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

Great news cassandre!

Wistfully reading this thread instead of getting on with this doorstep book...

I’m so behind with my reviews once again!

69 Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
Really interesting non fiction book that focused on a one country / group of countries / continent at a time and explores their history through to their current political situations. The sections on Africa and the Middle East were particularly interesting as it highlights how The West’s history of making countries by randomly drawing lines on a map without any consideration for the people living there means there’ll never achieve peace.

70 Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
It’s my first Isherwood novel but I’ll definitely read more from him (recommendations welcome). A semi-autobiographical series of linked short stories based on Isherwood’s time living in Berlin in the early 1930s just before the Nazis rise to power. It’s a brilliant character study of the people he meets, their decadent lives and introduces us to Sally Bowles, star of Cabaret.

Catching up and loving the dog pictures.

Read When God was a Rabbit ages ago and cannot remember anything about it other than I thought it was overhyped and crap and resented the time I spent on it.

I seem to be reading very slowly at the moment.

61. Death comes as the End - Agatha Christie

This month’s Agatha Christie challenge book which weirdly was set in ancient Egypt. Took me a while to get going on it but actually the usual storyline (rich patriarch, disgruntled adult children and a new woman who stirs everything). Lots of deaths and I didn’t work it out notwithstanding the fact that most of the characters were dead! I missed Poirot and Miss Marple.

Currently reading (slowly) The Crow Road and Hags.

71 The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland
The escape artist in the title refers to Rudolph Vrba who was one of a handful of Jews who managed to escape Auschwitz and bear witness to the treatment and murder of his fellow prisoners. It’s brilliantly researched and details Veba’s time at Auschwitz and how he came to realise the true scale of the systematic murder. His plan to escape wasn’t to save himself but to warn the world about what was happening and prevent the Hungarian Jews from blindly following orders to be ‘resettled’ in the east. Unfortunately, too many political and religious leaders were willing to take action and you can feel Vrba’s frustration when they fail to act. A definite bold for me.

72 Amongst our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch
This is the 9th book in the Rivers of London series and we’re back with PC Peter Grant solving crimes where there’s a magical element. This time there’s a series of murders linked to magical rings, the Spanish Inquisition and an Angel of death. Not one of his best but it’s an easy read and exactly what I needed having read a lot of books recently on war, genocide and dictators.

I’ve now beaten my highest ever reading score which was 71 books in 2019.

@TattiePants Other than Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye To Berlin I must admit I haven’t found Isherwood very readable.

51 Dandy In The Underworld - Sebastian Horsley

Absolutely not for the faint of heart (particularly where sex and drugs are concerned), but I really enjoyed this genital-warts-and-all memoir of the artist and self-proclaimed Soho dandy, who claimed to have slept with 1,000 prostitutes and was crucified as an art performance. Not sure that I believe all of the tales but it’s by turns fascinating, sad and very funny.

121. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

This is an ambitious intergenerational novel set partially in what is now Ghana and partially in the United States.
In the late 1700s half sisters Esi and Effia are destined never to meet. Effia marries a white British officer and her descendants remain in Ghana, Esi is sold on a slave ship and her line descends in the United States.

The novel then alternates chapters through several generations. Each chapter introduces someone from the next generation and so each is like its own short story. I really admired and respected this in terms of what it was accomplishing as a project. The writing was very fine indeed and jumping characters felt smooth not jarring. I preferred the Ghanian sections which felt more original, the US ones featuring well used themes

Despite this praise I wasn't "taken" with it in the sense of wanting to rave about it or make it bold. A "proper" novel and a solid piece of writing however, is to be recommended.

@TattiePants

RE Numbers

I swear this thread created a monster in me. I was never a numbers person before.

Have an amazing trip Razorstorm!!

Great news for your DS @cassandre. Is he your eldest?

My eldest is heading off to uni in 2 weeks time and I'm feeling very wobbly about the fact she's going to be in a whole different country to me when we've only ever been apart for a maximum of 10 days in her whole nearly 19 years of existence! And obviously feeling proud and excited about this new step for her. This parenting lark just doesn't get any easier, does it?!

That’s a great result for your DS, @cassandre. It’s such a welcome relief to read about an exam re-mark that turns out successfully. Well done to him.

(I still remember the shock of getting an abysmally terrible grade in my O-level Biology and the school refusing to challenge it or let me retake it - I felt so let down. I had to go to night school to do a slightly different course - Human Biology - in a year instead of the normal two, and passed with a B. At which point a metaphorical two fingers was raised to the school, I have to admit)

So pleased to hear that @cassandre and good luck to your DD @nowanearlyNicemum.

