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, yes, the grouse bit.... it's like he didn't want to offend! Which seems out of character. The chit chats, obviously done for his telly programme, disappear in the second part.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie

I think your thigh might like Demon Copperhead

Welcome @Hibernatalie

I DNFed The Social Distance Between Us - I thought Poverty Safari was brilliant, but Social Distance was just too rambling / preaching to the choir for me. I suspect partly the problem was that I had it on audio, which worked really well for the much shorter & tighter Safari

I've also just DNFed the very, very, very annoying Alchemy by Rory Sutherland (at least I got it on audible 2-for-1 with a book that was on my wish list anyway). One of my real pet hates is authors who assert that 'economists all think X or Y', completely ignoring the many strands and diverse views of the profession. In this instance the author takes this even further, by claiming - multiple times - that economists would never cope with the idea that you might increase sales by putting the price of something up, not down. Given that a 2 minute search on Wikipedia would have told him that not only is this a standard concept, but that economists differentiate between two different basic reasons why (the luxury Veblen goods, and less common Giffen goods which are generally staple foods in poorer countries). <rant over>

More cheerfully, I've just finished
66. Animal House by James Brown
Brown was the founding editor of Loaded magazine back in the 90s. He started out as a fanzine writer, moving on to Sounds and then the NME in his late teens & early 20s. Like so many others in that world, he fell into serious drinking / drug taking, only getting clean in his 30s. The book mostly stops at that point, as (wikipedia suggests) did his golden touch with magazines. I don't think I'd want to spend any time with him in person, but I do like a good sleb memoir & he's an entertaining writer (probably helped by the fact that I'm very much of an age with him).

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit thanks!

Welcome @Hibernatalie

I've just finished my first "holiday" read when I should have been packing.

72. Yellowface - R F Kuang. This was extremely readable and I got through it in a day. First person narrator Juniper Song Hayward met Athena Liu at Yale. They're both writers but Athena has had great success while Juniper hasn't. The book starts with Athena dying suddenly while the pair are drinking at Athena's flat, and then Juniper takes her current manuscript and decides to complete it and publish it as her own. It becomes a bit of a polemic about the publishing industry and the pre-determined nature of bestsellers, as well as going into cancel culture, racism and reverse racism,I and the power of social media. It's an enjoyable read but I thought it lost momentum about two-thirds of the way through - ironically the narrator begins writing her story and can't work out how to finish it. I haven't read any Kuang before but some of the Good Reads reviews suggest Athena is very much based on her, further blurring the line between truth and fiction.

My thigh is even fussier than the rest of me.

to everyone who has been through stressful times recently and welcome to new and returned 50 bookers!

I'm very behind with reviews as I am currently on holiday (also in Penzance, @ChessieFL!!!) with limited internet. But I'll try to write up some reviews offline and post them tomorrow. In the meantime, I've very much enjoyed catching up with all your reviews and chat, and also noting down ideas for the ever-lengthening TBR list!

Enjoy Penzance mackerella, we had a lovely week.

Thanks, Chessie - we've been here since last Friday week and are staying until Monday (although we spent yesterday lounging around the town as the DCs have run out of steam after a busy week visiting tin mines and museums and going to the beach and lido). I've had lots of reading time, so I've got quite a backlog of reviews!

54 Run, Rose, Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson
Thanks to my library's BorrowBox purchasing decisions, I've developed a guilty passion for trashy thrillers written in association with celebrities. So far, the most accomplished (from a literary point of view) has been Louise Penny's collaboration with Hillary Clinton, but the most fun was definitely Bill Clinton's (and James Patterson's) preposterous tale of a pregnant Bosnian assassin trying to take out a tough-yet-tender Democratic president (reviewed here)
and its sequel.

This one has been written with Dolly Parton, so is (natch) about a struggling-yet-staggeringly-talented country singer who hides a dark secret. AnnieLee Keyes rockets to fame supported by Ruthanna Ryder (they all have names like this), a wise racking, semi-retired country legend with a heart of gold who surely bears more than a passing resemblance to Dolly herself. Along the way she also starts a romance with rugged-yet-sensitive guitarist Ethan Blake. all seems to be going swimmingly - but AnnieLee is hiding a secret and the past is about to catch up with her...

Unlike Patterson's more macho collaborations with Clinton, this book is narrated at a leisurely pace, and I spent the first half wondering when the action was going to start. It's disappointingly short on inside knowledge about the country music business (or maybe Dolly is too lovely to spill the beans), so feels rather anodyne. There are some fabulously terrible-sounding clothes, and some great lyrics (which Dolly has cannily turned into an accompanying album), but it all felt slightly flat.

