50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Nine

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the ninth 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, the sixth one here, the seventh one here and the eighth one here.

What are you reading?

@PepeLePew I enjoyed a couple of books by Clare Pooley as light hearted reads- The Authenticity Project was one, the other something about a train.

I liked Amy & Lan as a sweet light-hearted read.

@PepeLePew I'm struggling to think of anything very frivolous right now, though I do read some really rather fluffy books. I don't know if you've read Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe - in 1982, a young woman started working as a sort of nanny in a literary household in what must have been one of London's most literary residential streets at the time. She writes long, detailed letters to her sister. Her boss was the editor of the London Review of Books, Alan Bennett lives across the road and drops by regularly, other neighbours include Claire Tomalin and Michael Frayn, and a young man who is helping with caring for Tomalin's disabled son, who turns out to be an important friend. It's available just at the moment for 99p on Kindle, and I've been thinking about it because I've been reading an electronic review copy of her latest book, a diary of a return to London, 40 years later, for a year, lodging with Deborah Moggach, hanging out with her children, both studying at university in London and living elsewhere and with various literary friends from her London lives (nanny days, a later publishing career and more recent friends as Nina Stibbe has now published a few novels as well as her letters/diary books).

@PepeLePew Georgette heyer? Nancy Mitford? My go tos at times of stress xxx get well soon!

Thanks all, some good ideas here. Really Good Actually was really good (actually) and the sort of thing I'm after. Weirdly, my kindle has just asked me if I want to see "shared items" which must be DD's books. She's the queen of Ron cons so perhaps I will have glance through that.
Currently reading The Bandit Queens but it's grittier and harder going than I'm after.

47 You're Not Alone by G.M. Lawrence

A book about a woman who has a stalker. Still reeling from the death of her husband, Chloe meets Danny in a bar who then tries to infiltrate and take over her life. The main character was annoyingly naïve and made endless stupid decisions. The twist towards the end fell a bit flat. None of the characters were that relatable or likable. The plot felt contrived and I found the bulk of it irritating.

Rom coms. Ron cons sounds like a series of books about a lovable rogue called Ron.

77 Walking Home by Simon Armitage

I have a confession - in our family SA is famous for being Boring. I can’t abide his poetry, had to stop watching his tv programme about the Pendle Witches because it was so dull. We feign a deep coma whenever he appears on the tv or radio and we were sure we passed him on a walk once, but decided it couldn’t have been him because we remained conscious after exchanging greetings.

BUT…….this book was an absolute delight! I picked it up earlier this year after flicking through it and not seeing any actual poetry I decided to give it a go. Only got round to it this week. It charts his walking of the Pennine Way, from the top end to the bottom, as he lives near Edale (or did when this book was written in 2011) and his self-deprecating anecdotes, honest appraisals of the weather, effort involved, generosity of those who put him up in return for poetry readings etc were so funny in places. I’ve been to quite a few of the points mentioned, even wandered up some of the fells in a half-arsed way compared to his sustained effort and the descriptions really resonated with me. I could see myself walking Hadrian’s Wall….maybe…..one day…..just need to sort my ankles out…….but I couldn’t see myself undertaking the whole of the Pennine Way in one continuous go, so bravo to him for his persistence and the honesty with which he approaches the very last leg of the journey, after he has made it home to Marsden but still faces the mental block Kinder Scout has for him. It’s almost up there with the best of Bryson or Maconie.

I take back the Boring. Apart from the poems - I skipped them.

54 Finding Hildasay - Christian Lewis Coincidentally, I’m following @BoldFearlessGirl ’s post with another book about walking. Lewis set off to walk the coast of the UK in 2017, a decision he made because he was broke, depressed, about to be homeless, and his 16-year-old daughter had just left home; and he did it to raise money for charity. The book is about the first half of his journey, ending at Hildasay, an uninhabited island in Shetland, where he spent the first lockdown alone (it had taken him two and a half years to get there from his starting point in Wales). It follows his emotional and mental redemption from the lowest possible to happy fulfilment, and for that it is worth reading.

He’s definitely no writer - the text is very basic and reads as if he is talking to you. But anyone reading the book isn’t going to choose it for its literary merit so that’s fine, and it did mean I whizzed through it. I did find it hard to like him very much - he seems to have spent most of his life screwing things up for himself and other people (his poor daughter!) - but then he had a pretty shitty childhood too, and part of the point of the book is the fact that he managed to turn his life around.

@BoldFearlessGirl Loved that review. Armitage has a couple of brilliant poems imo and a whole lot of very lacklustre (boring) ones.

He’s just so tweedy and earnest @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie. “Did I ever tell you about the time I met Ted Hughes….?” ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz. It takes a special kind of anti-talent to walk the Pennine Way and not render its beauty and menace in poetry. See, I can’t help being snarky about him, old habits die hard

It’s a good season to read books about people walking @DuPainDuVinDuFromage . Looking out of the window, vowing to do similar treks once the weather is better……

I have that Simon Armitage book and several others on my TBR somewhere. Yes, including at least one volume of poetry. I quite enjoy his Radio 4 appearances too.

