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?

Modest book haul. Sorry about the crazy angle!

@noodlezoodle Good rather than great. Today was a pay what you want day, which made it feel good value.

That makes me feel less bad about missing out

I look forwards to reading your review of Fabulosa Remus

Some interesting things though, so if you’re back in London before it ends, it’s worth seeing.

Hi everyone,
May I join you? I'm trying to scroll less and read more this year.

First book down:
The Keeper of Enchanted Rooms by Charlie Holmberg.
This started interestingly - Merritt Fernsby inherits an isolated house that turns out to be haunted by a previous wizardly inhabitant. To the rescue comes Hulda Larkin, an expert from the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms, who specialises in taming magical structures. The early narration has a good level of snark, and the system of magic is original. However, partway through, the story pivots to incorporate a will-they-won't-they romance between the two lead characters, which is clunkily handled, and throws the pacing of the magical narrative off. I won't be rushing to read the sequel!

Really enjoyed Fabulosa! @RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie , hope you do too.

I've lurked on these threads for a few years, I always find they go so quickly that it's hard to keep up but I'm going to give it a go. Managed over 60 books in 2023 which is significantly more than usual for me!

Starting the year very gently with Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.

Are there any books being published in 2024 that anyone is particularly looking forward too?

@MaudOfTheMarches

Thought I would be forever alone in not getting on with Keith and his magazine, glad to have company!

@noodlezoodle Pleased that you also loved ‘Smile’, I think I may even need to buy a hard copy as I like it so much. You can tell that the author Sarah Ruhl is in the writing business.
I’ve just finished The memory of animals by Claire Fuller - dystopian fiction set in a medical trial testing a vaccine against a new deadly virus ( not Covid)

A reasonably absorbing read but the ending was disappointing. Not one of her best

@Keepingongoing that's my book club book this month. I'll have to get started on it soon but not quite reading for dystopia yet.

Hags is on the Kindle deals today. I think quite a few people liked it on last year's thread so have picked it up.

There's nothing specific that I'm looking forward to I don't think @RunSlowTalkFast but I've really enjoyed most of the Woman's Prize books over the last couple of years, so will be keen to try some of those when they're released. I haven't read the new Zadie Smith yet so also want to get round to that.

A quick reminder to 2023 50 Bookers that I'll finish getting some bolds stats together at the weekend on the roundup thread, so for anyone who hasn't done so yet, please post there by the end of the week.

Thanks! 📚

Thanks, Roman

@Passmethecrisps I hope you enjoy Paper Cup and I'm looking forward to hearing your views once you've read it. It was strange for me to read a book set in such familiar surroundings, even down to small local details like the fish van in the car park at the Spar in Gatehouse. I'm curious about KC and hope I get the chance to meet her at an author event at some point.

@MaudOfTheMarches That's a shame about Trusty in the Toolroom. I so enjoyed Pied Piper and have TITT waiting to be read. Each to their own, however engineering is down there with chess, fantasy football and golf as an interesting topic for me. I'll give the book a go though.

@highlandcoo I'm very much in a minority on Trustee, along with @EineReiseDurchDieZeit. I feel a bit bad about not enjoying it because I know it's a proper comfort read to many, and I can see why. It's lovely to read about a fundamentally decent person, leading a small life but living it well.

@RomanMum Thank you for doing the bolds list, I look forward to it every January.

I’m in for the first time.
I’ve just started The Summer That Never Was by Peter Robinson
It’s a DCI Banks novel and I’m pretty sure I’ve read it before.

Hello everyone and thank you to @Southeastdweller for the shiny new thread.

I fell off the threads mid year, but continued to read. I'm aiming for 50 this year.

Enough - Cassidy Hutchinson (audio) Kicked off the year with a non fiction, which is not like me. This is an autobiography that focuses on the time that Cassidy Hutchison spent at Trump's White House, as Assistant to the Chief of Staff. It was her testimony that really set the Jan 6 public hearings alight. I still cant get over that she is only 28. I enjoyed this. She starts from her childhood, which I thought I could do without, but the background on her relationship with her father was interesting as the book went on.

I am determined to finish Tomorrow x 3. Its been lying around my bedside table for too long!!

Another first-timer here! I've been lurking these threads since late last year and really enjoyed reading the 2023 roundup too. Some of my favourites of the year: Tx3, DC, Cahokia Jazz, and The Song of the Cell.

I mindlessly gobble finish well in excess of 100 books a year but would like to try to cut back on the rereads, fluff and forgettable hypebeasts, and tackle more nonfiction and longstanding TBR entries, so 50 seems like a good sensible number to aim for.

Not starting off as I mean to go on, with:
1. Katy Watson, The Three Dahlias a contemporary Christie-lite cosy mystery featuring three generations of actresses who've played the same fictional detective (one Dahlia Lively, if that helps calibrate your twee-o-meters) teaming up to solve a real life country house murder during a fan convention.

In my defence, it was a Christmas present, and I'm also midway through Little Dorrit 😅

Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future - Tom Bullough

Sarn Helen is the old Roman Road that leads from Neath in South Wales to Llandudno in the North. Tom Bullough decides to walk the route during the pandemic. I guess I thought that this would be a book about the beauty and history of the walk and to an extent, it is, but it soon became clear that it was more a call to action on climate change and the impact on Wales and us all if we do nothing.
Lovely writing at times but I did feel a bit lectured at.

1. The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin.
Finished my first book of the year and rated it as 5 stars. A quick easy read at only 140 pages and imo an incredibly chilling tale of misogyny. I have read before years ago and obviously familiar with the Stepford Wives concept, but I'd forgotten how dark the book is. I love Ira Levin as a writer, putting his A Kiss Before Dying on my tbr list.

I’ve just finished The Twt Files by Dawn French - a very easy read but sadly not that enjoyable. Lots of anecdotes about times that she felt she was a bit of a fool but I didn’t think any of them were particularly funny. I’m quite glad it’s finished and I’m looking forward to starting Shakespeare The Man Who Paid The Rent *by Judi Dench!

Hello everyone! Yet again I find myself caught out by how quickly these threads streak off at the start of the year. Just checking in, nothing read yet. Welcome to the newbies! It's nice here.

Hello everyone and thank you Southeast! I'm looking forward to a new year of reading. So far I'm on the Nicholas Nickleby thread, and am going to join the Ruth one.

I'm also reading Black and British by David Olusoga, which I started ages ago (I'm always slower when reading nonfiction), and Rooftoppers, a children's book by Katherine Rundell.

1. Mrs S. by K Patrick

A young Australian has a job in an English girls boarding school and starts an affair with the headmaster's wife.

I enjoyed this. It was very believable in it's setting of a 90s boarding school. The writing style was sparse but good. Lack of punctuation did occasionally confuse me on who was speaking. I'll be interested to read the author's next work.

Just checked and this will be my 12th consecutive year on these threads! My username was tumbletumble in the early years. Happy reading in 2024, all of you!