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?

@HowIWroteElasticWoman Honestly, I do feel like everyone has 'done' the menopause to death, but the symptoms I have are just ridiculous! I cant sleep, I have dreadful indigestion and everything aches. If you like a podcast, check out Dr Rangan Chatterjee's 'Feel Better, Live More' with Dr Mindy Pelz. I'm going to have to spend some money on the tests that she recommends, but frankly at this stage I'll try anything (and I appreciate that I am speaking from a privileged position here and am grateful that I can afford it).

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit it probably was. I have been a long time lurker and most of my kindle is made up of recommendations from these threads!

6 Last Dance at the Discotheque for Deviants by Paul David Gould

This book is set in Moscow in the days after the collapse of Soviet Union. Kostya ventures out of the closet and resolves to pursue his dreams: to work in the theatre and to find love as his idol Tchaikovsky never could. Those dreams, however, lead to tragedy – not only for Kostya, but for his mother and for the two young men he loves, as all three face up to the ways they have betrayed him.

I can’t remember who recommended this on the thread last year, but thank you. I absolutely LOVED this book, it was beautiful, tragic, inspiring, and emotional, it’s a definite bold and an early contender for my book of the year. For those of you with Audible it is free, but frankly it is well worth paying for.

I'm so glad someone else has read Discotheque for Deviants @MamaNewtNewt I really don't understand why it's not made more of a splash, it's such a good book

I'm so pleased that you loved Paper Cup @Passmethecrisps and when you wrote: I am not sure I have ever heard anyone put into words my feelings about that place it summed up for me what was one of the great things about the book.

Growing up in a small Scottish town where everyone knows you (and has an opinion about you and your family) there's a real pull to escape to another life but the place is in your blood as well. It's complex and Karen Campbell wrote about it so insightfully.

I also have close ties to the area and particularly a personal link to the beach in the lovely scene towards the end of the book. One of the reasons, but far from the only one, that I loved Paper Cup too.

Ah I remember now! I'd never heard of it before your review and it sounded exactly like my kind of thing. Even so I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did. So thank you!

I know, I couldn't believe how few reviews there were for this. Hopefully word of mouth will help and the fact it is free on Audible might introduce it to more people too.

@YnysMonCrone24 I seem to remember The Lamplighters was a bit hit and miss on last year's thread, I have resisted buying it although the blurb appeals.

7. A Cruel Fate - Lindsey Davis

One of the 'quick reads' series, so 93 pages in an easy to read style, I bought this as it's by one of my favourite authors. The story is set in Oxford during the English Civil War and it painted a brutal picture of prisoners of war in that conflict.

8. How Much of These Hills is Gold - C Pam Zhang

Thanks to whoever reviewed this on last year's thread. The children of Chinese immigrants, Lucy and Sam are left orphaned in the American west of the mid-nineteenth century, and spend quite some time travelling with their father's body in search of the ideal burial place. They then set out to pursue their own American dream in the twilight of the Gold Rush. The language was poetic but I never really felt I got to know the landscape or way of life of the characters, and I was puzzled by the ending, which literally stopped mid sentence. An interesting read, and not one I would have gone for, but will I read it again? Unlikely.

The Lamp Lighters began well imo, but by the end it was ridiculous.

Still churning through Careless People and still not enjoying it.

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman I’ve previously really enjoyed this series and described it in my review of the previous as ‘my happy place’. Whilst I enjoyed this one, I started to tire a little. Also, I think previously one of the joys has been watching the elderly characters take on loneliness and by and large win, whereas this time they often weren’t. I’d still read another in a year or so but this won’t be a bold.

4. The Drift - C.J. Tudor
I was expecting a locked room style murder mystery - couple of different strands to it, some people stuck in a coach after a crash in a snow storm, some others stuck on a gondola/mountain lift with a body- but I had been recommended it by someone who failed to mention it’s a zombie apocalypse book. For that, it’s actually quite good, I enjoyed it and the various strands /storylines came together towards the end and I was able to work out roughly what was going on before the final reveal.

Im not a big zombie book fan, but was plotted well enough that I enjoyed it.

Completely agree about The Lamp lighters. It was a work book club read and it was universally hated!

Ive done something to my left calf and so I’ve spent the weekend with my leg propped up which has been excellent for my reading time. Finished The Man who never was, Ewen Montague. Ewen Montague was the man who planned and executed Operation Mincemeat, the allies deception campaign to convince the Germans that the target of the allied invasion of the Mediterranean was not going to be Sicily. If you’ve read Ben Macintyre’s book or seen the film there’s not anything new here but it was fascinating to hear it from the man who conceived the whole plan.

I found the accents a bit confusing, though? Tudor is British , and it seems muddled on that. At one point, someone's Britishness is mentioned and then never comes up again....

I think I prefer her being a bit more authentic.

I did like her story about researching by crawling about under a coach.

Sorry remus....

Goodness, this thread is busy! Here’s my recent

Lucy by the sea Elizabeth Strout. Effortlessly readable as the author always is, and she really captures how hard it was to think straight in that first year of Covid. I loved it, even though it broke my rule of not reading books narrated by ‘an author’.

The War Pianist by Mandy Robotham. A page turner from the Libby app from the library. Wartime/secret services theme. Marnie, who works for the BBC, discovers her grandfather, recently killed in a bombing raid, was transmitting messages for the Dutch Secret services. The plot really is a bit improbable but it fills the time if you like reading about that era.

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce. From Audible, beautifully read by Juliet Stevenson. Very poignant, very funny tale of 2 women in 1950s London and New Caledonia on a quest for a rare beetle, and on the run. Won’t say more in case of spoilers but has a really strong female friendship theme.

