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

chats taking place simultaneously on an audiobook - at some point of the group chat, two people break off to chat in private while continuing the chat with the others, in windows side by side on the computer screen... just like it happens in RL.

I mean I did pick up on this but it's so hard to explain how badly it was done

@ClaraTheImpossibleGirl it definitely felt like the end of an era with St Mary's . I enjoyed this more than I've enjoyed recent books in the series, but I also prefer the Time Police series now (although I think I could cope with a bit less of Jane's alter egos!).

Even in the book/Kindle version, it's just boring nonsense anyway. I really don't think it gives anything tangible to work out which boring character over another was the most likely to be the nastiest boring character.

@Piggywaspushed I don't think these have been mentioned yet for your Norwegian books but I recommend The Bell in the Lake and The Reindeer Hunters by Lars Mytting. They are part of a trilogy called the Sister Bells Trilogy (or Hekne Trilogy) and the third is due out in September in Norway, so we'll be waiting a little longer for the translation. The first is 99p on Kindle at the moment.

@emmaw1405 I've only read one of his books The Sixteen Trees of the Somme but I liked his writing so I'll add them to my wish list.

@MamaNewtNewt and @ClaraTheImpossibleGirl I got to the end of book 8 in the St Mary's series and I've given up as they are too samey / repetitive and the plots are even more ridiculous. I think I'll have a break then might give the Time Police a try.

16. Storyland a new Mythology of Britain - Amy Jeffs
A retelling of British myths with the artists own artwork interspersed between the stories. Some of these tales were familiar to me whereas others completely new. My only criticism would be that some of the myths feel very short and underdeveloped but this may be due to the authors sources for the stories and not wanting to deviate too much. After each story there is an explanation of the history of the story, the politics that were in play at the time and the embellishments the author has added.

Pressed enter too soon, I need to catch up with the strike series - think I've read until A Career of Evil but would need to do a reread to remember what on earth's happened.

Thank you!

I have a veritable smorgasbord* of suggestions now!

*probably the wrong country.

Thanks southeastdweller for the new thread. I can't be arsed to post all my list so here is what I've read since the last thread started:

41 Taste - Stanley Tucci
42 Dubliners - James Joyce
43 Shelter Mountain - Robyn Carr
44 The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett
45 A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
46 Murder Most Unladylike - Robin Stevens
47 Eric - Terry Pratchett
48 Dawn of the Aspects - Richard A Knaak

Along with The Old Curiosity Shop and Anna Karenina readalongs, I'm also reading Eye of the World, the first in the Wheel of Time series but just doing a set amount of pages a day, so it's done by the time the new series starts on tv. Along with these, I've just started Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson which I am loving so far.

@Owlbookend I read somewhere that Vera was the inspiration behind du Maurier's Rebecca.

@CoteDAzur Obviously, we have the same background so I was aware. I think seeing names like that draws me in, but I have a geeky interest in Turkic languages and culture, as well as Russia and Turkey so I naturally pick them. The very first time I saw an Elif Şafak book in the book shop, years and years ago, I bought it solely on the basis of her name. (I know we disagree about her work).

Has anyone else read Burying the Typewriter by Carmen Bugan? @Sadik's last read (on thread 6) reminded me of this one that I read a few years ago now. Carmen's father was a dissident against the Ceausescu regime in Romania and the pressures of living under suspicion in a totalitarian state, and gives details of the daily living conditions, queuing for food etc. I found it a powerful read and it has stayed with me for a long time. quote from @SilverShadowNight

Yes, read this a number of years ago and also stuck with me. I went to the Museum of the Secret Police in Vilnius (Lithuania) and although not the same country the book and that place both had immense shocking power.

Also with a background of Eastern Europe Berlin and GDR latest read is The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy A time shifting novel with a male protagonist Saul Adler who crosses Abbey Road twice and is hit by a car both times, once in 1988 (just before the Berlin Wall) and in 2016. It's a puzzle of a book concerned with personal/political, observing being observed, oppression, love and fractured nature of time and memory. Poignant, dreamy, clever. Not read any of her other books but it makes me want to get hold of everything she's ever written (experience tells me this is not always the best idea). Loved it, quite short and brilliant read with many layers. Bold for me.

Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith This is bold for me too. Winnie is the millennial protagonist who is Vietnamese American and travels to Saigon takes up a job as an EFL teacher in a very desultory fashion, lots of bad choices drinking, drugs, sex but all very atmospheric and visceral. It's a magical realism tale of revenge and colonialism. A fun romp of a read with lots to crunch and cogitate. The ending was a bit difficult/less engaging/confusing for me but loved this book and I think I need to read it again.

Thank you for making me feel welcome.

44 Stasiland - Anna Funder

Reviewed a few times on here already I think. A moving and compelling account of the GDR and appalling injustices and abuse meted out on East German citizens, which does not attempt to keep any kind of journalistic emotional distance.

