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?

All Quiet is one of my favourite books, heartbreaking but beautiful. I ended up buying a few more books this morning. I decided to give The Mermaid of Black Conch a punt as it’s pretty short. I’m loving Elizabeth Strout’s writing and a few people have compared her to Louise Erdrich so I bought The Night Watchman then Trust was in my daily email which I hadn’t heard of till eine bought it yesterday. I must stop buying books now!

50. X-Men (2019) Vol 3 by Jonathan Hickman

More from the X-Men’s Krakoa run. They’re in space visiting the Shi’ar Empire for a bit of this though, which I always find less interesting.

51. How to Stop Overthinking by Chase Hill & Scott Sharp

As per the title, advice on stopping overthinking.

52. A Practical Guide to CBT: From Stress to Strength by Elaine Iljon Foreman and Clair Pollard

Again, as per the title. The jury’s currently out on how useful these two books were.

53. Idol by Louise O’Neill

Fiction. Sam, a wellness guru with a large online following, has released a new book in which she writes about her sexual awakening with her teenage best friend, Lisa. But then Lisa gets in touch - more than 20 years after they last spoke - to say that’s not how she remembers it.

Sam is not a sympathetic character at all. Very self absorbed, plenty of issues she’s suppressing, and a bizarre obsession with trying to force herself into her estranged best friend’s life.

I’m still not sure how I feel about this one. I can’t say I liked it, but it did keep me reading till the end.

54. Generation X Vol 1: Natural Selection by Christina Strain / Amilcar Pinna

Focusing on some of the younger mutants. The story was ok, but the artwork in this book was terrible.

55. Sex Robots & Vegan Meat by Jenny Kleeman

This was kind of strange. And unsettling. Kleeman is looking at 4 areas where some people are trying to expand technology into.
Those are sex robots, lab grown meat, artificial wombs, and death machines for euthanasia. I found the last section particularly upsetting as it brought up a lot of memories about a relative who died by suicide a few years ago.

Anyway. The things discussed in this book are all works in progress, but there’s some disturbing implications there and some seriously dystopian possibilities.

56. Bookworm by Lucy Mangan

I think a lot of people on this thread have already read this book.
It was a much more soothing read than book 55.

There’s quite a lot of overlap between the contents of Bookworm and my childhood reading, so it was lovely to see Mangan’s recollections of them and to be reminded of some old favourites.

@TattiePants

It won the Pulitzer but I've only heard of it due to BookTube

Awww Thelwall.

<Adding ponies to 50 Bookers Venn Diagram>

I remember lots of talk about the Lucy Mangan- amidst lots of love (I bought the paperback as I loved the Kindle 99p so much) we did reach the conclusion that it was unfeasible for her (given her age) to have read so passionately and at the time she claims to have done, ALL the books she claims to have (remember her faux Pas about the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe) but ultimately it didn't detract from a lovely memoir.

I think Trust was on the Booker shortlist for 2022. I haven't read it though.

I've just read 3 short books in 3 days, all of which were good in different ways. If anyone needs a quick read to boost numbers or get themselves out of a reading rut, any of these could work.

48. Homesick - Jennifer Croft. This was on the Women's Prize Longlist and there was a bit of controversy about it because it was first published as a novel in Spanish called "Snakes and Ladders", then published as a memoir with added photos in the US in 2019, and then published again as a novel, this time without photos in 2022 in the UK. It's about Amy and her younger sister Zoe who do everything together. Zoe becomes very ill when they're children and Amy leaves school and ends up being home schooled with Zoe. This really follows Amy especially in the second half of the book when she goes to college, but it's also about the binds between sisters, and about language. Jennifer Croft is a translator who's translated Olga Tokarczuk among others. It's written in a deceptively simple style, present tense, but has a lot in it. I felt it petered out a bit towards the end but was a good read. I'd be interested in seeing the US version with Amy's photos.

49. Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated by Julia Sanches. This was shortlisted for the International Booker this year and was originally written in Catalan. Boulder is a woman living an itinerant life as a cook on a boat in Chile. She falls in love with a Scandanavian geologist Samsa, who gives her the nickname Boulder. They start seeing each other when Boulder comes into port.
    "The truth is I'm intoxicated with her. Samsa courses through my veins. My fingers enter her as I gut the lamb"
    Samsa then accepts a job in Reykjavik and Boulder goes with her. She starts working in a restaurant, then a pub and then starts her own food van to have something of herself. Then Samsa decides she wants a child and everything changes.
    The decision precedes a living being that already exists and takes over everything. Its presence has dimension; it occupies the house with concrete tentacles, sinks into the skulls of the people who live there, and clings to the fine membrane that sheaths their grey matter. I can't get away"
    It's written in the first person and it's quite intense, because Boulder is intense. She's selfish and doesn't really like many people, is preoccupied with her own sensuous desires. But it's brilliantly written - Baltasar is also a poet- and she packs a lot in to 100 pages.

