50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Seven

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the seventh 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, the fifth one here, and the sixth one here

Oh, sounds interesting. May get that to accompany me.

Many thanks Janina, I'm delighted to hear that it's stood the test of time. Definitely time for a reread.

Do they still have the same covers?

Hmm, I thought I'd added a picture but it didn't come out. Hopefully this will work.

53 The North Water by Ian McGuire
Grizzly, gruesome, language to strip paint off a door, stomach-turning descriptions of seal culling, whaling and realities of life on a whaling ship…….I was gripped by this and took myself off to read it whenever possible.
Man With A Past clashes with Man Without A Conscience. Frankly, polar bears and sinking whaling ships are the least of Patrick Sumner’s problems as he tries to make a new start after being an army surgeon in India.
The author obviously did a lot of research into the grim practicalities of the whaling trade but the plot wears that lightly and at heart the book is a fast paced thriller.
I watched the start of the tv series based on this book but everyone mumbled too much and the ‘authentic’ lighting meant I could see bugger all. I could tell it was a rollicking, violent tale though, so snapped up the kindle book for 99p a while ago.At several points reading it I wished I could turn down the lighting so I couldn’t see what had just been shown me!
It compares well with The Terror by Dan Simmons and has the slight edge over it for me, as Simmons can be very long-winded and I didn’t really like the way he’d written about real people with no evidence as to their real actions and personalities (Hickey, the Caulker’s Mate in particular, based on a name on a knife). I prefer my human monsters to be fictional.

52: Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson

In 1954, on the small island of San Piedro in Washington State - where the two main ways of making a living are salmon-fishing and strawberry-farming - Japanese-American islander Kabuo Miyamoto is on trial for the murder of fellow-fishermen Carl Heine. As an incoming snowstorm swirls around the courthouse, proceedings are watched by local newspaper owner Ishmael Chambers, whose own deep teenage love for Miyamoto’s wife Hatsuo has never deserted him. In a series of many-layered flashbacks, Guterson lays bare the fractures in the community and the racism of the white islanders towards their neighbours, workmates and fellow-residents of Japanese origin, who’ve been settled there for generations but who were treated like enemy spies, with shocking harshness and inhumanity, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Although in one sense this is a (low-key) courtroom drama, it’s as much about the past and the ways in which some people behave towards anything they see as ‘other’.

I must have flicked past this book a hundred times in charity shops but a chance recent rave review and a 20p copy made me buy it. And I’m glad I did because I was utterly and totally captivated by this book. Beautifully, quietly, poetically written, with descriptions of nature that seemed completely vivid in my mind - a definite bold.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit you probably already know but Blonde was made into a film
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blonde_(2022_film)

Sorry, not sure why the link came out so big!!

Yeah was waiting to watch it til I read it - thanks though

@Terpsichore I read Snow falling on Cedars many years ago and can't remember much about it other than I really loved it. It's long over due for a reread; thanks for the reminder.

I had a similar situation with The Shipping News. Spent years not getting round to reading it - it was actually sitting in my bookcase - and having finally read it, it's now become one of my favourite books.

@highlandcoo it reminded me of The Shipping News in a funny way - the small-town setting, I think, and of course the newspaper. I did look up some reviews afterwards and it was compared to To Kill a Mockingbird, which I could also see. Someone mentioned that they enjoyed SFOC because they liked books with lots of detail about things, and I realised I really do too. There’s lots of fishing-boat minutiae in it but I found that fascinating, whereas I think it puts a lot of people off…!

33. Snow John Banville * * Banville uses a country house mystery to dissect 1950s Irish society. Superficially, this is a Christie-esque murder mystery. A small cast of characters are marooned in a decaying Manor house, the body of a murdered priest is left lying in the library. There are even conscious references to Christie in the text. However, this isn't really a conventional whodunit or even a whydunit. The likely solutions and motivations are quickly apparent to the modern day reader. I wondered if that was partly the point - evil is in plain sight, but unacknowledged by 50s society. The prose is easy to read, but the themes are dark and disturbing. Possibly a bold, but then i think maybe not. I enjoyed the beginning much more than the eventual resolution. I'm still mulling it over.

No. They have black and white photos now. Your covers are very striking!

38. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I did not love this at all. I nearly DNF'd at about 30% but felt I'd invested too much. I was worried I'd be scared of the spiders, but honestly I was just a bit bored.

