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?

Meant to @cassandre
Thanks again!

I wish I could recommend Nina's book at less than a quid, but nope.

Thanks @RomanMum I have ordered a copy of A Pocketful of Happiness from the library. There are a lot of available copies in my county. I was given The Alan Rickman Diaries for Christmas when it first came out but haven't ever read it as it had such dismal reviews and several friends were less than impressed with it!

Fuzzy, tbh I probably read it too fast; I should have read more slowly and savoured it more. But Friday was my last teaching day of the term and I was so tired, I just spent two days lying around sleeping and reading The Bee Sting. It was blissful! The novel is very well-crafted, but also a page-turner, as you say, so it was somehow undemanding enough for my tired brain to cope with.

I knew before I read it that the ending was controversial, but it wasn't as disappointing as I had feared it might be. More closure would have been satisfying on one level, but the open-endedness was an interesting choice from a literary point of view. (Hope I'm not being too spoilery here!)

I have a few more intense workdays this week (uni admissions stuff), and then I'm FREEEE to get going on Nicholas Nickleby (belatedly!) and the rest of my TBR pile, huzzah!

Well done @cassandre for making it to the end of term! Two more weeks to go here!

Good luck to you with the final stretch, @tarahumara!

Enjoy your well-deserved holidays @cassandre ! I agree with you on the ending. I would have preferred more closure too. I decided in my own mind what happened, whether that's right or wrong I dont know!

There was a strange formatting thing on the e-book version. There was an instruction to double-click on the screen to bring up the final part which was in the form of a table. It looked as if the book was running out of space and the last segment needed to be squeezed in. I could have missed it altogether. It was strange. If I see the book in the shops, I'll have to check it out.

See you on the Nicholas Nickleby thread! You will fly through it!

End of term!!! We’re going all the way to the 22nd here. I’m going to need some very easy reads to help me make it.

Hats off you all you teachers, I don’t know how you do it. I’m on a course that runs until the 21st and I couldn’t believe it went on until then.

Another teacher here - crawling towards the end of term!!
Just popped on to say that Lincoln in the bardo one of my all time favourites is on Daily deals today

150. Before We Say Goodbye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Spotify)

The fourth in the ongoing Japanese time travel cafe series.

In my review of Book 3 I cited diminishing returns and said I wouldn't bother with this one, but as it was free on Spotify and only around 4 hours long.

If you know the series it has lost its charm a little and criticisms of it are valid.

This is #150 for me, and so I'm taking December off and stopping here as there's no way I'd make the next milestone and I'm odd like that. Any Christmas reading will be reviewed in January and I'll do my review of this year nearer the end of the month.

Happy Festive Reading Online Book Pals! I will still be sticking around

I loved Lincoln In The Bardo @splothersdog

Congratulations on the 150 @EineReiseDurchDieZeit I'm hoping to reach that by the end of the year!

Thanks @MamaNewtNewt

I can relax a bit now and start organising Januarys reading I think I'm going to be conservative in 2024 and do 50 only, but I said this for 2023 and the bug got me.

I was aiming for 75 but this has been my best year for reading since I had DD. Have fun organising your 2024 reading, I think I'll do something similar as I want to try to be a bit more structured next year, a bit more quality over quantity. Looking forward to the end of year lists! I mean if there's one thing I need it's more book recommendations 😁

Definitely need more quality over quantity

So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan This is closer to short-story length than novella. We meet Cathal as he finishes work on a beautiful Friday and heads home for the weekend. As we’d expect from Keegan this is perfectly formed, gradually revealing Cathal’s character and showing why he is the way he is. Unlike Foster and Small Things, though, which I loved for the humanity that shone through, this one doesn’t have the same glow of hope or redemption so I’d say it lacks the depth as well as the length of the novellas.

Hey CornishLizard, I'm going to read that one by Keegan soon. I have it in paperback. It's beautifully done.

I'm thinking that if I do a few short ones, I might get to seventy. Well done on your total EineReise. Wow, that's good going.

Congratulations Eine! Nice round number there.

Undecided about the latest Mark Billingham. Ballroom dancing, wise cracking police detective who is inexplicably being permitted to return to work to investigate a case that could be connected to the recent murder of his police detective wife. Set in Blackpool. It’s……..interesting and I suppose handy for the Sea Life Centre if sharks are to be jumped

Look forward to your review Fuzzy.

I’m looking away when numbers are mentioned - I’m not sure I’ll reach 40 this year 🙄

I am thinking about buying Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, has anyone read it and what did you think of it

@minsmum I've owned it for about 7 years and have read about 40 pages. They were 40 very good pages. I do still fully intend to read it. Hope you manage to.

I’ve also owned Life and Fate for many years. It’s so bloody heavy that every time I think about reading it, I remember how heavy it is and give up.

If I get it it will be on the kindle so I won't have to worry about the weight of it, I will finish the sample and decide I think

I read Life and Fate after hearing a kind of adaptation on Radio 4 which was very much selected parts, and very much recommend it. One of the best but very harrowing parts is based on what happened to his mother, who was killed along with the other Jews in the town/village where she lived when the Nazis invaded Ukraine during WWII.

I've bought some of his other books but have only read one - The Road - collected short stories and some other short pieces not collected elsewhere, but with a substantial introduction and endnotes nearly as long as the substantive text.

Neither book is easy reading though. And reading a long book on the Kindle is definitely a good idea. I still have another novel, Stalingrad and a book of his reportage on the Second World War, when he travelled as a reporter with the Red Army.

***

I've read the Nina Stibbe diaries a few weeks ago, via Netgalley, and (sorry if you missed it as a Daily Deal) disagree that they're not worth 99p. Admittedly they're not as good as Love, Nina and I'm sure others will be disappointed, but I still found it interesting. Maybe it's because she's just a few years older than me and living in a part of north London I know quite well, as I spent a lot of time when I was young staying at my aunt's house for a few days and a few times a few weeks. Maybe it's the preoccupation with menopause/post-menopause I identify with.

I am a very nosy reader, and I did keep hoping for more information on the end of her marriage, as her ex is a key character/love interest in Love, Nina. But I have heard or read interviews, and she said that she feels it's not just her story, and that their children, now in their early 20s and studying in London have been very clear that they would have been unhappy with it (though they are presumably happy to feature quite a lot in Went to London). While I admit I relish the gossipy side of such, I also respect that what's published of living people's diaries/letters is their choice, and that if they put the feelings of family and friends before humouring my nosiness, that's fair enough.