64 Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
I think Terry Pratchett just isn’t for me. I’ve tried a few and they are…fine. I can see the writing is very good, and some of the sentences are outstanding, but they never grab my imagination in the way I hope they will.
65 Babel by R F Kuang
No need to re-review this, as you’ve all done it better. I thought the central idea was very clever but lost my way a touch half way through and found the sermonising a touch heavy handed.
66 Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh
Travelogue from Rajesh’s journey round a large part of Europe and Asia with her slightly cipher-like boyfriend. Entertaining enough but not that memorable.
67 Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz
A series of essays and pen portraits of Hollywood in the Seventies where Babitz grew up. She is the anti-Joan Didion; equally smart and talented but less serious. Rather fabulous and just what I needed.
68 The Nun’s Story by Kathryn Hulme
Somewhat of a contrast to Babitz, though I was entertained to be reading them in parallel, this is a novel about a Belgian girl who joins a convent just before WW2, and then is posted to the Congo. I don’t recall this one coming up in our discussions of Nun Fiction in previous threads but this was very very good. Probably not for those who aren’t fascinated by the idea of nuns or struggles with faith and duty, as there is a whole lot of nunning, but if you have, this is the book for you.
69 The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
I cannot believe it took me so long to read these, after so many false starts with Wolf Hall. The period detail is so well done without being laboured and the interminable machinations of courtiers never felt tedious. Despite knowing what was coming for Cromwell, and when and why, didn’t detract at all from the horror when it happened or the hope that it all may turn round for him. I can imagine going back to these books more than once. Perhaps it is time to pick up the copy of A Place of Greater Safety that’s been on my shelf for as long as I can remember.
70 Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken
Lightly argued but robustly researched exploration of the evils of ultra-processed foods and the impact of the food industry on human and planetary health. It came at a good time for me as I have been trying to eat differently and to avoid things that I know I tend to eat too much of, and I found this very persuasive. Not sure it’s a hard no to UPF for me forever but I certainly find myself not feeling nearly as attracted to it as I was before.
71 The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
Shades of Infinite Jest without the tedium, this is the story of a week in the summer in Vacca Vale, a town in Indiana that is slowly dying despite the developers’ attempts to gentrify it. This was funny and clever and not at all what I expected.
72 The Premonition Bureau by Sam Knight
I really rate Knight’s journalism and he can’t write a bad sentence but I never really clicked with this book which felt as if it were a New Yorker article he got commissioned to turn into a book. The central premise – can some people foretell the future and what happens when they try – got a bit overshadowed by the details around some of the disasters that they may (or may not) have foretold and the story of the key figure who set up the “Premonition Bureau” to try to track this. I didn’t hate this, but I don’t think it was a particularly engaging story and probably didn’t need to be a book.
73 The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
Not much plot, particularly in contrast to The Silence of the Girls, as this is set immediately after the Trojan War while the Greeks are waiting to leave. Briseis has now been married to one of Achilles’ fellow soldiers after his death in battle while other Trojan women arrive in the Greek camp as slaves after Troy has been sacked. I thought this was – as with The Silence of the Girls – very good at conjuring up the military camp, but there was less than I had hoped in terms of a story.
74 The Cliff House by Chris Brookmyre
Back in the day I loved Brookmyre’s books but stopped reading them around the time I had children (when I stopped reading much at all for a few years). Thanks to @Passmethecrisps for the heads up on this as it was just what I needed for a travel day and a lengthy airport delay. Far-fetched fun with a violent twisty turny plot, and I like the fact he writes about women without feeling the need to endlessly describe their physique.
75 The Bookseller’s Tale by Martin Latham
I am often disappointed by books about books but keep buying them in the hope they will be like this, which is essentially a somewhat unstructured series of anecdotes about books and people who read, buy, sell and collect them. Latham has worked at Waterstones for many years and books are in his blood (his sister is a librarian, his father was a passionate collector) and he’s gathered stories from all over the world about books, our relationships with them, and how we look after them, shelve them, look after them and how we don’t look after them.