50 Foster - Claire Keegan. This is kind of the opposite of Boulder's messy emotions. A very understated book that says so much in few words about a girl who is sent to live with some relatives while her mother has yet another baby. The contrast between her chaotic family life and the life she comes into is written so well, from the viewpoint of the girl so we discover things as she does. I thought this was just beautiful and an looking forward to watching the Irish language movie of it, The Quiet Girl, that was up for an Oscar earlier this year.

45: The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes - Kate Strasdin

Thanks to Remus for tipping me off about this; it duly went on my wishlist and turned up as a birthday present from DH last month.

Kate Strasdin is a historian of dress and textiles and in 2016 a friend made her a gift of an old album containing thousands of samples of 19thc fabric. They’d all been collected and painstakingly pasted in, but just one of the many handwritten captions identified the owner as Anne Sykes - a mill-owner's daughter from Clitheroe in Lancashire who'd married businessman Adam Sykes in 1838, and travelled with him to Singapore, where they lived for 7 years, before eventually coming back to England and settling once more in the North.

It's a great story and anyone interested in historical textiles would give their eye-teeth to own that album - Strasdin has worked miracles in winkling out as much information as she’s managed, but…much as I hate to be curmudgeonly, I'm not convinced there’s enough to get a whole book out of it. Every other paragraph seems to begin with 'we can only imagine Anne attending a ball clad in her finest silks..' or 'we can never know what Anne thought about her time in Singapore…' and 'of Anne's life at this point we know almost nothing'. And on and on in the same vein. There are some interesting diversions into things like the history of mourning clothes and the development of aniline dyes (which allowed fabrics to be dyed a rich purple for the first time), but some of the research is a bit lacking, and unfortunately the coloured plates of pages from the actual book of fabrics aren't well reproduced.

I feel bad saying this as I can totally understand how the impulse would be to write a book about something so exciting. It’s just a shame that Strasdin didn’t get luckier with the research.

I loved The Dress Diary. How do you mean, some of the research is lacking? (I’m not an expert in any of the subjects touched on, so I’ve no idea!).

Putting The Dress Diary on DDs Christmas list. It’s so up her street.

I followed Kate Strasdin on Twitter (back when you could read it without an account) and The Dress Diary is on my birthday list. Shame the illustrations are not great, as I think good quality photos would really add to the book. I will read it regardless.

41 Walking The Woods And The Water - Nick Hunt

It was with some trepidation that I set out to read this, my second Mr B’s book, in which the author follows Patrick Leigh Fermor’s epic journey on foot across Europe, 80 years later. Happily, my fears of a second-rate dupe were unfounded. Though Hunt is inspired by PLF, and follows (by and large) his 1933 route from Holland to Istanbul, the journey is very much his own; and though the trip has little of the youthful exuberance and romance of the original, it’s still a fascinating and very well written account of what’s changed across Europe in the intervening decades - and what hasn’t. Of course it’s not as good as PLF (what is?) but still a highly enjoyable read.

@MaudOfTheMarches I need to try and look at another copy of the book to see whether I’ve got a duff one. The pale fabrics (and there are quite a lot of them) are so pale you can barely see them in my copy. The dark ones are better. But there’s a QR code so you can go to a website with more pages from the album. They are fascinating and some of them seem amazingly modern.

@MarkWithaC it’s not to do with the clothes but…eg someone was living 'in her brother's house in West Derby' in Liverpool according to the census…well, no, West Derby was the overall name of the census registration district, not the place, and if you looked at an 1851 map of Liverpool you’d see they were living practically in the centre of the city. Perhaps a minor point but things like that ought to be right.

I enjoyed the book but I felt the frustration (which I’m sure Kate Strasdin shares) of not having any more information about Anne Sykes and her life.

I'm loving the pony books memories, as someone who spent much of her childhood reading books by the Pullein-Thompson sisters, Ruby Ferguson and Patricia Leitch! I loved the James Herriot books too, and am wondering whether DD (10) would enjoy them too. I can't remember how suitable they are, so may have to re-read, unless anyone with a better memory than me can comment?

