50 Books Challenge 2023 Part Ten

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the tenth and final thread of the 50 Books Challenge for this year.

The challenge was to read fifty books (or more!) in 2023, though reading fifty wasn'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, eighth one here and the ninth one here

How have you got on this year?

Happy Boxing Day! Hope you get well soon for all not feeling well. Great haul’s folks, enjoying seeing all the piles of book photo’s. I didn’t get any books this year but to be fair I did not ask for any either. However have a generous gift from MIL so may well visit a book store and treat myself.

Belated Happy Christmas to all!

I'm also delighted with my book presents (all from my wishlist) this year.

Janina I love the Faber Poetry Diary, lucky you!

Pepe I hope you're feeling better now. I loved your review of The Secret River and your personal connection and reflections.

@MamaNewtNewt thanks for posting the year in books link. I just did it ( you have to log on via a computer to get the Good reads link) and have spent 46 days reading this year! I would say I have a problem but I know some of you lot have read way more.

117 Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
Best title of the year, for sure. I’ve read a few scifi books with climate change as their theme (if anyone is interested, then The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson is particularly good) but this assumes the climate crisis is more or less a given and yesterday’s problem while the world now has moved on to the biodiversity crisis. As a result, extinction credits are selling for a high price, allowing corporations to wipe out species unless and until they are certified as intelligent, at which point the extinction prices increases significantly. This was a really smart funny book which was also really unsettling. The financial crime thriller component was well done, as was the post-Brexit subplot which I thought was very good. And the venomous lumpsucker is indeed a real – and intelligent – fish.

118 Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ali has written a lot about why Islam is bad for women (and people in general), drawing on her experiences growing up as a Muslim in East Africa before leaving for Germany and claiming asylum. This is her autobiography, including her time as an elected politican in the Netherlands. I found this fascinating. She’s highly opinionated and her journey from devout Muslim to one of its harshest critics has made so many people so angry they want her dead.

119 Kala by Colin Walsh
After Kala goes missing as a teenager, her friends find their different paths in life before coming back to the town where it happened one summer where they piece together the story of her disappearance. I know this has been widely read and reviewed here, and generally loved. I can see why though I found it slightly hard to follow in places. I think I wasn’t paying close enough attention, which was needed to unpick the various threads of the story (I think it had something to do with the multiple narrators, and strongly suspect it was a me problem). I particularly liked the teenage segments which felt very well observed.

120 Ready for Absolutely Nothing by Susannah Constantine
Just what I needed ahead of Christmas, picked up on a whim in the library. I thought there’d be more Trinny but there was very little. There was a lot of very high quality Royal and celebrity gossip as well as some very moving reflections on growing up, parents and substance abuse. Constantine sounds like she’d be enormous fun to hang out with and I’m glad she’s found happiness.

121 Occupational Hazards by Rory Stewart
Stewart was the deputy Governor of an Iraqi province after the second Iraq war and this is his account of his time in the country. I could have done without his attempts at accents which varied from ok to really bad, but he tells a good story. He did as good a job as he good in impossibly challenging circumstances and clearly has enormous affection for the country and the people he spent time with there. His fundamental decency comes through. It’s a shame he left the Tories; they could have done with a few more people like him around. I don’t share his politics but I think his principles are firmly held and humane.

122 The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict by Martin Bunton
One of the Very Short Introductions. And it did the job; I feel a lot better informed about the history of Israel since the mid 1800s as a result of this. I don’t know enough to know how balanced it was; it seemed to me at times he leaned in an anti-Israeli direction, but I also suspect it’s nearly impossible to write a history of the region that doesn’t at times appear to favour one side over the other. It ends in the late 2000s, so misses a lot of the more recent developments.

123 Grown Ups by Marian Keyes
Sometimes a Marian Keyes is just what’s needed although this wasn’t one of her best. A slightly convoluted family come together regularly for celebrations and festivities, and everyone has a story line. Arguably there were too many of them for any of them to be really satisfying. I could have done without either of the sets of in-laws, neither of which brought much to the story.

