50 Books Challenge 2024 Part Two

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the second 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.

The previous thread is here

Is it, though? I mean, it's a gut churning prospect on all fronts but surely there is only one answer. I wouldn't entertain Cameron's physical presence so marriage and shagging are clearly out. And Stewart seems - for all his prissy fretting about how incompetent his colleagues are - at least in possession of some decent morals and I bet he'd be happy to load the dishwasher. That does mean Hunt is the last man standing for sex, which would be awful but over and done with fairly quickly.

@StrangewaysHereWeCome you have summed up exactly how I feel about Ian McEwan - thank you! I'll probably still read more of his books, though...

Pepe 😂😂😂

I don't know what Rory S looks like but DC has sweaty palms and smells a bit earwaxy. (see also Benedict Cumberbatch and Matt Smith)

I imagine JH to have a very small penis. It's that wee pinched face that gives it away.

I'm shagging Alistair Campbell anyway.

Can you imagine shagging Boris?

(I may have spent too long, too often thinking about these things)

PS the nearest I've ever come to shagging anyone politically famous is having an ex boyfriend who shagged a 1980s cabinet minister's daughter.

I have name changed for this!

I am old & I knew Jeremy Hunt when he was a small child. He was the sort of child one longed to slap.

Can you imagine shagging Boris?

Please don’t make me do this 😱

Team Alistair Campbell here too although having listened to The Rest Is Politics he admits he does NOT know how to start the dishwasher.

13 Normal People - Sally Rooney
This has been reviewed a lot on here over the years and I’m a bit late to the party for this one. I like Rooney’s writing style but began feeling frustrated by the end. It was as if the characters were forever trapped in a never ending cycle with each other. The characters had the potential to be really complex and though different aspects are touched upon, I was left wanting this explored further and in more detail.

Well this thread has taken a turn!!

@JaninaDuszejko – too funny! She made me take a whole loads of books away, including Beloved by Toni Morrison which was a rare DNF for me.

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit – I really liked 1979 and have enjoyed all the previous Val McD books, but even for me, 1989 was too much

@BaaBaaGlitterSheep – Big Marian Keyes fan here. I’d recommend The Break and then go for the rest of the Walsh sisters . As @BarbaraBuncle says, they seem fluffy but have hard hitting themes.

10. Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

I have no idea why I bought this audiobook, back in the days when I had an Audible account. It must have been a daily deal or in a sale. Anyway, I've listened to it now, so I can tick it off my list.

This one was a somewhat convoluted tale of sisters, sibling rivalry, revenge, and murder. It was neither good nor bad, just an ok read. I didn't hate it, nor did I love it. I enjoy a really good, well written thriller with a credible ending but unfortunately this one rather missed the mark for me.

I'm continuing to shop from the ridiculously large amounts of 99p books languishing on my kindle, rather than buy anything new this year, along with borrowing anything else I want to read from the library.

Is it just me or is anyone else struggling to find the kindle deals?

Hi all,

Finished Nightshade Revenge by Anthony Horowitz this week, and found it okay, but not as good as previous novels in the series. I felt like he was recycling old plots a little (one of the characters is a mysterious tech company owner like he wrote about in Eagle Strike, for example. That said, I'm still glad I read it and it was still a good read, but it just didn't grab me like some of the others did. I'd give it 3/5.

Currently reading 'Private Faces and Public Places.' By Sian Phillips. Great read so far and very immersive ❤️

@AliasGrape my mum and I are big Jonathan Harvey fans. We both enjoyed 'All She Wants.'

@Cherrypi I've got to read Midnight Library for my new book club. I'm not particularly looking forward to it. As someone with depression, I do find Matt Haig a bit too preachy.

And also I've put the first two Heartstipoer books as they were recommended very highly on this thread. They look fab. I think Alice Oseman is a bit younger than me so it'll be fab to read something by a young writer.

I'm starting my English degree soon. So might not have as much time for free reading, but will try me best ❤️

*Heartstopper books, rather.

Whistles and tries to ignore all the shagging Tories chat. Frankly I'd rather shag Lenin's corpse.

