I'm going to have to put off reading it. I am still trying to finish Ducks, Newburyport and I don't think I can manage another novel with long stream-of-consciousness sentences right after that. 😧

The beauty of full stops is underestimated!

Also, bleurgh at the Strike/Hephaestus sex scene comparison. That is ... infelicitous.

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage , I've been thinking about your criticism of Babel. I can totally see your point, and I also found it depressing and alienating, the way the racial divide seemed to solidify as the book progressed, with almost all the white characters hardening into villains. I'm not sure Kuang actually 'hates white people' though. She's certainly trying to be provocative. It seemed to me that she was deliberately reversing the racist trope of 'white characters = good; non-white characters = bad': making us see the world the other way round. The literary technique of 'defamiliarisation', turning white people into the scary other. But yes, reversing the hero/villain binary still leaves that binary view of the world in place.

And characterisation isn't one of her strengths anyway; all of her characters, whether people of colour or not, are a bit cardboard-cutout-like, as critics have noted.

However, one of my uni students who is from an ethnic minority background and immigrant family just lit up with excitement when she found out I'd read Babel. She turned out to be a big fan of Kuang, starting with her Poppy War Trilogy, and we had a lively conversation about it. It reminded me of another moment when one of my Asian first years mentioned Sathnam Sanghera's Empireland, and she was so pleased to find out I'd read it. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I was grateful to have read Babel because it gave me, a not-very-trendy middle-aged white woman, some common ground with this student from quite a different background to mine.

I'm not going to be reading the Poppy War trilogy, because I've had enough of Kuang and war (!), but on the basis of Fortuna's recommendation, I've reserved Kuang's new book Yellowface from the library. I'm only number 34 in the queue 😁

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage I concurred with your review of Babel which I read last year. For me, it started really well but ran out of steam and the pacing was off. A lot of the time it felt a bit like Harry Potter does Oxford and too firmly YA. You are right - it was preachy about the evils of Empire and being born white (I'm also middle aged and "pass" for white but am actually mixed race). Perhaps being middle aged we are just too old and have too much experience of and knowledge about history and the world for the "lessons" to seem insightful or revelatory. @cassandre I can see how young students would rate it!

That's interesting Sapat, I totally agree with your point about age. I think Kuang's (relative) lack of subtlety is related to her youth, even though that sounds like a very patronising thing to say!

My teenage DS, who is a sweetheart, can also be extremely definitive when debating ethical issues with his aging parents over the dinner table. Ah, to be young and full of passion...

@cassandre I see your point, and I agree with @SapatSea that I am probably just the wrong generation to properly appreciate the book - I would probably feel differently about it if I was 20 years younger! Maybe I’ll eventually revise my feelings enough to de-italicise it - it was definitely the contrast with the Kate Mosse book that turned my dislike of the book into proper anger. I’m probably reacting in a way which people who like the book would say is completely predictable, coming from a middle-aged (ouch! But I guess I am now…) white woman…

On another topic, @Stokey (and Cassandre) I won’t be picking up Birthday Party any time soon - thanks for the warning! - but I did get another of the International Booker longlisted (and subsequently shortlisted) books out of the library - The Gospel According to the New World / L’Evangile du Nouveau Monde by Maryse Condé. I ran out of renewals before even starting it 😂 but am thinking I’ll get it back out to read over the summer.

94. Atomic Habits by James Clear

As a self help book this is very American stylistically, and largely statements of the obvious and money for old rope. Nothing I hadn't thought of.

RE : Babel it frustrated me, the silver idea had so much unused scope. It went very silly after China, I didn't like the Marvel movie type ending. Did think there was brilliance in there. Could have made a much better trilogy, definitely more YA which I didn't feel ( beyond the beginning) about Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow...etc

I bought Babel in a kindle deal a while back and all the talk about it is tempting me to move it up my tbr.

72 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
I loved this stream of consciousness tale of a number of guests staying with the Ramsay family in their holiday home on the Isle of Skye. The Ramsey’s are based on Woolf’s parents and some of the writing, especially in part 2, is absolutely sublime. This is my third Woolf this year and I’ve loved them all- definitely becoming a new favourite author. This one is a bold.