1. A Woman In Berlin. Anon
2. The Guest Cat. Takashi Hiraide
3. All The Broken Places John Boyne
4. The Thirteenth Juror Steve Kavanagh
5. The Undiscovered Deathe Of Grace McGill

CS Robertson

1. Case Histories Kate Atkinson
2. The Satsuma Complex Bob Mortimer
3. Men Without Women Huraki Murakami

This book comprises 7 long short stories by a master of the form. The stories are multi-layered,.subversive in their insight into relationships between men and women, speckled with Murakami 's trademark sly satire and glittering imagery which open up the meaning behind all the stories. The first surprise is that none of the men described are actually without women in their lives but intimacy escapes them and they are vaguely puzzled by rumblings of dissatisfaction. One man, a famous actor recently widowed, deliberately befriends his wife's last lover with the intention of finding out why she was unfaithful. The lover over time bears his soul and it soon becomes clear that he is in great pain over his lover's loss. The actor couldn't accept the reality of the other man's feelings and it soon becomes obvious that genuine emotion plays no part in his life..He merely admires the lover's expressions and bearing and will no doubt use them at some point in his acting career. The wife's plight was to be married to a man who had no notion of real intimacy. In all the stories men have all their needs catered to by women but they never get close to intimacy with their womenfolk.Murakami is by turns serious, humorous, poignant,empathetic. The loneliness of men is devastatingly explored.

45 Lord Foul’s Bane - Stephen Donaldson

First in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever fantasy series, and somewhat of a guilty pleasure / nostalgia reread (I loved this series as a fantasy-obsessed teenager). In retrospect the writing’s not amazing and lots nicked from Tolkien but still enjoyed it.

I tried many years ago to read Thomas Covenant after a colleague raved about it but I was intimidated by the size of the book and in the end I gave up about halfway through (can't really remember exactly why). Agree the writing wasn't the best, I do recall that! I should give it another go at some point, especially as I've long since graduated to reading doorstops on a more regular basis.

StColumbo - Did we already discuss the great non-fiction book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World? If you haven't read it yet, you really must.

14.. The Second Sleep by Robert Harris

This is the first Robert Harris book I've read since his Pompeii +10 years ago - so aghast was I at his complete and utter dullification of one of history's best known and most terrifying natural disasters.

This was a post-apocalyptic story about humanity's revival period to about the social and technological level of the medieval times, with the Church as supreme authority teaching that the scientifically advanced "ancients" were swatted down by God and banning any research into their ways.

It was a good story that was fairly well executed, I thought, until the end when the book just ended just hours before a big revelation

There were a few interesting ideas that will stay with me but I might wait another decade before I pick up another Robert Harris book.

At least we agree on Pompei! I’ve avoided him since then I think and the reviews of this one are lacklustre, so I probably won’t bother.

I'm not typing out list as I can't be arsed. I might do it for year end (which is when I skim read everyone else's in case there are books everyone has bolded and then I buy them!)

I am currently reading 4 books. It's going about as well as you'd expect.

Children of time - I hardly want to pick this up as the spider bits are so boring. I am considering DNF but I have loved his other books so will keep trying.

Death In Yosemite - I'm only one chapter in and it's a doorstopper but I am determined to finish the re read before I return to Yosemite in September. I am keen to remind myself of the ways to not die. But mostly I am not stupid so will be ok. No climbing over guardrails for a better photo for me!!

My First Summer in the Sierra - I have loved other John Muir books and this one is a diary and I am trying to read an entry a day as some kind of nature meditation but it turns out I don't love nature quite as much as he does!! It's got a bit tedious.

Productivity Ninja - I am 85% of the way through this so I will review soon. It's genuinely changed the way I work. I am more productive but I notice I am on Mumsnet at 3pm when I should be working right now. Ironically the next chapter is called 'Get off your phone' 😂

Just finished Facemaker, the fascinating account of the reconstructive work of Harold Gillies and others in WW1 ( and interesting insights about plastic surgery after the war, including anecdotes of cosmetic surgery and Gillies' work for a trans friend, completing one if the world's first phalloplasties). It is meticulously researched , obviously grim at times, but ultimately uplifting ( pun intended!). Gillies was an extraordinary man.The little anecdote about him only being admitted somewhere because his golf was admired tickled me. The stories of the soldiers always move.

One thing annoyed me. Lindsey Fitzharris is an American academic, who has worked and studied here.You would think at least one UK editor would have spotted that Ayr is not on Scotland's East Coast!

I’ve bought Facemaker but been unable to start it yet. Glad to hear it is ultimately uplifting.

50 Love Will Tear Us Apart by CK McDonnell

This series is really growing on me. The humour in the first one was a little forced but by this, the 3rd in The Stranger Times books, it flows a lot more naturally and raised quite a few more smiles from me. I like that it’s set in Manchester, as I lived there for a while.
Vincent Banecroft, the irascible editor of a Fortean Times- like independent publication is drawn away from threatening his staff with a blunderbuss in a knackered old church by something that purports to be the ghost of his dead wife. The Founders v The Folk turns out to still be a ‘thing’, to the surprise of absolutely no one. There are some amusing scenes set in a luxury spa and a spectacular Gross Out moment for one of the characters whose development arc continues to be interesting. Actually, several of the characters are slowly revealing their secrets and I guess they will be more fully explored in future books.

Remus - We mostly agree in books we hate, I find. It's the ones we love that are diametrically opposite

@CoteDAzur I have a vague recollection that perhaps it came up when I read John Mann's book on Genghis Khan, but I am not sure. Either way, I have just ordered a hard copy as DS1 off to uni next year and appears to have similarly niche historical interests. I might shelve the rather mediocre non-fiction I currently have on the go and do this instead.

I’ve got Facemaker, but it’s a big hardback and too heavy for bath time reading!