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?

Happy New Year to 50 Bookers both new and returning! Thank you @Southeastdweller for kicking off 2024 in style. New Year, new name, as I rhapsodised so much about this thread that someone I know is planning to join.

I'm starting with Oxblood by Tom Benn, which is something of a curate's egg so far.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie Yellowface was my last book of 2024. I though it was a reasonably funny and pacey thriller, which was what I wanted. It's not amazingly written and the characters are quite 2D but I think it's decent example of the genre, and some of the negative reviews seem to be wanting a book that I don't think it ever sets out to be.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

i enjoyed yellow face @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie although it gets a bit daft. A quick read to help power through to 50!

Thanks @StrangewaysHereWeCome I think it’s probably not for me. Love your name btw.

Crossed posts @Rumplestiltz I’m not going to bother with it.

Hopefully there's room for another one on the bench. I managed 50 books last year. Starting this year with Oh William by Elizabeth Strout.

Morning all. I finished book l145 last night, beating last year's total by 1. My main reading aim is to keep up the commitment to reading 2 physical books I own per month, as otherwise they linger forlornly on the shelf forever, despite the enthusiasm felt at the moment of purchase.

Still working my way through Femina, which is my kind of book, but because it is, a fair whack of it is already familiar.

It's a big bench, @Sportycustard and all are welcome. It doesn't matter if you (general you) think you'll get to 50 - nobody cares at all. It's just an excuse for book talk.

I’m in I have to read and write more.

Morning and happy new year. I started 50 books last year but fell off in April hoping to stick to it for longer this year. I seem to read more in the winter, which makes sense when there's less competition from the garden, but still hoping to get to 50. I'm not great at doing the reviews but will aim to do a few at least.

I have just finished Manda Scott's Boudica this morning and loved it. Haven't fallen so completely into a book for a long while. Already started the second.

Happy New Year everyone and thanks to @Southeastdweller for setting up the new thread!

Started Will the Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by mortician Caitlin Doherty this morning. Festive

I'm in! Only got to about 30 last year (and the last few were by James Herriot so nice quick easy re-reads!) Currently reading The Lord God Made Them All - Herriot Again, then I'm going to choose something new from my birthday/Christmas haul* *

Happy New Year all. I'd love to join you.

My goal is 50 books with at least 50% from a 'top 100 greatest novels' list I found on the Penguin website. I'd only read 20 so lots of great literature to choose from.

I started slightly early last week with In Cold Blood which was a definite 5. Now on to The Age of Innocence *and loving its 19th-Century-Gossip-Girl vibe.

I'd love to join.
I'm carrying over a couple of books from last year. I'd try to finish Grit by A Duckworth first.

Happy New Year all and thank you @Southeastdweller for keeping us all organised. Welcome back @YnysMonCrone, welcome also to the newbies and hello again to the usual suspects.

I posted intermittently last year - this year I plan to do better, especially when I come across a book that deserves to be shared. And with that in mind ..

Paper Cup by Karen Campbell. This is the story of Kelly, a fifty-year-old woman with an alcohol problem, scraping by on the streets of Glasgow. A chance encounter, and an unexpected act of kindness, send Kelly on a journey back to her childhood home in Galloway, something she hasn't felt able to face for thirty years. She has no food, very little money and so is dependent on others to enable her to get there.
Like Shuggie Bain, the depiction of the reality of alcoholism is pretty unflinching, and the shame Kelly feels at her inability to keep herself and her clothes clean - which often manifests as aggression - is vividly described.
I don't have close personal experience of alcoholism, however the way Karen Campbell gets inside Kelly's head feels very real to me. And I really enjoyed her travels through Galloway; it's an area I know well and it's clear the author does too. She's an insightful writer; the conflict those of us from small Scottish towns feel between affection for our home, and the pull to escape to a more exciting life .. I really recognised that.
I'll be looking for more books by Karen Campbell.

Happy New Year to all 50 Bookers, old and new, and many thanks to Southeast. I'm halfway through my first Christmas book, Rudyard Kipling's autobiography Something of Myself, which is fascinating.

Happy New Year everyone! My first year doing this but I had a massive break from reading due to having early onset cataracts. Now have a Kindle and see the text better ! Still waiting on the op but determined to enjoy my reading longer!
So glad to have came across this thread! I hope to do as much of the 50 Challenge as possible. I would also like to read more Classics or Modern Classics this year. I have "Rebecca" waiting on Kindle for me which I have never actually ever got round to reading. Love the old movie, so I looking forward to it! I also have library Large Print copies of Sarah Waters "Tipping The Velvet " and "The Little Stranger ". Read "Fingersmith" ages ago and forgot about Sarah Waters due to eyesight. Looking forward to it and being part of the thread! Happy New Year again and good reading !!

Love your name HowIWroteElasticWoman, I assume you're a fellow Fall fan...

Finished Rory Stewart's Politics On The Edge today, the 'Tory' gifted apologetically to me by my DSs.

By the end Stewart has left his constituency, left the party. He doesn't say whether he is still a Tory.

This is really interesting. He says exactly what one would expect about Johnson but his critiques of Truss, Cameron, Gove , Hancock et al are equally interesting (he is kinder towards May) and his expose of the machinations of politics and its turncoat nature reveals really how little those given ministerial posts know , or care, about their roles. (except for Rory, of course , who really cares, as he tells us quite a lot).

He is self aware that he comes across as self righteous and prissy. He does really.

But, by God, what an enormous infantile gobshite Boris is.

Indeedy@Boiledeggandtoast ! Oh how I miss the auld carbuncle MES! Glad to meet you!

And you too! Hard to believe it's nearly 6 years.

Happy New Year!

Thanks Southeast for the shiny new thread.

After last year's complete lack of classics I'm starting the year with Emily Wilson's new translation of Homer's The Illiad. I'm not enjoying it as much as her translation of The Odyssey but she's still done an amazing job with it.

Following this for some suggestions always loved getting lost in a book but do find it trickier to find the time since having a baby. Interested to see some new suggestions as i tend to stick to the same sorta genre but want to branch out a bit.
Im starting with eye for an eye by MJ Arlidge

I read Paper Cup last year and thought it was brilliant. It didn't feel as doom laden as Shuggie Bain, but really hit at the issues.

Happy New Year and good morning (or afternoon if you're in a timezone ahead of GMT).

I have records of how many and which books I've read each year from 2009, the year DS2 was born in February. I did have some information on previous reading but it's stuck in places I can't access (the hard drives of old PCs or online places which no longer exist or are really hard to access now).

Last year I somehow managed to read 210 books/works - this does include some quite short works published separately and borrowed from public library ebook collections and Amazon Original short stories, borrowed as part of Amazon Prime. It was almost 211 but I didn't read much between 6 pm and midnight, (not because I was doing anything more exciting). So I read the last 12 pages of book 1 for this year at 1 am or so.... but really, I read most of it in 2023.

StColumbofNavron checking in. In light of my new found love for Jose Eduardo Agualusa I have name changed. Apostrophes not allowed.

Thank you @Southeastdweller and welcome to new members and veterans alike.

I’m currently reading

• Sunny Singh’s new book about Bollywood
• Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
• Wuthering Heights a chapter a day with a friend
• Ruth readlong

I managed 45 last year, setting my number at 30 this year as I’ve got some door stoppers in mind.