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?

Ooh I forgot...

62 Wings of Fire 3: The Hidden Kingdom by Tui T. Sutherland

Read to the children. I'm still not hugely enamoured of this series, but I found this instalment about Glory the Rainwing, who is not meant to feature in the dragonet prophecy, much more enjoyable than the first two. She's a more engaging character and the Rainwings are waaay nicer than the other dragons.

Eine I keep thinking it's called I Will Survive You and then have Gloria Gaynor stuck in my head!

Loved the Hebden Bridge poetry Remus. If Simon Armitage can get his poems published, there's surely a market for yours!

Tackle! by Jilly Cooper

As you can tell by my username I am a Jilly fan. I was really looking forward to this new one, but also a bit nervous as her last couple of books weren’t as good as earlier ones, plus I wasn’t sure about Jilly writing about football.

However, I enjoyed it. In my opinion it’s a bit better than her last few, although still not as good as the earlier Rutshire books. She writes convincingly about the football world (other than the timescale of the team achieving success!). All the usual Jilly tropes are here - terrible puns, accents/working class dialogue rendered phonetically, people constantly screaming with joy/despair/other random emotion, unlikely characters bursting out into romantic poetry/Shakespeare quotes at random moments, beautiful but inexplicably single women, lovely men inexplicably married to horrible women (who then leave them for the aforementioned beautiful but single women), and so on. But nobody reads Jilly thinking it’s good literature and if those things hadn’t been there it wouldn’t have felt like a Jilly book.

Lovely to be back in the world of the Campbell-Blacks, sad to think it’s almost certainly the last of the Rutshire chronicles (given her age and how long it’s taken her to write this one).

Glad to hear Jilly’s back on form @ChessieFL. It’s on my Christmas list.

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Liked the jokes, found the religion boring. He can't write women either.

I am very behind with my reviews and the thread so will try to be brief(ish) and then catch up on the chat:

74. The Skeleton Key - Erin Kelly

The backdrop to this is a hugely successful book which developed a cult following and has clues for readers to solve. If readers solve the clues they find parts of a mini-skeleton. The story follows the lives of the two men behind the book (clues and drawings) and in particular, Nell, the daughter of Frank (the author), whose life has been blighted by the book and the “bone hunters”. The story focuses on the theft of one of the bones and a historic death. I liked Nell. I thought her parents (and their best friends) were caricatures and the adjoining boho houses on the edge of Hampstead Heath were pretentious and unrealistic. Mildly interesting mystery.

75. Masqueraders - Georgette Heyer

Cross-dressing brother and sister left to fend for themselves by their chancer father. Not her best.

76. The Phone Box at the Edge of the World - Laura Imai Messina

Set in Japan. The phone box is in a garden and is used by the bereaved to enable them to “speak” to their loved ones. The main character lost her mother and daughter in the tsunami. Through the phone box she meets others who have been bereaved and slowly heals. Touching.

77. Frontrunner - Felix Francis

Jeff is dodging death whilst trying to track down race-fixers (and find love). Fast-paced and enjoyable.

78. Kala - Colin Walsh

Much read and reviewed on here already. set in a small town in Ireland and follows two timelines - the lives of six teenagers (including Kala) and some years later when some but not all of them are reunited and secrets are revealed. Don’t want to include spoilers. Very good - three narrators, has remained with me and thought the author wrote girls/women well.

79. Endless Night - Agatha Christie

This month’s challenge book. Not the usual Christie pattern. Reached 70% on my Kindle before there was a death. No Poirot or Marple and it was clear whodunnit - very disappointing.

Politics on The Edge - Rory Stewart

This was an interesting listen, his take downs of Boris Johnson, Truss and co are epic and his criticisms of our parliamentary system very good if worrying.
I don’t share his politics but I will acknowledge that he was one of the better, more centrist Tories and I think this country would be in a better place if he’d beaten BorisJohnson in the leadership election. It was never going to happen though.

