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?

And So This is Christmas. Brian Bilston

Christmassy poems. Not his best work.

From West Yorkshire to East Berlin by Aisla Mellor
My final book for this year. It is a debut novel for the author and will read her next novel when she finishes one. I enjoyed this one and it kept me interested in the story. It is about Jack Jagger following his story from 1919 onwards. His father is a very successful barber but tragedy strikes along with a secret that falls into the wrong hands. This story follows generations across time and you meet all sorts of different characters.

Read The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (very good) and The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley.

I've read some of Lucy Foley's other books and enjoyed them as holiday reads. This was a good Christmas read, sort of a modern Agatha Christie with friends meeting for New Year at a remote hunting lodge in the Highlands. They are then snowed in and one of them goes missing with only a gamekeeper, housekeeper - both of whom are escaping something in their pasts- and odd Icelandic couple around.

My Christmas book haul has included:

Step by Step by Simon Reeve
Antarctica by Claire Keegan
Days at the Morisaki bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
The Alan Rickman Diaries

34.The Black Pearl Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. Number 5 in the Morland Dynasty. Charles II returns from exile along with a court of landless lords. Debauchery ensues. Will Annunciata (the beautiful Morland heiress) make a good marriage and discover her true parentage? Quite fun after the dreary battles of the Cromwell era.

Looks like I’ll only make 35 books in 2023, my lowest reading year in years. But a lot of chunksters and I’ve had a fun end to the year with this series so not complaining. I definitely want to get closer to 50 next year though.

142. Saturday Lunch with the Brownings, Penelope Mortimer
Short stories originally published in the New Yorker in the 1950s, showing the dark side of domesticity. Didn't love all the stories, but some were great - I particularly enjoyed one in which she sends up herself and her husband as horrific dinner party bores.

Light Over Liskeard Louis de Bernieres

As some of you will know, I am a LdB die-hard fan, this makes me a terrible critic of his work. I did, predictably enjoy this hopefully dystopian story. It’s set in a not defined near future dominated by tech and screens, people have become lethargic and idle because bots can do most things for them. It’s a not very thinly disguised rant against all of the above. It focussed on Q who is a quantum mathematician helping the government to fight cyber attack. He predicts that an apocalypse of sorts is coming and becomes a bit of a prepper on Bodmin Moor - but it’s more than that, really he is trying to regain some humanity. Parts did make me question my own reliance on convenience vs effort. The characters are all a little eccentric as per most of his books and there are small references to places and people from his other stories, you don’t necessarily like any of them but you don’t hate them either. For me that’s a tricky mix, but I did find them engaging. His writing is till wonderful, this book makes me think I need a point scale between 4-5 stars. This is a solid 4, but then some of the others need to shift to 4.4-4.6 and 5.

I read this in hardcopy and as a mainly Kindle reader for fiction these days it felt wonderful. I’ve had time to be able to just sit with it and drink tea and read though.

Definitely falling short this year but pleased to have just crept over 40 at least with

A Child’s Christmas In Wales - Dylan Thomas illustrations by Peter Bailey Cheating really to count this very short festive reread but need all the help I can get this year, and this is such a lovely edition, the illustrations are charming.

Also (finally) finished Christmas in the Snow - Gladys Mitchell I like Mrs Bradley our lady sleuth, but honestly found this quite tedious and very difficult to care much about whodunnit or why.

I finished what I expect will be my last (54th) book of 2023 which follows hot on the tail of Chessie deftly reviewing The Fraud for me already! Haven't checked back so apologies if it was not Chessie!)

I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would as it has had so many sniffy reviews. I enjoy Smith's voice and intricacy and cleverness and thought this a far superior historical novel to many I have read.

The title itself is really interesting - who exactly are the frauds? What is fraudulence?

It is indeed a bit too sprawling. The short chapters are for me too a thing which keeps me turning pages, but can also mean I don't concentrate fully. It's probably over long.

I adore White Teeth and have not really ever enjoyed Smith's other novels - but this I did read with considerable relish.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein- Coco Mellors I loved this!! The story of a couple in early 2000's New York. He older than her. They fall instantly in love but with their own personal demons theirs is a turbulent and at times destructive relationship. The story is told through their interactions and the people around them.
This has the potential to be pretentious- lots of selfish bright things doing selfish and not so bright things but the writing was flawless. Hard to believe this is a debut.
Heading off the the end of year thread to add another standout!

Gah, nooooo - it was cassandre ! Sorry!!

I'm glad you liked The Fraud, Piggy, I also liked it more than I had expected on the basis of the reviews I'd seen beforehand!

I think maybe it's more enjoyable if you've read a lot of Victorian novels (which I know you have). I was amused by her portrayal of Dickens, and by Ainsworth's petty jealousy of him.

And yes to the many meanings of fraudulence in the novel. Perhaps the biggest instance of fraud was colonialism itself, and the fact that everyday British life was (at least to some degree) shored up by suffering in other parts of the globe.

Yes, agreed on all that. The British denial that they play a hand in propping up slavery - and grew wealthy on it- runs as a thread. All that awful art.

