50 Books Challenge 2024 Part One

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the first thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.

The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2024, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

Who's in for this year?

I think I read all of them, but it's a long while ago.

I just reviewed it, it's not very good !

I like to think of books as period pieces (as Remus suggested). I think readers can appreciate a book while acknowledging its flaws and not agreeing with the attitudes of the time.

I'm reading Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher, which I started in December. I discovered this author last year and I like her dark, humorous take on life. It's fantasy but isn't too fantastical for my tastes.

Here is the poster @Hoolahoophop :)

Sorry here is the poster!

Although realise that on here it is unreadable 😭 It is a mix of modern and older texts.

I can make out The Color Purple, War and Peace, All Quiet…. and that’s it!

2. Jesus Camp Julia Scheeres
I always feel somewhat guilty reading memoirs such as this that explore the author's abusive childhood. I cant shake the feeling that I'm just gawping at someone else's difficulties. There is also the thorny issue of the privacy of others - siblings get no say in having their lives exposed to the world. Anyway, I read it so will own it.
I arrived at Jesus Camp after watching the Netflix documentary 'Hell Camp' that covers the abusive private institutions that American parents sent and (as I understand it) can still send their 'troubled teens' to. Teenagers can languish, for months or even years, in these institutions until they are deemed reformed or the parents run out of money to pay the exorbitant fees. Being 'troubled' is whatever the parents deem it to be and the children are not free to leave. The whole set up is abhorrent.
Scheeres ended up in one such institution alongside her African American adoptive brother David. The memoir documents their abuse there and their earlier loveless childhood in a dysfunctional Conservative Christian family. David experienced severe physical abuse from.his adoptive father and was subject to apalling racism in rural Indiana. Their close sibling bond is the only light in the darkness. Julia eventually leaves for college, marriage, children and a sucessful career as a journalist and writer. There is no such future for David - in the prologue we learn he dies just months after his 20th birthday. David's personality and his unfulfilled hope for a loving family leaps off the pages. It is frankly one of the saddest things I have read. Normally I'd say I was glad to have read it, but I'm not sure I am. I cant get it out of my head.

2.A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney.

Similar to @Owlbookend i felt a little gawpy reading this book about the loss of Rob’s 2 year old to brain cancer. But it was interesting and powerful. I work in the cancer sector and found his ‘calling’ and focus on the importance of play to caring for children with life limiting illness really compelling.

He also talked about the power of horror movies / literature for him following such unimaginable grief. He read Frankenstein twice in the years after Henry’s death and I’ve picked it up for the first time since school.

3. Here’s Looking At You by Mhairi McFarlane

I thought I’d read all of Mhairi McFarlane’s books last year but had missed this one somehow. I found this a bit of a weird one as the love interest was an arsehole for a big section of the book (although some of this was in flashbacks) so I found the romance a bit more difficult to believe in. I also like the books that have a really strong best friend group and I felt that was a bit lacking here. Not one of my favourites.

I have got off to a very slow start to the year (considering I have been off work this week). Anyway, finally finished:

1. Trust - Hernan Diaz

The book is set in early twentieth century America with a focus on the Wall Street Crash. It’s divided into distinct parts and the first tells the story of wealthy but reclusive financier, Benjamin, and his wife, Helen, who grew up travelling Europe with her impoverished but genteel parents. This part dragged for me. The second part focuses on Andrew, another financier, and Ida, daughter of an Italian immigrant who is struggling to make ends meet. Initially this second part seemed completely disconnected from the first part of the book but the link did become clear. I enjoyed the book more as it progressed and am glad that I stuck with it as Ida was a good character and there were some surprises towards the end.

2. The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie

This is the January book for the Agatha Christie 2024 challenge. I have read it relatively recently (2018) but still couldn’t remember all the ins and outs. It’s the first Christie book and features Poirot in a classic country house mystery with the usual dysfunctional family. A quick but enjoyable read.