@noodlezoodle Thank you for the link. It looks interesting and I'll have a proper poke around later. Some of it looks too nature-ish or too American, but I will search for peril.

I bought two in the Kindle deals - the most recent *Andrew Taylor that I refused to buy at full price and The New Life by Tom Crewe *which I read a good review of, somewhere or other.

Sorry - really balls-ed up the bolding there. I must have been traumatised by the idea of Boris in bed.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie where did you find the deals

They are there but hard to find. Check your Wishlist

I've only checked my wishlist so far. The alleged deals page is all over the place.

@LadybirdDaphne the fossil hunters book sounds really interesting!

He's the sort of adult that still provokes that instinct.

I was watching PMQs last night and he's got one of those faces. And I bet he's got a scraggy little bottom and likes toe sucking too.

I can see some deals!

Ali Smith - Winter
Fredrik Backman - A Man Called for Ove
Anthony Doerr - Cloud Cuckoo Land

That's from the highlights which I think is aimed at me.

When I get to the list of 1000 deals, the top 15 or so are not discounted so I stopped scrolling.

I'm not going to look harder. I need to read what I already own!

I've got a few reviews to catch up with. I've DNFed Rory Stewart for being irritating & not bringing anything new to the party that plenty of other politics memoirs haven't done better (I'm not even going there with the rest of it ).

Otherwise, I've had a good run lately:

1. Fabulosa by Paul Baker

I enjoyed this history of Polari, perhaps more than Remus. Not quite a bold, but a good read. I do always like books about languages & how they work. I thought the chapter on Julian & Sandy was fine, given that Round the Horne is well known for having brought the language to a wider audience. (I'm not old enough to have heard it, but perhaps a bit older such that it was still part of the general cultural background when I was young).

1. A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

Teenage Mona has a minor magical talent as a kitchen wizard that lets her manipulate cakes & dough. Then she finds a dead body on the floor of the bakery where she works, and suddenly her life becomes a whole lot more complicated. This was lots of fun. The author mainly writes for children under the name Ursula Vernon, but also publishes books for older audiences as T Kingfisher. Having said that, I'd say this book would comfortably appeal to older primary dc / young teens, as much as to adults looking for gentle fantasy. I'll definitely look out for other of her books.

1. For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on my Little Pain by Victoria McKenzie

Interwoven stories of Margery Kempe & Julian of Norwich. Much reviewed on here so I won't recap, but this was a definite bold for me, & one of those books I'd never have picked up without this thread.

10. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
    Classic novel of post-independence India, in which the efforts of Lata's mother to find 'a suitable boy' for her to marry are interwoven with the stories of other members of her extended family, and the wider political context.
    
    I don't know why I've never read this before, & I suspect it'll be one of my top books of the year. Strangely, given how very (very) long & sprawling it is, the writing often reminded me of Jane Austen. By the end, Lata & her family felt far more like friends than characters in a novel. I'll definitely read again, & I'm pondering whether to watch the tv adaptation (but will it be a terrible let down?)

11. Before We Were Trans - A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam
    Another bold, this is a gentle, thoughtful & balanced work looking at gender non-conforming individuals & groups in the past. I thought it was a really good contribution at a time when there's so much divisiveness and anger between groups who might have been expected (hoped) to be allies in the face of wider problems in the world.

12. The Disappearance Boy by Neil Bartlett
    I think this was another one I picked up on the strength of a review from Remus. Coincidentally also set in the early 1950s, but this time in the English variety performance world. The 'disappearance boy' of the title is Reggie, an invisible but essential part of a conjuring act featuring magician Teddy Brooks & his glamourous assistant. I did like this, though it felt like an extended short story rather than a full novel, & really only Reggie came fully to life.

13. Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
    Another book I'd never have found without this thread, and another unquestionable bold. I've never actually read anything by Klein, or by her 'doppelganger' Naomi Wolf, but that didn't matter at all. There's so much in this book beyond the initial 'sell' of using her 'Naomi problem' to explore links between the far right agenda & covid denialism / anti-vax movements. I thought the chapter on Zionism & Israel/Palestine was a particular standout, but the whole book was excellent.