40. The Heron's Cry, by Ann Cleeves
These stories - it's part of the Three Rivers series, set in North Devon - are more downbeat than the Vera ones, and in some ways more gritty. Ann Cleeves' background in social care is to the fore: the first book dealt with the integration of (and vulnerability of) adults with learning disabilities in society, and this one takes in overstretched NHS mental health services, economic regeneration/gentrification and whistleblowing. This is a rare example of a crime novel where the character building and the background research is more satisfying than the mystery itself - normally it's the reverse in my experience. As a result, I found the last 10% a bit flat in comparison with what led up to it. Despite that, I didn't find it depressing and would recommend them to anyone who wants a well-written but undemanding read.

41. The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
Much reviewed here (including by TattiePants earlier in this thread), so no need to recap the story. I warmed to this quite quickly but my enthusiasm had cooled a bit by the end, only to warm up again in the final few chapters, which are enjoyably brutal and action-packed. I think it's partly because it's has such a whiff of the book club about it: neon-lit "Issues", slightly unconvincing dialogue, a narrator who never shows when they could tell. Although it's not a long book, it feels quite slow in places, and the narrative sagged at times. I found the tone uneven too: at the start, I thought it was going to be a whip-smart black comedy, but the humour became rather broad at times and the romance was pretty predictable (although fizzled out without much explanation at the end, unless I missed something?) Similarly, the narrative is full of Indian terminology and idioms, incorporated very naturally - but then Shroff throws in lots of US slang and suddenly her villagers sound like Valley Girls on a wisecracking sitcom. The focus on the grinding poverty (and often brutality) of Indian village life also feels a bit shoehorned in, as if Shroff is making a point for her western readers. Having said all that, I did enjoy it a lot, and I ended up giving it 4 stars on Goodreads! I just don't think it was particularly heavyweight literature or worthy of winning the Women's Prize.

42. Gargantis by Thomas Taylor
Read to the DCs, but much enjoyed by me. This is the second Eerie-on-Sea book (after Malamander) and continues the adventures of Herbert Lemon and Violet Parma as they investigate strange and maritime-themed goings on in an eerie and slightly off-kilter seaside town. These books are well-written, well-imagined and just the right amount of creepy - and they're also pretty funny. I'm really happy to have found a series that both the DCs and I like!

@Terpsichore Good to hear there is a QR code, thank you.

@mackerella I also had all the P-T pony books, the Jill books and the Jinnie books. I still use Jill's analysis of Ann's dopy mother having a "milk chocolate voice" to describe somebody insipid and lacking in character. 🤣

I reread some James Herriots last year, I think they've aged pretty well.

@So1invictus I hadn't remembered the "milk chocolate voice" but will mentally use it for various acquaintances from now on . I'm planning to read some pony books as a restorative treat after a gruelling few months at work, maybe over the summer. A few hours dreaming of riding boldly to hounds or achieving a clear round and bending agilely round poles at the local gymkhana sounds like just the ticket. I hope they hold up well (and am glad that James Herriot has).

I've just remembered the thrill that I got from finding a character with my (moderately unusual) name in one of those books! (No, I'm not called Pamela, Judy, Robina or Augusta ).

@JaninaDuszejko

I thought the Mermaid of the Black Conch was a great read. My book club want to read it because they have had so many recommends from friends.

22 The City and 23 The Immortal Throne by Stella Gemmell

Fantasy set in medieval type world during tumultuous times and follows a group of characters. The City is ruled over by a mysterious emperor and a handful of prominent families who are all long lived/ancient and some have strange powers. The City is in fact several cities built on top of each other turning the river into an underground sewer which is not being monitored or repaired. The City has great inequality and the people are being ground down by constant wars with surrounding lands. The young (men and women) are conscripted and spend their lives fighting. Their is a plot to kill the emperor to stop the wars and decay, but once that is achieved an enemy ruler with better technology advances on the City aiming to totally destroy it.

I have put these books together as book one runs into book two. There are a lot of characters which I found confusing at times. Some of it was a bit boring and there was a lot of descriptions of fighting that became repetitive. The explanation into the families special powers was unbelievable and a bit silly (I thought). They were an OK read but I have read much better fantasy style books and wouldn't choose to read another by this author.

24 Replay by Ken Grimwood

Jeff dies in his early 40's and wakes up when he is 18 to relive his life again until he dies at exactly the same time as before and again comes back at age 18 to do it all again. He has several of these "replays" coming back at slightly different times and meeting and interacting with a couple of other "replayers". Each life is different. Although this is science fiction, it is quite philosophical and the plot/story is really good. Although it sounds ideal to keep reliving your life, it is not without its difficulties, they never have the 'perfect' life and Jeff learns to appreciate life and living. The twist at the end was satisfying. I really enjoyed reading this book.

