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

I'm not sure what my last post went up to, but I think it was book 19.

20. Inheritance Philip Tyler
    This is the last in the Landscapes of Love trilogy. They are about Charlie and Daniel who meet and fall in love. Daniel's wife was shot by poachers in Africa a few years earlier and he's out for revenge. Charlie seems oddly OK with this and happily joins him on his travels to save animals and get revenge. The trilogy takes them from Yorkshire to Africa, Australia and The Middle East. The only thing that stopped this being a 5 star for me was some spelling/grammar mistakes that I feel should have been picked up during editing.
    4.5/5

21. Nicole's War Andrée Rushton
    Nazi occupied France, spies, underground newspapers, hidden Jews, Love, death. You get the picture. 4/5

22. Aria and Liam: The Druids Secret. Coline Monsarrat Definitely a children's book (age 8-12ish) about a couple of time travelling teens who have to help Arthur find Excalibur and become King of England. A fun little adventure, although time travelling to meet mythical characters is an odd concept and might make children think it's a true story.

23. Dark Arts Karen Taylor. The prequel to something I haven't read. A crime/murder mystery set in the art world of Penzance. Its about drug running and county lines, dead bodies start turning up. Naturally the main characters are attracted to each other, but sleeping with other people. 4/5

24. Vermilion Sunrise Lydia P. Brownlow A group of teenagers are sent to colonise a new planet. I'm not really sure we find out what's wrong with Earth. It takes so long to get there that they have to go in cryosleep, which adults can't survive. Hence sending teenagers. It was a bit Maze Runner crossed with Lord of the Flies. I really hope there's a series as I'd love to read more of it! 4/5

How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island
by Egill Bjarnason has joined the throng on my 'to read' list

Finished 8. Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle - Manda Scott, thanks to a recommendation on here for that. Very enjoyable book although I found the political manoeuvrings and the romantic relationships confusing at times. I think a book like that benefits from a paperback copy which is easier to flip through than on the kindle. I loved the descriptions of the landscape and the people. I don't want them to fight though! I want more time to just enjoy their beautiful world in peace haha.

I don't know what to read next...I've got 4 days to fill until Red Side Story - Jasper Fforde is released. DH wants me to read The Lady Astronaut so maybe I'll give that a stab.

I've read Burial Rites and watched Traped already😆. Can't wait. I've wanted to go ever since Blue Peter did one of their summer trips there way back when. Determined to read some more to get me really in the mood.

My head went straight to Iceland the supermarket reading that title… was thinking “that’s niche”

Kindle monthly deals have updated, although I didn't see much to get excited about.

7. A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine I had this on my wishlist for ages and bought it when it was 99p. I'm sure I saw it recommended on these threads a couple of years ago but... It now seems unlikely. I didn't realise until a couple of chapters in how old it is (written in 1987). In 1987 human remains are discovered at a stately home in Suffolk. The remains are determined to have been there for 9-12 years, coinciding perfectly with Adam Verne-Smith's brief ownership 11 years previously. We know right from the start that Adam knows who the remains belong to and how they got there and we follow his efforts to conceal the truth from the police whilst the truth is slowly revealed to the reader. We hear from the different perspectives of the people who stayed at the house during that fateful summer

This book was...frustrating. The ending left a bad taste in my mouth. It was disappointing to only hear from male perspectives as well, turning the women into side characters rather than key players. But by far the most disgusting part of the book which nearly made me DNF on the spot is the point where the male gynecologist tells a female patient, following a cervical smear, that she "has a very lovely inside". We are then expected to believe the patient is incredibly flattered by this statement and is pleased with her choice of doctor rather than the far more likely reaction of disgust and revulsion. I know the world has changed a lot since the 80s but I don't believe any woman would ever have found that a positive experience

Life in the Balance: A Doctor’s Stories of Intensive Care - Jim Down

I’m a sucker for a medical memoir and this was a good one. Jim Down is a leading intensivist and these are stories from his years on the ICU of a London hospital. Not an easy read - he looked after victims of the 2005 London bombings and Alexander Litvinenko among others - but written with care and respect. He writes openly about his mental health struggles too.

Has anyone who's read Heartstopper watched the Netflix adaptation of it? I've not long started watching it and I'm enjoying it so far ❤️

@ICrunchCrispsNotNumbers I thought the Heartstopper adaptation was an absolute delight. I watched it all back before Christmas, read the comics online and even bought the novellas on kindle. I'm 20 years too old and do not even have children the right age as an excuse, but I find the whole thing completely adorable.