124 Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
When their daughter travels to Peru for Christmas, Lester and Nora decide to skip Christmas and take a cruise instead. Their neighbours disapprove but Lester in particular is determined they will save money and avoid the Christmas madness. I loved the first half of this, then got rather concerned in the second half that it was going to end up somewhere I really didn’t want it to go but the ending just about redeemed it for me. It did at least stop me from ordering more Christmas lights on the 20th December to put on the bushes outside the house, so for that I’m grateful.

@Stokey I definitely prefer his South American stuff and Captain Corelli and Birds Without Wings - I think these really demonstrated his genius. The Dust that Falls From Dreams series I enjoyed and I cherish my hardback copies but they aren’t up there. He still has the ability to make me laugh like a loon and cry within a page on public transport though. I also think I’m such a fan, that I can be a bit blind to critique.

100. Trust by Herman Diaz The story of a successful Wall street financier & his wife in the early part of the 20th century, told through four separate sections. The first is a fictionalised account of their lives, the others then give alternate perspectives. I was recommended this by a friend who was part way through, & I can see why - it looks to be a really interesting set up with various unreliable narrators. I dashed through the first part, but then unfortunately, I thought it really fell apart towards the end. The twist felt really obvious, & the final section was all telling not showing (and in a very implausible way).

Get well soon Piggy and Pepe! * *I hope you have lots of time to relax and recover with a lovely book to hand. I've enjoyed looking at people's amazing gifts of books.

I've rounded up my reading list to 75. I'm moving on to reading the chapters in Nicholas Nickleby and The Fancy by Monica Dickens for those two readalongs.

These were all short and mostly enjoyable reads;

65. The Haunted Hotel: Wilkie Collins
66. One in Custody; Love Lies Bleeding: Jane Casey (2 in 1).
67. Lucy By The Sea: Elizabeth Strout.
68. Rizzio: Denise Mina.
69. The Lock-Up: John Banville.
70. A Future Chalet School Girl: Elinor Brent-Dyer.
71. Fingersmith: Sarah Walters.
72. The Saint Fiacre Affair: Georges Simenon.
73. So Late in the Day: Claire Keegan.
74. Another Year of Wonder: Clemency Burton-Hill.
75. A Christmas Carol: Charles Dickens.

Get well soon Pepe and Piggy.

Mrs Caliban Rachel Ingalls
A short novella that I found knocking about at work. Written in the 1980s it’s about a grieving housewife with an adulterous husband who embarks on an affair with a Frogman, who was captured and tortured by scientists in a local institute. The entire book is from Dorothy’s perspective and there is, I think, some ambiguity around whether this is actually happening or in her
mind. I really liked this, it was interesting and not overdone.

Dh wasn't feeling great last night so went to bed early so I took the opportunity to finish number 67) Murder on the Christmas Express by Alexander Benedict

This is very similar to Murder on the Orient Express except it takes place on the sleeper train from London to Fort William. Recently retired Metropolitan police officer Roz is heading home to Scotland where her daughter is in labour. Poor weather conditions cause the train to derail and shortly afterwards a passenger is found dead. First of all, this was described as "cosy Christmas crime" but chapter 1 has a very graphic flashback to a violent rape which doesn't really fit with my definition of "cosy"

Second, the sleeper train to Scotland (I have been on it so know what it's like) really doesn't compare to the Orient Express and there is no mingling between passengers

Third, the final reveal that Christie/Poirot do so well is cut short and this hugely detracts from the story in my opinion. The point where Poirot goes round the room explaining how everyone had a motive really is Christie's usp and could have been done so much better here

Also the book was extremely poorly edited and proofread with silly errors and mistakes that any competent editor should have picked up on which I found very distracting

Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop - Jenny Colgan.
I think Jenny Colgan is the Queen of the cupcake/bakery/bookshop genre and I always enjoy her books. Lighthearted and festive.

It also mentions The Worst Journey in The World as the best book ever written and I’ve just discovered that it’s free on Audible. I’m going in. I may be done time.

Well done @sadik for hitting 100!

I've just bought Strong Female Character by Fern Brady for 99p and A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo for £1.39. Both recommended on here.

some time

I really enjoyed The Worst Journey in the World @BestIsWest.

The Worst Journey in the World is stunning. One of my all time favourites.

Hope everyone gets a decent break over the next few days.