I’ve heard a few people say they didn’t like the way he read it and his accents and impressions are terrible ( he does EVERYONE’s accent from Priti Patel to Gove to random farmers) but I didn’t mind his reading of it.
I

An Honourable Thief by Douglas Skelton

I needed to read something like this as life has been full on and this provided some escapism.
This was an old fashioned adventure/ thriller with spies, intrigue, beautiful and mysterious femme fatales, stolen letters and doomed love. It made me think of Alexander Dumas or the Scarlet Pimpernel.
I enjoyed this - Jonas Flynt is the honourable thief of the title and I would like to read Skelton's second book in the series.

I have one Audible credit left of my free trial. Can anyone recommend anything? Must be non-fiction, ideally politics or history and perhaps written by a woman (everything I can see seems to be written by men).
Thanks.

144. The White Book by Han Kang

I read The Vegetarian on I think 2020s threads and loved it but this one was style over substance - short vignettes about white things that don't really have a discernible connection or plot. Mercifully short.

@BestIsWest

Sonia Purnells A Woman Of No Importance read by Juliet Stevenson

@BestIsWest I'd always recommend House of Glass by Hadley Freeman if you haven't already read it. Ticks the boxes for non-fiction, history and female author.

I’ve read House of Glass - just the kind of thing I’m looking for though. Will take a look at A Woman of No Importance Thanks @EineReiseDurchDieZeit and @CluelessMama

You wont be sorry it was a bold from me

@BestIsWest - only if you’re a politics geek, but I found What does Jeremy think? by Suzanne Heywood a fascinating insight into the goings on in various governments.

@TimeforaGandT oh that sounds fascinating- I am not only a politics geek but I was a civil servant on and off during my career - and during the off periods mostly worked on government contracts. I will add to the list.

I’d second A woman of no importance but I’ve also recently read and enjoyed When the dust settles, The school that escaped the Nazis and The life of an MP by Jess Philips.

I’ve read and enjoyed When The Dust Settles and Jess Phillips .Will take a look at the school book too.
I’m new to audio books so whether I keep my subscription going depends on this choice.

I've enjoyed both Johnson at 10 and Killing Thatcher on audio this year, though both are written by men. Free by Lea Ypi about her childhood in Albania under Hoxha is also very good.

Thanks @Sadik, will they induce too much rage in me?

Should say that I read the Jeremy Heywood book so don’t know if it’s on Audible …..

It is @TimeforaGandT and I hadn’t realised it’s the same Suzanne Heywood of Wavewalker fame.

Killing Thatcher I'd think probably not, the Johnson bio it perhaps depends... I found it very interesting, if a bit like watching a slow motion car crash.

This is a lovely thread and I am enjoying it so much! I bring as my next offering....

Camp Austen, my life as an accidental Jane Austen Superfan by Ted Scheinman.
This was completely an accident as I needed an audiobook and was looking for a Jane Austen spin-off (don't judge me, we all do what we need to to get by!). Instead I stumbled upon this account of a young academic in North Carolina, who gets involved in the world of Jane Austen academia and conferences via his mother, a Jane Austen scholar who is out of action after a knee replacement. This was a witty and gentle description of a niche but friendly world, his reading was lovely (I had to speed it up but I always do), and it entirely scratched my Jane Austen itch so it was a happy little accident.

56 Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - M.R. James
Been meaning to read some M.R. James for a while, and was spurred on by the recent Halloween Backlisted episode. I found these short stories slightly underwhelming though - there’s some chilling images but it’s all told in a very precise, academic style and the brevity of the stories meant they mostly failed in the building tension department.

57 Wild Things: how we learn to read and what can happen if we don’t - Sally Rippin
The Australian children’s author’s experience of raising a late-diagnosed dyslexic and ADHD son. A little heavy on the personal experience side, would have liked more on the science of reading and dyslexia, but that’s my personal preference.

In a grumpy mood so reading some James Herriot now.