I'm too slow to keep up with this thread! I missed the Marion Keyes chat but I did read the Rachel books as an adult, somehow having missed them when I was a teenager and read most of her others. I liked them but do have my doubts about how she writes about addiction (from a position of huge ignorance on my part so I'm probably wrong), I found the sequel especially quite harsh on Rachel given what happens to her.

I finished book 6, Wayward by Emilia Hart. In the present day, a woman escapes her abusive partner to hide out in a cottage left to her by a mysterious great aunt, and starts to learn more about her family history through two ancestors who may (or may not) have been witches. Not super original but good if you like witchy stuff. It does fall into the trap which I find quite annoying in historic novels of having all the characters writing down their deepest secrets in diaries or letters and leaving them lying around for their descendants to find.

Popping on to say Things in jars by Jess Kidd Is on Kindle daily deals and I loved it

Oh yes kindle deals. I eventually scrolled through everything and found almost nothing that was actually 99p, but I did buy The Man of Her Dreams, which is an early Curtis Sittenfeld I haven't read, and Happy All The Time by Laurie Colwin which I see recommended a lot.

@ICrunchCrispsNotNumbers
DD and I both love Heartstopper. We've both watched, and loved, the Netflix series and I've read the series up to date. DD has read everything online. There's one more book still to come and I shall read that too.

@GrannieMainland Marian Keyes has talked about her own struggles with alcohol addiction in the past and her ongoing struggle with depression. Rachel's Holiday, I think, has to be the one that's closest to her own personal experiences.

@satelliteheart

It would probably have been me! Sorry! I adore Barbara Vine's dark underbelly and unpleasant characters. 😂 I watched the TV adaptation back in the early 90s and then read the book and lots of other BVs and have reread it a few times.

I don't remember the smear test bit, but I do remember me and my university friends (mid-late 80s) all going to our (male) GP to have diaphragms fitted (seemed like a good idea at the time as we'd all gone lentil weavy and decided the pill was an abomination) and we all laughed our arses off afterwards at how one of us (me!) had the biggest diameter fitting of all (meaning tightest and longest vagina or something) while others had short, wide ones and thus smaller diaphragms. The doctor was really funny (as in hilarious, not weird) about it.

The 58 year old me (having just been reminded of this) thinks that I probably wouldn't like a male doctor talking to my daughter like that and cracking jokes about the dimensions of my bits, but the 20 year old me didn't bat an eyelid.

I do think times have changed, but I think female doctors have probably said the same to women over the years. My own has said some pretty scathing things about my withered and ancient bits.

Obviously since the advent of He Who Should Not Be Referred to as a Doctor Kay, 🤮 I'd never let a male doctor below my neckline. Ever again.

My DDs are obsessed with Alice Oseman (we have all her books) and we got Netflix so we could watch the adaptation of Heartstopper which we all love. We now have Disney+ because of a 6 month campaign by DD2 so she could watch the adaptation of Percy Jackson. There is a bit of a theme here!

Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima. Translated by Geraldine Harcourt.

A novella about a recently separated woman who moves into a top floor flat with her toddler daughter. This was originally published in Japan in the 1970s as a 12 month story series in a literary magazine but has only recently been translated by Penguin Modern Classics. There is some beautiful writing but it's quite impressionistic rather than plot driven and the secondary characters are not fully fleshed out. None of which would have mattered when you were reading it month by month but is much more noticeable when reading it as a novella in a few days.

And despite the narrator's husband being a cocklodger, owing her money, leaving her because he had an affair and not paying any maintenance or indeed spending any time with his daughter everyone keeps telling the narrator she should work on her marriage. MN was clearly needed in the 1970s!

I obviously in no way want to wish away the years, but I do look forward to enjoying TV with my DD which isn't just Peppa Pig!

My DDs are also obsessed with Heartstopper. DD2 has read all the spin off books too, despite some annoying boys in her Y6 class last year teasing her for reading "gay" lit, really hoped we'd progressed beyond that. The TV series is so lovely, they did a great job of the adaptation.

1. Stone Blind - Natalie Haynes. I'm late to this retelling of Medusa's story which was longlisted for last year's woman's prize. It tells the story of how Medusa became a gorgon and how Perseus took her head and then used it to his advantage. There's a lot about Athene too and in a way it's more her story in this version. I studied a lot of classics at school and uni so know the source material reasonably well. I didn't think this was as good as Madeleine Miller or Pat Barker's retelling of myths. I found Haynes style a bit basic and actually thought it would appeal more to my teen/tween Dds who were big fans of the Percy Jackson books.

