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?

6. Fifteen Wild Decembers - Karen Powell This is a retelling of the story of the Bronte sisters from Emily's point of view.

Disclaimer - I adore Wuthering Heights. It is one of the very few books I am unable to have a dispassionate and reasoned conversation about.

This fictional account sticks mainly to the facts and occasionally you feel that the author is trying to shoehorn in all her research. However the prose is excellent and I really enjoyed it.

If you are a Bronte fan definitely worth a read.

I also loved the Carbonel series I've never read Messalina of the Suburbs, but I've read a fairfew of EMD's novels back in the day & I've never found any that live up to the Provincial Lady books.

Thanks to this thread, I've just deleted my Goodreads account and created an account on story graph. My Goodreads account was starting to look a bit cluttered, and SG looks a lot more organised, so I'm hoping it'll be good for me.

Still reading 'Swimming For Beginners.'

I love Great Gatsby too ❤️

I love Gatsby and the last paragraph will be on my memorial. (hopefully not soon). I'm that weirdo who always reads the last paragraph of a book before starting it (shoot me 😂) and Gatsby vies with The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir as my favourites.

Also loved Carbonel as a child. Can still remember the bright blue cover of my school reading book version. Reread to DD when she was little. ❤️

@Piggywaspushed I've had my eye on an interesting-looking dual biog of Fitzgerald and Keats called Bright Star, Green Light, by Jonathan Bate. It’s got pretty good reviews but I’m holding out for a kindle deal!

In the meantime, here's Fitzgerald reading 'Ode to a Nightingale' in 1940.

Oh, that's very cool!

@splothersdog that book has gone on my wish list too! I am also a big fan of Wuthering Heights so this sounds right up my street.

I learnt that ending was originally at the end of Chapter one!

The end of Gatsby is, indeed, exquisite. I’ve dived straight in and the beginning reminds me of everything I love and hate about it. It’s dirty and raw and squalid and beautiful and sad and awful, all at the same time.

Love that description @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie that’s all the reasons why I so love Gatsby. I too have added Churchill’s book to my tbr!

Yes, and yes, and yes and yes!

2 the year of living danishly by Helen Russell
This was a reread for me but was surprised at how much information felt new to me as I haven't read it in a few years. Would highly recommend this as it was relatable, funny, interesting and sometimes quite shocking in places. It outlines the realities of moving to Denmark from a UK perspective. I very much enjoyed this and found myself disappointed to be finishing it.

1. Blood, sweat and tea by Tom Reynolds will be my next read..

Have a 10 month old baby and finding opportunities to read is a little bit of a challenge now but still hopeful to reach the 50 target. I think for number 4 I'll look for recommendations on this thread.

Hope you enjoy it @ChessieFL

And just bought Careless People.
I loved Gatsby

1. In a dark dark wood Ruth Ware

I came to this after starting two others. I began Night Waking by Sarah Moss. The opening chapters read like a mumsnet thread with a put upon mum engaging in domestic drudgery so that her husband can power ahead with his career (researching puffins of all things). The kids were even suitably precocious. I was getting along with this fine until it switched to a historical bit and I just wasn't in the mood to engage with ye olde times. Putting this on the back burner, I switched to Little Deaths by Emma Flint. Well the title isn't misleading and this was unrelenting grim. I got as far as the scene where the detective leads the central character to the garbage dump & decided I wasn't feeling up to it. I'm sure I'll return to both however sometimes I just want something straightforwardly entertaining and Ware's thriller set in a hen party gone wrong was just that. After the opening chapters, I was gripped. Nora is invited to the hen of a friend she's lost touch with & as you can imagine things spiral out of control. The awkward social situation was relatable and the cast of dislikeable characters were enjoyable. I thought Flo, the slightly unbalanced friend who is determined the bride to be has a perfect hen do was a great creation. Yes - when motives & methods are finally revealed it's not hard to pick holes in things (to say the least), but i didnt care. Sometimes its nice to enjoy something undemanding & entertaining and this was just that.

Nick Wallis, The Great Post Office Scandal

As mentioned above. So many heartbreaking personal stories.

Have reserved Careless People at the library, sounds really interesting.

I also just finished this (my 6th book of the year, sorry, I am very behind on the thread) and I loved it.

@Palegreenstars I also started Frankenstein at the weekend and finding it very readable. Never read it before but got Our Hideous Progeny (a gothic tale focusing on Frankenstein’s great-niece) for Christmas so thought I better read the original first.

Can’t believe he created the ‘monster’ then ran away for two years…

6 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
This was a book for two half’s for me. The first was gripping; a young woman inherits a fortune which is held in trust. She tells her story to her solicitor (the trustee) about being a prisoner of war, the fascinating women she was with and how she met Joe an Australian pow.
The second half I found much less interesting. Far too much detail about the Australian outback and less about the characters themselves. Still an enjoyable read but it’s a shame it lost momentum for me halfway through.

11 Provincial Daughter by R M Dashwood

Dashwood is the daughter of E M Delafield, and this is a follow on to Delafield’s Provincial Lady series. It’s implied, although never stated outright, that this is the diary of Vicky, the Provincial Lady’s daughter, as a 1950s housewife. It’s just more of the same - Dashwood copies her mother’s style and there’s not really a lot of plot, just the main character dealing with domestic ups and downs. I really enjoyed it though, I thought it was very funny. Thanks to whoever it was that recommended this on last year’s thread.

Loved Carbonel and The Kingdom of Carbonel. There was a third one too, I think it was about kittens?

@Hoolahoophop I have found I have to be very picky about what I actually add to my wishlist from these threads. If I added everything I vaguely thought sounded good I'd need to give up my day job to keep on top of the reading!

3. Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

This one is about friendship and aliens. Four teen boys befriend an unlikely buddy and he changed their lives, years later an alien invasion changes them again.

I loved this. Sometimes with King the tension builds and builds and the reveal is never as scary as you were thinking but these aliens are just terrifying from the start. The friendship between the central characters really shows how school friendships survive into adulthood and look different.

This is part of my King read through which is an idea I am pretty sure I copied from @MamaNewtNewt but it's so long since I started I can't remember exactly now!

I'm 75% of the way through Wuthering Heights as my third book of the year. I didn't know anything about it prior to reading except the names Heathcliffe and Cathy. I was anticipating a love story but I'm still waiting for them to all stop being horrible to each other and, this far in, I fear it's not going to happen!

I'm claiming the Provincial Daughter rec, Chessie - a lucky second-hand bookshop find.