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

37 The Blurred Lands by Ian W. Sainsbury

Grieving middle aged (commercial) magician, John Aviemore, is surprised to inherit a run down cottage in Leigh Woods near Bristol from a former lover Ash/Ashleigh. Ash had seduced the awkward virgin John when he was at Bristol University and was, at that time, his perfect woman. After a brief relationship (one week) he had a severe mental breakdown and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Later John meets and is happily married to Sarah and they have a son called Harry. When John goes to visit the cottage he finds himself trapped and unable to leave. With the help of a magical being called Gai, John learns that Ash is in fact a powerful being or god called Astarte that has been trapped and is using him to attempt to escape and rule the world. He also learns about the Blurred Lands (a place between realms) and the In Between where there is a place of protection and learning called the Sanctum. John discovers that Ash was attracted to him because he is from a powerful family where the female line become Adepts - the most powerful magicians on Earth. Meanwhile, John's mother, Mae, who is dying and has dementia, writes to her great granddaughter Evie (John's granddaughter) to prepare her for becoming the next Adept. John must attempt to stop Ash.

This was an OK read but it didn't really grip me. It took me a while to get into it and I found the initial several chapters of weirdness (John's strange audience and the solicitor's office) unnecessary. I expect it was there to set the scene but it seemed like padding. I also found the "climax" anti-climatic and was over and dusted quite quickly. It feels like the first in a sequel but it is a stand alone.

43. A Boy And His Dog At The End Of The World by C A Fletcher

I picked this up from Instagram but I think someone else on here has read it recently. It's ok. Another one with no quote marks but as there aren't that many people at the end of the world it doesn't matter as much as usual. There is very little conversation.

The description of the end of the world is pretty convincing and so is the way the main character sees ruined cities and hears music for the first time. I can't tell you how I feel about the ending without giving it away, so all I will say is that this is fine for a 99p read but I am not rushing to see if the author has written a thing else.

I'm happily looking ahead to a month of reading now. I've got all of September off and am doing a road trip round California as a mini sabbatical. Hopefully there'll be lots of adventure, hiking, kayaking and maybe some CrossFit drop ins, but there will also be plane and train journeys to get there and I've deliberately planned in time to sit and chill between it all.

I've got a big TBR virtually on my Kindle (hoping to make big headway on this!) but will be looking for indie bookshops as I go. I'll be taking my hiking day bag basically empty as cabin bag on the way out and expecting it to come home with a couple of books, pair of jeans and maybe a souvenir or two!

Well my reading went in a totally new direction with

44. Taming Mr Walker by Rosa Lucas My only previous experience with the romance genre was some mills and boon when I was 18 and stranded, pre smartphones/kindle, in a rainy holiday cottage in Devon and the only books were a shelf of m&b which I resorted to in desperation. Obviously they didn't appeal to me enough to ever read another romance novel again. However, I've been struggling with a hefty non fiction and needed something light and easy and saw this recommended on booktok. It was available for free on prime reading so I figured I had nothing to lose. I was expecting more mills and boon but this was much better written. It was a proper full length novel which surprised me as I've always assumed all romance novels, like m&b, were very short. To be honest it was a nice bit of escapism although obviously a completely unbelievable story (gorgeous multi-millionaire falls madly in love with distinctly average looking woman who works in IT support). But it was better written than a lot of the "serious" books I've read to be honest. It's the first in a trilogy and I might well read the others

Belated squee for the puppy pics!

@CluelessMama I'm halfway through Ultra-Processed People and also think it's brilliant - I've been boring the pants off DH by continually quoting facts and studies at him!

63 Dirt Music by Tim Winton
Life in White Point, Western Australia is hard and brutal but it is possible - for those who are prepared to risk their lives catching lobsters for the local restaurants - to make a nurse's annual salary in a single good day. Georgie Jutland, refugee from her moneyed and demanding family understands this all too well: she rebelled against assumptions that she'd become a doctor and marry well to train as a nurse and work in oncology and emergency units around the world. By 40, she has drifted into White Point and into a relationship with Jim Buckridge, spending her days drinking too much vodka and tiptoeing around Jim's children who are grieving the death of their mother and resentful of Georgie's presence in their lives. A chance encounter when her car breaks down brings her into contact with Luther (Lu) Fox, the "shamateur" who has been illegally fishing in the White Pointers' patch (a very dangerous game to play!). Lu also has a tragic backstory that has driven him away from the music that he loves and from the White Point community where he grew up.

The story is partly about the anguished triangle formed by Georgie, Jim and Lu, but also partly about redemption, forgiveness and self-discovery, as well as the value of books and music in a landscape where subsistence is the dominant concern for most people.