That’s good to know re Dead Lions @BlindurErBóklausMaður - I’ve added it to my wishlist and will keep an eye on prices.

@TimeforaGandT - I tried the Agatha Christie challenge last year but gave up as I was having such a sluggish year reading wise.
I’m actually in the mood for a bit of Poirot right now actually so might give that one a go at least!

TimeforaGandT - what’s the Agatha Christie read along you mentioned? I’m intrigued!

Here you are: https://www.agathachristie.com/en/news/2024/read-christie-2024

A book a month with alternatives offered in case you have read the book. Each year’s challenge has a theme. Last year’s theme was “Methods and Motives”. This year’s theme (if you can call it that) is Christie books across the decades (20s, 30s, 40s/50s and 60s/70s).

I'm in ! Just finished: 'Cuddy' (about the cult that grew up around St Cuthberts remains) - brilliantly written.

Just finished my first The Midwich Cuckoo's by John Wyndham I thought I read this before but I had just seen the film. I really enjoyed it, the musings of Zellarby made it more than just a novel. Amazing how quickly some people saw the threat and how other people never saw it. With all that is going on in the world at the moment i it's theme seemed relevant.
I am also slowly reading *Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman.

1. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Audible)

During the pandemic, a woman relates to her three daughters the story of her short lived acting career and her relationship with famous actor Peter Duke.

This is such a cosy almost folksy story it had me hooked and is definitely a bold. I much preferred the sections of the story that were set on the farm, I felt I could really picture it. I believe @noodlezoodle also loved it.

There's quite a lot about Americana play "Our Town" so that's worth googling beforehand. It was of course ably read by Meryl Streep.

I'd say one for Ann Patchett fans so if you liked The Dutch House etc this might be for you

@minsmum how are you finding Life and Fate? I keep picking it up to start reading but my copy is so ridiculously heavy that I’ve never actually started.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit I’m so tempted to buy Tom Lake on kindle but it’s still £4ish and I’ve got sooo many other books I should read first.

Hurrah! Another Cuddy fan!

I was the Cuddy naysayer last year. The experimental style was too much for me

@TattiePants it's definitely worth £4. I got the audio in the £2.99 sale!

@TattiePants I am enjoying it there are a lot of characters and sometimes I am not sure where it who they are. I am just going with the flow. I bought it in Kindle so I don't have to worry about RTI injuries

Just finished number 2 The Librarian by Sally Vickers.

It was a decent little story, although I preferred the first half of the book where not very much happened.

Made me want to re-read Tom's Midnight Garden too!

Number 3 is Slow Horses after devouring the TV series.

@Hoolahoophop I was obsessed with the BBC Big Read and I would absolutely love an updated version (I don't think it would be anywhere near the same now!)

Hello everyone,
2023 was not a good year for me bookwise as we got a puppy which turned my life upside down (bit like having a baby....but very mobile with sharp teeth!!). Any reading consisted of 'how to train your puppy/dog' books/guides!

Anyway Ddog is now a year old so I've finally managed to read some proper books!!

Finished Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver which I loved. Really compelling. Demon was a wonderful character.

Now reading La Carte Postale by Anne Berest (The Postcard). Only a few chapters in but this is right up my street! One morning the Berest family receives an unsigned postcard (of the Opéra Garnier in Paris) and inscribed on the back are the names of four relatives who died in Auschwitz in 1942. It reads as fiction but is autobiographical.

One of 2023's highlights was Trust. Took a while to get into it but thought it was a very clever book and extremely well-written.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit - it's like the Curate's Egg (good in parts) certainly. But when it works, it really works & for me the very 1st part made the book worthwhile in itself. But I live close to Lindesfarne & go often so I feel I'm 'walking in the footsteps' of much of the book in a way anyway. I do like a brave book too & I felt it was that also.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit you are the second person to recommend Tom Lake in as many days and I need a new audiobook so have splurged.