138. How the Heather Looks, Joan Bodger
In the 1950s, an American family visits the UK and looks for sites related to childhood books - The Wind in the Willows etc. There's a lot of wishful thinking and the author doesn't tell you much about the books, but they do meet AA Milne's widow and Arthur Ransome. It's an interesting period piece, made more poignant by the fact that tragedy hits the family in the six years between their visit and the book's publication, only glancingly referred to in an afterword.

139. The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald
Mentioned on here recently. An account of a stay in a TB hospital in mid-20th century America. The endearing thing about this author is her willingness to laugh at herself - she is funny about her own occasional descent into self-pity. Again, an interesting period piece.

140. The Whispering Knights, Penelope Lively
Deeply lethargic and couldn't concentrate, so this children's book was all I could manage. Three children inadvertently summon Morgan Le Fay and must find a way to best her.

141. Yestertime, Andrew Cunningham
Time-slip novel. We sample life in the Wild West. Not very well written but was enough to keep me turning the pages. Don't think I'll bother with the sequels though.

142. a Gentleman in Moscow, Amos Towles
Having said previously that this didn't pull me in, I gave it another go and this time I really enjoyed it. Aristocrat is sentenced to house arrest in a Moscow hotel but his life remains full of interest. Occasionally hovered on the age of twee and there is some obvious straining for aphorisms, but I liked the characters and the determination to savour life even under unpromising circumstances.

I read 144 books last year - might just pip that this year, especially as I'm nearly through A Year of Wonder.

I'm enjoying seeing the book hauls! Happy Boxing Day to all, and sympathy to everyone who is feeling poorly.

My book haul this year was small (silly me, putting Things That Were Not Books on my wishlist, ha). I did receive Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett, which I've been wanting to read for some time, and Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell (I'm hoping DS2 will also want to read the latter).

Books I gave to other family members:
For DH, Demon Copperhead and The Russian Album by Michael Ignatieff.
For DS1, Babel (because he read Yellowface and declared it a masterpiece, somewhat to my bemusement, but hey, I'm glad to see him enthusiastic about a book!), Penance by Eliza Clark, and The Bell Jar (because every teenager should read The Bell Jar). I'm hoping to read Penance myself before he goes back to uni.
For DS2, who is a Louis Sachar fan, two books by Sachar, Small Steps and The Boy Without a Face. I hope they're good as I haven't read them myself yet!

The clever thing about gifting books to your family is that you can give them stuff you want to read yourself, and look generous in the process 😂

Catch-up reviews of some books I read in September or so (cough cough) and never actually got round to reviewing:

67. An Unsuitable Attachment, Barbara Pym 4/5
    Very enjoyable if not in my top rank of Pym novels. There’s an amusing interlude where some of the main characters visit Rome.

68. An Academic Question, Barbara Pym 3/5
    Reread for the Rather Dated book thread. This is the weakest Pym novel I’ve read (left unfinished, it was published after her death), but it does have some good moments.

69. Augustown, Kei Miller 5/5
    A rich and thought-provoking novel by the Jamaican poet. I especially liked the way the narrative wove in the story of historical figure Andrew Bedward, an early 20th c. Jamaican preacher who promised his followers that they would fly up to heaven. I would like to reread this one day.

70. Aimer, enseigner, Yvon Rivard 5/5
    A beautiful, meditative collection of essays by a Québécois writer and retired literature professor. He takes Virginia Woolf’s essay ‘Evening over Sussex’ as a starting point and goes on to reflect on the teaching of literature and on the student-teacher relationship. The essays explore a number of different literary works dealing with sexual desire between teachers and students, like Coetzee’s Disgrace. Shocking revelation: sleeping with your students is both an ethically and pedagogically bad idea. I would like to come back to this book in future; it makes a powerful argument about why studying and teaching literature are worth doing.

Books I’ve read more recently (maybe the last books I’ll finish this year!)

71. If I Survive You, Jonathan Escoffery 4/5
    Booker Prize Shortlist. Some of these interlinking short stories are brilliant, but the quality is a little uneven overall, as others have remarked. The first story is particularly powerful; it’s about race and identity in America and the pressure to find a label so that people can file you into the right ‘box’ (regardless of whether said box actually fits). A powerful contribution to Jamaican-American literature.