Funnily enough, I've still got no desire to read any of James Patterson's own works, but I'm waiting breathlessly for his next celeb collaboration. (Fingers crossed that it will be Trump next time, for what would surely be an insanely heady blend of nuclear secrets, porn stars, gold toilets and cheeseburgers).

55 The Pasty by Hettie Merrick
Found on the bookshelf in our holiday flat in Penzance. We have eaten an obscene number of pasties over the last week (all delicious) so this booklet was the perfect accompaniment. Hettie Merrick ran a pasty shop in Porthleven and this book is a short but entertaining overview of the history, lore and mysteries surrounding the Cornish pasty, culminating in several recipes for the real thing. I will never again tempt bad luck by bringing a pasty on board a boat!

56 Punch and Judy Politics by Ayesha Hazarika and Tom Hamilton
Entertainingly written and comprehensive guide to Prime Minister's Questions. There's a bit about the history - I hadn't realised that PMQs in its current form dates only from the 1960s - and an awful lot more about the strategies that both sides use to achieve their political ends. The book benefits not only from the authors' experience as PMQs advisors to Ed Miliband, but also from interviews with all the key players over the last 25 years - Tony Blair, William Hague, Alistair Campbell, George Osborne, etc. I developed a much deeper appreciation for the PMQs bearpit, and for the part that it plays in developing both government and opposition policies, but the wonkish detail meant that I could only read it in small doses and took about 2 months to finish it.

Lot going on for everyone on the thread since I last updated! Hope those who were not well are feeling better, and welcome (back) to the newcomers and returners.

43 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin

I am not a sci fi person but my husband very much is and has been trying to get me to read more for ages. I decided to try this as a classic with a bit of a feminist slant and to my surprise I really enjoyed it. The premise is simple: an "alien", Genly Ai, from a conglomeration of planets (who seems to be human in form) is sent to Gethen, or Winter, to try to get its inhabitants to join the federation. The people of Gethen however are "ambisexed", all capable of having the characteristics of both sexes and bearing children but only during their monthly period of kemmer. I found the worldbuilding at the start a little slow (but beautifully written) but was gripped by the story after Ai's only friend in Karhide (one of the Gethenian countries), Lord Estraven, is branded a traitor and flees to Orgoreyn, a neighbouring country where Ai, his position endangered, also goes. Orgoreyn turns out not to be the best of moves and the story of their subsequent journey is thrilling and beautifully described. The relationship between Ai and Estraven is very well-drawn and the tension in their different natures makes the long journey section much more than just a travelogue. Really interesting and I am still thinking about it days after finishing.

44 The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

• I really liked The Mercies *by the same author but thought this story, based on mass dancing mania that broke out in Strasbourg in the 16th century was too similar in tone. The writing also felt a bit overwrought and forced, especially after Le Guin's limpid prose.

45 Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan

• I enjoyed Vaughan's first novel, Anatomy of a Scandal* and felt this was a step up in quality. Liz, a paediatrician, is surprised to find her NCT friend Jess in A&E with her 10 month old, with an unexplained injury. As we explore the contemporary plot (did Jess harm her baby?) we also look back to Liz's childhood and explore the effects of motherhood, postnatal depression and also the complex web of relationships between the NCT group. I wasn't wholly convinced by the final twist (one character was just a bit too much of a one dimensional caricature) but this was a thoughtful and thought-provoking novel that also had enough pace to keep me reading late into the night.

mackarella, that Dolly review was hilarious. Quite the tonic!

Glad you enjoyed it, Piggy! Any chance it's tempted you to read the book...?

More catching up:

57 Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
58 Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Much recommended on here, and I can see why. Unfortunately, I read them in the wrong order, so I got to meet Mattie in her prime first and then spent most of Crooked Heart mourning her decline. They were both beautifully written and showed interesting and unfamiliar sides to histories (the suffragettes, WW2) that I thought I was already familiar with. I particularly enjoyed Evans' ability to depict touching relationships without being mawkish, and also her nuanced characterisations - her people are realistically flawed (very flawed in some cases!) but still sympathetic. Can't wait to continue with this series (in the right order this time)!

59 Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore
Also on the "local interest" shelf of my holiday let (which is otherwise occupied by books with titles like The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, The Wesleys in Cornwall and The Geology of Cornwall). It tells the story of DH and Frieda Lawrence's stay in Zennor during WW1 (where they lived for 18 months, unsuccessfully trying to set up an artistic community with Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry, before being expelled on suspicion of spying in October 1917). Intertwined with this is the story of the Coyne and Treveal families, the desperate fear for the sons already at war or soon to be called up, and the struggles of the girls to realise themselves as women and as people. The story ran on very predictable rails, but I very much enjoyed the spare and poetic writing, and especially the evocation of life in such a remote and close-knit community.

