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?

It’s the other way round for me Welsh. I didn’t like Daisy but really like Carrie.

Thanks Clueless - I have read Apples Never Fall.

Funnily enough, I didn’t like Daisy but loved Carrie Soto too. It might be the order I read them in - Daisy was the first. Maybe I need to try it again.

43 The Adversary - Emmanuel Carrere

Thanks to whoever reviewed this upthread. Hesitate to call it an enjoyable read as the subject matter is so ghastly- man lives a total lie for 18 years, defrauding his family, then kills them when he’s about to be found out- but it’s an utterly compelling, chilling tale about the ‘banality of evil’.

9.. The Massacre of Mankind by Stephen Baxter

The sequel to H G Wells' War of the Worlds, written by one of the best and most accomplished hard SF authors of our time - What can go wrong? Or so I thought

This was incredibly dull and pointless, with literally nothing happening but dull conversations between some of the dullest specimens of the human race, all written in that long-forgotten old-style "Oh deary me!" English that fans of Nevil Shute's On The Beach will recognize. It took me over a month to read, with long stretches when I didn't even remember where I had left my Kindle. That is how much I hated this book and didn't care to read another page of it.

Avoid.

10.. The Steps of the Sun by Walter Tevis

Tevis is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. I read and very much enjoyed The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Hustler, and The Queen's Gambit before this book, all of which were slowly absorbing and profound in their own way despite their vastly different subject matters. This book was no different.

The Steps of the Sun takes place on an Earth that has exhausted its energy resources, where a diminished mankind is in the process of adapting to a nearly Medieval existence. One of the richest men on Earth, a maverick figure like Elon Musk, jets off into space in the first personal space craft in search of a fuel-rich planet.

It may sound somewhat juvenile and parts of the book certainly are, but Tevis's recurrent themes of addiction, psychological trauma and baggage, as well as healing are also present in this story. They make an interesting adventure of exploration and self-discovery, spiced by political intrigue.

Recommended.

Waves at @CoteDAzur 👋 good to see you!

Everyone Here Is Lying by Shari Lapena

The disappearance of a 9 year old girl leads to the revealing of lots of secrets in her neighbourhood. This never really got going for me. There wasn’t much tension and the ending fell flat. Not recommended.

A few updates from me.. :)

The Provincial Lady Goes Further- EM Delafield

I did enjoy this as much as the first book but the format felt a bit repetitive by the end, don't think I'll be looking out the other books in the series just yet.

The Colony- Audrey Macgee

I liked this a lot but felt short-changed by the ending- there was a lot of dramatic tension built up around Francis that I thought didn't really come to much, Mairead's ending felt a bit incomplete too.

The Summer Before the War- Helen Simonsen

This was a really nice surprise- got it off Borrowbox as an audiobook only because it happened to be available. It's set in WWI, all about the impact of the war on a small village but there's a surprising amount of humour in it and it's beautifully written. One of the few audiobooks where I've stopped halfway through and bought a paper copy because I wanted to slow down getting to the end. Easily a bold and my book of the year so far. It is a bit of a doorstopper, which normally might annoy me, but didn't with this book.

53 The Mitford: Letters Between Six Sisters ed by Charlotte Mosley.
I’d planned to pick up and put down this book whilst reading other books but once I started, I couldn’t put it down. This account chronicles their lives via their previously unpublished correspondence between each other. The letters are frequently witty, sometimes sad but always fascinating and provide an interesting commentary on upper middle class life in the 20th century life. I particularly enjoyed the letters from the 1930-40s in the run up to and during WWII. I think I might have a reread of Hons and Rebels soon.

54 Foster by Claire Keegan
Much reviewed on this thread so I’ll just add that I loved this and wish it had been three times longer.

Yay Tattie I'm so glad, it's one of my all time as everyone knows because I bore about it

I loved it and can imagine picking it up regularly just to read a small section or a few letters in the future. Do you have any other Mitford recommendations? I’ve read Nancy’s books and Hons & Rebels.

Deborah’s autobiography Wait for Me! Is good. Also try Take Six Girls by Laura Thompson and The Mitford Girls by Mary Lovell. And The House of Mitford by Jonathan Guiness (Diana’s son).

Brilliant, thanks.

I don't personally think ANY are as good as Letters but with Hons And Rebels a close second.