Oh, Miriam! By Miriam Margolyes. This covers very much the same ground as MM’s recent autobiography This Much is True. But a very enjoyable listen as MM is such a wonderful narrator.

Thank you for reminding me of the Carbonel books! May have to look for them.

2.. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

One of the best SF stories ever imagined, bringing together Sumerian legends and near-future cyberpunk. This is the book that invented the concepts and the terms Metaverse, Avatar, and Google Earth. I re-read it to see if it would be suitable for teenage DC.

@Tarragon123 I haven't read any Phillip Kerr that I remember, but I've seen him recommended before.

12. A Most Malicious Messenger Katherine Black
    A cosy murder mystery. Apparently its the 2nd in a series but not having read the 1st didn't spoil my enjoyment. It was a bit "Midsommer Murders". Middle aged woman and her gay best friend solve a series of crimes in their village. There's mysterious text messages, secret corridors, kidnapped dogs and murders.
    There was a very brief but interesting bit about a male writer using a female pen name and winning women's awards, but it was by way the focus of the book. 4/5🌟

13. Taken to the Hills S.J Richards
    The first in the Luke Sackville series. Luke is an ex police detective who has retired from the force following the death of his wife. He gets a job as "head of ethics" but in true crime novel series is still solving crime and catching Bad guys. In Taken to The Hills he's trying to track down women who have gone missing, one of whom turns up murdered. 4/5🌟

14. Blood On the Tracks Guy Hale
    Book 2 in the Comeback Trail trilogy. I haven't read book 1.
    Jimmy Wayne is a musician who hasn't released a record in 20 years. He can only write a decent song if someone has been murdered. He takes advice from his dead girlfriend (I think he killed her in book 1). Gangs, gold mines and murder. Loved it! 4.5🌟

15. Black Money S.J Richards
    Book 2 in the Luke Sackville series which starts a couple of weeks after book 1. Luke and his team are back solving crimes. This time its a crime ring incorporating romance scams, sex trafficking, murder and terrorist funding. 4.5 🌟

That many crime novels in a row was a tad confusing!

I forgive you, as I loved Gatsby so much this time around, and would never have reread it without you.

Agree with the Adele parks comments above - read Whatever it Takes this month and everyone in it was implausibly nasty. I remember enjoying her fluffy stuff years ago so that was disappointing.

Much better were 6. The Great Post Office Scandal by Nick Wallis - detailed and thorough but still very moving.

7 - Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart was pretty good but possibly a little… shallow? He didn’t really draw it all together IMO

4.Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Definitely a bold. Frankenstein is a smart lad who wants nothing more than to create life. His thirst for knowledge is quenched at the destruction of everything he knows and loves.
The subtitle of the novel is ‘The Modern Prometheus’ and this feels like an epic myth. I loved the gothic scenery and the completely believable characters. I’d put this with Dracula as two of my favourite classics.

4. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

I was expecting big things from this as lots of people have raved about it and while I enjoyed the story it didn't quite live up to my sky high expectations.
Basic plot is life long friendship between game designers. But Sadie and Sam are unable to be completely honest with each other and so both wilfully misunderstand a lot of stuff. It's quite irritating.

On the plus side, it's a beautifully written story and apart from their tendancy to close off from each other at the important point, I loved the central characters.

It's also sort of the right book at the right time and has wormed its way into my heart a little. After not gaming since I was a teen, I got DH a PS4 for Christmas (we realised we had no way to play our DVDs!) and I am now trying to hunt down a couple of games I might enjoy. Unfortunately I am apparently really crap at coordination and remembering which button does what, so I have had to start on Lego games which are for children 😁

7. The Messalina of the Suburbs - E. M. Delafield

Agree with the comments of fellow-Rather Dated Book Clubbers about this. Delafield based her short novel on the real-life 1920s case of Edith Thompson, whose husband Percy was murdered by Edith's lover Frederick Bywaters - without Edith's prior knowledge. But she was convicted and vilified and both she and Bywaters went to the gallows.

Delafield portrays Edith ('Elsie' in her book) as a silly, pleasure-mad flibbertigibbet, common and wayward since her teens, and her uptight husband Horace as a caricature of a repressive husband. I’m not saying he wasn’t, but in reality all three were much closer in age, Edith was a successful businesswoman, and Delafield didn’t treat her with any compassion or dignity in this book - although of course it is fiction. Anyway, I’ll say more over on the other thread.

Had my first DNF of the year. There wasn't anything terribly wrong with it and I might give it another go later in the year.

It was This Boy by Alan Johnson. My dad bought me it for Christmas (he always gets me a non fiction book for Christmas). Problem is that I'm really a fiction kind of girl! I found it all quite miserable as well, but maybe it improves later. I do have an interest in politics (studied it at uni) but not really in politicians if that makes sense...

Anyway, it's a DNF...for now. May go back to it when I have the bandwidth. I'm still home sick, taking an extremely rare day off work due to illness, so think my head just isn't in the game. Might read some nice fluff like a cosy crime murder mystery

Get well soon @MillicentTheMagnificent
I agree that your head needs to be in the right place for a book sometimes.

Thanks @FuzzyCaoraDhubh

1. The Householder by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Set in 1960s India. Amusing story about a very introverted teacher, Prem, and his wife who he doesnt like very much. He'd like to ask for a pay rise, and to ask his landlord for a reduction in his rent, but his attempts to do this are always thwarted. His bossy mother comes to stay and this makes him become, in his words "a settled husband and householder".

I liked this - a light, amusing read.