38 That Night - Gillian McAllister This was really not good. Unlikeable and unrealistic characters, slow and repetitive plot. It was a real slog to get through to the end, and it wasn’t worth it.

@mackerella I 🥰 Thomas Taylor. They are the only books (apart from A Series of Unfortunate Events) that I could get DS3 interested in. We’ve tweeted the writer a few times and he always replies calling DS3 by his name and we preordered Festergrimm from a shop he recommended and he went in a did a doodle of Erwin and dedicated it to him.

This came up on my Facebook memories today. One for the Thelwall fans. My horse is definitely in the whoa dammit category even at 24.

I really need to find something light and fluffy now, or dryly factual!

44 Beastings by Benjamin Myers
No one writes horror and despair as beautifully as Myers.
A girl escapes with a baby that is not hers across the Lakeland Fells, pursued by a Priest and a Poacher. Kindness towards her by others is never rewarded pleasantly. Commas, speech marks or basic humanity are not to be found.
I did love it, while being repulsed by some of the situations, which I’m sure was the intention. You can see it as a comment on patriarchal religion and the strength of the spirit, but it is rooted in the unforgiving earth and nature doesn’t really care for humans any more than She does for animals.
A content warning would be: contains scenes and themes of unbearable bleakness.

33. The Space Between Us - Doug Johnstone
Three strangers - heavily pregnant Ava, children's home resident Lennox and divorced, bereaved and terminally ill Heather - see a bright light in the sky above Scotland one night and are struck down by strokes, from which they all spontaneously recover. The same night, a strange cephalopod is washed up on a beach nearby. The three gradually come to realise that the creature is able to communicate with them, and helps them in various ways to connect and to overcome their immediate situations. The three (four if you count Sandy the alien) are pursued across the Highlands by Ava's abusive husband and M17, the government department responsible for monitoring extraterrestrial threats, and they are assisted by journalist Ewan, who finds his own meaning in the chase. It's not terribly deep - we are all connected, be nice to each other, don't fuck up the environment - but the pacy plot and the Highlands setting (possibly the first time aliens have been placed in Ullapool harbour) makes for an enjoyable read.

After the marathon of Strike, I have indulged in some quick reads:

41. Rizzio - Denise Mina

Much recommended on here. The murder of Rizzio, secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, and also apparently lover of her husband, Darnley. That was news to me but maybe a fact which is not flagged up on the school syllabus. I thought this was great and wished it had lasted longer.

42. Sylvester - Georgette Heyer

Sylvester decides it’s time to marry and assumes because of his title and position he can choose his bride. The thought of rejection does not enter Sylvester’s head but then he encounters Phoebe and whilst he has no wish to marry her, he does not take it well when she makes it clear that she has even less desire to marry him. Reliably entertaining with lots of scrapes, some ghastly minor characters and a happy ending.

43. Beyond the Wand - Tom Felton

Picked this up in a Kindle deal. I have read the books and seen the films (and prefer the books) but am not a mega Harry Potter fan. It’s not overly long but I thought the author came across well, very aware of his good luck, not at all arrogant and shared both the highs and lows of his life. Worth a read if you have an interest in Harry Potter.

44. Evil under the Sun - Agatha Christie

July’s Christie challenge book. Poirot is staying at a hotel on a Devon island (a thinly disguised Burgh island) when one of the guests is murdered. Arlene is a well-known actress who is a man’s woman. Both her husband and her lover are also staying in the hotel along with her stepdaughter and her lover’s wife. Only her lover seems upset by her death. I had quite a good recall of this one so Poirot’s reveal was not a surprise.

45. Maame by Jessica George. Following Maddie, a young British-Ghanaian woman who lives at home caring for her father, feels stuck in a dead end job and has never had a boyfriend. She has the opportunity to move out and try a new life with a new job, friends and relationships, while trying to work out what she really wants.

I found this very warm and readable. It has a lot in common with Queenie which I liked a lot. As well as being funny, it captures very well the feeling of having to grow up much faster than your peers - in Maddie's case due to her caring responsibilities - which I related to.

There were definitely bits where I thought, come on no one is that naive, and the ending relied on a string of fairly implausible good luck. But overall I thought this was a great new voice and really enjoyable.

46. Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield. Reviewed by many people already, Miri waits at home as her wife Leah is delayed on a deep sea diving mission. When she returns she is changed in increasingly unsettling ways.

Really beautifully written and (or but?) often very uncomfortable. I found it a little bit too oblique and would have liked to know a bit more about what was really going on under the sea. But it must have affected me as I had strange, watery dreams all last night.