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

Would anyone mind if I crashed in half way through the year? I've finally started regular reading again after a post-pandemic lull and have set myself the goal of 50 books by the end of the year...

My list so far:

1. English Literature: A Very Short Introduction, Jonathan Bates

2. The Odyssey, Emily Wilson

1. Go, Went, Gone, Jenny Erpenbeck

1. Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin

1. Soldier Sailor, Claire Kilroy

1. Empireland, Sathnam Sanghera

1. The Authority Gap, Mary Ann Sieghart

1. Everyday Hate: How Antisemitism is Built into our World, Dave Rich

1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

10. Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe

11. The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan

Welcome to the loveliest thread on MN @Greyandwhitecat. I have Notes of a Native Son, Empireland and Empire of Pain on my very long wish list.

Realised id got behind with updating my recent reads, unfortunately slowed down again as my mum has been in hospital which meant I've lost my reading holiday this week.

17. Ask a Historian Greg Jenner.
    Reviewed previously on these threads. A good intro into a wide range of topics and the perfect book for my commute as could dip in and out and felt I learnt a few new things.

18. A Song of Comfortable Chairs by Alexander Mccall Smith. The latest in the ladies detective agency series and as much as I enjoyed it I do feel this series has got weaker and that these stories are now less about the mystery or detective agency. A lovely easy read but perhaps one for the fans.

19. There's a boy in the girls bathroom By Louis Sachar. Read this as will be teaching it this year, a lovely heartwarming tale about children wanting to be loved and accepted. Look forward to reading this with my class.

20. New Forest Myths amd Folklore Brice Stratford. I picked thisnup as grew up in the New Forest and wanted to learn more. This book is described as a comprehensive guide of folklore and myths of the forest. I would describe it as the authora pet project and a book of two halves - 1 is about myths/legends and supported with some research, the 2nd seems to be the author finding out about various ghost stories they have heard from people in pubs. I personally enjoyed the myth section and was disappointed with the amount of the book dedicated to ghost stories so would struggle to recommend this one.

Currently reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan and History of the world in 100 objects by Neil MacGreggor. Enjoying both so far :)

I've been worrying about In Ascension and trying to work out my thoughts on it a bit more because I'm not sure what I've already said is an accurate reflection. I wonder if I wish that the book was less accessible and more awesome, mystical and epic it almost feels as though it was pushing towards being a deeper novel but shrank away from that almost which diminishes the potential greatness which I think is there in places. As though it has been edited back towards an easier read a less elegant but more commercial plot.

Thank you @TattiePants. I enjoyed Notes of a Native Son but The Fire Next Time is my favourite non-fiction by Baldwin so far.

I was interested but not gripped by Empire of Pain like so many others have been. I've been finding this a lot with non-fiction recently however so I think it's me not the books! I had also already seen the Nan Goldin documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed and read Radden Keefe's articles on the opioid scandal in the New Yorker so the book was telling me a lot of what I already knew.

Really enjoyed Empireland - Sanghera has an enjoyably witty and wry style and I learned a lot.

I’ve got a physical copy of Empireland but the text is so small that I keep putting it off.

I haven't read any of Baldwin's non-fiction yet but Giovanni's Room is devastatingly brilliant and in my all time top 20, if not top 10. If you haven't already read it, Say Nothing by Radden Keefe is very good (and was free on Amazon Prime if you use a Kindle).

Welcome greyandwhitecat. Empireland is on my list too and I have just read his earlier memoir The Boy with the Topknot by Sathnam Sanghera - really enjoyed this engrossing family memoir about the author’s discovery in his mid-twenties of the schizophrenia in his family. I was particularly drawn to it as I only found out about my parent’s bipolar diagnosis at around the same age and the bottom dropped out of my world. This is also interesting about growing up in Wolverhampton as a second-generation migrant, and the responsibility that in particular his eldest sister grew up with in acting as interpreter for his parents. I’m about the same age as Sanghera - occasionally it seemed rather young, with outbursts such as ‘there is a view nowadays that if a dad doesn’t offer his children everything a mother offers, up to and including breast-feeding, he’s not doing his job right’, but to be fair it’s 15 years old and his self-absorption is very much acknowledged. Recommended.

50 The Twilight World - Werner Herzog

Fictionalised account of the 30 years that Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda spent defending the Philippine island of Lubang, unaware that World War II had ended. An absolutely fascinating story and person, and I really enjoyed this, particularly as an audiobook read in Herzog’s inimitable style.

Welcome greyandwhitecat. I also loved The Boy in the Top Knot as recommended by Cornish Lizard (I didn’t enjoy Empireland as much) and second the recommendation of Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. DH is currently loving another of his- The Snakehead so I’ve added it to my tbr.

This is such a good thread for finding books; I'm putting Empire of Pain and Say Nothing on my list - it's just a problem reading them all🤔

I loved The Boy with the Topknot - also had a very close relative with schizophrenia so struck many cords.