72. Quartet in Autumn, Barbara Pym 4/5
    Quite different to the other Pym books I’ve read, and frankly rather bleaker, this story is about four older people and their struggle to maintain a sense of autonomy. It reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. Melancholic at points, but also very funny in its trademark Pym exposure of human quirks.

73. The Bee Sting, Paul Murray 5/5
    Booker Prize Shortlist. I loved this and devoured it over the course of a weekend. It would have been my pick for the Booker. A family saga told from the perspective of different family members (teenagers and parents) in turn. Brilliant characterisation.

74. Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, Naomi Klein 5/5
    I don’t read much non-fiction, and I wasn’t expecting to be as blown away by this book as I was. I picked it up originally because I was interested in the Naomi Wolf scandal (how someone who was once a reputable feminist writer became a conspiracy theorist and general laughingstock), but this book is about much more than how Klein was repeatedly mistaken for Wolf. It’s about the whole world of conspiracy theory and the North American right. Klein is fiendishly intelligent, and compassionate: she’s interested in understanding people with toxic views, not just othering them. One especially moving chapter is about crackpot theories of autism (she has an autistic child). I came away from the book determined to try to be more politically active.

75. The Fraud, Zadie Smith 4/5
    Clever, self-reflexive and entertaining, like all of Smith’s books. This is an ambitious historical novel that incorporates a varied cast of characters, storylines and time periods, but it’s relatively easy to read as the chapters are so short. I’ve also been reading Black and British by David Olusoga, and this book fits brilliantly with that nonfiction account of Blacks in 19th century Britain; the world that Smith depicts is a convincingly multi-ethnic one and a powerful corrective to the traditional Victorian novel. I was very taken with the two main characters: the housekeeper Eliza Touchet and the ex-slave Andrew Bogle. On the other hand, the novel’s many strands never quite came together for me (though maybe the fragmentation is part of the political point; 19th c. Britain is made up of paradoxes and contradictions). By the way, I read an insight-packed review of this novel in the LRB by the wonderful Colin Burrow. He points out that in the end, there is something earnest/moralistic/didactic about the narrative, which makes it less transgressive than Smith’s other books. Even so, I find it fascinating to see what Smith makes of Victorian England.

76. Modern Ranch Living, Mark Poirier 4/5
    Big thanks to @Terpsichore for recommending this novel! A distinctive, original and very funny story set in Arizona. Memorable characters, especially the teenage Kendra, bodybuilder and poet despite herself. A pleasure to read.

@cassandre I have a total fascination with the whole university academic/student relationship from my own crush on a lecturer once upon a time (you’ll be pleased to know he was never anything but very professional), sadly it doesn’t look like Rivard’s book is easily accessible in English.

86 This is definitely my last of the year! I had a surprise hour to myself on the sofa this afternoon so finished The Bothy by Trevor Mark Thomas
This was….interesting. On the face of it very sparely written with some shockingly violent scenes, but it had a captivating depth to it that kept me reading.
Tom is on the run, helped by his friend Gary to escape the vengeful family of his deceased girlfriend, who blame him for her death. He reaches a remote bothy/pub, run by another gangster, Frank. The bothy doesn’t have any customers. It’s not really a place you’d want to accidentally stumble across, even if you’re desperate, but fortunately heavy snowfall means that only the most determined will make it up there.
All Tom has to do is a bit of maintenance but it’s not long before tensions rise between him and Frank’s henchmen. The attentions of Cora, Frank’s girlfriend don’t endear him to the deeply unpleasant Braudy, Tucker etc.
There’s a lot of gritty description, much of it extremely unpleasant. Some gut-churning violence. Remnants of trafficking and prostitution litter the knocked-up rooms and you absolutely don’t want to find yourself in the room lined with plastic sheeting. At some points I wondered if it was an allegory for Purgatory but Thomas keeps his authorial feet firmly on the ground.

Not for the faint hearted but had a strange air of redemption and facing banal evil head on.