I found this a very "male" book - not so much because of its particularly violent or macho, but because of the new mannish, solipsistic focus on personal anguish and individual development: Jim and Lu are too wrapped up in their own sufferings to spare a thought for the people around them. Their pig-headedness - risking life and limb in the service of some daft ideals - also made me roll my eyes.

Having said that, the evocation of place is stunning, and I was utterly gripped by a way of life and a landscape that are so far outside my own experience. It's a slow-moving book but beautifully written and I'm looking forward to reading more of Winton's work (which I will be, as my book group has chosen The Shepherd's Hut for later in the year).

Book 78 Kala by Colin Walsh, finished this yesterday I was enjoying it but when it got to the last part I was absolutely gripped. I found some of the descriptions quite distressing but overall a really good read. I would read more by this author. My reading may slow down for the next little while as we have just got a new rescue dog which will take up some of my time

@mackerella if you want to read more by Tim Winton I'd recommend Cloudstreet.

@minsmum how exciting. We need photos.

I'm here for all dog pictures!

A very quick read for book 59, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. Like others I thought this was sweet, I liked the bookshop setting and the cast of characters on the island. Unfortunately though I have a strong personal aversion to books which are cute about grief, so I can't say I really enjoyed it. I can see more of her older books are being re-released with new covers over here so I'll definitely read some of them.

Catching up on holiday reads:

95. This Time Tomorrow, Emma Straub
On her 40th birthday, Alice discovers that she can go back again for a day as her 16-year old self. The concept is a bit shlocky but this was a more thoughtful and better-written book than I expected. The older Alice is grieving the anticipated loss of her father, and this ended up being a touching evocation of the father/daughter relationship.

96. Cards on the Table, Agatha Christie
A standard Hercule Poirot mystery. Fun to see Ariadne Oliver, the author's gently mocking self-portrait.

97.The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
A little girl, grieving the loss of her mother, spends the summer on a small Finnish island with her grandmother. Rather lovely. It acknowledged emotional depths without getting sentimental, and with gentle humour.

98. Glowing Still, Sara Wheeler
The author said that, having turned 60, she wanted to look back on her career as a travel writer and tell us the things she hadn't said before about her experiences as a woman on the road. I would have liked more about this - there were a few anecdotes about sexual harassment at polar research stations, about taking a lover, about taking small children on trips, about things other women told her, but rather too much of it was standard travel writing stuff. Travel writers can be so tediously keen to educate one.

99. The Crane Wife, C J Hauser
Essays by American woman saying how bad she is at romantic relationships. Okay, but I've read too much of this kind of thing recently.

100. The Children of Ash and Elm, by Neil Price
A history of the Vikings from the inside out, so what their lived experience felt like, not just a list of what they did and where they went. I thought this was good, although on occasion it felt a little more thorough than I really wanted.

101. The Epic Continent, Nicholas Jubber
The author is interested in European sagas - Odysseus, the Kosovo Cycle, the Song of Roland etc - and this is a travel narrative about visiting the places associated with them and pondering how the stories have been used and misused for political ends. This has been sitting on my shelf since I bought it in 2019 so I'm pleased to have got through it. I'm interested in the subject matter but for some reason it felt like a bit of slog to get through.

I made it to Barter Books! Only bought two - An Elegant Solution by Anne Atkins and 1974 by David Peace. Dog was made a big fuss of at the till, so it’s her new Favourite Place Could have spent a lot longer in there and I think I’d have to, to find any real gems. The light was so low in the main room! It was like being in the basement stacks at the main library where I used to work.
Alnwick was horrid, for various reasons, so I won’t be going there again any time soon, but Warkworth was lovely.
My reading slows down when I’m away on holiday, but currently meandering through The Birdcage by Eve Chase, ignored for a while on my kindle because I thought I’d read it before.

Well I'm still here - not fallen by the wayside yet :)

My TR wish list is growing through reading this thread!

Finished Book 2: A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman
I read God was a Rabbit a few years ago and after enjoying Still Life earlier this year thought I’d give this one a go.
Back cover blurb: “Marvellous Ways is eighty-nine years old and has lived alone in a remote Cornish creek for nearly all her life. Lately she's taken to spending her days sitting on a mooring stone by the river with a telescope. She's waiting for something - she's not sure what, but she'll know it when she sees it.Drake is a young soldier left reeling by the Second World War. When his promise to fulfil a dying man's last wish sees him wash up in Marvellous' creek, broken in body and spirit, the old woman comes to his aid”
Once I had got over the lack of standard grammar rules, I settled well into the lyrical prose and the story flowed. A deep friendship evolves between the wonderful eccentric character of Marvellous (who still swims daily) and Drake. Winman captures perfectly how they both need and complement each other and how powerful the healing power of nature is. There are some other memorable characters too, such as Peace and Paper Jack. The Cornish creek where Marvellous lives is depicted so vividly that you can almost imagine yourself there. An ultimate uplifting book to linger over and savour for me but I’d guess not to everyone’s taste

Book3: An audio book Rack, Ruin and Murder by Ann Granger. I have a "rule" with audiobooks, they have to be an easy listen as I listen whilst running, do housework or gardening and I find myself drifting off on and then get fed up rewinding back... so this fitted the bill, and English Village Whodunnit

Halfway through Book 4 The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

Catching up on the rest of the thread now

Sounds amazing @RazorstormUnicorn - enjoy!