73 It’s Not About the Burqa- Ed Mariam Khan
I got this in a kindle monthly deal- perhaps last month. It’s a series of essays about being a Muslim woman and feminist in the U.K. I feel I learned a lot from reading this. Essays dealt with a range of issues such as covering, arranged marriage and feeling othered. The balance of feminism, faith and race was common across all essays. A really interesting read.

17 The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

A group of friends, and their partners, who met at Oxford spend the New Year holiday in a remote but luxurious lodge in the Scottish Highlands. Over the years their group dynamic has changed and some of them, like the lodge staff, have secrets. They become completely cut off by the snow and then a body is found and it is not from natural causes. They were not a likeable bunch so it was difficult to become invested in them. The timeline jumps from the couple of days before the body was found to just after which I don't think added anything. It also follows the different characters. It's basically an Agatha Christie situation. The reader is kept in the dark about a lot of things which was annoying
but done to keep you guessing (just not very well). The most glaring being that they found "a body" when you would naturally say "I found Joe Bloggs" or others would say "who was it?". There were a bit too many implausibilities (for me) but then I guess it is a whodunnit. It was an OK read, but maybe it is just the wrong time of year to be reading about being snowed in in late December!

18 The Sight of You by Holly Miller

Joel has premonitions in the form of dreams about people he loves, the good, the bad and the mundane and how he deals with this has pretty much ruined his life. The very few people who he has opened up to about his "gift" have treated him with disdain and so he lives his life having as little sleep as possible constantly tired and anxious. He avoids relationships because he has always dreamt about how they will end and past girlfriends have become frustrated by him and his lifestyle. Then he meets Callie, who comes with her own baggage, grieving over her best friend and with little self esteem and they click. The book is told from both their perspectives. Enjoyable 6/10.

19 The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

A global pandemic that decimates the population especially women and children. Pregnant women and their babies particularly at risk. About 99% of men are wiped out and it is higher for women. Set in the US, the world of the survivors is chaotic and dangerous especially for the few women left. A female midwife sets out to find somewhere safe to settle, dressing as a man for her own safety, and charts her progress in a book. Dystopian and not a cheery read!

20 The Book of Etta by Meg Elison

Set decades after The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Etta is a raider who lives in a town called Nowhere where women are treasured especially mothers and midwives. The effects of the plague are still felt and pregnancy and birth is very high risk with a low birth rate. Outside of Nowhere is still dangerous especially for women. Whenever Etta leaves Nowhere she dresses as a man (becoming Eddy) like her hero the Unnamed Midwife. She prefers to be a man. Her friends and family cannot understand why she does this as men are seen as inferior and being a midwife or mother a more desirable option. She leaves to raid/scavenge but mainly to rescue abused women and girls. When those that she loves are captured by a leader of a gang, who basically wants all the women, she decides to try to find a way rescue them. Again not cheery!

21 The Book of Flora by Meg Elison

Following on from The Book of Etta, the survivors leave Estriel. Later Flora (the nattator), Eddy and Alice go off on their own. Flora was 'cut' or gelded as a young boy and now lives as/is a woman. She buys a slave child to raise as her own. As an old woman an army is advancing on her home destroying all in it's way. This story is less about plot and more about gender fluidity and acceptance. It's part Flora's travelog and part her diary looking back over her life several years on. It builds to a climax that, ironically, is anti climatic (and a tad ridiculous). There is a weird bit at the end that seems to be stuffed in as an afterthought and really needed a bit more explanation and context. It didn't really work for me. It's OK but not as good as the other books in the trilogy.

27 Wings of Fire #1: The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland

Read to the children. I've got another 14 of these to go. Largely humourless and quite violent. Not a patch on How to Train Your Dragon.