I've also been caning through several early Chalet school books - Jo of the Chalet School, Princess of the Chalet School and Head Girl of The Chaket School but am not counting them as they're re-reads that I'm skimming.

@JaninaDuszejko your Dds sound very like mine. They're delighted that there's finally a decent Percy Jackson TV series unlike the terrible films.

@GrannieMainland one of the nicest things about them getting older is finally being able to watch things you both enjoy!

@satelliteheart I read (and probably still have) all the Barbara Vine books as they came out, and caught up with all her Ruth Rendell ones, and mostly loved them, but they’re a bit of a varied bunch, with some duds amongst them - I can’t actually remember much about A Fatal Inversion but it does strike me that they might not have aged all that well.

14 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

Much reviewed on here already so I’ll keep it brief but I loved this. Found it hard to put down and found myself wanting to read more about the film industry in the 50s. A bold for me for sure.

9. Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
Another holiday read and very enjoyable when I managed to forget it was published in the 1970s??

A newly wed of 19 arrives in the UK from New Zealand and motors through the West Country to find a house for her and her husband. The house she finds is a delightful 6 bedroom small place and quite manageable once she engages a cook-general and a gardener to come twice a week. But she experiences a terrible chill in the house and wonders if she is dreaming of horrors...

Miss Marple's last mystery, apparently. Very readable.

Catching up on reviews.
9. Witchcraft: A history in 13 Trails - Marion Gibson a series of essays of various trails involving witchcraft throughout history. First part is the traditional witch trial - many people will be familiar with - Salem, Vardo, North Berwick. Second part are trials in broadly the last three hundred years that have an element of witchcraft. Thirdly witch trails bang up to date - including an assessment of Stormy Daniels and Trump's continued use of the words WITCH-HUNT.
Not a bold but interesting
10. Christ on bike - Orla Owen - I have read this authors previous two self published works. She has a great style an element of quirky darkness. This is her first traditionally published book. The premise is that a woman inherits a fortune and a beautiful house after she prays for the soul of a dead man she doesn't know. But there are conditions. The main one being you can't share your wealth. And interesting exploration of unexpected fortune and its impact .
11. The Glutton - AK Blakemore . The first bold of the year for me.
Story with some truth, set in French Revolution about a peasant boy called Tarare who has a demonic and uncontrollable appetite. The story of his life and how his strange and macabre affliction is exploited by others.
Dark, compelling. The writing was something else. Highly recommend

Continuing with my resolution to read some of the books on my shelf and Kindle that have been sat there for ages, two more ticked off.
The man from Berlin, Luke McCallin is the first in the series about a German military intelligence officer set in the 1940s. Gregor Reinhardt receives a call that a prominent Czech journalist and an SS officer have been murdered and he is to investigate the case. I struggled with with complexities of the political situation in this part of the world and the way in which the author describes everything little thing. The reveal at the end was a little convenient so that the protagonist isn’t seen as an evil Nazi, however the actual crime element of the story was interesting and I would read the next book in the series if it was 99p

A visitor’s companion to Tudor England, Suzannah Lipscomb. Lipscomb is a very well respected sixteenth century historian who has taken key Tudor sites from around England and compiled this guidebook with a brief history of each site and why it is important to Tudor history. Think this was the wrong book for me, I admire Lipscomb hugely as an academic but as someone who has quite a detailed knowledge of the Tudor period this book felt very thin and disjointed. Perhaps more of an introduction piece for someone new to that period of history.

Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes
Both dp and I read her first novel, All the White Spaces which I thought was okay and he really liked.

This one is similar- historical icy setting, homosexuality, ghosts.

In the first novel, I liked the setting and story but not the ghosts. In this one, I didn’t like any of it and it was a slog to finish.

Confused and confusing. Far too many characters. Time shifts. Over written and under edited. Repetitive and lazy writing in places - everything was wet: a wet cough / a wet thud / a wet footstep/ a wet thud - and swallowed a thesaurus syndrome in other places.

I hated it.

Dleighted to find other Barbara Vine fans although I can’t remember much about A Fatal Inversion and that passage escaped my notice.
Asta’s Book is one of my great comfort reads and I’ve just started a re-read of The Blood Doctor.