That's the correct order mackerella

Not hugely tempted, no...

I do like Dolly, but not enough....

@mackerella Are you in a Landmark Trust by any chance?!

Glad you're enjoying the Lissa Evans books. Another series I need to finish.

@MaudOfTheMarches I am! On the top floor. How did you know?!

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I know that's the right order in terms of the story's chronology, but Crooked Heart was published in 2014 and Old Baggage in 2018 so I'd intended to read them in publication order. Not that it would make that much difference, but I think I'd feel differently about the former if I'd read it first. I'm just confusing myself now, though

mackarella I recognised a typical LT bookshelf! I love that they take their books seriously but I do wish they'd update them.

Maud phew, I thought you might be a RL friend, or possibly someone who recognised the books from a previous stay (in which case I was going to flick through the logbook to see if I could identify you). I agree that LT bookshelves could do with updating (there's a whole case of books and I've now finished the only three readable ones). But I guess it's all part of the LT image - and judging from the logbook entries, some of the previous guests are definitely highbrow enough to have lapped up such intimidating tomes... We're leaving tomorrow, so we've got the fun task of making ourselves sound cultured and energetic when we write our entry this evening (DD, who is 10, is keen to do it on our behalf, and I'm tempted to take her up on it even though her writing style is... eccentric).

@Welshwabbit I love le Guin's novels. If you enjoyed Left Hand of Darkness I'd definitely recommend The Dispossessed & also her short story collection The Birthday of the World (the story Solitude in that collection is probably my favourite of all her works). One of the stories in the collection Coming of age in Karhide is set on the same planet as LHoD.

I had never heard of the LT until a thread here were a mum was complaining about her DH being obsessive about it

LT properties are lovely, interesting places to stay (and surprisingly cheap if you go out of season, as DH and I used to before we had kids), but they tend to attract the same sorts of families who send round robin letters at Christmas, if you know what I mean.

We stayed in a LT property last summer (booked by my mum). My teen DC were horrified by the lack of wifi!

We can only afford LT out-out of season (late November to early Feb) but that does lend itself to sitting indoors with a book. I haven't been to the one you're at, mackarella. They did a survey a few years ago about wifi and decided against it - I can cope with that provided there is phone signal.

We've had that too, Tara, but my tween DCs have just about coped and have even started to take an interest in their surroundings (although they're very much looking forward to logging onto GWR WiFi the minute we board the train home).

60 A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon
Slow burn thriller with a few massive twists at the end, some of which I saw coming and one of which had me completely floored.

Linda Hammett is used to being one of life's overlooked bystanders: written off as slow-witted and clumsy, she spends her days working part-time in a charity shop, cleaning up after her oafish husband Terry, visiting her overbearing mother Eunice, and imagining how much better life would be if it were like that portrayed in the glossy catalogues addressed to the previous, more glamorous resident of her house. When young women in her town start being murdered, Linda is caught up in a chain of events that somehow intersects with a mysterious and traumatic episode from her past.

The story is told entirely through Linda's eyes and her quirky outlook is really well conveyed: you simultaneously see things as they appear to Linda but also as they appear to other, more "normal" people. Her artless observations are brilliant, too, and have given me some insight into what might be going on in my autistic DS's head sometimes - for example, "I wondered how people stared at these screens for any length of time, because it felt as though I'd overfed my mind with other people's lives and my head developed indigestion and didn't know what to do with it all of", or "'I'm fine,' I said. When someone asks if you're okay, this is the answer they're looking for, because I have learned along the way that most conversation people have is based on a script, and there are certain lines you're expected to say". Linda's interior monologue is so intense that it becomes stifling at times, but this contributes very effectively to the mysterious, paranoid atmosphere - especially when multiple rugs are pulled out from under your feet at the end and you realise how clever the narrative has been throughout.

It's not perfect: the twists at the end are ingenious but a couple of them are also silly and don't stand up to much scrutiny. Linda's mother and Terry are stereotypes of a kind that I thought went out thirty years ago - and in fact, I found it hard to believe that any of the characters belonged in contemporary Britain because they seemed to have come straight from a 1980s world of council estates and evenings out at the pub and chauvinistic working men and decorative wives in fluffy jumpers. I'm in mid-40s, like Linda, and I just don't believe in a couple my age called Linda and Terry, with a mother called Eunice (who embroiders doilies for the telephone table and has never been online). Timeslips aside, this is a fun and clever novel and DH and I were kept busy discussing the ending for at least 10 minutes afterwards!