Love, Nancy is interesting as well. Some of the biographies are very fawning and they just were not people who responded to that sort of thing, always go own words I think, in the case of the Mitfords

55 Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Olive is a retired school teacher living in a small coastal town in Maine struggling to make sense of the changes happening to her as she grows older. Each chapter is written as a self contained short story but always includes Olive, sometimes it’s a fleeting mention as she walks through a restaurant, other times, she’s the focus. I really enjoy Strout’s writing and this didn’t disappoint. It’s slow paced and not a lot happens but I became very fond of Olive (although I don’t think I’d want to be related to her). I loved the complexities in her relationships with her husband and her son and it managed to be witty and poignant at the same time.

56 End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck
Next time I consider DNFing a book I’m going to remember this as a reason why I should listen to my gut. A third of the way in I was going to give up but it has great reviews and should have been right up my street so I plodded on.

It chronicles the life of an unnamed woman living in Eastern Europe during the twentieth century. It’s written as five separate but linked books and at the end of each book the girl/woman dies (think Life After Life). In the first book she dies of SIDS and her parents lives implode, she’s then a suicidal teen post WWI, a comrade in the Soviet Union, an East German author and finally a lonely ninety year old dying in a care home. Each ‘book’ is linked by an intermezzo giving an alternate ending where she doesn’t die.

My biggest problem was that none of the characters have names and I was frequently half way through a chapter before I realised who the chapter was about and this just distracted from the story. It then got worse as in the third book, everyone was Comrade H or Comrade S. I also found it too repetitive. It just wasn’t for me.

@TattiePants I read Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck earlier this year which was about African refugees and an old east German professor who befriends them. It was good but very slow moving. I don't think I'll be reaching for the above one!

57. In Memoriam - Alice Winns. This is one of those books that all the social media book people I follow seem to be raving about. It's about two young men at public school at the start of WW1. Ellwood is the gilded golden boy that everyone adores, the poet who quotes Tennyson and is idealistic about war. Gaunt is half-German, a quiet boxer who likes Thucydides. They are best friends and both secretly in love with the other. Gaunt is persuaded to sign up near the start of the war and the action soon moves to the trenches. The In Memoriam part is the lists published in their school magazine. I devoured this over the weekend. it's poignant and passionate and of course explores the horrors of war. The relationship between Gaunt and Ellwood is beautifully written, the awkwardness and difficulty they have as well as their friendship. The black humour of war come across and some stories reminiscent of other war literature - Journey's End, the war poets. It's also incredibly graphic and gory in parts. I guess my only criticism is the focus on public school boys is a bit narrow, and some of the characters are a bit stereotyped, but I think on the whole this is a bold for me.

I keep seeing this Mid Year Book Tag on social so I thought I'd list a Top 5 so far and it's :

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield
Hazards Of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates
Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

and

Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo

Anyone else?

@Stokey

RE In Memoriam

Do you watch Eric Karl Andersen? He gave it a rave - it's on my Wishlist

Yes I do Eine I generally rate his reviews (although he loved The Birthday Party which I really didn't like). I haven't read any of yours so will add!

My top 5 are hard... It's been a good year but would probably go for

The Sentence - Louise Erdrich
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies - Maddie Mortimer
Fire Rush - Jacqueline Crooks
Demon Copperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
In Memoriam - Alice Winns

Ooo 3 of yours on my TBR!

In Memoriam is on my wish list too (and yes partly because of Eric Karl Anderson- I love his reviews)

I’m struggling for a top 5 as I’ve had a great reading year so far. It may be something completely different tomorrow but today it’s
Olive Kitteridge- Elizabeth Strout
Dubliners- James Joyce
The Great Believers- Rebecca Makkai
Mrs Dalloway- Virginia Woolf
The Remains of the Day- Kazuo Ishiguro

As you can see, I’m doing a lot of backlist reading!

@Stokey I’ve read and loved two of your five and 2 more on my tbr @EineReiseDurchDieZeit 4 of yours are on my tbr so that’s a good sign!

@BaruFisher

Only one I've not read is the Rebecca Makkai

Loved Mrs Dalloway and Dubliners but as you know even a muttering about ROTD will summon the wrath of Remus

I really didn't rate Olive

I know- I’m risking the wrath of Remus! And stirring up the butler rows!

I’ve also had a good year so far. Top 5, I think:

Werner Herzog: A Guide For The Perplexed - Paul Cronin
Sing Backwards And Weep - Mark Lanegan
I Used To Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys - Miranda Seymour
Notes From An Island - Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietila
I Am Alive And You Are Dead: A Journey Into The Mind Of Philip K Dick - Emmanuel Carrere