This is nowhere near as good as Dogs of War where even months later I still find myself thinking about Rex and his thoughts about what makes a good dog.

DH liked it enough to finish the trilogy though, so maybe it's me 😁

114. Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan

Read this in a couple of sittings this evening.

After the failure of Snap, I decided to look at this other "Between The Covers" Crime pick with a view to a speedy DNF and instead I wolfed it down.

As a bit of a content warning, the sixteen horses of the title have been found mutilated on a farm and there are further depictions of animal mutilation. Local DS Nichols and forensic animal specialist Cooper investigate.

Those who've noticed my taste will have noticed crime isn't really my genre, so I don't have a yardstick or any great frame of reference for what's good. Despite this, I would have to say it was very well written with a few good twists and I really enjoyed it. I will probably bold it, just because of how page turny it was.

Thanks Janina. Interesting to see it's a different publisher too.

39. The IT Girl by Ruth Ware I read this after seeing it discussed on these threads and really enjoyed it. Have now picked up a couple of other Ruth Ware books as I think she's definitely my kind of author

For those that don't know the plot, this is split timeline. A group of students arrive in Oxford to start their degree. Towards the end of their first year, one of the group is killed. The lead up to the murder is interspersed with chapters following Hannah, the murdered girl's best friend, later in life as she starts to doubt the evidence she gave at the trial

This was gripping and I stayed up far too late three nights in a row as I couldn't put it down. I really enjoyed Ware's ability to make everyone a possible suspect, it was reminiscent of Christie in that respect. The final reveal was good although the outcome at the end was slightly hard to believe. Also was very frustrated at one point when apparently Hannah had never heard a particular character swear before when they had sworn only 3 chapters previously. But those are small niggles in a really well written book. Probably a bold for me

Yes, the books weren't published in English until the 1960s when Peter Owen published them. In the 1980s The Women's Press reissued them (presumably your copies?) and now Peter Owen have published them again recently.

12 Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
Elizabeth Zott is a gifted scientist, but the 1950s are the wrong time for scientists to be in possession of a vagina, so her career is impeded and her ambitions are frustrated at every turn. Embarking on a relationship with a fellow genius only compounds her difficulties as her work is assumed to be aided and secretly compiled by him. Refusing to marry the man, she is left with nothing when he meets an untimely end and her pregnancy status is noted by her employer, resulting in the termination of her employment. In a series of events I can't remember now she becomes a TV chef, educating housewives all over America in the chemistry of cooking and enlightening them regarding their potential beyond the home. When she quits the TV show some loose ends are tidied up with the meeting of her dead lover's long-lost mother.

I was recommended this book by my MIL, with whom it resonated since her education was completed in an American finishing school circa 1960, and she went on to become a successful woman in a decidedly male-dominated world (engineering rather than science). I personally found it rather dull, far fetched and poorly written. The fact that Elizabeth is physically very attractive is pointed out throughout. Why? It doesn't add anything and is repeated ad nauseum. Elizabeth's daughter is given the unlikely name Mad, and is similarly irritating in her extreme precocity. The dog is given a voice (internally expressed only of course), I assume this is to give the reader some further insight but is annoyingly twee. Just a bit too far on the chick-lit side for me.

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

Another fantastic instalment to the series. This is probably one of my least favourite Strike books, simply because I’m not at all into computer gaming/Twitter etc so some of the detail of the world went over my head a bit. I still really enjoyed it though - despite being very long and about a world I don’t know it still kept my attention and I couldn’t wait to pick it up each time. Looking forward to book 7 in a month or so!

@YolandiFuckinVisser I had similar thoughts about Lessons in chemistry, an easy read but too much like chick-lit for me. I read The L-Shaped Room straight afterwards which is a much more realistic portrayal of a young, single woman finding herself pregnant in the 1950s.

I got The City And The City as my Mr. B

This is a bunfight book yes?

I have had it previously and it got charity shop turfed unread.

@Gingerwarthog @MegBusset what did you get?

<Launches bun in Chessie's direction RE IBH>

Sorry Eine!

It's brilliant @EineReiseDurchDieZeit

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I think you will really like it.

I’ll stick my neck out with you. It wasn’t quite a bold for me but I really enjoyed it.