I thought he lives near Huddersfield and near where he was brought up, in West Yorkshire - admittedly the Wikipedia reference to that is a few years old and could be out of date but I'm sure he refers to living there now on the radio etc.

I am in an awful book slump since the start of November. I’ve too much happening in real life to get involved in the books I’ve chosen.
I’ve decided to put down In Cold Blood for now- I haven’t been taking in the audio at all and it seems so good that I want to give it the attention it deserves. I’ve also given up on Plato’s The Republic as wrong time for now (and maybe forever).
I then tried Vanity Fair which I am enjoying this far but it’s soooo long so I’m going to take a break and go back to it.
I will keep reading The Bee Sting which I like but it’s too big and awkward to carry around- enormous hardback so I’m going to try A Killing in November by Simon Mason for my commute read- a diverting police procedural might get me over the hump. Hopefully….

I seem to remember seeing a hilarious Armitage poem once, which, in my memory at least, was about lesbians in Hebden Bridge. Unfortunately, a google has failed to unearth it. Maybe it was a dream?

Hilariously, Googling ‘Simon Armitage Lesbians Hebden Bridge’ just brings up some rather boring articles, bless his wholesome little socks.

44 The It Girl Ruth Ware
Easy to read thriller set in Oxford University. As a student, Hannah found her friend April strangled in their room. The creepy porter is convicted of the murder (despite wildly flimsy circumstantial evidence). However, years later Hannah starts to have doubts about his guilt and rushes about like a later day Miss Marple to uncover the truth. Did he do it? Or was there a terrible miscarriage of justice? I think you can probably guess yhe answer to that.
It would be easy to pull holes in this, but after the rigours of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and the mild depression of All Together Now? I was happy to read something plot driven and undemanding. The 'how they did it' was (to me at least) quite original - if perhaps not the most failsafe plan to get away with murder. Yes - the characters are all paper thin & like these things tend to do it all gets a bit silly in the closing stages, but I was interested enough to find out what happened to keep going to the end.

@BoldFearlessGirl 😂😂😂

@BoldFearlessGirl I read Gig by SA earlier this year and found it really funny in places. I can picture him nodding along earnestly in an overcoat at the back of a Smiths concert.

We took my (then 17-year-old and reluctant) son to see Simon Armitage give a talk at Wilton's Music Hall several years ago as he was studying poetry as part of his IB and not enjoying it. Simon Armitage was lovely and completely unpretentious. I can't say it turned my DS on to poetry but he begrudgingly said that he had quite enjoyed the evening.

It wasn't in All Points North, was it?

We used to go to an annual event called Poetry Live - Agard was great but my favourite poet Carol Ann Duffy, and Simon Armitage, were notably awful at reading poetry out loud.

John Cooper Clarke, however, was like a rock star.

Whenever I hear Simon Armitage's name I remember this hilariously snarky interview with him: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/08/simon-armitage-poet-laureate-radical-roots-rock-star-dreams

I actually like him a bit more after reading that interview! Although his poetry makes me cringe, especially stuff like that quoted in the interview (“wobbly head of the boy in the day centre/ stroke his fat white hands” - that’s a bloody person you are writing about).
His heart’s in the right place but he’s just a bit too Professional Northerner for me.

142. Don't Think, Dear by Alice Robb

Slow Reading Continues

As a child and teen Alice Robb danced with the School Of American Ballet but was let go. This is less a ballet memoir then it is a general overview of all the usual aspects of ballet that make it problematic. Eg Enforced pain, sexual harassment and eating disorders

It also exams how psychologically damaging it is to become a ballet reject at a young age

This didn't always hold my attention and I got a bit glazed over at times. One for those interested in the topic only I think

That interview is a cringe- fest.

We did Simon Armitage at my school for GCSEs and it didn't really sell me on him. I remember one poem about a man who hits his wife but is nice in other ways, and one about a boy physically burning a girl he fancies, which I think (I hope!) would be discussed a bit differently with teenagers these days.

@PepeLePew I am late but let us know if you find a good rom com!

75. Circe by Madeline Miller. I'm probably the last person to read this who might be interested, but a re-telling of the life of Circe and all the figures from Greek mythology she is linked to. I have reasonable mythology knowledge but didn't know about her family tree so I learnt lots there - oh, it's Medea! Oh, it's Icarus! Oh, it's the Minotaur! On the whole I enjoyed it and thought she made Circe a compelling character. I didn't quite buy the final love affair, but I suppose that's just the source material, gods are always falling in love with random people suddenly. I liked the Trygon, which reminded me of Our Wives Under The Sea.

76. Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout. The 4th book in this series sees Lucy living out the pandemic in a small town in Maine with her ex-husband. As usual, very delicate, beautiful, thoughtful writing. These books are lovely to read but I never feel like they stay with me very much afterwards. It was nice to see a brief cameo from Olive Kitteridge, who I am much more drawn to as a character.