I read this as a book group read a couple of years ago. The fact I remember the story is a positive for the book and I also remember enjoying it but I always felt I should have loved it more and couldn’t put my finger on why not at the time…

Can anyone tell me what I’m doing wrong with the Kindle deals? I get the daily email and check the Amazon deals on their website everyday but had it not been for this thread I would have missed The Island of Sea Women and How to Build a Boat as they didn’t show in my deals.

Why The Dutch Are Different - Ben Coates

Purports to be a travelogue in the Bill Bryson style but was neither as witty nor as interesting. It’s really a potted history of the Netherlands much of which I’d read elsewhere and didn’t really tell me much about why the Dutch were different (to what?)

There are some pretty unsavoury comments about immigration - especially about Moroccan immigrants - I didn’t like his seeming admiration of some of the right wing populist politicians. Some rather antediluvian attitudes to women too.

I was hoping for something a bit more fun, more about the customs, daily life, more about the food (though he keeps referring to his wife as a skinny girl so maybe food isn’t high on his agenda). There are some interesting snippets but just not enough.

Bloomin edit function- antediluvian

@cassandre missed your excellent news and indeed all the conversation about A level results.
Well done!

Yes, good luck to all the 50 Bookers DC heading off to uni and more pics of pups please.

Great news cassandre, well done to your son.

And Terpsichore, I can completely understand your frustration (I still bear a grudge about my Physics A'level result in 1979). Back in the days of O'levels, B for Human Biology was a very good result, particularly after only a year. How very gratifying, I do hope your school were made aware......

@cassandre

I've noticed that I missed a post from you about JD Vance. I hate to say it but I think every character in Demon Copperhead probably owned MAGA hats. Politically it struck as opportunism, Trump couldn't even get his name right.

@TattiePants I've been feeling similar frustration with Amazon. They seem to do their best to hide the best deals. I just check my wish list regularly - which also loads frustratingly slowly!

@Sonnet @EineReiseDurchDieZeit I liked Homegoing but think it suffered a bit from reading like a collection of short stories rather than a whole. There were definitely generations where I was more invested and wanted to learn more and others where I was quite happy to move on. Agree that the Ghana parts were stronger.

16 Old Filth - Jane Gardam
The life story of a Raj Orphan, his unenviable childhood and path to fame and fortune as a barrister in Hong Kong.

I enjoyed this, lovely well-written book about an old man examining his past and considering the influence of others in his life. Not sure how I've managed not to read this til now!

"Wanted to learn more"

Yes, kept getting ripped away from something you'd invested in, thinking particularly of Kojo whose wife was kidnapped

I'm reading Old Filth at the moment, and not loving it yet. One of those that's fine, so it won't be a DNF, but it's not calling me to pick it up either. I normally like this kind of thing, so it's probably a right book, wrong time thing.

Bad Fruit by Ella King
I found this in a random Kindle scroll then checked and saw that a reviewer in the Guardian had liked it Not my usual thing, in that it’s a bit woman-ish and feelings-ish, but I quite liked it. As stories of horribly dysfunctional families go, it was pretty readable, although it didn’t go quite where I expected it to.

Worth checking out and I’d be interested to hear what anyone else thinks of it.

I had a review copy of Bad Fruit @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie but I disliked it and Declined To Review. I didn’t care about any of the characters enough to see it through to the end, neither were they grotesque enough to keep me reading.

57 The Birdcage by Eve Chase.
I liked this a lot, a family saga/mystery with enough depth in the characters to grip me, despite relatively short chapters and a lot of cliffhangers.
Flora, Kat and Lauren are half sisters, who spend summers at the large seaside home of their paternal grandparents. Their father, Charlie Finch, is an artist and a serial shagger, indulged by his parents and fighting off Art Groupies left, right and centre. Or rather, not fighting them off, hence the three girls thrown together in an often uneasy mix. It’s split between 1999 and 2019, as the events around the Eclipse start to reverberate when Charlie asks his daughters to clear anything they want from the house so he can sell it and marry Angie, the Last Groupie Standing.
I liked the three daughters and their different upbringings, loyalties and secrets. Raff, Flora’s young son was a bit of an annoying plot device (I preferred Bertha the parrot’s gnomic screeching), but the gradual reveals were competently executed and raised a tear or two. I did guess a couple of the ‘secrets’ but that didn’t spoil it.

I read the author’s Black Rabbit Hall whilst staying in the lodge of a grand old house and this one while staying on the coast (Northumberland rather than Cornwall but still lends atmosphere!). The reasons I thought I’d read it are
a) the cover is in the style of her previous The Glass House and b) she does twisty Family Secret type novels every time. Does them well, though, so as long as you leave enough space between them they aren’t too samey.