Dickens was an interesting characterisation. I liked the awful Victorian writing that Ainsworth did : the inclusion of the unreadable first chapter that was so nearly Dickensian made me chortle.

My copy is signed and had an interesting essay by ZS at the back.

Ooh your copy sounds brilliant!

I know! I'm never going to look at dolphins in the same way again.

I’ve spent a lot of time the last few days reading.
157 Winter- Ali Smith
Following on from reading Autumn earlier in the year. This one focuses on the stories of sharp and fairly dislikable Sophia Cleves- a retired successful businesswoman, and her family- sister Iris- a lifelong protestor, son Art- lost in life- and Lux- a girl he pays to pretend to be his (recently split up with) girlfriend Charlotte when spending Christmas with his mother. There’s a lot about divisions in family and society but the love that still abides. This one is also the Brexit novel reflecting those themes. I enjoyed it, but not as much as Autumn

158 A Litter of Bones- JD Kirk
Inlove a police procedural and am always looking out for a good one. This tells the story of the investigation of a missing child- a case very similar to a series of crimes that the investigating officer- DCI Logan- put someone away for ten years previously. I listened to this on audio. It was fast-paced and a decent storyline (though I guessed whodunnit fairly early on) but I didn’t feel Logan stood out enough from the myriad other gruff, rule-breaking maverick detectives out there. I might try another but I’m going to try a few more other possibilities first.

159 Romantic Comedy- Curtis Sittenfeld
I rarely read romance but enjoy one once in a while and have liked other books by this author before. I really enjoyed this. It was a far-fetched Will they- won’t they romance that was a bit too obsessed with Saturday Night Live but I was rooting for the main couple and enjoyed the ride. One reviewer on story graph described it as a good generation X romance- and as an x, I agree.

I’m currently reading Jane Eyre, which I doubt I’ll finish before year’s end, but I will finish my two daily reads- A Poem for the Day 2- some of which I’ve enjoyed and Year of Wonder whic I’ve absolutely adored, so I should finish up at 161 for the year.

First dud of my library haul - I've DNFed Conversations with Friends after 38 pages despite rather enjoying Beautiful World, Where Are You?

I was about to say my objection was the first person narration, but having just read & loved Lucy Barton & Burntcoat perhaps I only notice when it jars.

Just got Dune Trilogy for 99p and Demon Copperhead for 1.99.

I have no immediate plans to read Dune but for 99p I couldn't resist.

On the other hand, I will have to be reigning myself in to finish my current book before starting Demon Copperhead.

My plan to read more books than I buy in 2024 is not off to a good start. I have started marking some as read on my kindle to get them out of my library screen. I get too caught up in dragging through stuff that I wanted to read 'one day' and starting it right away even if I am not in the right mood.

It isn't 2024 yet!

Prophet Song is 99p on Kindle today, for those who haven’t read it, like me.

I know but I was trying to start the habit early! Failed already 🤣

Belated merry Christmas, everyone

23.. Abandon by Blake Crouch

A journalist and her estranged father go off to investigate a remote town where everyone has disappeared overnight about a century ago.

I had high hopes for this one, having enjoyed the author's previous books Dark Matter, Recursion, and Run but it was ultimately very slow and dull despite the literary gimmick of running the story on two timelines.

24.. Critical Mass (Delta-V #2) by David Suarez

This was the sequel to Delta-V which was about starting up an asteroid mining operation - years before AppleTV's For All Mankind - and quite an interesting book on its own. This sequel picks up the story with shenanigans on said asteroid leaving people dead and abandoned, and others back on earth trying to salvage the operation and perhaps even their colleagues during the asteroid's next passing.

I do like this author and I have previously enjoyed many of his books such as Daemon, Freedom, and Kill Decision which raised pertinent questions about the future of AI. Some of the political wrangling was interesting but it seems he just didn't have much to say in this sequel.

I quite liked Pod. I mean the dolphin rape was a bit much and the whole trans fish story didn't really do it for me, but I think it was a really interesting, original narrative highlighting environmental issues. I found it was quite a page turner, a solid 4.

Prophet Song is good but pretty traumatic as a warning. Steel yourself for the read. I've picked up Hello Beautiful in the deals too which I don't think has been that favourably reviewed on here but seems to be quite popular.

118. The Mysterious Case of The Alperton Angels - Janice Hallet. More of the same from The Appeal writer. This one was the weakest so far for me. It follows the same pattern of What's App, transcripts and this time scripts and chapters of fiction around the case. I found it all a bit silly and unconvincing.

"I mean the dolphin rape was a bit much and the whole trans fish story didn't really do it for me"

What happened to this thread? I was only away for a month or two 😅

DNF - The Lemon Tree Hotel, Rosanna Lee

I bought this when I was going through a light reads in Italy phase. I’ve been at 48% for months and thought I’d just finish it to count it, but I’ve been only tracking on goodreads and tried to read what I want rather than for numbers this year, successfully so I have deleted it.

It’s boring, not very well written, the characters are all so bland. Not for me, even the Italian countryside couldn’t save it.