@snowspider I agree with your views on In Ascension, and the deeper plot. I expected it all to be tied up a bit more and deep space to reveal more answers and tie in with the earlier part. But I also got bored by the more sciencey bits while questioning their accuracy.

I did quite enjoy the last part - more than the proceeding bits - as I felt the third person narrative was stronger.

Welcome @Greyandwhitecat , I love Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey and am looking forward to her translation of the Iliad coming out later this year.

I'm also a huge James Baldwin fan (though I haven't read Notes of a Native Son yet).

@eitak22 , There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom is brilliant; I read it aloud to my DS when he was in primary. Someday Angeline was another one of our Louis Sachar favourites. We also read all the Wayside School books, even though they can get a bit creepy/weird. Louis Sachar is a genius as far as I'm concerned!

Hi @Greyandwhitecat what did you think of Soldier, sailor? It seems to be one bookstagram is raving about and was thinking if choosing it for my book club.

Hi @Greyandwhitecat , this is a great thread with lots of good recommendations, welcome.

Not sure what I think of Old God’s Time. So far there has just been an old man staring out of a window using far too many adjectives to describe the weather and a police officer having an unfortunate and prolonged digestive reaction to some cheese on toast . I hope there’s some story in there amongst the Twee.

@BoldFearlessGirl I only read the first chapter of Old God's Time but they were exactly my thoughts. I will go back to it at some point but I'm not in any hurry.

@Stokey Oh my goodness Soldier, Sailor was absolutely brutal! Brilliant writing but very intense - I had to keep taking breaks. Not one for anyone planning to have a baby any time soon…

@TattiePants I’m going to carry on with it a bit longer, but it’s not what I expected at all. It’s probably suffering for not being Kala, as well as being written in the mannered way I’m not keen on.

Thank you @BoldFearlessGirl and @cassandre Emily Wilson’s The Odyssey is wonderful isn’t it - I was so excited when I saw The Iliad is coming out soon. She’s also got something about a female goddess from Gilgamesh coming out as well.

@CornishLizard I’ve added The Boy with the Topknot to the list

Thanks @BaruFisher, I have Say Nothing on my Kindle

45. At Mrs Lippincote’s, Elizabeth Taylor, 4/5
    A couple of different friends have recommended Taylor to me recently, as a neglected 20th c woman novelist. So I read this, her first novel (published in 1945), and will certainly read more. If you like Barbara Pym, chances are you will like this! The characters are very well-observed, and there’s a satirical feminist edge, as well as attention to class division and prejudice (one of the characters, who is rather lonely, falls in with a household of communists living in a co-op). I particularly loved the heroine Julia and her young son Oliver, who spend a lot of time reading books, and who sometimes, very understandably, find the world of books more congenial than real life.

46. Madame de Maintenon, Peter de Polnay 3/5
    I picked up this book from a local boot sale. I kind of feel like I have to give it only three stars because it’s a very non-academic biography, written in the 1960s by an impressively multi-lingual Hungarian-English writer who seems to have churned out absolutely loads of books. However, the fact that it’s a non-scholarly biography is part of its charm; it was a great holiday read. Plus it was illustrated! Mme de Maintenon, the mistress of Louis XIV, had quite an extraordinary life. She was born in a prison, and despite being the granddaughter of the famous Protestant poet Agrippa d’Aubigné, became a stalwart Catholic. Then she married the famous disabled comic writer Paul Scarron, before going on to become the ‘morganatic’ (unofficial) spouse of the king. Polnay puts quite a lot of emphasis on her amazing virtue (!), but it does seem that she was a stabilising influence on Louis, who stayed with him to the end. All in all, a 17th c historical person very much worth reading about.

47. The Other Wind, Ursula Le Guin 4/5
    The last of Le Guin’s Earthsea stories, and very satisfying. Beautifully written as always. The story of the veiled foreign princess seems a little dated, but like the other later volumes in the Earthsea series, this novel has a feminist slant.

48. Yellowface, Rebecca F. Kuang 4/5
    I warmly recommend this novel, as a thriller and a page-turner that brings issues of cultural appropriation and racism in publishing to the fore. It also does a brilliant job skewering the ‘cancel culture’ of Twitter, where issues take on a life of their own, people jump on bandwagons, and the result is utterly unnuanced and toxic. I do think that some of the treatment of race comes across as simplistic (the villains, including the narrator, are very villainous!) but because this novel is satire, the occasional heavy-handedness works better than it did in Babel.

Actually I'm tempted to give Yellowface 5 stars, it was such a compelling read. @FortunaMajor , I remember it was a bold for you!

In my head though, 5 star books are ones I want to reread one day, and I'm not sure I'll reread Yellowface. However, it was definitely worth waiting in the library queue for!

@cassandre Ooh thanks for the other recommendations. We already do Holes which the children love and I'm really looking forward to reading Boy in the Girls Bathroom. Also going to be reading Percy Jackson so lots of good class reads this year.

@eitak22 you sound like a dream teacher!