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?

I found A Gentleman in Moscow really dragged on for too long- but I’d say it didn’t help that I read it while I’m hotel quarantine during covid! I haven’t read any Elena Ferrante yet but she’s on my tbr.

I found Elena Ferrante totally unreadable.

😁May she keep on rockin' around the Christmas tree (plant!)

Think I have found the monthly deals!!! Link below did anyone needs it - cant guarantee that a) it will work b) won't take you to the end of the list

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=digital-text&rh=n%3A3017941031&page=97&pageType=STOREFRONT&pfrddm=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pfrddr=T0KXVR5AH5YJNX4DW8NX&pfrdds=merchandised-slot-3&qid=1701808892&storeType=ebooks&ref=ispnn96

Update on reads

Excellent women - Barbara Pym - this was delightful. My first Pym and not my last. Beautifully observed characters and diaglogue. Wonderful character of a Nun whose name escapes me now but she had me howling with laughter. Portrait of spinsterhood after the Wars. Loved it.

Her fearful symmetry- Audrey Niffenegger.
Possibly one of the most bizarre ghost stories I have ever read.
Twin sisters are left a flat and money by their estranged aunt who is their mothers twin sister. They have never met her and conditions of the inheritance mean they have to live in the flat in London for a year. Their parents (who live in USA) can not enter the flat.
So far so weird!
The ghost of auntie haunts the flat. Auntie's younger lover lives downstairs. Wildly inconsistent character with OCD and agoraphobia lives upstairs. Oh and the flat is on the edge of Highgate Cemetery where the family vault is.
Cue much weirdness, super strange twin stuff and more twists than you could ever imagine. So many times I was ready to give up on this! Then it would settle only for something else so jarring and strange to happen.
I get it is a ghost story but honestly I can't even begin to convey how patchy this book is.
It has however made me determine to visit Highgate Cemetery in the near future as well as Postman Park.
10 out 10 for setting. Story ? I really can't decide!

Me too! And I wanted to love it

99 Penance by Eliza Clark
I only got through this as I skim read about 50% and like a couple of other posters, completely skipped the US school shooting section. Three teenage girls murder their classmate in a working class northern coastal town on the eve of the Brexit vote. All told by an unreliable narrator journalist / author of true crime novels. This just didn't work for me at all. It felt repetitive, I didn't like the format (interviews mixed with podcasts mixed with social media) and I don't think I learnt anything new after the first few chapters. Not for me and glad I only wasted 99p.

100 books was my target so I need to choose my next book wisely, possibly O Caledonia.

@splothersdog Highgate Cemetery is beautiful. Won't be reading that book!

😅

At @splothersdog I never give books 1 (I can usually find some redeeming feature to bump a book up to 2) but I hated Her Fearful Symmetry so much that it got a 1.

Edit: the stupid editing won't let me post a star!!!

@Stokey as is Postman's Park.

Am I proving a theory by saying I enjoyed Elena Ferrante and A Gentleman?

36 1983: The World at the Brink by Taylor Downing
This was an interesting read that I ordered after listening to the Nuclear Weapons episode of The Rest is History. I see that Downing has a few 'Year X: How We All Nearly Died' titles. I don't understand enough about writing to know why this wasn't quite as gripping as I expected. However, I really enjoyed his portrait of Ronald Reagan; the latter was such a bobbing block as I was growing up that his rehabilitation is quite pleasing in a funny way. It's only achievable by ignoring quite a lot of his policies,but it's reasonable in this case to give a picture of RR as someone who genuinely feared war and was in his own way keen to build bridges.

(Over the last couple of years I had fun spending December collating stats on the 50 Bookers most bolded books. The threads have been much more free-form this year and I also have too much on to do it this year. Just in case anyone was wondering!)

59 Death Sets Sail - Robin Stevens Well, insomnia struck and I read this in one go…I’ll be good for nothing in the morning but I didn’t want to stop reading! Final instalment in the Murder Most Unladylike series, and very much along the same lines as usual. It was set on a boat travelling up the Nile…sounds familiar? It was even more Agatha Christie-ish than usual, but very much in keeping with Daisy and Hazel’s story to date. Obviously a kids’ book but a very good one, as is the whole series.

@PermanentTemporary Thank you for doing those stats last year - very interesting! But I can imagine it must have been very time-consuming. I do like all the end-of-year stats!

Popping on to say that the Kindle Daily Deals look particularly good today.
North Woods by Daniel Mason is there which I adored and is one of my books of the year.
Also Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers and I picked up All The Little Bird Hearts too

I love Postman’s Park and always pop in there if I’m in the area.

Oooh @splothersdog there’s two on my Wish List there, I’ll head over to it in a minute.

I remember liking Her Fearful Symmetry a lot.

I don’t mind taking over the stats this year. In fact, I’ve already done it.

Favourites of the 50 bookers:
This Thing of Darkness
Station Eleven
The Remains of the Day
Never Let Me Go
A Gentleman in Moscow

Least Favourites of the 50 Bookers:
Station Eleven
The Remains of the Day
Never Let Me Go
A Gentleman in Moscow

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Remus - You are a card!!

(I have been longing to use that expression.)

😂

😂

I can't be entirely sure about Remus's scientific methods.

I trust there was a thorough consultation with PermanentTemporary? 😜