28 The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

It took me a while to get into this, as I had left it too long since reading the first in the series, but by the second half I was completely engrossed. I enjoyed this more than the first one, I think. I definitely had a mercurial, all-consuming friend like Lila in my late teens/early 20s* and as everyone has already said many times and much more eloquently than me, Ferrante gets right inside that relationship, opening up even those memories you'd prefer to stay closed. She captures that stage of life so well; now I'm in my 40s, looking back at myself over those years is like reading a story, not like remembering something that happened to me, so reading someone else's evocation isn't so far removed. I will try not to leave it so long before reading the next instalment.

*She's still my friend and I still love her, but we're all much more sedate these days.

@Welshwabbit I've been meaning to read the second Elana Ferrante book for years but think I'd have to reread the first one now as I can hardly remember it. I liked but didn't love the first one which I think is why it's taken so long to get round the the next one.

1599: A Year in the life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro

A look at Shakespeare through the lens of his work in 1599 and the political events at the time. Learnt quite a lot, especially regarding England's involvement with Ireland at the time (something which I'm very ignorant about in general) I'd recommend for anyone interested in Shakespeare rather than a causal reader as there is a lot of reference and analysis of various parts of his work during this year.

Cursed Bunny by Bara Chung

Short stories from Korea. I notice quite a few of the reviews mention how weird and gross some of these stories are, but I like dark, weird and sometimes gross so I loved this. A lot of the stories had a very feminist edge and in particular commentary on how women are treated in society.

The Feast by Margaret Kennedy

Thoughts over on the dated book club thread but this one will be a bold.

On a mission to speed through as many Kindle Unlimited books as possible before my subscription expires, so books 68 to 70 were books 2-4 in the Time Hunters series by Carl Ashmore: The Time Hunters and the Box of Eternity; Spear of Fate; Sword of Ages. These children's books make no claims on originality - the author seems to have a swept an armful of books off the shelf and challenged himself to use every single cliche. The children's eccentric inventor uncle takes them time-travelling where they encounter pirates, mummies, unicorns, zombie sharks, cyborgs and too many others to list. Each time the children have to race to find a powerful relic before the Nazi henchmen get there. No sooner have they laid hands on it than the aforesaid henchmen suddenly materialize. Oh no - but hist, can that be the hoofbeats of the cavalry in the distance? The comfort of children's books is that generally the cavalry is on its way. I commute a couple of times a week by train, and these added some escapist fun to the journey.

Book 71 is The Company of Heaven, by Catherine Fox. I've talked about this series before - set in the diocese of Lindford, it focuses on a set of interlinked characters, all connected in one way or another to the CofE. They fret about being good and want to be loved and crack a few ribald jokes. A high percentage of the characters are gay and the general effect is if Armstead Maupin crossed the Atlantic and converted to High Anglicism. A few others on here tried them, to a somewhat mixed reception. This is the fifth in the trilogy (nod to Douglas Adams), and strictly one for the fans. If the author annoyed you previously by hovering above her characters on angel wings, do NOT attempt this - she doubles down hard on the conceit. She says herself she just wanted to know how her characters would get on in 2021-22, so here we go. It's not her best work, but I have enough affection for her world to appreciate the update.

72. Miss Marple's Final Cases, Agatha Christie
Dear Jane unravels clues in a number of short stories.

@cassandre you definitely need a break after Ducks. It is hard work but you do get used to it by the second half. Maybe it's less convoluted in French. I prefer the French title.

@DuPainDuVinDuFromage I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on The Gospel. It's an amazing achievement but I'm not sure it appeals to me. The 3 international Booker's I've read so far have been a real mixed bag. My favourite has been Still Born but that also has issues, as well as being potentially triggering. I want to read Boulder and Time Shelter which won, but I'm not sure about the others.

Thanks for recommending Eleanor and Park @EineReiseDurchDieZeit . I bought it for the DDs but inhaled it in a day before they got their sticky mitts on it. Perfect antidote for heavy French literature. It's so sweet but also sad. Being young is hard.

@Stokey

You're welcome

I was soo frustrated by the end

No! no! You can't end THERE

Good to see your Company of Heaven review Biblio - I think I'll wait for it to be in the library or come down in price!