I enjoyed 1974 by David Peace @BoldFearlessGirl Always meant to read the rest

@TattiePants always happy to show him off.

@minsmum I like his style - velvet sofa? But of course!

Janina, I fully agree with your assessment of Childhood, Youth, Dependency. I thought it was an amazing trilogy when I read it last year. The depiction of substance addiction feels so modern, I found it hard to believe that volume was written as long ago as 1971.

Your dog is gorgeous, minsmum!

By the way, as a kind of P.S. to the convo about A Level and GCSE results, my DS had two of his papers re-marked on his school's advice, and ended up getting an A in English literature! (His original mark was less than a point short off an A, so that was unlucky.) As a result he was accepted by one of his top two uni choices after all: he's going to Southampton. I'm so relieved and happy, not least because Southampton is relatively easy to get to on the train from where we are. I'm also a proud mum because of the A in English lit! He's not actually going to study English at uni though... The whole saga has been thoroughly exhausting: waiting for the re-mark, waiting for Southampton to reconsider, and so on. But it's a great outcome. Maybe I will get my reading mojo back now.

@GrannieMainland - I agree that there is a lot in Crow Lake. The ending has always stuck with me.
39. Trespasses Louise Kennedy
Much reviewed on these threads. Set in 70s Ireland this is the story of the relationship between a young Catholic teacher and an older protestant married man. Gripping with a well drawn cast of characters. Great evocation of time and place, felt like I could see the school and pub.

Oh that's great news @cassandre

Thanks for the recommendation, Tattie - I see that my library has it on BorrowBox so will get it out soon.

Congrats to your DS, Cassandre - that must be a huge relief!

64 Aunts Aren't Gentlemen by PG Wodehouse
A bit of light relief after the intensity of Dirt Music! This is the last of the 15 Jeeves books, and one I hadn't read before. It was written in 1974, when Plum was 92, and it shows a bit. The plot is extremely formulaic: Bertie goes to stay in the country and gets engaged by accident (although he himself must have been about 92 by then), there is some dirty business with a catnapping, some mistaken identities, a sprinkling of colonels and magistrates and the usual low-stakes jeopardy in the form of a horse race that threatens Aunt Dahlia's finances if the wrong nag wins. Of course Jeeves shimmers in to sort everything out in the end. It was all as soothing and joyful as Wodehouse always is, but the transposition of a 1920s world to the 1970s (complete with political demonstrations) feels incongruous, especially as all the big houses had probably been sold to pay postwar death duties, and gentlemen's gentlemen were surely an anachronism by then. Some of the jokes are a bit buttock-clenching too (e.g. those about an African explorer). However, the language is as fresh and glorious as ever, and I continue to marvel at Wodehouse's inimitable voice.

Cloudstreet was one of the 4 or 5 paperbacks we had in our first flat in Italy in 1994/5 when Amazon and indeed the Kindle were but a twinkle in someone's eye.

I don't remember much about it except the dust and heat and vaguely oppressive story, but I remember it fondly just because it existed!

(One of the others was South by (possibly) Colm Toibin.

I thought 1974 by David Peace, was fantastic, and so was the rest of the series. A bit grim but very good.

Lovely news cassandre. Such a boost!

Great news @cassandre , must be such a relief.

I may try the Sarah Winman @Sonnet , I really enjoyed Still Life ( and never read the rabbit one).

Just finished my fourth Booker Longlist A Spell Of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo. I think this has had a lot of love on here but it didn't really do it for me. It's about two Nigerian families, a poor boy Eniola who is struggling to pay his school fees and a young female doctor from a rich family Wuraola. The writing and descriptions were good enough but I never felt that drawn in to the characters - particularly Wuraola. I felt the unrelenting poverty and corrupt politicians were a familiar story and for me it just didn't have something to lift it. The stories are very loosely connected and I think I was expecting more. The last quarter is definitely more gripping than the rest. I do feel that ever since I've started reading Booker books this year, I've been on a bad run. Not sure if it's me or the Longlist!

Brilliant news @cassandre

That’s excellent news @cassandre, what a relief.

Delighted for your ds and for you cassandre!
Loving the puppy pictures LadyBirdDaphne!
RazorstormUnicorn Have a fabulous time!