Ah yes, StColumb, I should have said that the Rivard book was only available in French, duh! I wish it could be translated into English, though I think it's unlikely. It won a prize in Canada, and a French-Canadian colleague lent it to me, but when I looked for it on Amazon, thinking I'd like to own a copy myself, it wasn't even available to buy. So it's pretty obscure in the Anglophone world I think. I've actually thought of ordering it from Canada. I had mad crushes on a few of my uni professors as well, and I'm grateful that they never attempted anything remotely untoward!

I've kind of fallen off the thread so just dumping everything I've read since I last posted before going back to see what everyone else has been reading.

105. The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
     In a future where civilisation has been destroyed by "the convulsions" men and women live mostly separately. Boys are sent to live with the warriors (all men) at the age of five, but have the option of returning to the women at fifteen to act as servitors. The book begins with Stavia learning that her son has chosen to remain with the warriors, then most of the novel is set during Stavia's teenage years, the daughter of her town's medical officer, and the choices she makes, and the secrets that some are guarding.
     Feminist sci-fi that feels a little dated but still makes a pretty good story.

106. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
     This is more or less the life story of 28 year old Gifty, who is experimenting on mice for her neuroscience PhD and caring for her ill mother, a Ghanaian immigrant in the US.
     It's told non-linearly, and is a subtle look at racism, immigration, broken families, trauma, and religion and science. I liked reading this, though it is quite a sad book.

107. The Stationery Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
     Sixty years after their ill-fated romance that started in a Tehran stationery shop Roya and Bahman meet again and so we are whisked back to the 1950s to watch it play out.
     Easy to read, though Roya is a bit too passive to make a strong protagonist.

108. One of Us is Next by Karen M. McManus
     Sequel to One of Us is Lying. The pupils of the same high school are forced into a giant game of truth or dare. Not exactly plausible but it's an ok YA thriller.

109. Deceived Wisdom: Why What You Thought Was Right is Wrong by David Bradley
     Quite a short book about things like why it's not true that if you wear your coat inside you don't feel the benefit when you go out. Fairly interesting but nothing mind-blowing.

110. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
     Seven year old Clara keeps watch by the window, waiting for her missing older sister to return. She sees a man move into the home of her elderly neighbour, Elizabeth, and the story of these three lives is told from each of their viewpoints; Clara in turmoil but observant, Elizabeth thinking about her past, and Liam at a crossroads in life.
     It's a quiet book written in in unshowy prose that draws you in.

111. The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
     After Frida leaves her two year old daughter, Harriet, at home alone she is made to leave Harriet with her ex husband and his new partner for a year while she takes part in a program to learn to be a good mother.
     It's a good idea for a dystopia, the way the mothers are treated, and the how they are forced to learn to be better parents. Frida is an interesting character in some ways but difficult to warm to. I think I liked the idea of the book more than I liked the book.

112. The Orchard on Fire by Shena Mackay
     April and her parents move to a small Kent village to run a tea room in the 1950s. April is quickly befriended by Ruby, whose abusive parents run the pub, and is groomed by a local man.
     A subtle coming of age novel, nicely written.

113. Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov trans. Boris Dralyuk
     Beekeeper Sergeyich lives in the grey zone between Russian occupied Ukraine and the rest of the country in the 2010s. His tiny village is almost deserted, the only other inhabitant remaining is his childhood enemy, Pashka.
     It's a surprisingly gentle for a book set in a war, though there are snipers, bombs food shortages etc, and this gentleness comes from Sergeyich who is rather detached from everything except his bees.

114. Midnight in Everwood by M.A. Kuzniar
     In the early twentieth century Marietta longs to be a ballerina but her wealthy parents want her to stop dancing and marry someone they deem suitable, possibly the mysterious new neighbour Dr Drosselmeier. Then as the clock strikes midnight at the start of Christmas Day she enters a strange world and will have to find a way home.
     Fantasy romance based on The Nutcracker. Perhaps there was a good story in there somewhere but it was dragged down by purple prose and mostly anodyne characters.

115. Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson
     A collection of short stories and recipes with a Christmas theme. I liked the ghost stories best.

116. The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling
     In the kingdom of Cornucopia there is a legend of a terrifying monster called the ickabog. Vain, foolish King Fred is manipulated into using this legend against his people.
     This is darker than I expected, with murders and executions. It's a sort of children's 1984, with the ones in power making up t
     heir own reality and suppressing the truth.